Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Jonathan Greco has been a juvenile probation officer for five years. He initially got into the field
because he wanted to help children. Each year, however, it got harder to identify any successes,
and he felt like he was failing the children. For the most part, Jonathan believes that
his perceived lack of success was due to a number of factors such as an extremely high case load,
lack of adequate training, and the large number of parents who do not seem interested enough in
their children, and who did not trust him. He felt there were limits to what he could do to help his
clients because he could not affect the reasons for his limited success, and the factors in his non-
success never seemed to change. His boss tried to help, but he seemed to believe that there are
just some people who have the ability to be good probation officers, and some who do not; a lot
of these abilities cannot be learned. Jonathan starting worrying that his supervisor might start to
see him as one of those who did not have it. Because of this, Jonathon became reluctant to share
his concerns and non-successes with his boss. Also, because he had input into case assignments,
started assigning cases to himself that were more likely to be successful. Eventually, this
bothered him because he was often assigning the toughest cases to the least experienced officers.
He knew something had to change so when the new school-based probation program began, he
volunteered. It was a good move for him. Since taking on this job, he has found renewed
excitement and enthusiasm. His clients are more likely to see him as trying to help them, and he
is surprised at how much he enjoys going onto classrooms to talk to students as part of the
Patricia Ramirez is the school counselor at Roosevelt High School who is assigned to the in-
school probation program. Like so many school counselors, this is just one of several roles she
serves. For example, in addition to this program, she is the counselor assigned to the 300
sophomores in the school and she coordinates a mentoring program that connects at risk students
in the school with college student mentors who are graduates of Roosevelt High School. One of
the requirements of the in-school probation program is that the students must be enrolled in
school and attending regularly. However, many of these students have been in and
out of school, and when they were in school long enough to earn grades, they tended to earn Ds
and Fs. Historically, even though school attendance is often mandated as a condition of
probation, the students on probation were not given much support. Many of them just quit
coming to school. Patricia has made it her responsibility to try to reverse this trend by providing
1. She has assigned mentors to the students in the program. These mentors come from the same
neighborhoods as the students and have faced many of the same challenges, including legal
difficulties. The hope is that they can show the students in the program that this type of success
is possible and what they did in order to succeed. These mentors meet with students individually
and in groups to just talk, and the mentors are also available to provide some tutoring.
2. Roosevelt High School is a member of a consortium that provides an on-line system for credit
recovery. The on-line credit recovery system offers course work in a self-paced, individualized
manner. The lessons are organized around specific objectives that are presented in a highly
sequential manner, with frequent opportunities for students to respond and get feedback.
FINAL ASSIGNMENT 4
Students are allowed to work through lessons, and when they feel prepared, they can take exams.
lesson. If they do not pass the exam, there is on-line tutoring for the students. When the feel
3. Patricia has closely monitored students progress in this credit recovery system and she has
found that it does not work if students do not read at the sixth grade level or higher. Because so
many of these students read below the sixth grade level, Patricia has helped create an on-site
adult literacy component for the credit recovery process. The literacy program uses trained
volunteers and is supported by grant money and donations. The program targets reading fluency
and comprehension strategies for the most part. So many of the students struggle so much with
decoding, that they have difficulty understanding what they read. To help with this, the adult
literacy program works with the students to make decoding less of a conscious and labor
intensive activity. In terms of comprehension strategies, the adult literacy program puts emphasis
on teaching students
how to monitor their comprehension and what to do to fix it if their comprehension fails. the goal
4. These students have so many personal and social issues that Patricia wishes she had time to do
more individual counseling. However, it is just not possible with everything she does. She has
been able to start a group or two each semester. She has focused so far on students who are
getting close to graduation. She wants to work with them on being reasonable about what they
want to accomplish in the short-term. She also wants to teach the students how to make better
choices, and how to be their own support system. Others may try to bring them down or take
FINAL ASSIGNMENT 5
little notice of their efforts to do well. The students need to encourage and praise themselves for
their efforts.
5.
Fred Monroe: Student Fred Monroe was put on probation for drinking and driving under age and
flight to avoid arrest. Part of the conditions of his probation is that he attend school regularly at
Roosevelt High School. Fred had dropped out initially after his sophomore year. He has been in
the in-school probation program for one semester. Fred said that in the beginning he attended
school primarily to avoid going to jail. After a few months, things started to change a little for
him. He still wanted to avoid jail, but he found there were things at the program he liked. For
example, he liked that the staff seemed to care about him and paid attention to him. He
particularly liked his mentor Gus and his counselor Ms. Ramirez. Gus had made this bet with
him that he could improve his grades on the tests in his on-line algebra class. At first, if he
improved his score just four points each week, Gus would take him out to eat that week. He was
now getting close to 100 on these tests and he should be able to finish algebra this semester.
According to Fred, Gus also knows some neat ways to make learning easier. For example, he
taught him to associate what he was learning with stuff he already knew, like remembering that
there is a rat in the middle of separate so that he would remember how to spell it correctly. He
likes Ms. Ramirez because she is cool and she seems to believe in him. Fred says that he often
does not think he can finish school. He wants to finish it so he can get a better job, but he is not
sure he can do it even if he tries. Ms. Ramirez tells him she believes in him, celebrates his
success like the algebra test scores, and has introduced him to other kid just like him who are
Questions
1. For the most part, Jonathan believes that his perceived lack of success was due to a number of
factors such as an extremely high case load, lack of adequate training, and the large number of
parents who do not seem interested enough in their children, and who did not trust him. He felt
there were limits to what he could do to help his clients because he could not affect the reasons
for his limited success, and the factors in his non-success never seemed to change. Answer the
A. Is Jonathan making an internal or external attribution for his non-success? Explain your
answer. The attribution theory proposes that individuals try and make inferences about the
probable causes of behavior and events; therefore, an attribution is a persons belief about
why and how a behavior or event occurred. The most basic attributions can be classified into
two groups: dispositional and situational, or internal and external attributions (Psychology
Glossary). An internal attribution are personal factors that relate to a cause of an event or
situation that is beyond the person's control. As an example, the School Probation Officer,
Jonathan, concluded that his nonsuccess is due to external aspects such as extremely high
case load, lack of adequate training, parents who are never interested in the progress their
children are making in the case as well as the parents not trusting Jonathan.
your answer. Attributions can facilitate a persons future behaviors. As a result, the
FINAL ASSIGNMENT 7
Controllable factors are behaviors that we can influence and change during our everyday
interactions. Uncontrollable factors are outcomes that people cannot influence and change
(Ormrod, 2012). Jonathan seems to make uncontrollable attributions for his dismay at work
because he mentions that he felt there were limits to what he could do to help his clients
because he could not affect the reasons for his limited success, and the factors in his non-
success never seemed to change. It is then obvious that Mr. Greco does not have the ability
to influence his situation and provide the best results for his job by himself because he, also,
C. Is Jonathans making a stable or unstable attribution for his non-success? Explain your
answer. Attributions include peoples inferences about the causes of events and behaviors.
Attributions can be also labeled as stable and unstable, or factors that are either unchanging
because they are stable or causes that are unstable because they are a fluke and temporary
(Ormrod, 2012). Jonathan has made an external stable attribution for his lack of success
because he believes that every year it was more difficult to identify any successes because of
task difficulty, and his non- success never seemed to change; therefore, Mr. Greco started
assigning himself cases that would lead him to more successful outcomes.
D. . Jonathans boss believes that that there are just some people who have the ability to be good
probation officers, and some who do not; a lot of these abilities cannot be learned. What view
of ability, incremental or entity, does his Boss have for the ability to be a good probation
(Ormrod, 2012). Some individuals believe that intelligence is a predisposed ability that
does not change regardless of peoples effort and practice while other see ability as skills that
can be improved with effort and practice. Jonathans boss seems to think that some people do
not have the skills to be good probation officers; this view of ability would align with an
entity view of ability because he does not believe in learning and improving skills or
increasing knowledge.
E. . Jonathan started worrying that his supervisor might start to see him as one of those who did
not have it. Because of this, Jonathon became reluctant to share his concerns and non-
successes with his boss. Also, because he had input into case assignments, he started
assigning cases to himself that were more likely to be successful. What type of goal
internal state, activates, directs and keeps people engaged in certain behaviors (Ormrod,
2012). Goal orientation is a persons disposition that helps him or her focus on their
different tasks. There are two goals: mastery goals and performance goals (Ormrod, 2012, p.
184). Learners should have mastery goals as fundamental factors in their learning because
it is a needed factor to achieve competence from learning new skills and abilities for oneself.
In performance goals, on the other hand, people desire to be competent, not for their own
sake, but they wish to be knowledgeable in front of other people such as higher ups. Since
Jonathans boss made comments about different views of ability, Jonathan starts assigning
himself cases that would make him more successful in the eyes of his colleagues and his
boss. Jonathan is implementing performance goals because he desires to impress his boss and
A. Coping models are resources that many people use in an attempt to handle stressful
beneficial relationship between two people. For example, mentors are able to resonate
with their learners on a personal level and demonstrate that at one point in their past, the
mentor, also, made bad choices in their life. Mentors are visuals of coping models
because they can model positive behaviors and choices that they made in life which have
helped them overcome their situations. Since Gus, also, came from a disadvantaged
background, he was able to share stories from his past, model positive choices and
provide self disclosure as a powerful tool to help Fred correct his behavior.
specific to what it is trying to teach, teaches first things first is a logical sequence, and
should not require students to all progress at the same rate. How are these ideas built into
the on-line credit recovery system? The ideas of B.F. Skinner stem from the nature vs. the
nurture debate (Lee, 2015). Skinner advocated that humans are by products of our
environment and that we can be trained to change our behavior. Since Skinner saw that
not all people progress at the same manner because of social statues, it would not be fair
to treat and assess learners all the same; hence, the computer assisted learning or on-line
FINAL ASSIGNMENT 10
credit recovery system would be a vital form of instruction for students who are at risk.
The computer assisted recovery system provides students with self-paced, systematically
organized individualized lessons that learners can work through. Providing students
with highly logical simple steps to complete work as well as implementing rewards and
description of the cognitive nature of the human mind. It provides a framework about an
individuals mind and the processes it implements regarding obtaining, categorizing and
storing information. (Psychology Glossary). Two major occurrences that are found in
metacognition is a persons awareness of ones own knowledge and their ability to solve
Metacognitive regulation is thus, the ability to control a persons own thoughts, beliefs,
requires a strenuous conscious effort from the reader. Since the students in Patricia
Ramirez program do not have reader skills at the sixth grade level or higher, she
developed an adult literacy program that would aid students in grasping ideas about
literacy. For example, Patricia has trained people who focus on reading fluency and
knowledge by surveying the title of a work and brainstorming different theories about the
FINAL ASSIGNMENT 11
knowledge students already know about the topic. Once these students have gained
proficient skills in their reading because of continued literacy practice, they will be able
text.
D. How are the social cognitive ideas of self-reinforcement, self-monitoring, and goal
setting incorporated into Patricia Ramirezs groups? The social cognitive theory is a
belief that accentuates that fact that learning occurs through the observation of other
people within a society. Self-reinforcement, self-monitoring, and goal setting are vital
performance to set of specific standards (Artino, Jr 2011). Since the outside world can be
harsh and the students in the groups already have a multitude of personal and societal
issues, Patricia hopes she can educate the learners to inspire and praise themselves for
their accomplishments.
to control and thus improve their actions and the results. There are two groups: the adult
literacy program and the online credit recovery program; however, one program must
precede another and that would be the reading program because it will provide students
with the proper educational and psychological tools that will be required of the learners
The adult literacy program provides a comprehensible example of how a group of adults
who struggle with reading can develop and incorporate self-monitoring during guided
instruction. An educator can provide learners with a time limit to complete a task to
ensure that they are performing on task behavior. During the reading activity, students
can check their own comprehension of the material, identify any areas of confusion, and
then ask the instructor questions for clarification. Struggling students on the other hand,
need routine and will require multiple prompts and practice opportunities to develop the
technique of self- monitoring. Other methods that mentors can use in the program include
giving task performance checklist lists, modeling the required tasks and providing people
Once learners obtain scaffolding during their literacy program, they will be able to use
self-monitoring as a personal check point that they utilize to figure out and understand
goals during their online credit recovery courses. Online learning needs copious amounts
of self-monitoring because it requires independent study and practice where the learners
learner (Ormrod, 2012,p. 152). Mentors can ask their assigned students to complete a
questionnaire regarding their educational and career goals and discuss with them the
different strategies of achieving their targets. Achievement goals are milestones that
people set for themselves in which they want to aspire to. As previously mentioned, the
FINAL ASSIGNMENT 13
educators in the reading program will most certainly have to model the desired behaviors
at first to ensure that students follow. Since the students are adults, the instructors can
explain to them the different consequences of behaviors (Ormrod, 2012,p. 153) to help
facilitate student goals and motivation. Subsequently, learners can reward their well
1. Fred said that in the beginning he attended school primarily to avoid going to jail. After a few
months, things started to change a little for him. He still wanted to avoid jail, but he found there
were things at the program he liked. For example, he liked that the staff seemed to care about
pleasant stimulus immediately after a desired behavior (Ormrod, 2012,p. 70). The
stimulus can be either Social or Material reinforcers. Fred is a troubled young adult who
has found Social reinforcement in Ms. Ramirez program because the administration and
his mentor, Gus, listened to his concerns and paid attention to him as a human being.
His counselor, Ms. Ramirez, coaxes him by telling Fred that she believes in him and
celebrates his success such as the algebra test scores. An example of a Material
FINAL ASSIGNMENT 14
reinforce concludes Freds mentor, Gus, presenting Fred with a reward such as going out
to eat because he achieved his on-line algebra class goals. Presenting Fred with positive
reinforcement has help him gradually alter his attitude in regards to learning at school.
C. Why would Gus bet with Fred be an example of the use of shaping? Shaping is a word
used in the theory of behaviorism which indicates steady and consistent training to ensure
that an human and nonhuman animal performs certain behaviors (Psychology Glossary,
n.d). The bet, in which Gus made with Fred can be considered an example of shaping
because Gus motivates Fred to improve his outlook on school and become a more
proficient learner. To make Freds success tangible, Gus bet concluded that Fred would
improve in school and if he accomplished his goal of 4 points improvement each week,
Gus would take Fred out to eat. For some reasons males seem to enjoy making and
taking bets.
information and storing the embellished version of the information (Ormrod, 2012,p.
FINAL ASSIGNMENT 15
211). Fred already knew how to spell the word rat, and so Gus little spelling trick
allowed Fred to build on information that he already had stored in his long term memory.
E. Fred says that he often does not think he can finish school. He wants to finish it so he
can get a better job, but he is not sure he can do it. Is Freds concern about finishing
tasks in a competent manner (Ormrod, 2012). According to the scenario, Fred says that
he often does not think he can finish school; therefore, his concern about completing his
education is based on his Self-efficacy. However, readers should keep in mind that
people who have low Self-efficacy and have experienced repeated negative situations can
fall into despair and believe that their outcomes neer seem to change.
F. How is Ms. Ramirez using vicarious learning with Fred? The Social Cognitive Theory
includes the concept of vicarious learning; this idea implies that people learn from others
even though they are not actively trying to learn the behavior that is being performed in
traditional and social learning situations (:Vicarious Learning). Ms. Ramirez praises Fred
for his improvements and thus she ultimately teaches him that he can succeed in life.
Another example from the scenario states that Ms. Ramirez introduced Fred to other
kids, who had been in his same situation in the past, and after some dedication they
enrolled in college. Therefore, Fred inferred that if these students, who had experienced
the same situations as he had and were able to overcame their obstacles, he, also,
References
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-0-387-79061-9_2560
Lee, E (2015). Blank slate or full plate? EMMA LEE explores the language acquisition debate.
and Learning Skills: Vol. 2. Research and Open Questions, Segal J. W., Chipman S.
Ormrod, J.E. (2008). Human Learning (6th Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ, Pearson.
https://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Shaping
https://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Attribution%2520Theory
University of Ottawa. (N.d). Coping continued; additional information. Society, the individual
http://www.learnlab.org/research/wiki/index.php/Vicarious_learning