Reviewing my friend's chosen book

Hello! This very-amateur-writer-wannabe is back with another book review. 

This one I got the opportunity to read my friend's blog and make another resume of it, and the blog I chose is....

http://arin12321.blogspot.co.id/

Yay!!! Congratulation for your not-so-lucky chance to be chosen by me hahahaha. ?????

Moving on, this post if going to be very thick because I'm going to summarize all the chapter in one post so here we go from the very beginning..

Oh and by the way the book is Classroom Communication and Diversity by Robert G. Powell and Dana L. Powell.

Chapter 1: The Foundations of Classroom Communication and Diversity

Human communication is ubiquitous. It exists everywhere and has profound impact on what unfolds in a communication setting. All that happens in the classroom is created and sustained through communication processes. Lesson plans, teaching methods, discipline strategies, explanations, and critiques of student work occur through the communication exchanges between teachers and learners. Communication is dynamic and complex, but it can be learned and understood if we carefully examine it in “chunks” and apply what we learn to real-world circumstances.

Chapter 2: Factor Influencing Learning and Communication

The factors that influence learning and communication are:

1. Students Ability
2. Emotional Intelligence. Emotional intelligence plays an important role in the classroom. The way in which students manage their emotions influences their approach to academic tasks and their ability to work with other students.
3. Perspective on Motivations. Student interests, attitudes, and self-views relate to how motivated and engaged they are in the learning material.
4. Self Efficacy. The key theorist of self-efficacy theory is Albert Bandura (1981, 1986,1991, 1997). He argued that individuals develop judgments about their personal effectiveness which he labeled self-efficacy.
5. Attribution Theory. Attribution theory builds on many of the assumptions of self-efficacy theory and also provides important insight into the factors influencing motivation.
6. Communication Processes. The effects of classroom communication are circular and their impact on learning and achievement are difficult to determine.
7. Instructional Patterns. Haslett (1987) stated that instructional communication entails three language functions. One function involves directing students. This type of communication is concerned with giving students the information necessary to complete an instructional task. A second language function, informing, involves giving students new content. The third language function, eliciting, involves soliciting student responses. Asking students if they understand a task is an example of eliciting.
8. Clarity. Teacher clarity has also been linked to academic achievement. Clarity is facilitated when the teacher uses communication strategies to enhance understanding of instructional material.
9. Teacher Immediacy. Andersen (1979) extended the immediacy construct to the instructional setting.
10. Communication Apprehension. Rosenfeld, Grant, and McCroskey (1995) reasoned that if communication apprehension negatively affects “at risk” students, it should have the opposite effect for academically talented students.

Chapter 3: Culture and Classroom Communication

Hofstede (1980), another expert on intercultural communication, explained that individuals possess cognitive processes that are shaped by culture and are expressed through the culture’s dominant values. He identified four dominant patterns and each has application to classroom exchanges. The connection to a culture’s values is accomplished through the performance of cultural identity.

The research by Dunn and Griggs (2000) indicates that student academic achievement increases when instructional practices adapt to the learning styles of students. It is important therefore to understand how culture influences learning and how to integrate this knowledge into instructional practice.

Chapter 4: Gender and Classroom Communication

Head (1996) argued that males and females could be differentiated on four categories of cognitive style.

1. The first, he discussed, is field independence and dependence. Field-independent learners approach the environment in an analytic fashion.
2. A second category discussed by Head (1996) is impulsiveness and reflection. Males have been found to be more impulsive while females exhibit care and deliberation. 
3. The third category discussed by Head (1996) is locus of control. Males tend to attribute academic success to their own efforts and failures to external factors. Females exhibit a different response.
4. The final category discussed by Head (1996) is cooperation versus competition. Much educational philosophy is driven by a competitive system of external rewards. Competition is believed to motivate students to achieve.

Teachers need to be sensitive to learning style and try to create activities and assessments that are matched with students’ abilities. It may be unreasonable to expect a teacher to abandon multiple choice tests, which seem to favor males, but they can limit how much weight such assessments have in the allocations of grades. Research suggests that there are a number of other instructional strategies that can benefit boys and girls.

Chapter 5: Students with Special Needs

One of the most important goals of inclusion is to help students with special needs succeed academically and socially. Most students who are eligible for services have identified academic goals they are working toward. Socially, a goal for these students is to learn to perform competently in interactions with others, to invoke social support, and to develop long-lasting friendships with others.

Under the Disabilities Education Act ( IDEA), students who exhibit academic and/or social and behavior problems that negatively affect their education performance may qualify for services under one of the following disability categories: learning disabilities, mental retardation, emotional disturbance, speech or language impairments, autism, hearing impairments, visual impairments, traumatic brain injury, orthopedic impairments, other health impairments, or multiple disabilities. Special education eligibility provides students with disabilities opportunities for specialized instruction designed to more appropriately meet their needs in general education and/or special education classrooms.

Chapter 6: Building Teacher-Student Relationship

Teachers who are nurturing appear to create positive bonds that positively influence a student’s orientation to the learning tasks. Research suggests that students who have a positive relationship with a teacher also have better peer relationships, manage their emotions better and experience fewer behavioral problems (Pianta & Steinberg, 1992). teachers and student connect in positive ways and sometimes they struggle as they attempt to work through the instructional experience. 

As teachers get to know students, they learn about their family situations, their extracurricular interests, their academic strengths and weaknesses. Knapp (1978) explicated several stages that mark the development of intimate relationships. The stages we believe are applicable to teacher– student interaction.

Chapter 7: Building a Community of Learners in Diverse Classrooms

Watkins also explicates several processes that undergird community. First is acting together. Activities in a classroom community require coordinated action that leads to a desired outcome or goal. Second is bridging. This refers to the connections that are created through interpersonal communication. Through communication, identities and experiences are negotiated and redefined. Individual strengths and limitations are revealed and understood. Third is collaboration. Collaboration is closely related to bridging. Through collaboration, students seek to find a common ground or discover new ways of viewing academic and non-academic tasks. Fourth is dialogue. Students engage in dialogue when they exchange meaningful ideas and thoughts. Dialogue is also central to the creation of new meanings and understandings.

To build a good community of learners in diverse classrooms, we need these:

1. Teacher's Support
2. Peer-Mediated Learning
3. Observational Learning
4. Peer-Tutoring
5. Peer Mediation
6. Classroom Meeting
7. Service Learning

Chapter 8: Behavioral Management

Classroom management is a major concern of school administrators, teachers, students, and the public. Administrators want classes that are free from disruptions so that academic standards can be met and target performance goals achieved. Teachers want students who require few interventions to achieve academic tasks. Students want to be in classrooms where they feel safe to navigate their intellectual and social worlds. Finally, parents want to send their children to schools that are free from violence or other forms of harassment.

Chapter 9: Instructional Strategies

Orlich et al. (2001) also noted that some teachers, especially experienced ones, may not write out formal lesson plans, but after teaching many years of constructing plans they may have them etched in their head or stored on teaching files in their computers. We believe that it is essential for teachers to formalize their plans and continually adapt them to better meet the needs of their students.

Chapter 10: Technology and Intructional Communication

Technology includes the mechanisms that are used to facilitate or mediate the teaching learning process. While teachers have used videos, TV programs, films, audiotapes, and filmstrips for a number of years, it is the computer that has had the most substantial impact. No other “teaching” tool has been mandated to become a central part of the educational process. Teachers model when they competently demonstrate the use of technology. They coach by giving hints and encourage students to refocus and practice their skills. Finally, teachers are co-learners when they participate with students in the discovery and management of new information and insight.