Monthly Archives: November 2017

Personality

--Original published at Site Title

The first personality test was the Jung Typpology Test that tested for feeling, emotion, and why I do the things I do based on the way I think. My results came back as “ENFJ” which stands for extrovert (6%) intuitive (9%) feeling (25%) and judging (6%). I agree with all of these, except intuitive. I do not see myself as an intuitive because I do use reasoning a lot, especially while working out problems in my life. I do base my decisions based on gut feeling and good judgment as well, so these personality traits seem to be true. The Jungian personality test scored me as a “conservator” as I focus mainly on service and work. These two things hold true as I am a “people pleaser” as well as very involved in whatever work I have at the time. These results also noted that I am very loyal, which is true as well. I tend to stick with close friends and family and are very faithful to select people in my life. The Psychometrics Project test gave me the results of extroversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and intellect/imagination. These results were very similar to the other tests, besides giving me percentiles that I fit into based on the trait. This test I felt judged me more on how I reacted in situations with other people as well as my personal values on attention and helping people. Lastly, there was the color test which was by far the most unique out of all the personality tests; but also gave me broader answers. This test gave me results pertaining to my own identity and how I have an eye for the beauty in things. It also goes into saying how I like to feel unique and important with still giving high standards to the people around me, especially the opposite sex. Somehow, this color test fit me very well; despite it’s broadness, it goes into how I am independent and very concerned about being a respected human being. I am unsure of how these results came about based on colors that I chose, but it is interesting to see how all of the personality tests give very similar answers, even when they ask very different questions, or even no questions at all. Some results were very spot on based on how I am as a person, but others I felt were very broad and covered a lot of ground so they could be applied to almost anyone if necessary.


Spotlight 2: DARE

--Original published at Em

The DARE program was a government run program from sixth grade through high school aged children to prevent drug use. DARE stood for Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program (Cima). DARE was popular in the 1980s and 1990s (Cima).  Children who went through the DARE education program were no less likely to partake in drugs (Cima).  The DARE curriculum consisted of seventeen lessons starting at personal safety and leading to gang pressures. Science from DAREs start supported that DARE would not be successful. DARE was taught by police officers as they are more familiar with crimes.  Officers received 80 hours of training to teach techniques in classrooms (Cima). DARE focuses on building a child’s self-esteem and resisting peer pressure (Cima) First Lady Nancy Reagan helped boost the program with coining the term “just say no” (Cima).  The program was wildly popular among adults even with the multi million dollar price tag. In 1995 DARE had a cost at 200 million to 2 billion.  DARE was funded by government, state and local tax money. DARE supporters accused critics of being in cahoots with drug cartels (Cima). Politicians didn’t care about the adverse research because parents believed DARE was working and Parents vote.  DARE executives used evidence that the programs popularity equated to credibility.

DARE was also reviewed by the Government Accountability Office.  The office found that there was “no significant difference between the DARE group and the control group” (Cima) Ennett and colleagues ran a quasi-experimental research project in 1993 meaning there was no random assignment. The logistic regression with odd ratios adjusted had no significant effect on alcohol use, cigarette use, or heavy drinking (Rosenbaum). Rural students were half as likely to increase their cigarette use from pretest (Rosenbaum). Yet they were more likely to increase alcohol use upon post test (Rosenbaum).  There was no effect on urban or suburban students who received DARE training. This effect for rural students wore off after a year.  There were no long-term effects (Rosenbaum).

I feel the program was very costly. I feel like if any program costs 200 million to 2 billion dollars there should’ve been some more focus on results. I believe the program went as far as it did because of the popularity with parents and politicians. Of course, the idea of preventing drug use and building children’s self-esteem sounds like a fabulous idea. I also think the idea of police officers working in schools foster appositive impression of police in children’s mind. I feel DARE was idealistic and that is why it went so far. There was a decrease of drug use statistically in the 1990s but his wasn’t specifically focused in schools and I believe was misattributed.

As far as similar abstinence based programs I do not think they are effective I think as they are similar programs similar results were occurring. I think programs focusing on healthy decision making should be used.  I think these programs must expose children to what will happen if they partake in these activities and inform them of the risks. Then focus on the point that they can make the smart informed decision.

Bibliography

Cima, R. (n.d.). DARE: The Anti-Drug Program That Never Actually Worked. Retrieved November 04, 2017, from https://priceonomics.com/dare-the-anti-drug-program-that-never-actually/

Rosenbaum, D. (n.d.). Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE). Retrieved November 04, 2017, from https://www.crimesolutions.gov/ProgramDetails.aspx?ID=99


Week 10 First Impression

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Intelligence isn’t really something you can obtain through genetics. Though my parents are very smart people, my intelligence has not come from them but from school. I have had my fair share of teachers who just didn’t really care about everyone personally and how well they were doing in their class. But I’ve also had those teachers who want to see people succeed and will help them accomplish that goal. Each of these teachers have had different teaching styles and some just weren’t the most beneficial for me. For instance I had a very strict and scary English teacher my freshman year of high school. She would always call me and others out in the middle of class and when we didn’t know the answer to something she would wait and keep asking us questions until we got the right answer and basically embarrass us in front of the entire class. Ever since then I have absolutely hated English classes and I don’t try very hard in them. It goes the same way  if you have a great teacher, you’ll look forward to their class and try your hardest because you don’t want to let them down.

Going off of my experience with the English teacher, I think an improvement for all teachers would be not to put students on the spot when they don’t know the answers. Especially if they’re one of the more shy kids in the class like I was. Being comfortable in the classroom is one of the key things that contributes to learning and if the student isn’t comfortable and are on edge that they’re going to be called out, then they won’t learn anything. I think this goes along with the teacher recognizing that every student has a different way of learning and they have to adapt to what will be the most beneficial to everyone.


Intelligence

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I never thought of my intelligence to be something that has come from my parents; although my parents are very smart, my intelligence is expressed much different than theirs. I give all the credit to the phenomenal teachers I’ve had over the years that taught me almost everything I know. Besides common sense, that I have my dad to thank, educators in my life have always made a huge impact. Most of the time, I believe it is the way teachers interact with their students that makes learning new material and absorbing new information fun in a way. I’ve always loved learning, and school has always been a sort of “happy place” if you will, and teachers saw and always loved that about me. It was easy to communicate with with teachers and ask questions throughout my education thus far as well, so this made learning a very pleasant experience and something I wanted to do. I believe my intelligence is firmly rooted in the place I am most confident, school. I always loved excelling in certain classes and taking on the challenge of hard classes. Something about learning is always new and exciting, so blaming my intelligence on something so satisfying isn’t so bad. Overall, interactions I’ve had between teachers and myself have always been positive and encouraging. This assisted me in not only doing well in school, but giving my intelligence the chance to take off by giving me such a happy environment. If a negative environment was present, I do not believe I would have done so well since I could have been put down, or just not as encouraged as I have been over the years. There has always been a clear goal given to me as something to strive for; so without this, a child might struggle as well. I have always felt I was equipped with the correct tools and positive attitudes that every child needs in order for him or her to express their intelligence, but without them, I would not have had as great as an opportunity.


Week 10 First Impressions: Option 1

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I would have to say that most of my intelligence, and probably a lot of people’s intelligence, comes from school. Interactions with teachers went a long way towards helping me build that intelligence. My interactions with teachers were usually good. I was quiet but I did my work, got good grades, and was never an issue. As a result, my teachers put more focus on others that were struggling but if I ever needed help with something, they were happy to lend a hand. That worked well for me. I liked being able to figure things out for myself before I go to someone else. Doing things on my own did lead to me not being as close to some of my teachers as others but I was okay with that. When I did interact with my teachers, it went well. They always tried to do what they could to help me with whatever I came to them with. This was exactly what I needed in order to learn as much as I could and perform academically.

While those methods worked for me, they do not work for every student. Everyone’s ideal environment for learning is a little different. To get students to learn and do well, teachers need to do their best to understand what that environment might be for each student. In order to do this, they need more time working as close to one-on-one with students as possible. Smaller class sizes could achieve this. The average class in my high school probably had 30 people in it; it can be hard to learn the specific preferences of 30 people. Cutting down on class size makes it easier for the teachers to learn that. Another thing to change could be the curriculum. In Pennsylvania, we have these tests called the keystones. They suck, they’re stupid, and I spent a ton of time in class just learning how to do well on those tests. Instead of designing the curriculum to get students to perform well on standardized tests like that, make the emphasis on trying to make sure students are really learning the material. I think making those changes could help schools improve the performance of their students.


Week 11 First Impression Prompts – Personality

Hand writing on a notebook

We all want to know more about our ourselves, and psychological tests are one way to explore our personalities. While the full psychological tests are often long and require a fee to take, there are an abundance of free versions online. Take the four personality tests linked below, discuss how accurately they describe your perception of your personality, and discuss the credibility of each test. Make sure to use the tag “Personality” on your post. The first impression posts will be due by the beginning of class on Wednesday, 11/8. The refinement posts will be due at noon on Tuesday, 11/14.

I look forward to seeing what you write!

Header image: CC by Flickr user Caitlinator

First Impression: Intelligence

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According to Wikipedia, intelligence is the ability to acquire knowledge and skills. We live in a world where knowledge is power. That being said, we start education at a young age. Some start even sooner than average based on who their parents are and if the caregiver has the correct resources to give their child an educational head start. If some children are getting a head start in education, then we they get to school they have already been exposed to the information that everyone else is learning for the first time. The teacher might think that this child with a head start is more intelligent than the other students in the class. But really that child has just been exposed to the material before. I believe intelligence can also be effected by the resources you have. If all the students were exposed to the same amount of educational resources, I believe there would be a decrease in the intelligence gap between students. Of course there will always some students that are more privileged than others, but teachers should keep that in mind when teaching younger ages such as elementary school students.

In elementary school, I noticed that students were being segregated into either “very smart” or normal students. They based the categorization on test scores. They had this program for “very smart” students called spectrum. Once a week they would leave the school and go on a “field trip”, at least that’s what all the other normal students thought they were going. We never really knew where they went but it definitely effected the way we thought about ourselves. Were we not smart because we were not picked for this special program? I don’t think intelligence should be based on student’s test scores. Not everyone is good at test taking and there are students with different learning disabilities that might affect their average test scores. I like the way Professor MacFarlane doesn’t base our grade solely on tests and quizzes. It gives students a chance to get a good grade even if they didn’t do how they wanted on the exams. It also gives the students a chance to apply what they learned in class to assignments other than exams, which ultimately helps the students learn more efficiently.


Week 10 first impression post

--Original published at Em

Growing up, I felt the experience in  elementary school was very positive. I mean how negative can kindergarten to fifth grade be. I did believe that the foundations in a child’s education built their character. In elementary school I remember my teachers being positive overall. I do not remember being talked down to ever. I remember being positively reinforced a lot when I got good grades. The only interaction I remember being negative is this 100 problem times table multiplication test I could never finish them all in time.  Eventually I did and it was fine. Everyone else did and then they got a giant chocolate bar.

I also feel like in school sometimes everyone is so much in competition for grades they’re not focused on actually learning. For example they just cram information into short term memory but do not actually understand what is going on. I feel like sometimes other students make it  a negative experience and make other students feel dumb. For example a lot of students are afraid to ask questions to sound dumb or they are so confused they do not even know what to ask. There is a very competitive atmosphere and its difficult to not just come to a professor during office hours instead of when its actually happening. I do think if you ask a question and a teacher replies kinda snappy or judgmental then a child will not want to ask a question again.

I also think if a child is not succeeding in a class and they continue to see poor grades they are not encouraged to keep trying for better grades. I do not think we can eliminate grades but perhaps grade off of effort and comprehension combined. Of course this is hard to measure.