Chapter 6 analysis

Ch. 6 Case Study Analysis

1. After participating in this activity, what do you think the students will remember? How might those memories differ from those students would have if they only read about the Civil War in their textbook?
This activity engages all of the student’s senses; the students are totally immersed into the civil war experience. The students will remember much more about the conditions of the battlefield then if they had read about it in a book. This experience may also spark a desire in the students to learn more about the civil war thus opening their mind to further teachings.

2. How does Mr. West’s use of a Civil War re-enactment engage students’ emotions? What is the relationship between emotions and learning?
The students will feel the emotions of the battlefield to some extent. They will experience the outdoor feel of the civil war. These experiences will create emotions, which in turn help to cement knowledge of events into their long-term memories.

3. Based on the principles of dual-coding theory, what activities would be effective for Mr. West to use as a follow-up to the re-enactment?
Mr. West can have the students work on a post journal entry of the individual students experience at the re-enactment. He could continue this by having each student give an oral report on their thoughts and experiences during their outing.


4. Who do you think provides better instruction for his students? Support your answer from an information processing perspective. Mr. Richards’s form of teaching is overall the best. He approaches the information from different ways thus having the students receive the information in different ways. The information then travels through different pathways to the long-term memory. Mr. Richards even assess the students in various ways to retrieve the information. On the other hand Mr. Dunkin would be successful with a small number of students who learn from that one style of teaching. The information he gives only goes through one pathway into long-term memory.

5. How would you expect the students’ learning outcomes to differ depending on which teacher they had?
In Mr. Dunkin’s class a handful of students would gain permanent knowledge from his class, whereas in Mr. Richards class the majority of the class will have gained some type of knowledge through one of the avenues provided by Mr. Richards instruction.