Field Response Draft Examples of my Responses

4. At which of Kohlberg's levels of moral development are the students in your class functioning? Cite specific evidence and explain your reasoning for selecting these levels. What might be done to help the students advance to higher levels? 

While teaching Mrs. Newsome’s class of twenty one students for my teacher work sample experience, I often had to remind students to stop talking as I offering instruction.  A handful of these students in this class seemed to be in level 1 obedience and punishment stage.  If they were to misbehave according to the established rules for the class, I was to punish them by docking their participation points.  Those students who were particularly good at following the flow of the class remained within Kohlberg’s level 3 social contract.  I observed this while teaching when one student in particular continued to have a conversational with another student while I was speaking myself.  When I walked near her and asked her to stop interrupting, she informed me that she was only trying to help the girl next to her who hadn’t fully understood what was previously explored.  Even though this girl was in fact breaking the rules of the classroom, while talking when I was talking, she had taken upon herself the responsibility to catch up another student even though I hadn’t assigned her to do so.  This action for this particular student seemed to be the right thing at the time.  She intended to avoid having a classmate fall behind when I continued instruction and felt it was ethical or best to ignore the rule and take what action she did.

1. What evidence do you see of specific teacher behaviors that are geared toward Piaget's theories about the developmental levels of children at particular ages? Cite specific examples and make clear connection to Piaget's work.

When observing the Dance 2 class at Timpanogos High School, I assumed the students would have some previous dance experience and a foundation of dance concepts.  However, I have noticed multiple times when observing Mrs. Newsome’s class; she has used assimilation to help students grasp information that is new or unfamiliar.  Kristi has done this particularly during the class warm up when shapes and stretches are related to physical images they’ve previously learned and can picture in their minds as they move.  Examples of this included imagining the curvature of a snake and allowing the curvy spine of a human body to move in this same way.  Doing this helped student’s associate new information with information that was known.  It also helped students retain movement they saw and have previously experienced before, like when a little baby and squirming around.  The teacher recognized these learned movements, even when the students hadn’t kept this information past working memory.  

Making this connection for the students didn’t necessarily occur successfully in the beginning.  Some students in this class were at lower levels than others.  A particular group with minimal to no dance experience was unable to grasp the information given to them, and were unable to replicate the movement assimilated.  This required Kristi to accommodate instruction for these students and create a completely new mental pathway for these students to understand the incoming information.  Most students in this class were, according to our class text, in Piaget’s stage 2 with others in stage 3 of development.  They were unable to interpret logic and have adult like responses while still remaining within concrete reality.  At this level I didn’t observe students working in the formal stage or taking the information given and attributing abstract ideas.