Not Poor, Just Broke Essay Example

Not Poor, Just Broke Paper I learned most emotions from school. You would think I would have learned most of my feelings from my home life, but I think my parents did the best they could to cover them up and make it seem like everything was fine and dandy. I grew up in a museum of sorts, or a playhouse. Everything was staged and we had to act in a proper manner to make it look like we had a perfect life. When my mom was upset, she would pull herself together in a moments time and say we need to â€Å"keep up appearances† so no one was the wiser. I would pay close attention to my parents to try and iscover how they really felt, but they were remarkable actors. So I became a player, performing in my own life as well. It was in school where I learned what real emotion was. And how to handle it. How do you pretend one way when you feel another way? I would imagine that is why some of the other kids act out. They are in a certain life, pretending to be something they are not but don’t want to let on t o the truth of their real emotions. I remember this other student who went to school with me. I felt bad for him most of the time because he always came to school kind f dirty and shabby. His family barely had any money and I don’t think his father was around. One day in class, there was a big scene when the teacher made it a point to single him out as a needed student and mention that everyone knows he doesn’t have a father. I’m not sure about his family but he seemed to just barely be holding it together. The teacher picked on him a lot, which I know bothered him. It bothered me as well. I felt sad for Page 2 of 2 him, but then I would remember my mother and trying to keep up appearances. He had a crush on my friend. I don’t think e knew that we all knew he liked her. I felt ashamed that we would make fun of him behind his back and call him names. I think back about how I use to act differently with my friends at school than I did at home. I wish I had learned more from my patents because I know now that most of my childhood friends were not the best influence on my developing emotions. That day when the teacher picked on him, I felt asha med. But I just kept smiling and pretending nothing was wrong. I wish I would have reached out to him and been a little more nice. It was a lesson well learned. We will write a custom essay sample on Not Poor, Just Broke specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Not Poor, Just Broke specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Not Poor, Just Broke specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer

Free Essays on Lunar Calander

Ancient Calendars: All ancient calendars were lunar calendars. The practice of starting a month at the first sighting of a new moon was observed not only by Romans but by Celts and Germans in Europe and by Babylonians and Hebrews in the Lavant. The new moons were sighted after either 29 or 30 days. If clouds obscured vision on the 29th day, that month was declared to have 30 days. This is still done for the Islamic Calendar. When human civilization excelled in agriculture, there was a need for having a calendar that repeats the seasons so that it would help sowing and harvesting on repeated calendar dates. This calendar was established based on rotation of the earth around the sun. Early estimates of this rotation was 360 days, so the first solar calendar was invented having 12 months of 30 days each. Some civilizations invented a lunisolar calendar which basically had lunar months based on new crescent moons but were adding days or a month to be decided by priests/rabiis wherever and whenever they felt to satisfy social and religious needs to keep their calendar in phase with seasons. This practice of adding days or a 13th month was called "Intercalation". Babylonian Calendar: Around 1800 B.C. Babylonians were using strictly lunar calendar based on the visible new crescent but somewhere between 1100 B.C and 800 B.C. a lunisolar calendar was adopted using intercalation which was haphazard. Some sources report that during the reign of the Babylonian king Nebuchadenezzar II (630 B.C. - 562 B.C.) priest/experts discontinued their practice of looking for the new moon and adopted a 365 day calendar of 12 months of 30 days each, with five days added at the end of the year. Hindu Calendar: Hindus have both solar and lunisolar calendars. In the Hindu solar calendar month is 30 or 31 days and begins on the day of first sunrise after the calculated time of the mean sun's entry into the next zodiacal sign. If the calc... Free Essays on Lunar Calander Free Essays on Lunar Calander Ancient Calendars: All ancient calendars were lunar calendars. The practice of starting a month at the first sighting of a new moon was observed not only by Romans but by Celts and Germans in Europe and by Babylonians and Hebrews in the Lavant. The new moons were sighted after either 29 or 30 days. If clouds obscured vision on the 29th day, that month was declared to have 30 days. This is still done for the Islamic Calendar. When human civilization excelled in agriculture, there was a need for having a calendar that repeats the seasons so that it would help sowing and harvesting on repeated calendar dates. This calendar was established based on rotation of the earth around the sun. Early estimates of this rotation was 360 days, so the first solar calendar was invented having 12 months of 30 days each. Some civilizations invented a lunisolar calendar which basically had lunar months based on new crescent moons but were adding days or a month to be decided by priests/rabiis wherever and whenever they felt to satisfy social and religious needs to keep their calendar in phase with seasons. This practice of adding days or a 13th month was called "Intercalation". Babylonian Calendar: Around 1800 B.C. Babylonians were using strictly lunar calendar based on the visible new crescent but somewhere between 1100 B.C and 800 B.C. a lunisolar calendar was adopted using intercalation which was haphazard. Some sources report that during the reign of the Babylonian king Nebuchadenezzar II (630 B.C. - 562 B.C.) priest/experts discontinued their practice of looking for the new moon and adopted a 365 day calendar of 12 months of 30 days each, with five days added at the end of the year. Hindu Calendar: Hindus have both solar and lunisolar calendars. In the Hindu solar calendar month is 30 or 31 days and begins on the day of first sunrise after the calculated time of the mean sun's entry into the next zodiacal sign. If the calc...

Biography of Rihanna

She began signing when she was seven with two of her classmates but it wasn’t until she was sixteen that she met Evan Rogers and began to work with him and moved out of Barbados. A year after moving to the states she was asked to meet with Jay-z at DefJam Records where she was offered a contract in February 2005. Working with DefJam records she was able to record her first album by the end of 2005. â€Å"Music of the sun† was released and Pon De Replay became her first widely known hit making it in to the top 5 singles for that year. Just about a year later she released album number two â€Å"A Girl Like Me†. Her song S. O. S. was her first number one hit and the album was ranked in the top five albums for the year. In May 2007 she released her third album â€Å"Good Girl Gone Bad† which won her a Grammy for best rap/collaboration for her number one hit Umbrella. This album also was known for three other number one hits including Don’t Stop the Music, Take a Bow, and Disturbia. Around two years later she released her fourth album â€Å"Rated R† which was the number one album on the Billboard Hot 100 albums for the year. Three of her songs from this album made it to the top ten singles including Russian Roulette, Hard, and Rude Boy. Under a year later she released â€Å"Loud† being one of her most popular albums and being known for her three number one singles Only Girl(In the World), Samp;M, and What’s My Name?. Finally her most recent album â€Å"Talk That Talk† was released in 2012 and is currently known for the number one single We Found Love. As of now we know that she is working on her seventh album which no information has been release about. She had been on four tours around the world and has one upcoming tour Diamonds World Tour which will be her biggest, longest tour yet. Rihanna often gives credit to her idols that all influenced her in different ways. The person she says influenced her the most would be Madonna saying â€Å"I want to be the Black Madonna. † She also has said that Whitney Houston, Beyonce, Bob Marley, Marilyn Monroe, Mariah Carey and Destiny’s child were very influential on her life becoming a successful artist in today’s music industry. Rihanna has become an influential person herself, having been and idol for Justin Bieber and Rita Ora, both younger artists. She has been named one of the most influential people in the world and ranks fourth in the most powerful celebrities. She has received many awards including five American Music awards, eighteen Billboard Music awards, two BRIT awards and 5 Grammys. She has had eleven number one singles on Billboards top 100 and was named Digital Artist for the 2000’s by Billboard Music as well. She is the highest selling digital artist of all time with 47,571,000 sold singles as of early 2012. Forbes reported that she earned a little over $82 million between May 2010 and May 2012 and she continues to expand on her career. Rihanna in known for her thought provoking music videos, many of them with under-lying meanings. Much like Madonna she incorporates substance abuse, domestic violence or love triangles into her videos. She also turns obscure situations into glitz and glamorous situations. Many of her videos and outfits have caused controversy because of the explicit content. Her live shows are known for her hip shaking, sex appeal, attitude, sexy outfits and over the top performances sometimes being quite risque. She has said that â€Å"These performances are all an act, that’s not me. That’s a part I play. You know it’s like a piece of art with all these toys and textures to play with. † In her early days she was a typical teen pop star but she easily shifted her appearance dramatically and continues to change frequently. By the time she released her â€Å"Good Girl Gone Bad† album she had completely shook the teen pop star image everyone had gave her. By 2008 she was named best dressed by Peoples magazine and was on Maxims Hot 100 for five consecutive years (2007-2011). In 2009 Glamour named her Woman of the year and she ranked seventeenth out of fifty in Most Glamorous Women. She also was named sexiest women alive in 2011 by Esquire. Not only is she an extremely successful music artist, she has had her share in acting as well. In 2006 she mad a cameo appearance in the movie Bring it On: All or Nothing. In 2012 she was seen in the movie Battleship as GM2 officer Cora Raikes and had another cameo appearance in The Katy Perry Movie. In the next two years she will be seen in End of the World and Happy Smekday. The successful Barbadian superstar started out as a typical teen pop singer and has made a huge name for herself, not only singing but acting as well. Attempting to turn herself into the â€Å"Black Madonna† it seems she has met her goal although she continues to do more with her career. After seven years and six albums Rihanna has become one of the most popular music artists not only in the USA but worldwide. She is one of the most influential celebrities for upcoming music artists in the industry today.

Speech Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Speech - Essay Example 1SG Kittles-Joyner epitomizes the phrase moral courage, as she lets nothing stand in the way of what she believes to be right. She acted first and foremost in the best interest of the soldiers, and demonstrated a remarkable tenacity to get missions accomplished. For the past four years, 1SG Kittles-Joyner was in charge of the senior leadership course. During her tenure, 1SG Keyshun Kittles-Joyner won the admiration and respect of the cadre and students of the Academy. Her SLC team supported four ALC mobile training teams and supervised execution of Camp Semaphore for the Fiscal Year 2010. 1SG Kittles-Joyner was also selected as Vice President of the prestigious Fort Gordon Sergeant Audie Murphy Club in consecutive years due to her superior knowledge and leadership abilities. Additionally, she was selected by the Garrison CSM to be the First Sergeant for the Military Police Detachment. However, the Signal Corps needed her more and so she was selected over 27 MSGs to be the Branch Chie f of the senior leadership course, where she oversaw preparation and execution of the 25B, E, S, P, U, and the 25W CMF quality assurance assessments, in which all received an Institution of Excellence rating. She mentored, prepared, and coached five NCOs, one of whom won instructor of the quarter and another Post NCO of the quarter. She also developed a study group program that resulted in five students being inducted into the SAMC; this was the highest number inductees of any unit on Fort Gordon. She was awarded the Bronze Order of Mercury during the Signal Ball for her dedication to soldiers within the Signal Community and assisting seven of the cadres to be selected as Bronze Order Recipients. She was awarded the Presidential Volunteer Award by President Obama and the Appreciation Award from the Georgia National Youth Challenge Academy in recognition of more than 3,000 countless hours of community service supporting Augusta and its surrounding communities through mentoring youth. She received accolades as the guest speaker for several 447th Signal Battalion Graduation ceremonies, Pre-Command Briefs, and also a coin of Excellence from the French Signal Commanding General and the TRADOC CSM during command briefs. Her SLC team was commended by the Inspector General for its management of the Structured Self-Development Program. Her SLC team was also instrumental in returning the Army Physical Fitness Test for Height and Weight back to the NCO Education System. She was selected for the Dean's list at Strayer University in consecutive years for maintaining a GPA average of 3.84. She is also a devoted mother to her son, Tyrome Joyner Jr. 1SG Kittles-Joyner will be joining the 1st SC Army BDE in South Korea, where she will continue to serve others. She will be sorely missed, but it is now time for her to move onto bigger and better things.   Her presence will be missed here at the Academy, and we wish her and her family the very best as she heads out to South Kor ea and her next army adventure. However, as we say goodbye to one great 1SG, we welcome another in the form of 1SG Jiggets. He has come to the RNCOA with an excellent resume. Also, he is no stranger to Fort Gordon, having served as a 1SG for the C Company, 551st Signal Battalion. He, his wife Jennifer, and their son Robert and daughter Sheila will move across post into what I expect will be one of their most rewarding assignments. 1SG Jiggets is known throughout

TS Eliot Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

TS Eliot - Essay Example Therefore, Eliot’s exertion on this particular poem has been considered commitment to religious poetic sensibility and spiritual consciousness. In the venerated poem, Eliot has emphasized on the significance of Magi’s journey to find baby Jesus, who is deemed to be Messiah. Thus, Magi’s spiritual quest; aimed to find a way for the emancipation of the world from materialism, has been depicted as uncertain. This uncertainty has been suggested as a core ingredient of conscious spiritism. Hence, Eliot has emphasized on the difficulties and persistent struggle a part of spiritual awakening, a way to attain spiritual identity (Eliot, 1953). Although, Eliot has been considered as an assorted leader of postmodern realism, but in this diverse piece; he has adapted a thought- evoking style and a vision of a spiritualist, who describes the impediments and bottleneck of the journey of redemption and inside gratification. His elusive style and bohemian repute called for sever e criticism on his Anglo-Catholic work. Thus, his former work earned him a repute of a non-believer of religion and their fundamental practices, and eventually a palpable critique of beliefs (Strandberg, 2002). In the journey of Magi, Eliot contemplated with the idea of human change, in terms of journey from physical being to spiritual beings, which was vague in the western world of 1920s. Thus, he depicted the struggle for divinity in the form of divine journey of accomplishment. In the age of secularism, Eliot identified the extinction and decline of spiritual survival. Therefore, he narrated his dogma through the eloquence of the quest for Messiah (Jesus). He regarded the need of a man to incline from the degeneration of modernism, which induced elopement of belief in man. Hence, through this belief which was found in the form of religious insight or realization; man was in a great need to revitalize spiritual consciousness. Moreover, pain and suffering which have been significan t parts of spiritual journey are disregarded by Eliot by the end of the poem due to uncertainty. Consequently, Eliot always felt that the religious beliefs were vanishing. Yet, he aimed to restore them in a narrative, which was not completely consistent on religious aspirations, but showed the uncertainty of human belief even in the presence of miracle. As change requires discarding of old beliefs and practices, hence, birth of Jesus and death of old beliefs and practices were depicted as infinite. However, the narrator describes his journey as excruciating and is in a consistent state of grief. Previously Eliot has depicted unworthiness towards the most prestigious earthly things in The Waste Land. Therefore, his famous unimpressive and un-charmed attitude towards charismatic ideology of modernism and skeptical view on the condition of modern man; was a first step towards the journey of spiritual identification (Eliot, 1990). Furthermore, he has also exemplified, how man and his li fe in society has been completely dominated by chaos. Eliot reflected the trauma stricken and despaired man due to the horrification of World War I, but along with it he also emphasized on man’s despair in not fulfilling the needs of his spiritual being. Spiritual being was marred due to the loss of faith and increased sterility of spiritual consciousness. In 1920’s the world turned around against religious fundamentalism of Victorianism and displayed eccentric manners in terms of vulgarity and expressiveness. Therefore, Western civilization collapsed

Maternal Bond in Toni Morrisons Beloved Essay -- Toni Morrison Belove

Maternal Bond in Toni Morrison's Beloved  Ã‚     Ã‚     The maternal bond between mother and kin is valued and important in all cultures.   Mothers and children are linked together and joined: physically, by womb and breast; and emotionally, by a sense of self and possession.   Once that bond is established, a mother will do anything for her child.   In the novel Beloved, the author, Toni Morrison, describes a woman, Sethe, who's bond is so strong she goes to great lengths to keep her children safe and protected from the evil that she knows.   She gave them the gift of life, then, adding to that, the joy of freedom.   Determined to shield them from the hell of slavery, she took drastic measures to keep them from that life.   But, in doing so, the bond that was her strength became her weakness, destroying the only thing she loved.   Slaves, in the United States, were denied everything -- all forms of identifying with the human race.   They were denied their freedom of life: the very right to appreciate and enjoy the beauty of nature in the world, it not being theirs to enjoy.   Additionally, they were denied the very way in which all humans identify themselves -- through the influence of others.   They were disallowed community and harmony among their peoples.   Children were taken from their mothers, and brothers from their sisters.   Dr. Kubitcheck says, ?Another crucial part of identity and culture, language, also has been lost to the slaves? (126).   Individual slaves were often placed on plantations with other slaves from different parts of Africa, speaking completely different languages, and thus having no way of communication between them.   ?Symbolically,? Kubitcheck says, ?slavery . . . obliterated African identity? (126).   Because... ...ing - the part of her that was clean? (251).   Sethe?s ?commitment to her children remains unshakable,? Kubitcheck says (123).   Though her actions were appalling and disgraceful according to the community, it was done with a sense of love and protection, so as not to break the maternal bond.   The bond between a mother and her child is beyond the grasp of words.   Toni Morrison, in Beloved, tries to take hold of it. Creating a character who is so consumed by her children being a measure of her worth, Morrison shows the strength of the maternal bond.   It is that which has the power to love something or someone with all one?s heart.   It is that love which, giving life, is strong enough to kill. Works Cited 1.   Kubitcheck, MD.   Toni Morrison: A Critical Companion.   London: Greenwood Press, 1998. 2.   Morrison, Toni.   Beloved.   New York: Plume, 1987.      

Pedagogical Techniques: Cognitive Disequilibrium an Goldilocks Principle

Cognitive Disequilibrium There will always be different kinds of intellects at classrooms. What are considered the worst students do not like to think through a problem or find out how a mechanism works, while some of the better students may understand the same concepts but do not think further about them once they are done learning what they had to learn. This is when the presence of a teacher asking them questions comes into play. A technique used to make students think further is called the cognitive disequilibrium. Cognitive disequilibrium is in charge of daring students to think of better ways why something works the way it does.The name itself points at imbalanced knowledge towards a certain topic. Let’s take for example a group of students leading an experiment where they are mostly sure of what the outcome will be. Their desire to find results that matches their theory will be biased, and if something in the experiment indicates their theory is not completely true ther e will be a moment of conflicting cognitions; this is what researchers call cognitive disequilibrium. Starting as early as the 1950’s, social psychologist Leon Festinger coined the term â€Å"cognitive dissonance† in his book When Prophecy Fails.At the same time, developmental psychologist Jean Piaget realized his work in cognitive developmental theory, including a close approach to cognitive dissonance. He conceptualized that as a child grows up, he will constantly be finding new information that will challenge the former beliefs he had, thus making an imbalance in cognition and making the child adapt to a new set of ideas (Colombo, 2002). This kind of conflict affects learning the same way it can affect the process of gathering information. Much like in research, theories can change drastically based on how big the changes are when finding new data.According to Chin and Brewer (1993) there are seven different forms of response to inconsistent information, the unpredi cted information that can possibly throw off one’s already learned knowledge: ignoring, rejecting, excluding, abeyance, reinterpreting, peripheral change, and theory change. Because of its ability to change theories and change our perception of beliefs, cognitive disequilibrium is not only a concept, but it also serves as a major pedagogical technique. In the context of educational psychology, cognitive disequilibrium can be used as a tool to defy students and their ideas.We can see instances where in class a teacher asks a student a question related to the material to see if the student is familiar with it, but that does not show understanding of the material. By asking more in-depth questions of why a student thinks he has the right answer or by asking about how he came about finding the answer we are solidifying a pathway that shows us why the answer is such. If there is not an exact pathway that could explain how one came to conclude that the answer is correct, there may be an error in between that could change the answer. In the case of our lecture class, Dr.Zola has made use of this technique in a couple of occasions to motivate students into thinking deeper about their answers to simple questions he makes. I remember at least one occasion where he asks a simple question about a student’s take on a subject, and when the student confidently answered, Dr. Zola asked follow-up questions that made the student rethink his response, and thus think better about his argument. Not only would he give follow-up questions, but introduce new ideas backed up by other researchers of prestige that could really change the way we think.The times he presents new information that unbalances our beliefs are just followed by very small pauses where we reconsider our ideas, until we have to discuss them with other students or we move ahead to new material. Every concept that we rethink due to new information presented should be given a good amount of time to brea k down what we know about the concept and build up a new conclusion in our minds. By giving us more time to think, we can further build up on the ideas on our mind and solidify the new concepts we are learning.Like I said before, we need to plan out a pathway that leads us to our concluding ideas or theories. Due to the fact that most of our work in lecture and discussion is based on partner or group talk; we need to be ready to give out our opinions on different matters with a solid argument. It is true that most of the concepts we learn about in lecture are somewhat familiar to us since we have dealt with them ourselves or we have seen people been affected by what researches have to say about cognitive development.However, it is always good to satisfy the need to learn more about different concepts by bringing up new information that will make us see the concept from a different angle. We need to be able to break down what we know about the concept, pick up the details that are st ill useful to us, get rid of the details that are no longer any useful, and accept the new details that will shape our concepts in different ways. Goldilocks Principle Another technique used by effective teachers deals with being able to assign tasks and assignments to students so that they fit their levels of skill or prior knowledge.The Goldilocks principle is appropriate for this, since it deals with finding the right level of difficulty materials that are given to students. Like Graesser mentioned it (2008), material that is too easy for the audience will be disregarded as it may seem repetitive from what the audience or students have learned before; if the material is too hard, students may find it too frustrating and will give up. This technique suggests that materials and assignments should not be too hard or too easy.At a right, constant level students will remain engaged with the material. This is related to what O’Donnell, Reeve, and Smith (2008) explained as Vygots ky’s â€Å"zone of proximal development† as the concept that tells us that a child should be taught at his own level of recent maturity. This means that a student shouldn’t be pushed to work the material as if he has already mastered it or been experienced with it, but that he should work the material as if he’s still practicing it. As Wolfe et al. 1998) demonstrated in their article a group of researchers from two different schools experiment how background knowledge can affect students’ ability to comprehend different materials given. In this experiment, students were given the task to learn about something of background knowledge to them; in this case, it was the functions if the human heart. Students were given the same material but in different reading levels. The researchers found out that little background knowledge on the topic made the students gain about as much knowledge as the students with major background knowledge did.In other words, students whose prior knowledge did not overlap enough with the contents of the text did not learn well but neither did students whose knowledge overlapped too much with the contents of the text. At the end of their research, they found out that â€Å"low-knowledge† students understood just as much as â€Å"high-knowledge† students when their material was customized for the highly coherent and detailed, just as when the material given to high-knowledge students was presented with coherent gaps that they had to fill in by themselves.This technique should be used in a classroom environment to reach for those students that are not fully engaged to the material given. In the classroom we could find different types of learners, but it is fair to say that under-challenged and over-challenged students make up most of the class. By finding a way to balance the material and presenting it in a way that is fully detailed for some and challenging for others the instructor will be able to have most, if not all of the class fully engaged. Based on what I have experienced in class, we can say that Dr. Zola has made good use of this technique. Dr.Zola is letting his students use their own background knowledge to fill in gaps in the knowledge of other students through discussion. By bringing up questions that almost everybody is familiar with, but that everybody has a different take on, the discussions amongst students can last for a good while, and students always end up learning from each other when sharing stories and background knowledge. After all, there are several ways to keep a variety of learners engaged in the classroom, as by having discussions to keep the class active, integrating other fields in the material, stimulating the senses of the audience, etc.These last mentioned only keep the class active, and hopefully everybody engaged, but as a teacher one must still work on filling those gaps that some students may have about the material being learned . References Colombo, J. (2002) Infant Attention Grows up: The Emergence of a Developmental CognitiveNeuroscience Perspective. Current Directions in Psychological Science  , Vol. 11, No. 6 (Dec. , 2002), pp. 196-200. Retrieved from http://www. jstor. org/stable/20182811 Wolfe, M. W. , Schreiner, M. E. , Rehder, B. , Lahman, D. , Folts, P. W. , Kintsch, W. , & Landaure, T. K. (1998).Learning From Text: Matching Readers and Text by Latent Semantic Analysis. Discourse Processes, 25(2/3), 309-336. Graesser (2008). 25 Learning Principles to Guide Pedagogy and the Design of Learning Environments. Life Long Learning at Work and at Home. Retrieved from http://psyc. memphis. edu/learning O’Donnell, A. , Reeve, J. , Smith, F. (2008) Educational Psychology: Reflection for Action. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Chinn, C. A. , & Brewer, W. F. (1993). The role of anomalous data in knowledge acquisition: A theoretical Framework and implications for.. Review of Educational Research, 63(1) , 1. Pedagogical Techniques: Cognitive Disequilibrium an Goldilocks Principle Cognitive Disequilibrium There will always be different kinds of intellects at classrooms. What are considered the worst students do not like to think through a problem or find out how a mechanism works, while some of the better students may understand the same concepts but do not think further about them once they are done learning what they had to learn. This is when the presence of a teacher asking them questions comes into play. A technique used to make students think further is called the cognitive disequilibrium. Cognitive disequilibrium is in charge of daring students to think of better ways why something works the way it does.The name itself points at imbalanced knowledge towards a certain topic. Let’s take for example a group of students leading an experiment where they are mostly sure of what the outcome will be. Their desire to find results that matches their theory will be biased, and if something in the experiment indicates their theory is not completely true ther e will be a moment of conflicting cognitions; this is what researchers call cognitive disequilibrium. Starting as early as the 1950’s, social psychologist Leon Festinger coined the term â€Å"cognitive dissonance† in his book When Prophecy Fails.At the same time, developmental psychologist Jean Piaget realized his work in cognitive developmental theory, including a close approach to cognitive dissonance. He conceptualized that as a child grows up, he will constantly be finding new information that will challenge the former beliefs he had, thus making an imbalance in cognition and making the child adapt to a new set of ideas (Colombo, 2002). This kind of conflict affects learning the same way it can affect the process of gathering information. Much like in research, theories can change drastically based on how big the changes are when finding new data.According to Chin and Brewer (1993) there are seven different forms of response to inconsistent information, the unpredi cted information that can possibly throw off one’s already learned knowledge: ignoring, rejecting, excluding, abeyance, reinterpreting, peripheral change, and theory change. Because of its ability to change theories and change our perception of beliefs, cognitive disequilibrium is not only a concept, but it also serves as a major pedagogical technique. In the context of educational psychology, cognitive disequilibrium can be used as a tool to defy students and their ideas.We can see instances where in class a teacher asks a student a question related to the material to see if the student is familiar with it, but that does not show understanding of the material. By asking more in-depth questions of why a student thinks he has the right answer or by asking about how he came about finding the answer we are solidifying a pathway that shows us why the answer is such. If there is not an exact pathway that could explain how one came to conclude that the answer is correct, there may be an error in between that could change the answer. In the case of our lecture class, Dr.Zola has made use of this technique in a couple of occasions to motivate students into thinking deeper about their answers to simple questions he makes. I remember at least one occasion where he asks a simple question about a student’s take on a subject, and when the student confidently answered, Dr. Zola asked follow-up questions that made the student rethink his response, and thus think better about his argument. Not only would he give follow-up questions, but introduce new ideas backed up by other researchers of prestige that could really change the way we think.The times he presents new information that unbalances our beliefs are just followed by very small pauses where we reconsider our ideas, until we have to discuss them with other students or we move ahead to new material. Every concept that we rethink due to new information presented should be given a good amount of time to brea k down what we know about the concept and build up a new conclusion in our minds. By giving us more time to think, we can further build up on the ideas on our mind and solidify the new concepts we are learning.Like I said before, we need to plan out a pathway that leads us to our concluding ideas or theories. Due to the fact that most of our work in lecture and discussion is based on partner or group talk; we need to be ready to give out our opinions on different matters with a solid argument. It is true that most of the concepts we learn about in lecture are somewhat familiar to us since we have dealt with them ourselves or we have seen people been affected by what researches have to say about cognitive development.However, it is always good to satisfy the need to learn more about different concepts by bringing up new information that will make us see the concept from a different angle. We need to be able to break down what we know about the concept, pick up the details that are st ill useful to us, get rid of the details that are no longer any useful, and accept the new details that will shape our concepts in different ways. Goldilocks Principle Another technique used by effective teachers deals with being able to assign tasks and assignments to students so that they fit their levels of skill or prior knowledge.The Goldilocks principle is appropriate for this, since it deals with finding the right level of difficulty materials that are given to students. Like Graesser mentioned it (2008), material that is too easy for the audience will be disregarded as it may seem repetitive from what the audience or students have learned before; if the material is too hard, students may find it too frustrating and will give up. This technique suggests that materials and assignments should not be too hard or too easy.At a right, constant level students will remain engaged with the material. This is related to what O’Donnell, Reeve, and Smith (2008) explained as Vygots ky’s â€Å"zone of proximal development† as the concept that tells us that a child should be taught at his own level of recent maturity. This means that a student shouldn’t be pushed to work the material as if he has already mastered it or been experienced with it, but that he should work the material as if he’s still practicing it. As Wolfe et al. 1998) demonstrated in their article a group of researchers from two different schools experiment how background knowledge can affect students’ ability to comprehend different materials given. In this experiment, students were given the task to learn about something of background knowledge to them; in this case, it was the functions if the human heart. Students were given the same material but in different reading levels. The researchers found out that little background knowledge on the topic made the students gain about as much knowledge as the students with major background knowledge did.In other words, students whose prior knowledge did not overlap enough with the contents of the text did not learn well but neither did students whose knowledge overlapped too much with the contents of the text. At the end of their research, they found out that â€Å"low-knowledge† students understood just as much as â€Å"high-knowledge† students when their material was customized for the highly coherent and detailed, just as when the material given to high-knowledge students was presented with coherent gaps that they had to fill in by themselves.This technique should be used in a classroom environment to reach for those students that are not fully engaged to the material given. In the classroom we could find different types of learners, but it is fair to say that under-challenged and over-challenged students make up most of the class. By finding a way to balance the material and presenting it in a way that is fully detailed for some and challenging for others the instructor will be able to have most, if not all of the class fully engaged. Based on what I have experienced in class, we can say that Dr. Zola has made good use of this technique. Dr.Zola is letting his students use their own background knowledge to fill in gaps in the knowledge of other students through discussion. By bringing up questions that almost everybody is familiar with, but that everybody has a different take on, the discussions amongst students can last for a good while, and students always end up learning from each other when sharing stories and background knowledge. After all, there are several ways to keep a variety of learners engaged in the classroom, as by having discussions to keep the class active, integrating other fields in the material, stimulating the senses of the audience, etc.These last mentioned only keep the class active, and hopefully everybody engaged, but as a teacher one must still work on filling those gaps that some students may have about the material being learned . References Colombo, J. (2002) Infant Attention Grows up: The Emergence of a Developmental CognitiveNeuroscience Perspective. Current Directions in Psychological Science  , Vol. 11, No. 6 (Dec. , 2002), pp. 196-200. Retrieved from http://www. jstor. org/stable/20182811 Wolfe, M. W. , Schreiner, M. E. , Rehder, B. , Lahman, D. , Folts, P. W. , Kintsch, W. , & Landaure, T. K. (1998).Learning From Text: Matching Readers and Text by Latent Semantic Analysis. Discourse Processes, 25(2/3), 309-336. Graesser (2008). 25 Learning Principles to Guide Pedagogy and the Design of Learning Environments. Life Long Learning at Work and at Home. Retrieved from http://psyc. memphis. edu/learning O’Donnell, A. , Reeve, J. , Smith, F. (2008) Educational Psychology: Reflection for Action. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Chinn, C. A. , & Brewer, W. F. (1993). The role of anomalous data in knowledge acquisition: A theoretical Framework and implications for.. Review of Educational Research, 63(1) , 1.