Dispositions


 * Student disposition** is the student’s inclination to think about learning and problem solving in a particular way either through habit or desire. The environment of the classroom has a major impact on the dispositions that the students will form.


 * Analytic vs holistic processing**
 * Analytic processing occurs students break down information into pieces to process it
 * Holistic is when the students need to see the big picture in order to piece together information

Like creating a puzzle, some students find it easier to work with the individual pieces, while others need the completed picture to reach their goal.

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 * Visual vs verbal processing**
 * Visual- information presented through use of photos
 * Verbal- information presented as words (hearing/seeing words)


 * How do dispotitions apply to classroom?**
 * Stimulation seeking
 * Need for cognition (challenging tasks)
 * Critical thinking
 * Open-mindedness: willing to consider alternative perspectives and multiple sources of evidence: to suspend judgeement rather than jump to conclusion

1. innate 2. social: tendency to be accepting, friendly, empathetic, generous & cooperative ie: adults view bossiness as an unacceptable social disposition 3. intellectual: predictions, problem solving
 * Types of Dispositions**

References: Ormrod, Jeanne. Educational Psychology. Pearson: 2011. Print.

"Why Children's Dispositions Should Matter to All Teachers." Why Children's Dispositions Should Matter to All Teachers. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2013. < eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/teaching/eecd/domains%20of%20child > **Dispositions** According to Ormrod, disposition can be thought as the inclination or willingness to take on learning and problem solving tasks in a specific way. There is typically a motivational component alongside with a cognitive component within this approach to learning. Disposition can materialize itself in the form of voluntary habits centered around the concept of learning.

When it comes to what qualities are comprised in a successful student, a couple of ubiquitous possibilities come to mind—intelligence, hard work, but these traits are not naturally imbedded in a child. Rather, there are specific components that can help develop a child’s intelligence and sense of hard work. Many theorists have linked ** student dispositions ** with a student’s effectiveness in learning: A student with a lack of strong disposition towards learning

There are distinct categories of disposition that are inarguably beneficial to excelling in the classroom from a student’s perspective: __ Stimulation Seeking __ : Actively seeking out stimuli and consequently reacting to them in physical and social environments. This promotes a greater chance in attaining new information and new experiences. **Example:** A student is assigned a science project ecosystems. She talks to her fellow classmates about what and how they will be executing their projects for ideas and perspectives for her own project. She also goes outside to experience different ecosystems as opposed to an exclusive web based search for information.

__ Need For Cognition __ : Actively seeking and partaking in challenging cognitive tasks. **Example:** A student is assigned a certain selection of math problems in his book. These math problems are purely conceptual in that they only deal with numbers. The student chooses to also do extra word problems in his math book to help him understand how the math he is doing applies to real life situations

__ Critical Thinking __ : The tendency to analyze new information in regards to how accurate, credible, or useful it might be before simply accepting and internalizing new information. **Example:** A student in social studies class is skeptical of the idea that Christopher Columbus was indeed the first one to come across North America because she has heard that Christopher Columbus is often over glorified in American history textbooks. Through her own research, she finds out that Leif Ericson was noted to be the first European to discover America and feels more sound in her knowledge of history because of it.

__ Open-Mindedness __ : Flexibility in the sense of considering different perspectives and multiple sources of evidence. This type of disposition also hinges on the idea of holding one’s judgment for a time to see if evidence and conclusions change. **Example:** A student must consider the question, “What is a hero?” throughout his English course, he reads several novels dealing with different aspects of the hero archetype. He has his own idea of what a hero is before reading or discussing anything with the class. However, after reading the first two novels and being apart of many extensive class discussions where his peers share different ideas of what a hero is, his definition of a hero goes through many distinctive changes and phases.

The idea of disposition pushes the identity of a student beyond one that exclusively receives information and applies it to prove the understanding. Disposition puts the student in a position where he or she is actively seeking to enhance his or her intelligence or abilities. As opposed to knowledge being offered on a plate, disposition allows a student to hunt for it. However, it is important to know that the environment of the student also affects dispositions. Depending on where the student is, the environment can both bolster and degrade a child’s dispositions. Students displaying the pursuit of stimuli in a social yet academic environment The speaker, Gregory Larnell, is in essence talking about the Need For Cognition. This video has a good explanation of how a student’s poor disposition can lead to a desire for academic prowess in a low level class at the price of being able to handle a higher level class. Essentially, the student lacks the desire to actively find challenging cognitive tasks. Written by Rich Kim References: Ormrod, Jeanne (2011). Educational Psychology: Developing Learners. Boston, MA. Pearson Publishing. p. 128-130

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-2Forstpk4