Teaching Project: Cheese Cake

Abstract

The teaching project is to learn how to make a cheese cake by the undergraduate students.

Written test and learning

The use of technology in this project will enhance their learning process and overall development. Technology not only enhances their learning but it makes the learning process diverse by reaching and interconnecting with outside world (Newman 1992a) i.e. it does not keep students within the boundaries of classroom but makes it possible for them to communicate and exchange information with all the networked computers used by staff and his peers.

The teaching project outcomes

The teaching project’s success depends on individual outcomes, hence, it is important to judge whether these outcomes are worthwhile or just achieved. The desired outcomes of this project are listed below.

• It will improve motor skills of a student and he would improve his locomotive and perceptual motor skills
• The project will enhance their learning and memorizing capability. A student will be able to give more attention to his studies.
• The student will develop better social relations. He would be better off in school and at home.
• Student’s emotional and psychological development will improve. Emotional problems are usually correlated with his physical, social and cognitive development. But as his cognitive, social and physical development enhances, his emotional development will improve.
• The project will improve quality of education at school. The student after being trained will have better skills to interact with his environment and will yield better results.
• The project is cost effective and will safe cost of future problems that may arise due to lack of education and training at this age.
• The project will speed up student’s cognitive development. The project is not offered for a specific need but it will improve overall development and generalized needs of a student.
• Teachers and trainers will find it easier to train through this project rather than typical way of teaching. “Building and modeling caring relationships is crucial to the preservice teacher’s capacity to receive curricular content and their ability to teach that content to young graduates.” (Lake, Jones, & Dagli, 2004)

• The project would be able to preserve social and morel values through better education and training of a student. As children are major and most crucial beings in transmitting such values.
• The project protects children’s right to live and develop to their full potential while benefiting from the environment.

Purpose statement:

The project is focused at student’s physical, cognitive, motor, social, emotional, creative and spiritual development.

• Physical: With different playful activities student will develop healthy body and mind. His physical growth of the body will be in more positive direction.
• Social: As student will interact with his peers he will develop a positive social attitude towards his classmates.
• Emotional: It will also improve his emotional development.
• Creative: The project will direct the student to be more creative in outdoor and indoor activities.
• Cognitive: cognitive development involves developing language skills, conceptual and non-verbal communication skills and sensory skills. Student will improve problem solving, memorizing and familiarize with spatial awareness.
• Spiritual: With this project student will also learn to accomplish his spiritual needs.
• Motor: student will develop motor skills, locomotive skills, coordination, awareness with physical body, muscle strength, visual and hearing coordination and perceptual motor skills.

It is hoped that students will learn a lot by this way of learning. With this integration of playful activities and computer-aided learning their learning and developmental process will enhance. When they used technology to find and to elaborate information, they learned much more comprehensively rather than being spoon fed by teachers. By researching, inquiring and preparing their own presentations their level of interest increased and curiosity led them to learn much better. Teachers played a role of coach, guider, supporter, helper and supervisor. Instead of delivering lecture and facts about particular topic, technology use made learning more easy and purposeful. In delivering straight facts to students in the form of lectures, students may loose interest and may not understand most of the points. Implementation of technology increased their level of interest, which in turn enhanced their learning.

Learning process as it relates to cognitive psychology

Spearman poses two factor model of intelligence: 1) General Factor (g) and (2) Specific Factors (s)

Spearman’s (1927) two factor model of intelligence

• General factor (g)
• Specific factors (s)

According to Charles Spearman, every ordinary person possess remarkable intelligence over some specific thing i.e. every student, man or woman is a genius and smart over a particular thing at particular stage but it needs to be discovered at the appropriate time. This genius action may occur for short duration even less than a minute of all possible acts. There are no specific procedures to detect this stage of intelligence. However, there are certain testing procedures for improvement. Spearman noted that the questions to ask in this regard are ‘what the person thinks about and how well he thinks about it?’ He stated that the tests that caused the emergence of ‘g’ were not from schools and had no place there as they were not from the talents of children. In schools teacher play their roles for development, cultivation and discover their diverse talents.

The concept of ‘g’ arises from the examining, testing and assessment of cognitive abilities. Gardner’s view is that ‘g’ is a straightforward way to compute the academic ability. Apart from academic performance there are other areas where intelligence applies and we must define it outside the circle of school.

General mental ability gives concept of solitary principal factor that determines the mental ability, while theory of ‘multiple intelligences’, define intelligence as a set of independent abilities. Several methods and tests used determine which factors will be discovered. For example, test that measure cognitive ability gives the concept of single dominant factor. Other psychological tests like personality test that do not measure cognitive ability give evidence of multiple factors.

Howard Gardner proposes theory of multiple intelligences. He divides intelligence into eight or nine components: logical, linguistic, spatial, musical, kinesthetic (bodily), naturalist, leadership, nature, intra-personal and inter-personal intelligences

Spearman’s g theory has a predictive validity which can reveal future outcomes from academic performance like job performance. However, multiple theories does not have this validity. At the time of this testing the idea of multiple intelligence was not yet existed.

If people are tested for different cognitive ability tests which are positively correlated (tests of memorization, sentence completion, problem solving, reading, solving puzzles and arithmetic) then it is most probable that good performance in anyone of them may lead to good performance in all of them. Hence, all these tests are related and determine the same common factor.

Gardner’s theory determine the way the people develop skills and it is observed through natural criteria. Gardner defines intelligence as the ability to solve problem. Or products are styled according to the cultural background and settings. The modern intelligence testing system has two discrimencies, first is that western culture is made the basis for testing, and second is that only those human abilities are tested that are readily testable.

• Real inspections about how people develop skills
• Describe intelligence as the ability to solve problems or to approach goods that are appreciated in one or more cultural or society settings.
• Modern intelligence testing biases are:
  • Making Western cultural principles as a platform
  • Centered on those human talents that are readily investigated
• Intelligence is classified into nine types:
  • Linguistic—the talent and skill to use words in both verbal (spoken) and written expression (poets)
  • Logical-mathematical—both logical, mathematical and scientific ability, as well as methodical study
  • Spatial— Skill to form a mental model of a spatial world and to be able to plan and run using that model (e.g., Engineers, sculptors, sailors, surgeons)
  • Musical— talent to recognize pitch and control sound
  • Bodily-Kinesthetic— capability to solve problems or to style products by means of one’s entire body, or parts of one’s body (, athletes, dancers, craftspeople)
  • Interpersonal— skill to comprehend other people: their motivation causes, their working method, and the cooperative methods to work in collaboration with them (for e.g., clinical psychologists)
  • Intrapersonal— ability to form a precise model of oneself and ability to utilize that model to apply efficiently in life
  • Nature— capacity to maneuver, solve tasks and problems, or fashion products by operating one’s natural environment.
  • Leadership— skill to lead people (e.g., charisma, ability to influence)

Spearman’s two types of intelligence, general intelligence (g) and specific abilities (s), dictates that those who tend to perform well on one task will probably do well on all other tasks. In performing any given problem, both intelligences play their role. General intelligence works through specific characters.

Enhancing learning process with technology

Computerized learning system will provide outstanding tools for learning. Computer is a problem-solving machine, a workplace where a person inquires for some information or task and gets the answer with use of various programs and software. It will enable students to learn by inquiring, researching, manipulating and solving problems. By the use of connecting networks, students can retrieve information; get connected with other classrooms and labs, link with other universities’ students and teachers, in joint research and work, and for using and presenting data. In using technology for delivering hospitality services, teachers play a role of coaches and guiders to supervise learning and to direct students, “how to accomplish this”.

A difference between teacher’s lectures in a classroom for elaboration of a point and student’s own investigation for the search of an answer is that in former student hasn’t inquired for it so s/he may loose interest in it or may not understand the point clearly. While in the later, the student himself is interested in finding out the answer of a question or puzzle and will investigate and search for it with enthusiasm, which will develop his interest and hence will understand whatever the solution s/he reaches.

Technology not only gives instant access to the information at hand but it makes it more interesting and easy to understand than the traditional way of hospitality services. With use of CDs and disks students can store ample of information and analyze it later. With use of graphics and spreadsheets s/he can present the same information to others, which will enhance their learning process. With use of networks they can get connect with other classrooms and universities for exchange of information, and with Internet they can search for their own information using various keywords.

Study shows that students at State University New York learned a topic more effectively by use of different kinds of software on a computer than the traditional way of learning (Stearns 1991). In learning a project, “The war in Persian Gulf”, they used two key softwares. The “Point of view” was used by the students to elaborate their point and findings about the topic and “The New Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia” was used to search for the information on that topic. Students worked in various groups to search the information then compiling and writing down their own short brief essays and used “Point of view” to describe their topic. In preparation of this project they also studied maps and text and made use of projection system.

Students learned a lot by this way of learning. In this way they used technology to find and to elaborate information and learned much more comprehensively rather than being spoon fed by teachers. By researching, inquiring and preparing their own presentations their level of interest increased and curiosity led them to learn much better. Teachers played a role of coach, guider, supporter, helper and supervisor. Instead of delivering lecture and facts about particular topic, technology use made learning more easy and purposeful. In delivering straight facts to students in the form of a lecture, students may loose interest and may not understand most of the points.

Implementation of technology increased their level of interest, which in turn enhanced their learning. Technology not only enhance learning process but it makes the learning process diverse by reaching and interconnecting with outside world (Newman 1992) i.e. it does not keep students within the boundaries of classroom but makes it possible for them to communicate and exchange information with worldwide universities.

Learning and motor skills

Wade (2004) is of the view that motor activities are much more than just an indication or display of the physical development. The motor activities of a student also represent his mental growth and development. The movement experiences and play of the student is a screen through which his cognitive or intellectual development can actually be monitored. Therefore, movement activities and play should be a part and a source of studying and analyzing the intellectual development of the student. “Performer factors which are most likely to affect the emergence of particular movement skills include body size and physical growth, strength relative to body weight, and the maturity of the nervous system.” (Wade, 2004)

As Benelli (1995) stresses that educators working with the young students should understand the process and elements affecting the development of the motor skills in them. Benelli (1995) stresses that physical activity and motor development both are strongly interdependent.

In addition, teacher’s presence and constant guidance to students is very important. A teacher supervises all the students during motor training project. “The student gain additional practice time and the teacher has many opportunities to observe and give feedback or further instruction. Verbal feedback allows students to know if they are performing the skill correctly. Such teacher attention can be invaluable encouragement for students having difficulty.” (Benelli, 1995)

As suggested by Benelli (1995) visual assistance is an important motor skill activity. “Success, rather than accuracy, is more important at the beginning stages. Verbal cues are important, as well. Tell the student to step, turn towards the target and throw hard.” (Benelli, 1995) Physical fitness is of utmost importance for student development (Benelli, 1995).

An integrated project is developed to attain full developmental advantages. Meyers (2001) suggest that the delays in student’s mental development can be detected by primary health activities. Enhancement of motor skills will improve their attention at studies and at home. When motor development programs are implemented in addition to other programs their synergistic advantages are much better. Improving their motor skills will enhance their learning process. They are better prepared physically, emotionally and mentally. As schools final outcome is student’s education and his understanding, the more we’ll put our efforts to improve their skills the more it will improve the quality of education.

Various researches have shown that grades in schools depends on how much physically active a student is. Student’s phyisical activitiy, playful games and movements improves their overall development. His phyisical development is associated with the adequate nutrition and healthy body. According to Frost (1997), play is as important as other basic needs in student development. It sharpens motor skills of a student and let him better understand his own being.  It promotes better interaction of a student with his environment. In a way, student thrives and gets opportunities to explore his surroundings. Educators who fail to recognize the crucial role of perceptual motor development usually ignore implementing such training programs for student development. “’Play promotes social development (Shure, 1981; Ladd and Mize, 1983) and motor development (Gabbard, 1979; Myers, 1985). Play provides opportunities to learn social roles and rules as well as a socially shared system of symbols, including language (Vygotsky, 1962, 1978; Yeatman and Reifel, 1992). Not only is play associated with the development of specific motor skills but biologists conclude that “the vigorous movements of play help in the maturation of muscle tissue …(Angier, 1992).’” (Frost, 1997)

Conclusion

 “Piaget (1962) believed that students construct their own logical and social reality through experiences with physical objects, as in play. Vygotsky (1962) proposed that students have a “zone of proximal development” (ZPD), a range of tasks between those the student can handle independently and those she can master with the help of adults and more competent peers.”

It has now been widely accepted that motor skills development is very important during developmental stages of a student. There are many factors that influence motor development of a student. Student’s social, personal, emotional, cognitive, neurological and environmental factors contribute to his motor development. Various researchers have now developed specific guidelines for educators to provide motor skill programs to students 0-6 with suitable playful activities and appropriate equipment. Motor development can be enhanced by assigning them various playful tasks, organizing their environment and surroundings, sensory and musical stimuli and other challenging tasks.

Physical activity and sport can be used as a mean for enhancing the progress of development of personal and social values. The solid and hard-to-digest lessons of morality can be easily implanted into the brains of the young students through the full-of-fun and carefully designed physical activities and sports. Lessons of cooperation, competence, self belief, challenge, winning, being with friends, improving skills, maintaining a positive relationship with a teacher or coach, control, accepting a loss, losing, success, failure, anxiety, rejection, fair play- all can be taught through a proper and wise design of the physical and sports activities. The adults’ role in this regard is very important in that they have to properly monitor and handle the sports according to the situation. Different age groups demand different kind of sports and different kind of supervision.