Reflection: EDUC 6721

Throughout the course, I think the most striking revelation that I had about teaching new literacy skills is that as much as we think our students (who have grown up with technology at their fingertips) know how to navigate technologies well, they really do not. Despite how much access our students may have to computers and the Internet, they still need a lot of training in reading and analyzing the information they find. In fact, literacy skills that were taught in the past do not suffice for them. It is necessary that new literacy skills are taught in schools as well as traditional ones for students to be successful now.

Going forward, I would like to incorporate more lessons where I focus on new literacy skills. Prior to engaging in an activity that involves technology, I plan to do a lesson that focuses in on how to appropriately locate and evaluate resources. The knowledge gained in this course will give me the tools to teach students the “how” in locating valuable resources.

I would like to seek out professional development opportunities (workshops) so I can grow as far as teaching literacy skills. I think it would be beneficial to attend workshops on inquiry based design. I could also seek out professionals within my own district for this. I know that one of the supervisors has everyone in his department use inquiry-based lesson planning. I am going to seek him out and see if he has any materials I can use.

Reflection: Final Blog Post

Upon reflection of my "Personal Theory of Learning", I found that not too much about my thinking had changed. In my theory, I talked about the importance of creating a classroom environment where the student is exposed to a variety of learning acitvities to practice a skill and as much of the target language as possible. It was important to me to create a classroom setting that mimicked the country we were studying as far as the amount of the target language spoken. I think I would add to my theory the importance of having the students make connections throughout these lessons. It is important to connect student to student, student to text, student to teacher, and student to world. This will make the material studied more relevant.

I would like to immediately implement some of the ideas that I came up with throughout the course to my instructional practice. For example, I would like to use VoiceThread as part of a culminating assessment in one of my units. This will enhance my students' learning because they will be working collaboratively on a VoiceThread of their own then by extension, commenting on others' threads to critique, or ask questions. I would also immediately implement Quia.com to provide immediate feedback to students when they are practicing a skill. Finally, I would like to implement blogging in my class to extend the lesson outside of the classroom. Students could ask questions or discuss ideas after the lesson and this will hopefully solidify the content for them.

As far as the long-term goals are concerned, I hope to keep searching for new technologies, and try to modify my existing lessons to be more student-centered and to include technology. I plan to accomplish the former by joining in teacher discussion boards on the internet and also collaborating with the technology department in my school to keep abreast of new technology that can be implemented in my lessons. I hope to accomplish the latter little by little. Perhaps each month, I will choose a lesson and try to modify it to include one of the tools learned in this course or that I have found on my own to make the lesson more engaging.

Cooperative Learning and Social Theories

Social learning theories believe in the following:

• people learn by observing and imitating
• reality is constructed through humans' activity: it does not exist until people create it
• learning is a social process
• knowledge can change when new knowledge is created (connectivism)

Cooperative learning strategies support social learning theories. In cooperative learning, students are involved in a social process. They interact with each other in groups to learn. Students can pick up something from someone else in their groups and add that to their knowledge pool (observing and imitating).

In multimedia projects, students in the cooperative learning group can divide up the work and, depending on each other, come together to make a whole final product. Each student masters a task and can then teach the rest of the group about what they researched in a jigsaw fashion. Again, knowledge here is social.

Voice Thread: Problems in the Classroom

http://voicethread.com/share/571379/

Constructivism/ Constructionism Projects

Powerpoint is a great tool for the Constructivism/ Constructionism theories to be applied. It is one of my favorite programs to use with my students for assessments. I think any technology that the students create a product with applies to this theory. I also like to use podcasting with iMovie and garageband with my students. You can do so much more media wise with these. What are some other technologies you use in your class that can apply to this theory?

Constructivism/ Constructionism

The constructivist constructionist learning theory is centered around a basic principle that learners construct their own knowledge actively. It is believed that people learn best doing hands on activities, by making something. Through that creating, the learner makes his or her own experience. There are several ways for the learner to be successful in the constructivist constructionist learning: active learning, solving authentic problems, collaboration with others, discovery and inquiry, viewing many perspectives to the same issue, and ownership.

The instructional strategies presented in this week’s learning theories involve generating and testing hypotheses. The tasks that are presented in the book correlate to constructionist constructivist learning theory because they actively involve the learner in creation of something to help them learn.

In the systems analysis task, students are involved in discovery and inquiry where they predict what would happen if a situation changes. Using research, background knowledge, and any other resources they may have available to them, the students would be creating their own knowledge and guessing what an outcome would be. The teacher could then confirm their guesses. Problem solving is similar to this in that the students examine different outcomes to an issue.

In historical investigation, the students are involved again in problem solving, discovery and inquiry as they try to come up with a solution to a problem that has not yet been solved.

When students setup an experiment to test their hypothesis in an experimental inquiry task, they are actively engaged in carrying out the experiment. Making and doing an experiment is especially what this theory is about as it involved creating something to learn.

Finally, with decision making, the students are involved in viewing many different perspectives before they come to a conclusion about an issue.

Throughout all of these tasks in the generating and testing hypotheses strategy, the students are learning through making something. They are collaborating with others and sharing ideas, they are taking ownership of their learning. It is truly a constructivist constructionist theory.

Cognitive Learning

Cognitive learning theory assumes that learning proceeds as learners transform short term knowledge to long term knowledge. Prior knowledge is a very important determinant in what students learn in this theory. Students who have more initial knowledge and more prior knowledge learn new information much better. The instructional strategies described in this week’s learning resources are perfect to satisfy this theory.

It is important that cues are used by the teacher to help the learners activate prior knowledge about the topic at hand. Cues are one of the first steps in the cognitive learning theory process. Questions work in the same way. The teacher may ask a question to activate prior knowledge before introducing new material, or they may ask questions after introducing something to try to help the student remember previous lessons that they can connect the new knowledge to. The more connections the students make, the better it will be for their learning. Advance organizers give students a visual representation of the connections they are making from prior knowledge to new knowledge to the topic at hand.

Using technology to accomplish these strategies makes the process less tedious, and more interactive for the learner. Sometimes, with the use of technology to learn new information, the learner becomes immersed in the topic. (As they would in a virtual field trip.)

Summarizing is another important means of effectively carrying out cognitive learning theory. It would be impossible for students to remember and make a connection to every thing they hear, read, and see in textbooks and in the classroom. However, summarizing is an effective means of stripping away “extra” information and really focusing on what is important. The word processing markup method is another wonderful way for students to literally see what they need and do not need when taking notes.

REFERENCES
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Behaviorist Learning Theory

The instructional strategies in the learning resources correlate with Behaviorist Learning Theory. In this week’s learning resources, two different strategies were presented: reinforcing effort and homework and practice.

The concept of reinforcing effort is straight from behaviorist learning theory. The theory is built on the two concepts of reinforcement and punishment. Reinforcing effort highlights the part of the operant conditioning idea. When a positive behavior is shown by a student, behavior theory says the teacher should reinforce it. “Technology makes it easier for students and teachers to track the effects of effort and facilitates more immediate feedback” (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malinoski, 2007, p.156). When a student keeps track of their effort in a chart like the one shown in Figure 8.1 (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malinoski, 2007, p.157), and the teacher gives immediate feedback, the student’s positive effort is immediately reinforced, therefore encouraging the student to continue the positive behavior. A positive, encouraging response from the teacher is the desired response to motivate the student to continue the positive effort.

Homework and practice are designed to give the student a review of a concept taught in school as well as help the students expand their skill level. When a student completes their homework, and is given immediate and constructive feedback on it, they are very likely to complete it again.

REFERENCES
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Orey, M. (Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Reflection: 6701

This course has helped me develop my technology skills because it allowed me to experiment with new computer programs that I had not used in the past, or knew very little about. Though I had experimented with podcasts in the past, I did not know anything about Audacity, and using it in this class has given me better ideas to developing podcast assignments. I have also learned how to update and manage blogs and wikis. I have so many ideas for implementing either a blog or wiki within my department or in my classroom.

This course has opened my eyes even more to the importance of making my classroom a student/ learner-centered classroom. Because students have access to information in so many ways other than their textbooks, they may come in with knowledge prior to it being brought up in the curriculum, or they may go online to research a topic and find information that causes them to question what they have heard in school. As educators, we have to be prepared with not just the knowledge that backs our curriculum, but we need to know how to adapt to our 21st century learners. Moreover, we need to address 21st century skills in our classrooms. Our students should not JUST be learning about our content, but also real-world skills. How many of us teach how to determine what information on the internet is valid and what is not? How many teachers encourage students to check the information they find against more than one source? Who encourages collaboration in their classroom? It’s imperative that teachers move from a teacher-centered class to establish and teach these important 21st century skills that students will need when they are out of school.

I can continue to expand my knowledge of incorporating technology in several ways. One of these is to continue with this masters’ program. Just two classes have sparked so many new ideas in my head for future performance-based assessments, activities, and homework for my class. I would like to create a department wiki for the world language department in my district, so that the teachers can collaborate and share materials and ideas for different units. I know this may take a while, but I hope to develop this over the next school year and train my colleagues to contribute to it. I foresee some challenges with this because I know many people in my department are resistant to technology despite repeated attempts to use it. I plan to utilize a department meeting or two to spearhead this project.
I would also like to attend professional development days that center around incorporating technology in my field.
Finally, I plan to utilize blogging in my classroom. I think I can use a class blog to create a study guide. One of my colleagues assigns a student each day to do a class report the next day that summarizes the day’s class, but I could assign someone to post to the blog notes from the day or answers to handouts, so that by the end of the unit, the students can have a study guide.

My answers have changed from the start of the course on the survey. I am starting to collaborate more with my students on technology where before I did not at all. It turns out that many of them are very helpful with troubleshooting and have great ideas for ways to incorporate technology in the class. I have also reached out to other teachers in my district to try to learn more about using technology in the classroom. I feel I have certainly grown throughout the course.

Students and Tech

Reflection on Partnership for 21st Century Skills

I am interested in the Partnership for 21st Century Skills’ mission. I think that, based on the emerging technologies and the changes in the work place, this organization is crucial to helping schools develop the foundation for teaching students the skills they will need for the work place.

It seems to me that the partnership has the right idea for making teaching of 21st century skills successful because they link several different parties involved: educators, businesses, and community and government leaders. Each of these four parties is involved in shaping the students’ abilities.
I was surprised to read in the mission, that the Partnership views the disparities between what students learn in school and what they need to know as “profound”. I think this is quite exaggerated. I know the education sector is behind with respect to teaching skills for the 21st century, but I do not believe the gap is profound.
I am impressed to find that one of the advisors for the Partnership is a member of the Department of Education, and relieved as well. I think the department, government officials, and educators need to work hand in hand to provide successful strategies and trainings for teachers to implement in the class.
I was especially impressed when I saw that many of the members were software companies. It makes so much sense, though! These companies are the ones making the new software that requires new skills to be taught in schools. If they are on board and supporting of schools, this will ease getting new media into schools.
I actually used the Partnership’s Plan of Action Interactive guide, Route 21 to get some ideas for my classes. The site shows examples of things one can do to address the different components of 21st century skills. It is wonderful!
Please check out the website for yourself, and let me know your thoughts on it!

Another thought!

Why not use blogging to have my students come up with their own question and answer session in the blog? Or, they could come up with their own picture prompt. (All in Italian or Spanish, of course!) I would just provide the students with the topic.

The latter part of the assignment could be to choose three classmates' prompts or questions, and reply correctly. I would certainly preview all the comments before posting them to the site, but this would be a great tool to practice.

More Technology... How?

I have done a lot of reading over the past week about the impact of technology (namely weblogs and wikis) for my graduate class. I am amazed at the things other educators are doing in their classrooms to expand the walls of their classes. Schoolwork becomes so much more relevant to students when they realize that they are connecting with someone outside of the confines of their classrooms. New technologies allow this.

On a side note, the past two weeks in my own class have been jam-packed with my students referencing technology and how they use it without my prompting! Several of my students have randomly (I swear!) mentioned their favorite blogging/sharing sites. Some of them come with disclaimers from the students (for example, fmylife.com, a website where people can vent about mishaps of their day), and many have given me some insight into what matters to my middle school students. Some examples include:

• Facebook: the [in]famous site for posting pictures, cataloging your day in status updates, and commenting on others' content shows me my students are concerned with being "in the know" about others' lives.
• PostSecret:this project was started by Frank Warren, who handed out postcards to random strangers and asked them to tell a secret and mail it in to an anonymous address. The project exploded, and I believe three books have been since published with samples of postcards. This shows me that many of my students value their privacy, but also need to vent about what is bothering them.
• YouTube: Several times a day, my students reference videos from this site for me to watch. Many of them have mentioned that they've watched some of these videos several times. Other students can go on and on with titles of videos they enjoy. I'm not quite sure what the fascination is with some of these videos...

Given these examples, I plan to use the sources that my students enjoy to find material that is relevant to our study of Italian and the culture of Italy. I would like to post this material on my blog, and open it up to student questions/comments/ connections either in Italian or English, whichever they are most comfortable with to differentiate.

For example, with my seventh grade Italian class, we are studying fashion. I could probably find a video on youtube.com of an Italian designer's runway show and post it on my blog. From there, I would pose questions about the show in both Italian and English. Students would have to either answer a discussion question that I posted or make their own observation.

The blog would serve as a forum for discussion about the Italian culture and language, as an area to broaden horizons about what we study, and also as a place to supplement our classwork since it is not realistic to fit everything into a 47 minute time block or 10 month school year period. The blog could be continued past those confines. This is a great instructional tool for middle school language learners. Many of them will not be able to experience a trip abroad until high school, college or beyond (sometimes they never will), and it is important to show them that they can have certain experiences virtually so that they may gain a better understanding of the products and practices of the culture.

My Test Blog

Below is a link to a test blog I created for my students. I had a small class where more than half of my students were out because of a field trip, so I offered the remaining students the opportunity to blog a bit. I posted some pictures and told them to just write their thoughts/ reactions/knowledge about the pictures. Each student received a laptop, and we ran the class like a distance learning lab where I sat at a computer and read, replied to, and approved their posts.
The students were engaged, and they enjoyed it. I still feel like it needs improvement.

How could I have improved this assignment?

My test blog

Blogs in the Classroom

What are some ways you have used blogs in your classroom?
I am a World Language teacher, so I know I can use this tool to show important things about the culture in the countries we are studying. Any other ideas?