The Astral Monk had a lot of fun meeting new people today. I joined the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) about 2 months ago, but could not make the first meeting I was expecting to attend. The former head of the Austin TX local chapter sent out an email announcing his departure from the local group and his cessation of the MUFON activities. Today I finally made it to a meeting, but the leader, Catherine, called the meeting "Son of MUFON," for it was not an official MUFON meeting and would not be following the MUFON protocols. It was very spirited and enjoyable nonetheless.
It was held at the quarters of a group that conducts research into paranormal and other kinds of mental or spiritual activities, and maintains at the quarters a considerable library of print materials (books) that cover a wide range of materials.
Our group consisted of four women and eight men. I was the newbie. Catherine, who is from Montreal, opened with a few remarks and a lively discussion of one member's experiences north of the Arctic Circle, where she teaches Inuit children part of the year. She related several recent conversations she had with known researchers. A young man spoke for forty minutes or more about experiences he had with a woman who was evidently filled with various energies. I forgot to bring my hearing aid, so I missed out on about 90% of the group discussions, but managed well when speaking to individuals during the snack break and outside after the meeting ended. At one point, I was given time to present my latest Lou-Vee-Air(tm)Car (the Mk VI version), and explain how it has been on sale for 17 years in various iterations, and exists in a scratch-built version as well. My theme was not just to show my little AirCar zipping along for a second or two on the carpeted floor, but rather on how we must solve some major problems in our science education system before we can move into Cosmic Science Teaching, which we should be doing now, but we are not ready for. I mentioned that I have taken on the role of Astral Monk to serve as a Spiritual Counselor in this troubled time when so much apprehension surrounds us. When I was done, and as the break was ending, I distributed AirCar kits to about eight of the attendees, and urged them to download my "method" that used the AirCar to teach research and development (R&D) and leads to publication of student work on a special Student Research Site, with the goal of setting up a world wide exchange of ideas about how to make science exciting and encourage learners everywhere to become inventors working in synergistic teams.
It was a very enjoyable visit with compatible people.
If you feel alone and marginalized by those around you, do some Web browsing and look for groups you might like to visit or join. Here's the lyric I wrote and you can find on my "drhanzonscience" channel onYouTube,
Day Glow
(c) 2000 James P Louviere
I never knew that I could fly above the lovely rainbow!
I never knew that I could make another person's day glow!
I feel so happy when I'm flying high above the rainbow!
I feel so happy when I make another person's dayglow!
If you are ever sad and lonely, wishing you could die,
Just lift another's spirit up and you'll begin to fly!
You'll fly up high into the sky and wear a little halo,
For you're an angel when you make another person's day glow!

Walk with a joyous heart! James, the Astral Monk

Posted by DrHanzonScience at 1:58 AM

James P Louviere's Science Education Blog ,Post Number Zero

James P Louviere’s Science Education Blog, Post Number Zero, July 7, 2011

About this picture:  During a wonderful visit with my Cambodian

Relatives January to April 2011, I was enjoying the company of Harat (age 2½) and Tavat (7), when their aunt snapped this picture.  It expresses the joy I feel when I’m with the children on the family estate.  It’s the same joy I felt when teaching and administering schools from 1959 to 2008, from grades K through the PhD in the USA, Germany and Thailand.  I loved being a teacher, professor, administrator, program coordinator and adjunct, and I loved writing about education.  I hope this blog captures your interest, and I look forward to your comments and your visits.

The Great USA System:

Unlimited Student Achievement!

Betweem 1975 and 1985 I  developed a way of managing a science class and called it “The Great USA System.”  It was accepted by a now-defunct “university” as part of my “doctoral work” in science education.  The Program was never published, though it served as the basis for two peer-reviewed articles in journals of the National Science Teachers Association.

I tried to find one of my old articles by Gooleing to “Let them manage their own grades Louviere,” and the following 12 items popped up.  There was no source given, but it reflects my thinking and policies perfectly:

How to make children feel intrinsically motivated:

1. help them feel autonomous
2. let them feel cared for
3. let them have a say in making their own class rules
4. help them understand learning goals so they can fit them into their own ideas and world
5. help them internalize responsibility and have a sense of value towards goals previously thought of as external
6. emphasize mastery and not grades
7. be enthusiastic
8. don’t tell when you can ask
9. build material around student interests
10. help them set their own goals
11. ask non-threatening questions
12. offer options: give them “wiggle room” in choosing what they’ll read, write, and work , on.

I beg pardon of anyone who may have written this, if indeed it was not me!  My next twelve Posts will  look at each of the items in the list above to see if we can think of ways you could experiment with the ideas so they could enrich your science (or other) classes.  I hope you find this useful.

In my “Great USA System,” USA stood for Unlimited Student Achievement,” and it used the seemingly contradictory psychological principles of Abraham Maslow’s humanistic psychology, which described the way super successful people enjoy activities that led to “self-actualization”  and  B. F. Skinner’s “Operant Conditioning.”

Skinner was accused of raising his daughter in a “Skinner Box” where her activities were programmed so that, in order to get something she wanted, she had to go through a behavior Skinner wanted her to perform.  A psychology professor once told a class I attended that Skinner had used “operant Conditioning” on a pigeon in a Skinner Box in the lobby of a hotel where the American Psychological Association was meeting.  All day long the bird was pecking and pecking like a woodpecker.  Skinner had set up mechanism in the box so that at first, when the bird was hungry, it would strut around in the box pecking at random in hope of finding something to eat.  When it pecked at a certain target, a grain of food fell into the box.  Eureka!  The bird pecked the target again, and another grain of food appeared.  Eventually Skinner began rigging the delivery system so that it did not deliver the food immediately. The bird repeated the peck, and the system rewarded the behavior by delivering the food.  Again and again Skinner adjusted the system so that it took more andmore pecks to get the food.  The bird responded like a human does when clicking on a hyperlink or dropping a quarter into a snack machine fails.  The bird simple tried again. 

So Skinner demonstrated that organisms (even humans) will most likely repeat a behavior that produced a reinforcing reward even the reward is no longer immediate.  The pigeon or human being has been “programmed” to do a certain action because it has produced desired rewards in the past.  The nervous system is thus programmed on a stimulus-response level.  Humans and other organisms can use the conscious mind to control their voluntary actions, but with enough conditioning, it becomes unlikely that “reason” will overrule conditioning. Thus people fall into destructive addictions through operant conditioning.  We’ve all experienced minor episodes of this – we take a second helping of dessert, even though me know that it’s not good for us!

I once was hired to act in a television commercial for a casiono on a tribal reservation in Louisiana.  I watched a number of senior citizens playing slot machines for hours, getting modest rewards occasionally that kept them pumping tokens into the slots in hopes of a jackpot.  It’s not necessarily healthy for older people to sit for long periods. Circulation in the legs is hindered, but “reason” tells them that to get a jackpot, you have to keep trying.  I think operant conditioning is likely stronger than reason at the casino!

Skinner was criticized for his methods and accused of treating his human subjects like guinea pigs. but nonetheless his behavioral approach to training produces powerful results and is now widely accepted.

My USA System provided students with a way of setting up an interactive science notebook, where students could record their readings and out-of-school science activities, parents could endorse students’ logs, and the teacher could put a date stamp on the log entries signifying that short conferences were held, grades and accomplishments were discussed, and the student’s work was evaluated and duly recorded on the Student Record Card.  I kept the cards in simple steel  box in a locked drawer in My classroom desk.  At the end of the grading period, I could go through the cards with the student, show the student how the test scores, "homeworks," outside readings and other items tallied up to a given grade, and then record the student’s grade in my official Grade Book for use on the report card.  (A "homework" was a unit of 15 minutes sent doing something related to science or mathematics that broadens your scientific background and deepens your understanding of the way things work, so reading for an hour counts as a reading and four homeworks!

I developed the USA System from 1975 to 1985 at Schweinfurt American School and Heidelberg Middle “School.  I included the Heidelberg students’ CTBS results in the summary at the end of my 10-year Case Study.   Testing records were not available for the years 1974 through 1984. 

My science students’ students’ scored a spectacular 98%ile overall.  Unfortunately, this was the only system-wide test they took, and it was norm-referenced, not criterion-referenced, and therefore was not very useful in proving that my USA system worked.  Nonetheless,  I earmed a non-traditional, State approved PhD with two majors: Educational Psychology based on the USA System and Science Education based on my  Hands-On  Science Activities, a book that paralleled the Stech-Vaughn high-interest, low reading abilty science books that were used in Heidelberg at the time.  The DoDDS System provided me with funding  for my  Research and  Development program that produced a phot-illustrated book describing how four students from  grades 2 through 7 were making their own scientific instruments and using them to study physics, astronomy, biology and weather.  Two of my own children and two of their friends  posed for the photos, and I did the photography and technical drawings.  The book was never published, though the professor, still active in California higher education, encouraged me to publish it, and Prentice Hall asked me to develop it into a trade book.  Oh, how easy it is to produce books today using digital technology and the Internet!

My “ university”  lost statewide approval eventually and was closed by court order in 2000, fifteen years after I received the PhD.  I was “grandfathered” and my PhD is still legal in California.  My Louisiana teacher’s certificate lists the PhD as one of the five accredited out-of-state degrees I’ve earned - the others are the BA,General Science from the College of Santa Fe,NM,  the MA, English, from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio (TX), a BS, Psychology, from  Excelsior College in Albany (NY, and the AM Masters, Educational Theater,  from New York University. 

James in Austin,  I am the inventor of the Lou-Vee-Air™Car* (below).
You can build this Mark 1 model using the plans in our free
downloable Teachers Manual (click to get to the free Manual.

https://sites.google.com/site/louveeaircarmanual/

The Lou-Vee-Air tm Car 
is Now in its 6^th incarnation 
and is Featured in SciKit.com, Ward’s,

                                                       Edmund Scientific, and other great Science Education

                                                       Catalogs!  Click or copy  the link below!

                                                           http://sargentwelch.com/lou-veeandtrade;-aircar/p/IG0037822/

                                                               Click to visit    Sargent-Welch item WL 0848X       

          

                                                                                                       The Mark VI Lou-Vee-Air™Car                                                                                                                            

Post 2: Help your Students Feel Cared For

Knowing they were cared for, students built their paper towers without fear of ridicule 

Post Number  2: 

Let Them Feel Cared For

It’s wonderful what good personal relations can do for the teacher.  I’m sure you have experienced this yourself, whether as a student or as a teacher.  It’s great to feel loved or cared for.  We need that.

I live in a complex with a nice, user-friendly pool designed with handicapped or aged people in mind. Yesterday, I saw a nice fellow swim up to the edge of the pool and hold out hands to a little Pomeranian-mixed pet.  He waited patiently for the little dog to walk over and be petted, but after a minute or two, the doggie decided to turn away and look at other attractions.  I saw the tiny rejection register on the younger man’s face.  When it a student hoping for a bit of attention from a teacher, how much more significant is a look of acceptance, or a gesture of friendship. 

We all need support.  It’s a pretty hard world we live in. Showing you care is important, and in some cases it’s vital.  We can’t imagine what kind of day a student has had, or what kind of sorrow may have fallen upon her, or him.  How many times have you felt lifted by a compassionate word or even a smile of acceptance and understanding from someone, especially from a parent, relative, teacher or even a stranger? 

The USA System I described in my previous postings and in the article in the Manual was designed specifically to set up opportunities on a regular basis that bring the teacher and students together  together to discuss the projects, homeworks and readings that the student has done.  If they only qualify for a C or D grade, the teacher can accept that and even reassure the student that will a little more effort, the requirements for the A or B grade might be met.  Students really like this message, and responded well to it.  Test scores also appear on the Student Record Card (I’ll give you a sample in another post later),  and if the scores are not high enough to earn an A or B, perhaps they are high enough to merit at least an “Average” or “Passing” grade.  Students feel like you really care if you

take the time to go over their notebooks and their student record cards with them while the rest of the class is busy with their own readings or reports.  This kind of interview can be held quietly in the school library, or in a classroom or laboratory, though care must be taken not to embarrass the student being interviewed  and not to distract those working on their own or in small groups.

So much can be gained when a system allows for positive interaction one-on-one with a student on a regular and non-threatening basis.  If you don’t care to follow my own system, which I have not explained in depth, you can set up your own system of periodic interviews, and both you and your individual students, and your classes as a whole, will profit substantially from this effort.

Wishing you every success in your relationships with your students, or with others you have the good fortune to be involved with, I remain, yours truly,

James P. Louviere     jplk9@hotmail.com

My next Post will be about “Let them have a say about “Let them have a say in Making their own Class Rules.”

Science Education Blog, Post Number Zero, July 7, 2011

James P Louviere’s Science Education Blog, Post Number Zero, July 7, 2011

About this picture:  During a wonderful visit with my Cambodian  relatives January to April 2011, I was enjoying the company of Harat (age 2½) and Tavat (7), when their aunt snapped this picture.  It expresses the joy I feel when I’m with the children on the family estate.  It’s the same joy I felt when teaching and administering schools from 1959 to 2008, from grades K through the PhD in the USA, Germany and Thailand.  I loved being a teacher, professor, administrator, program coordinator and adjunct, and I loved writing about education.  I hope this blog captures your interest, and I look forward to your comments and your visits.

The Great USA System:

Unlimited Student Achievement!

I once developed a way of managing a science class and called it “The Great USA System.”  It was accepted by a now-defunct “university” as part of my “doctoral work” in science education.  The Program was never published, though it served as the basis for two peer-reviewed articles in journals of the National Science Teachers Association.

I tried to find one of my old articles by Gooleing to “Let them manage their own grades Louviere,” and the following 12 items popped up.  There was no source given, but it reflects my thinking and policies perfectly:

How to make children feel intrinsically motivated:

1. help them feel autonomous
2. let them feel cared for
3. let them have a say in making their own class rules
4. help them understand learning goals so they can fit them into their own ideas and world
5. help them internalize responsibility and have a sense of value towards goals previously thought of as external
6. emphasize mastery and not grades
7. be enthusiastic
8. don’t tell when you can ask
9. build material around student interests
10. help them set their own goals
11. ask non-threatening questions
12. offer options: give them “wiggle room” in choosing what they’ll read, write, and work , on.

I beg pardon of anyone who may have written this, if indeed it was not me!  My next twelve Posts will  look at each of the items in the list above to see if we can think of ways you could experiment with the ideas so they could enrich your science (or other) classes.  I hope you find this useful.

In my “Great USA System,” USA stood for Unlimited Student Achievement,” and it used the seemingly contradictory psychological principles of Abraham Maslow’s humanistic psychology, which described the way super successful people enjoy activities that led to “self-actualization”  and  B. F. Skinner’s “Operant Conditioning.”

B.G. Skinner’s principles of “operant conditioning.”   Skinner was criticized when he was accused of raising his daughter in a “Skinner Box” where her activities were programmed so that, in order to get something she wanted, she had to go through a behavior Skinner wanted to do.  A psychology professor once told a class I attended that Skinner had used “operant Conditioning” on a pigeon in a Skinner Box in the lobby of a hotel where the American Psychological Association was meeting.  All day long the bird was pecking and pecking like a woodpecker.  Skinner had set up mechanism in the box so that at first, when it was hungry, it would strut around in the box pecking at random in hope of finding something to eat.  When it pecked at a certain target, a grain of food fell into the box.  Eureka!  The bird pecked the target again, and another grain of food appeared.  Eventually Skinner began rigging the delivery system so that it did not deliver the food immediately.  The bird repeated the peck, and the system rewarded the behavior by delivering the food.  Again and again Skinner adjusted the system so that it took more andmore pecks to get the food.  The bird responded like a human does when clicking on a hyperlink or dropping a quarter into a snack machine fails.  The bird simple tried again. 

So Skinner demonstrated that organisms (even humans) will most likely repeat a behavior that produced a reinforcing reward even the reward is no longer immediate.  The pigeon or human being has been “programmed” to do a certain action because it has produced desired rewards in the past.  The nervous system is thus programmed on a stimulus-response level.  Humans and other organisms can use the conscious mind to control their voluntary actions, but with enough conditioning, it becomes unlikely that “reason” will overrule conditioning. Thus people fall into destructive addictions through operant conditioning.  We’ve all experienced minor episodes of this – we take a second helping of dessert, even though me know that it’s not good for us!

I once was hired to act in a television commercial for a casiono on a tribal reservation in Louisiana.  I watched a number of senior citizens playing slot machines for hours, getting modest rewards occasionally that kept them pumping tokens into the slots in hopes of a jackpot.  It’s not necessarily healthy for older people to sit for long periods. Circulation in the legs is hindered, but “reason” tells them that to get a jackpot, you have to keep trying.  I think operant conditioning is likely stronger than reason at the casino!

Skinner was criticized for his methods and accused of treating his human subjects like guinea pigs. but nonetheless his behavioral approach to training produces powerful results and is now widely accepted.

My USA System provided students with a way of setting up an interactive science notebook, where students could record their readings and out-of-school science activities, parents could endorse students’ logs, and the teacher could put a date stamp on the log entries signifying that short conferences were held, grades and accomplishments were discussed, and the student’s work was evaluated and duly recorded on the Student Record Card.  I kept the cards in simple steel  box in a locked drawer in My classroom desk.  At the end of the grading period, I could go through the cards with the student, show the student how the test scores, homeworks, outside readings and other items tallied up to a given grade, and then record the student’s grade in my official Grade Book for use on the report card.

I developed the USA System from 1975 to 1985 at Schweinfurt American School and Heidelberg Middle “School.  I included the Heidelberg student’s CTBS results in the summary at the end of my 10-year Case Study.   Testing records were not available for the years 1974 through 1984. 

 My science students’ students’ scored a spectacular 98%ile overall.  Unfortunately, this was the only system-wide test they took, and it was norm-referenced, not criterion-referenced, and therefore was not very useful in proving that my USA system worked.  Nonetheless,  I earmed a non-traditional, State approved PhD with two majors: Educational Psychology based on the USA System and Science Education based on my  Hands-On  Science Activities, a book that paralleled the Stech-Vaughn high-interest, low reading abilty science books that were used in Heidelberg at the time.  The DoDDS System provided me with funding  for my  Research and  Development program that produced a phot-illustrated book describing how four students from  grades 2 through 7 were making their own scientific instruments and using them to study physics, astronomy, biology and weather.  Two of my own children and two of their friends  posed for the photos, and I did the photography and technical drawings.  The book was never published, though the professor, still active in California higher education, encouraged me to publish it, and Prentice Hall asked me to develop it into a trade book.  Oh, how easy it is to produce books today using digital technology and the Internet!

My “ university”  lost statewide approval eventually and was closed by court order in 2000, fifteen years after I received the PhD.  I was “grandfathered” and my PhD is still legal in California.  My Louisiana teacher’s certificate lists the PhD as one of the five accredited out-of-state degrees I’ve earned - the others are the BA,General Science from the College of Santa Fe,NM,  the MA, English, from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio (TX), a BS, Psychology, from  Excelsior College in Albany (NY, and the AM Masters, Educational Theater,  from New York University. 

 

Future posts will elaborate on the twelve numbered items

on page 1 above.  Hang in there, and I look forward to your

next visit!  

James in Austin, inventor of the Lou-Vee-Air™Car*

At right:, Mark 1 version, in Free Teachers Manual. 

https://sites.google.com/site/louveeaircarmanual/

Now in 6^th version in Featured in SciKit.com, Ward’s,

Edmund Scientific, and other great Science Education

Catalogs!  Click or copy  the link below!

http://sargentwelch.com/lou-veeandtrade;-aircar/p/IG0037822/

Sargent-Welch item WL 0848X       

          

                                                                                                       The Mark VI Lou-Vee-Air™Car                                                                                                                            

.