Module 4

In Chapter 9, there is a section about creativity which is defined as "the ability to produce work that is original but still appropriate and useful" (350). As an assessment of creativity, Paul Torrance developed two types of creativity tests that require divergent thinking which is made up of originality, flexibility, and fluency. For originality, "a response must be given by fewer than 5 or 10 people out of every 100 who take the test. Fluency is the number of different responses. Flexibility is generally measured by the number of different categories of responses" (Woolfolk 350). Although it can be difficult to identify original ideas in the classroom, the students' flexibility and fluency can be determined in any subject lesson. For example, my Elementary English Methods class last semester had us participate in a writer's workshop with elementary students on their stories. This was an application of what we learned about the different traits of writing. The first trait of writing is Ideas which have to be original and thoroughly examined. For our first day of the writer's workshop, we helped the students come up with three ideas for their story and establish their basic elements in order to give them an idea of how those stories would turn out. Therefore, the students were demonstrating that their story ideas had fluency because they had to develop three ideas; and that they had flexibility because each of the ideas could fit in a different category.

The five elements of cooperative learning groups is discussed in Chapter 10. Positive interdependence is the first element, which means that the "members believe they can attain their goals only if the others in the group attain their goals as well....Promotive interaction means that group members encourage and facilitate each other's efforts...students must ultimately demonstrate learning on their own; they are held individually accountable for learning....Collaborative and social skills are necessary for effective group functioning...Finally, members monitor group processes and relationships to make sure the group is working effectively..." (Woolfolk 388-389). Although groups should be structured this way for effective learning, there are lots of students who would agree that group projects are not fun. This is because there is usually one or two people who actually complete their work while the other members don't make any contributions. The responsible students are then usually stuck completing the other members' work because they don't want to get bad grades from their group's overall performance. Group projects are also sometimes intimidating for students who don't communicate with the other members because they are either introverted or discouraged from contributing. As a result, all of the five elements are dismissed and the cooperative learning group is ineffective. Although not all of my group projects were completely ineffective, there were very few that displayed all of these elements. It is very important, therefore, to be explicit about cooperative learning group expectations when we form them in our classrooms.

Finally, Woolfolk discusses self-efficacy and self-esteem in Chapter 11. "Self-efficacy is concerned with judgments of personal competence; self-esteem is concerned with judgements of self-worth...There is no direct relationship between self-esteem and self-efficacy. It is possible to feel highly efficacious in one area and still  not have a high level of self-esteem, or vice versa" (Woolfolk 419). Although Woolfolk states that there's no direct relationship between these types of self-concepts, I feel that having low/high efficacy in multiple areas could cause someone to have low/high self-esteem. Over the past year for example, I was feeling lowly efficacious in communicating with others and with being a good teacher which sometimes lowered my self-esteem. Even when I switched my major with plans to be a para-professional, in which I felt highly efficacious, I still felt less competent than my most of my other Education classmates. After completing 80 service learning hours with adult students who have disabilities, however, I was able to confirm my self-efficacy in that field and, ultimately, regain my self-esteem. Because of this, I was moved while reading this statement of teachers' sense of efficacy: "When teachers have a higher sense of efficacy, their students learn more, and when students learn more, teacher efficacy grows" (Woolfolk 422).