About 8 weeks ago I created a personal theory of learning that centered around project-based learning environment combined with a social learning environment where students create concrete objects to assess their learning and work together regularly to do so. Throughout the last 8 weeks, I have been exposed to concepts, strategies, and tools that reinforce my beliefs in this type of learning environment and am excited to incorporate them into my classroom someday.
One aspect that I may choose to modify within my personal theory of learning relates to my use of social learning. When I discussed the use of social learning, I did so assuming that the social learning would take place among the students in my class or possibly also with students from other classes. However, with one of the technological tools I have been exposed to, (which I will discuss later) I realized that I could extend this even further and work with students from other cities, regions, and even countries.
Some of the things I have learned over the course of 8 weeks will have an immediate impact on my instructional practices in the classroom. One of these is the use of a program such as Inspiration that allows students to create digital graphic organizers. By doing this, students will be able to incorporate this technological into their learning so they are able to organize their thoughts and utilize the program to create artifacts that will be used to assess their learning. A second short-term goal that I have in regards to integrating technology is to incorporate a blog in my classroom. Most students have probably had experiences with blogs or things like them so I believe I could make this transition relatively seamlessly. My experiences using a blog over the past eight weeks have reinforced my beliefs that they can be used successfully in a high school classroom. I feel that this will be a great tool for students to express their thoughts and opinions based on the content that we are learning.
In addition to these immediate impacts in my classroom, there are also some long-term goals I have integrating technology. One long-term goal that I have in regards to technology in my classroom involves VoiceThread, which is a tool that I feel could be very effective in the classroom. My actual goal is to eventually collaborate with students from another state or even another country using this program. I think that would be a great tool for a social studies classroom to be able to look at a historical event and learn the perspectives of students from another country. This goal is long-term for me because I want to ensure that I am proficient using the technology before I try to integrate it in my classroom on such a large scale. Once I feel very comfortable using VoiceThread, I plan on incorporating it within my classroom. A second long-term goal of mine is to continue learning and becoming comfortable with new technologies as they are procured. I think this is essential to being an educator in today's world and I want to make sure that I take the steps necessary to ensure that I do. Therefore, I will make a commitment to a lifelong learning of technological tools that I can integrate in the classroom to ensure that my students will always be prepared for the world in which they will eventually work in and be able to succeed using these tools.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
My VoiceThread Creation
Copy and paste the link provided below into your web address bar to view my VoiceThread.
http://voicethread.com/share/1198220/
http://voicethread.com/share/1198220/
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Social Learning Thoery In Practice
During my student teaching, one aspect of social learning that I liked to use was the jigsaw activity. Instead of trying to explain the activity to you in my own words, I am going to make reference of a great website I was introduced to this week in our text that does a great job summarizing the activity in addition to providing a great resource for any teacher (experienced or unexperienced) wanting to utilize this strategy.
1. Divide students into 5- or 6-person jigsaw groups. The groups should be diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity, race, and ability.
2. Appoint one student from each group as the leader. Initially, this person should be the most mature student in the group.
3. Divide the day's lesson into 5-6 segments. For example, if you want history students to learn about Eleanor Roosevelt, you might divide a short biography of her into stand-alone segments on: (1) Her childhood, (2) Her family life with Franklin and their children, (3) Her life after Franklin contracted polio, (4) Her work in the White House as First Lady, and (5) Her life and work after Franklin's death.
4. Assign each student to learn one segment, making sure students have direct access only to their own segment.
5. Give students time to read over their segment at least twice and become familiar with it. There is no need for them to memorize it.
6. Form temporary "expert groups" by having one student from each jigsaw group join other students assigned to the same segment. Give students in these expert groups time to discuss the main points of their segment and to rehearse the presentations they will make to their jigsaw group.
7. Bring the students back into their jigsaw groups.
8. Ask each student to present her or his segment to the group. Encourage others in the group to ask questions for clarification.
9. Float from group to group, observing the process. If any group is having trouble (e.g., a member is dominating or disruptive), make an appropriate intervention. Eventually, it's best for the group leader to handle this task. Leaders can be trained by whispering an instruction on how to intervene, until the leader gets the hang of it.
10. At the end of the session, give a quiz on the material so that students quickly come to realize that these sessions are not just fun and games but really count.
From: http://www.jigsaw.org/steps.htm
Trust me, that was a lot more coherent then my explanation would have been. Anyways, if you have not used this technique before, it is a great way to give your students new information while at the same time giving them a new activity that breaks up a class period into a few different sections. If executed properly, I think this activity exemplifies my opinions of the benefits of social learning in the classroom.
First of all, as the creator of the groups, you have the ability to arrange the groupings in a way that places students of various abilities and strengths/weaknesses together in a way that can hopefully benefit everyone involved.If you have a student that struggles with something, they can watch another student in their group succeed at that specific task to gain insight into how they can become better and hopefully master the particular skill. In addition to this, it allows students to put information into their own words which might benefit their peers that end up learning the information from them. Regardless of whether or not you relate well to your students, sometimes the way we teacher phrase particular items or explain certain topics simply is difficult for our students to understand. Some students may have a better time understanding information if it is facilitated to them by one of their own peers. The last thing I will mention (although there are plenty of other things) is the real world value this activity includes. These students are put into a group of peers (coworkers) who then have to interpret information so they can pass it on to another group of peers (coworkers) who are learning (working on) something else. It is my opinion that many of our students would benefit from this type of routine not only in their future careers, but also in college, if that is the path they are taking.
Overall, I believe that social learning has a valuable place within our classroom to help students learn together and to prepare our students for their futures. That being said, I do not believe that social learning should be the sole strategy used in the classroom because I believe it can be misused or manipulated by students fairly easily. Therefore, it is my belief that social learning techniques and strategies should be used on occasion within the classroom in addition to a variety of other teaching strategies.
1. Divide students into 5- or 6-person jigsaw groups. The groups should be diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity, race, and ability.
2. Appoint one student from each group as the leader. Initially, this person should be the most mature student in the group.
3. Divide the day's lesson into 5-6 segments. For example, if you want history students to learn about Eleanor Roosevelt, you might divide a short biography of her into stand-alone segments on: (1) Her childhood, (2) Her family life with Franklin and their children, (3) Her life after Franklin contracted polio, (4) Her work in the White House as First Lady, and (5) Her life and work after Franklin's death.
4. Assign each student to learn one segment, making sure students have direct access only to their own segment.
5. Give students time to read over their segment at least twice and become familiar with it. There is no need for them to memorize it.
6. Form temporary "expert groups" by having one student from each jigsaw group join other students assigned to the same segment. Give students in these expert groups time to discuss the main points of their segment and to rehearse the presentations they will make to their jigsaw group.
7. Bring the students back into their jigsaw groups.
8. Ask each student to present her or his segment to the group. Encourage others in the group to ask questions for clarification.
9. Float from group to group, observing the process. If any group is having trouble (e.g., a member is dominating or disruptive), make an appropriate intervention. Eventually, it's best for the group leader to handle this task. Leaders can be trained by whispering an instruction on how to intervene, until the leader gets the hang of it.
10. At the end of the session, give a quiz on the material so that students quickly come to realize that these sessions are not just fun and games but really count.
From: http://www.jigsaw.org/steps.htm
Trust me, that was a lot more coherent then my explanation would have been. Anyways, if you have not used this technique before, it is a great way to give your students new information while at the same time giving them a new activity that breaks up a class period into a few different sections. If executed properly, I think this activity exemplifies my opinions of the benefits of social learning in the classroom.
First of all, as the creator of the groups, you have the ability to arrange the groupings in a way that places students of various abilities and strengths/weaknesses together in a way that can hopefully benefit everyone involved.If you have a student that struggles with something, they can watch another student in their group succeed at that specific task to gain insight into how they can become better and hopefully master the particular skill. In addition to this, it allows students to put information into their own words which might benefit their peers that end up learning the information from them. Regardless of whether or not you relate well to your students, sometimes the way we teacher phrase particular items or explain certain topics simply is difficult for our students to understand. Some students may have a better time understanding information if it is facilitated to them by one of their own peers. The last thing I will mention (although there are plenty of other things) is the real world value this activity includes. These students are put into a group of peers (coworkers) who then have to interpret information so they can pass it on to another group of peers (coworkers) who are learning (working on) something else. It is my opinion that many of our students would benefit from this type of routine not only in their future careers, but also in college, if that is the path they are taking.
Overall, I believe that social learning has a valuable place within our classroom to help students learn together and to prepare our students for their futures. That being said, I do not believe that social learning should be the sole strategy used in the classroom because I believe it can be misused or manipulated by students fairly easily. Therefore, it is my belief that social learning techniques and strategies should be used on occasion within the classroom in addition to a variety of other teaching strategies.
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