Course Reflection: Changes to my Personal Theory of Learning

I think that a big change to my personal learning theory is on motivation. I still believe that students need to have a sense of self responsibility, but I also think that the students also needed to be motivated out of curiosity. Using the material and constructionist strategies, I want the students to have the curiosity to move further on their own. I want the students to ask questions that will most likely not be on the quiz or test. If the students are motivated to do this, then they will attempt to grasp the basic concepts better, so they may have the chance to explore the material for their own questions.
To change my use of technology, I will focus more on learning technology tools instead of instructional technology tools. I will try to use resources like voice thread, so the students may develop materials to explain the concepts through various types of multimedia, and I plan on using concept maps, so the students can not only develop connections with the material, but they may also see their connections and revise them for better understanding.
One long term goal changes that I have is to incorporate learning technology tools at least once a unit. This would more likely be an ongoing project that will start at the beginning of a unit and be finished at the end prior to the test. I think that I will have students add to the project every week, so it would not be too time consuming, and the students will have a chance to put their own style and thoughts into the project. Another long term goal change would be to have students use technology to create learning tools. I think that while the students are developing tools they will be relearning the material, thinking critically of the concepts, and probably be more creative than I am. To do this, I may start a project at the beginning of a quarter that would be due near the end of that quarter. The tools that the students need to develop should attempt to enhance learning of past material, and the class will use these tools to review that material. I think this would be helpful for students who are studying for an exam, or at least provide ideas for other students to study for later material.

Voicethread Address

http://voicethread.com/share/889955/

Collaborative Learning and Social Learning Theories

The strategies that I read about this week are directly related to social learning theories. Each strategy involved students working together to accomplish a goal. Using multimedia to develop a project can be done alone, but with a group of students, there tends to be more creativity, more support, and more fun. Also, since the work is being shared, the group has a chance to incorporate more than one source to display their ideas. I thought that most of the web resources that were discussed were mediocre for social learning because they seemed unnecessary, but I do think that the communication abilities that the web offers allows students to stay interacted with each other regardless of their location. Now students can work on a project and simultaneously communicate while each person is at their own home. I was surprised that the text did not mention skype because I think that resource will allow students the visual communication that they are used to. In addition, most of the communication sources that use the net allow people to share files. This is nice because the students can send each other their work, get their opinions, and get it back to edit. This allows for constant collaboration and constant support for the learning.

Generating and Testing Hypotheses correlates with Constructivism/Constructionism

I think that the techniques discussed in this weeks resources correlated very well with constructive/ion methods. The data collection was great because the students were able to hypothesize the ph levels of the water sources, and after finding actual values, the students were able to inquire about why some sources of water were more acidic than others. This allows the students to construct from their own experience an understanding of how and why each water source gets acidic. The example using the spreadsheet allowed students to explore the data, and try to adjust variables in the compound interest formula. Doing this allowed the students to learn on their own how each variable effects the outcome. This also allows them to develop an understanding about which variable has a greater effect on the outcome of the formula. Likewise, they have the ability to use other understanding (and conversely develop understanding in other areas) to better understand why those variables have a greater or lesser effect. I think that the use of games and other web based applications correlate well with constructive/ion methods because depending on the applet, the student may be able to explore the topic by adjusting a variable, making a decision, or just plain old trying things out. From these, they are testing out an idea and adjusting their understanding from the outcomes. I remember a computer game that was out when I was in high school. It was called tanks (I think). It was a game where two tanks placed on an arbitrary terrain would take turns shooting at each other. In order to zero in on their opponent, the players would have to adjust their trajectory and the power in the shot. To a kid, it was just a fun game, but from an educators point of view, I see now that I was learning about angles, quadratics, and physics (in a very basic manner of course). I believe that my experience with that game is directly correlated with generating and testing hypotheses and constructivist/constructionist methods. If any of you are wondering, there is an app on the itouch (a friend of mine had it), and yes it is still pretty fun. : )

Week 3 Resources and Their Connections to Cognitive Learning Theories

After reading about cues, questions, and advance organizers, I thought that they directly correlated with a constructivist approach to learning. The cues allow the students to start thinking about the topic before really getting into the material. This allows them the chance to think about what they already know and try to connect it with what is to come. The questions basically do the same thing that cues do, but they are a little more direct than cues. The advance organizers allow students to take the material that they are learning, or about to learn, and connect it to material that they have already learned in an organized fashion. Another neat thing about the organizers is the connections that are made while the students are developing them or going over them. The work involved in creating these organizers make the material more memorable for the students.

What I have learned about virtual field trips was quite interesting. The ability to show students things all over the world while they are still in the classroom is great. I think that the field trips will stimulate more parts of the brain for the children, and it will allow them an experience that some of them may never have the chance to experience. For other students, they may see something interesting in the topic making the information taught more meaningful to them. I think that virtual field trips have a lot of promise in increasing students' learning by increasing the connections made from the experience.

Today's Practices and Behaviorism

After reading chapters 8 and 10 in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, I noticed that a couple of the strategies mentioned have a great impact on behaviorist methods of teaching (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007). I think that using web resources for finding online games for students is very helpful in terms of providing ample practice for the students, and behaviorist methods lean heavily on repetition to reinforce students (Pitler et al., 2004, pg 195). I also think using spreadsheets as a method of showing numerous examples of graphs to students follows behaviorist strategies because it allows the student to see what happens when changes are made to an equation (Pitler et al., 2004, pg 191). The changes are like the effect in a cause and effect situation or a result of a certain behavior. The students are able to get a lot of exposure to many problems in a short amount of time. This allows the students to connect to the material quicker and more efficiently. As for reinforcing effort, the section on making an effort rubric and logging their results relates well with behaviorist practices. This is true because the students are able to quickly see the results of their effort. Behaviorism is based on a rewards and punishment system. After logging their effort rubric results from their units, the students are able to determine if their efforts or lack there of result in rewards or punishment. Then the student can make the connection to effort and good grades. I think that these three practices directly correlate with behaviorist principles of learning theory because they focus on repetition and results to help shape students behavioral practices of learning.


References

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

Reflection

During this course, I was able to improve my knowledge of certain resources such as wikis, blogs, and podcasts. This exposure has helped me find, learn, and utilize technology more into my classroom. The experience has helped my develop new teaching strategies, and it also opened my eyes to the need students have of using technology to learn. I was able to see how much more interested the students were when I proposed the use of these technologies within the curriculum. I was able to see how students learned better because I was using tools that were related to their everyday lives. Likewise, I was able to see how my teaching processes allowed me to become more of a facilitator rather than a drill instructor. The center of my teaching was more focused on the students because they were enveloped in guided projects rather than traditional instruction. The students would ask more questions, and if they did not, I was able to look at their work and ask inferring questions to them. The focus was no longer on me and my words or notes; the focus was on the students, their work, and their interpretations of the material.
I hope to expand my knowledge of new technologies, so I might find other uses for it within my classroom. I plan to attend seminars (when they are available) that include different types of technology, and maybe I will find something that will add another element to my classroom. In addition, I will check teaching blog sites for suggestions on different technologies or different uses for the technologies that I currently use.
One goal that I would like to achieve within the next two years is I would like to start a summer program where we teach students to use blogs, wikis, and podcasts as sources of information versus sources of communication. I want to setup summer assignments and projects over the summer, so students will have a chance to get ahead. This will help to overcome the time situation, and it will allow me to include more in depth instruction. To implement this plan, I would like to use blogs and wikis as the source of instruction as well as a source of practice. To accomplish this goal, I will have to talk to the administration to see if I can get funding and/or permission to do so. Even without funding, the program should not need much because it will all be done using free online resources. Luckily, the area in which I teach has a couple of libraries with a large supply of computers for anyone to use.
Another long term goal I have is to find funding to help students whose families cannot afford a computer. With that funding I hope to aid those families and offer classes to teach those families how to use them and explore their abilities. With this program, I hope to overcome the financial issues that schools are having, and at the same time, I hope to include the families in their child's learning. Likewise, this will allow my students a better opportunity to engage themselves with the digital projects without the time restraint of school since they will have a computer at home. To accomplish this goal, I will need to do some research and hopefully find a program that either donates computers to low-income families or supplies funding for low-income families to buy one themselves. At the same time, I will need to talk with the administration and the county to offer a class to teach families how to use a computer properly. This should not be too hard because the only cost to the school would be the electricity used because there are plenty of people that would be willing to volunteer to help.