As my current course Bridging Learning Theory, Instruction, and Technology comes to a close, I look back to what I have learned and how that has changed me as a teacher. For our first assignment and my initial blog post for this class, I stated that I am an amalgam of many things in life, including my personal theories of how students learn. If find this to still be true, by I know I have added even more to the mix. While I still rely on behaviorism to establish classroom management policy, I realize that the standards of Partnership for 21st Century Skills(P21) of critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation (P21, 2013, para. 1) encourage me to include more constructivism in my classroom where students individually construct his/her own meaning, constructionism when students build an external artifact to share with others (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011d), and social constructivism where students build knowledge with other people (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011a). What the students build their knowledge upon all depends on the theory of cognitivism when student build on prior knowledge, connecting ideas to other ideas (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011c). As a strong believer in multiple intelligences, I was strongly influenced by my new learning of Paivio’s dual coding hypothesis and how we remember images better than text, and when additional senses can be added, an even stronger connection forms (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011c).
This course has prompted me to make several changes to my teaching. The first is to increase the use of images and graphics. I think that theoretically this is good practice as research shows that students can achieve a 27% increase in achievement with its use (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011b). In a technology-rich world where students are exposed to forms of visual entertainment and communication, the use of graphics and images is engaging. Those images will allow for dual coding and will help students to “reflect on and recall knowledge” (Pitler, Hubbell, and Kuhn, 2012, p. 86). The second change I will make is to do more with identifying similarities and differences, a strategy that could improve student achievement 45% (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011b). Using graphics and graphic organizers to represent the similarities and differences is a way to tie the two strategies together.
While in previous courses I have applied the use of wikis and a blog to my classroom and students found success in each of those, I am looking forward to using two new technologies in class next year: Voice Thread and concept mapping. My high school students and my own teenage children are enamored with Instagram, memes, and YouTube. I like how Voice Thread allows for the graphics to become a part of communication, many of them which could be similar to Power Point slides and therefore not far from most teachers’ comfort zones, but also allows for texting, video, or audio clips to be an interactive part of a Voice Thread conversation. I am anxious to see how my students respond to this. The other tool, concept mapping, reminds me of the ideas of Backward Design. I have always used a road trip as an analogy for my classroom, and this is a way to incorporate a map to each unit to show students where we are headed, what they know, and allow them to add their knowledge as they gain it to a map. Both Voice Thread and concept mapping were new strategies to me.
Even though I am surrounded by teenagers, I still have many students who are not comfortable with using technology as a learning tool. As expert as they are in social networking, they do not have confidence when it comes to trying new technologies. One long-term goal I have is to try to always have something new for students to try, to always push them to use critical thinking skills to try something new and figure out the unknown. Another long-term goal I have is to have technology as learning tools, not just instructional tools, part of every unit if not every lesson. We are limited in our access to technology at my school, so using the students’ smart phones would be the easiest way to achieve this goal. Voice Thread has an app for phones, as does Google Drive. I will continue investigating other concept mapping options. In order to achieve these goals, I will first be an active part on my school’s technology team, vying for resources and creating plans for teachers to implement so that more students are seeing greater technology use in the classroom. I will also use my lesson plan template and create a new category for tech integration in order to have accountability for my usage. My goals are to use Voice Thread and concept mapping tools within the first quarter of school. During the second quarter, I will make sure all students are sharing documents on Google Apps. By third quarter, I will have student blogs more prolific in my classroom in order to make my lessons more student-centered, and by fourth quarter, I would like to implement a flipped classroom to help with the standardized testing schedule that interferes with instruction.
This course has allowed me to better organize my classroom around how students learn and using technology that supports those learning strategies and theories. I can now better incorporate technology as learning tools instead of just instructional tools, and I know that graphics and nonlinguistic representation is a solid way to complement the writing and reading that goes on in my English classroom that is full of diverse learners. I am a better teacher because of the last eight weeks, and my students and I will benefit from my new knowledge.
References
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011a). Program eight: Social learning theories [Video
webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from
http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecol
lege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011b). Program eleven: Instructional strategies, Part one
[Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from
http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecol
lege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011c). Program five: Cognitive learning theory [Video
webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from
http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecol
lege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011d). Program seven: Constructionist and constructivist
learning theories [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology.
Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=
650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1
"The Partnership for 21st Century Skills." The Partnership for 21st Century Skills. P21, 2011.Web. 27 Mar. 2013.
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E. R., & Kuhn, M. (2012). Using technology with classroom instruction thatworks (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
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