Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

Cooperative learning calls for students to work together in a group to create a product and extend their knowledge. The strategies present offer many mediums and activities that student can use collaboratively construct a culminating product. Group work is a powerful tool because it allows students to springboard and expand on other student's ideas. Individuals bring many aptitudes and skills that contribute to the common group product. Social learning allows students to showcase their creativity and exercise their collaboration skills. Tools like social networks, web quests, shared bookmarking, and web site creation eliminate the regional restrictions that traditional classrooms have. When utilizing online tools, students have the potential to interact with individuals from anywhere in the world.

Constructivism

Constructivism holds that learning happens by classifying new knowledge based on what the student already knows. When faced with new information learners will assimilate the information fit into an existing experience. If assimilation is not possible, the learner will form a new schema to hold the new information. Through thought and research, student construction an understanding/relationship for a topic. In the classroom, students working under a constructionist model will be given an issue and then create a product as result of finding a solution. The course text suggests “generating and testing hypotheses” as a model for constructivist learning. Under this idea, students are given a set of circumstances where they have to come to a justified conclusion. Throughout the process students will gather and interpret data before ultimately making a decision. Students operating under this ideal become immersed in the learning process. They are active in the learning process thus it is more meaningful to the learner.   

Cognitivism in Practice

 The cognitive learning theory focuses on how learners take in information and store and use it. Learners take information into their short term memory, make meaning of it, and then can potentially store information into the long term memory where it can be later accessed. The instructional strategies presented this week are learning experiences teachers can set up to assist and guide students to make connections with new information. Students are able to better understand new information when they can connect it with something they already know. Advanced organizers, cues, questions, summaries, and note taking present a format for the student to manipulate information into meaningful information networks. Concept maps allow students to have a visual representation of the relationship between concepts. This instructional strategy allows students to organize their thoughts in a meaningful way. Virtual field trips allow student to encounter places that they are not able to visit. It assist in providing a visual image to accompany an idea/place.

Behaviorism in Practice

The key idea behind the behaviorist theory is eliciting a desired behavior through the use of rewards and punishments. The course text defines the instructional strategy of reinforcing effort is a method of illustrating the correlation between completion/effort and score. The completion/effort piece would be considered the behavior while the score is the reward/punishment. Students sometimes feel powerless in their educational world. Using technology such as Excel graphs allows them the opportunity to visually see the correlation between work ethic and success. The text homework and practice instructional strategy is a method used to to reinforce material presented in the classroom. The resources posted this week most fall under this category. The resources presented allow students to practice learned skills with reinforcement. While sometimes drill and practice gets a bad reputation, we learned from Dr. Wolfe's presentation on brain research that connections in the brain that are used more often form stronger pathways for recall.

Course Reflection

My thoughts about teaching can be summarized in one statement. Teaching is about learning. Hopefully my students learn the content and about themselves as people, but that is only part of it. Teaching is about the teacher learning also. As a teacher, one of the things I learn about is the best ways to impart information to my students and prepare them for their adult lives and/or future education. The Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society course has helped to further my teaching and learning in a variety or ways.
Focusing on my own technology skills, the course allowed me to explore tools such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other Web 2.0 tool. A majority of those tools are new to me as I have never taught with them or learned through using them. While taxing at times, thinking about and using these devices has allowed me to see their potential educational value. I struggled with being new to using those tools which provided me with insight on to how best to facilitate their use with my students. I came into this course with a strong technological background, but left with a drive to make my students 21st century learners.
Throughout this course I have found several great blogs which provide a variety or ideas for technology integration. I have subscribed to these blogs and plan to continue to follow postings on those sites. Academically, I will continue to expand my knowledge by continuing this Walden masters program. Hopefully upon completion of this program, I will be able to spearhead for some technological professional development. As far as increasing student achievement, I strongly feel that as student engagement increases through the use of technology then so will student achievement. When using most technology in the classroom, students become more active participant in classroom activities. If a student is involved and excited about what they are learning, then their natural curiosity takes over and they retain so much.
Over the next two years, I hope to build a bank of 21st century lessons that actively engage my students. While it is a daunting task to make this transformation over night, allowing myself to focus on one topic at a time will have the best results for my students. Over that time frame and into the future, I plan to try new things in my classroom and then evaluate their effectiveness. I will also lobby heavily in my district to allow the use of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. Currently we are not allowed to use any blogs, wikis, or teacher created websites. Technology is not going away and in order to prepare our students for the world we need to teach them how to properly use it.

"Profiling the Students of Today"

Be sure to check out my very first PodCast on
"Profiling the Students of Today"

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills website is a homepage of an advocacy group who focuses on bringing 21st century skills into classrooms.  Upon first coming across the page, I was very excited.  I expected to find great resources on how to bring these skills into my classroom.  However, upon further exploration, I found there to be a lack of resources with the exception of ones that cost money.  They formulate a framework, but lack a discussion of "how to" that modern educators crave. While it's nice to know that there is someone out there fighting the battle of bringing 21st century skills into classrooms, but I left the website unsure of what role they were playing.  This is not a site I plan to bookmark and visit regularly in the future.

A Day No Pigs Would Die Blog

I teach an 8th grade Integrated Language Arts unit on the novel "A Day No Pigs Would Die" by Robert Newton Peck to a mixed group of general education and special education students.  In the past, I have introduced the unit by have the students answer and discuss the following statements on an anticipation handout:

• An animal can be a best friend.
• Growing up is painful.
• People are not always what they seem.
• First impressions are deceiving.
• Death should not be an emotional experience.
• Men should never cry.  If they do, they are babies.
• You cannot become an adult unless you live through difficult experiences
  

These controversial questions are a very important component of the unit.  One of the culminating activities is to write a persuasive paper on one of the questions from the anticipation guide.  Having a classroom Blog where students can state and discuss their opinions will allow them to have a more complete and focused persuasive argument for their essay.  I foresee the students posing a position and then other students asking questions about it, posing a counter position with supported reasoning, or argeeing with the student's position while giving additional support.  Use of the blogging medium will allow all students, not just those who volunteer, to actively state their opinions and use information from their personal experiences and the text to support it.  The interactive aspect of the blog will give the students practice defending their viewpoints.  They will have a stronger argument because they will already have heard some of the possible counter points posed by the audience who disagrees.

Wow!  Here we are already, my first post.  Hopefully, this is the first of many very insightful and useful posts to come.  Keep tuned in!