Reflecting on my Personal Theory of Learning

As I reflect on my personal theory of learning, mentioned in week 1, I've come to one new conclusion. I understand the importance of students working together to construct a product as evidence of their learning. I have been exposed to lots of new technology that I plan to integrate into my classroom.

I plan to increase the amount of technology I use in the classroom. I want to be more of a facilitator of learning as students are using the technology and constructing new things as evidence of their learning. I really enjoyed learning about Voice Threads and plan to use them often in my classroom.

One of my long term goals is to incorporate the use of Voice Threads into a least two lessons this upcoming school year. I think these are powerful tools that will really engage my students and allow them to collaborate with others while producing evidence of their learning. My second goal will be to incorporate a blog into my classroom. This is something I would like to begin early in the school year. Students can respond to questions, share their questions or comments and learn from others while using this blog. I hope they will continue to use it long after the school year is over.

Overall I really enjoyed this course and have learned a lot about using technology in the classroom.

Voice Thread

Here is a link to my voice thread for this weeks assignment:


http://voicethread.com/#u968788.b1197733

Social Learning Theory

The power of students working together can be great! Instead of just constructing something on their own, the social learning theory suggest that students should collaborate with others while doing this construction. This week I learned about a number of strategies to assist in this process that can be used with technology.

The Voice Thread is an excellent tool that allows students to make a product similar to a powerpoint. Some of the differences however include that students can add their own voice comments to uploaded pictures and receive comments from other students all over the world. This seems like not only an excellent tool to assess students or construct things, but also to have them interact with their classmates, other students in their school and students across the world.

Jigsaw is another strategy that stuck out from this week's resources. I believe that when a person is required to teach something, they are more likely to learn more about the subject! Jigsaw requires students to work with a small group collaborating and collecting information about a particular subject. Students then move to a second group where they teach the group about their topic. This strategy could also be used with technology as students could conduct research on the internet, construct a powerpoint show to present their information, or even compile pictures about a particular subject!

The constructivist theory of learning focuses on having students demonstrate their learning by producing or creating some product and then communicating their learning to students. Technology can be a great aid in accomplishing this and also is keeps the students interested and engaged. While they are often used in negative ways on the internet, I think that blogs serve as a great way to use technology in the classroom. Class discussions can be conducted here where students share their ideas about various topics.

I am also a big fan of students using the podcast. Their are numerous websites that allow students to create podcasts quite easily. Students can think of unique and creative ways to put their information together and then share it with their classmates. I have had very positive experiences with podcast in my classroom. The kids love it!

Cognitive Theory in the Classroom

Taking in information and advancing it through the faces of receiving information, short-term memory and long term memory is the basis of Cognitive theory. Technology can be a great aid in completing this process. The use of cues or other reminders is an excellent strategy to help students remember material. The Virtual Field Trip is an excellent engaging activity that will help students put information into long-term memory. Also the advanced graphic organizers mentioned in this weeks reading provide excellent tools to help students in the cognitive process. There are lots of great strategies that the teacher can use in the classroom to help students. As long as long-term memory is the eventual goal, these strategies have their place in the classroom!

Behaviorism at Work

As I reflect on this week's readings, I must consider the variety strategies in technology that relate to the behaviorist learning theory. Behaviorism teaches that desired behaviors can be learned and undesired behaviors can be unlearned. Two strategies that help to accomplish this would be the practice of homework and reinforcing effort.

Many students do not see the relationship between their effort and achievement. Effort is the most important factor in achievement(2007). There are lots of resources a teacher can use to help demonstrate this point. Rubrics(something I personally use quite often) are great for showing the relationship between effort and achievement. This can easily be done using a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel. Rubrics give students a clear idea of what achievement looks like. The Effort/Achievement Spreadsheet is also an excellent tool that allows students to see the relationship between their effort and their grade.

The practice of homework can be enriched by a number of technology tools. I was interested to know that Word Processing Applications have a number of resources most people do not know of. I think my fifth graders will be excited to use the Flesch-Kincaid grade level rating tool which will tell them the grade level of their writing. Also no longer do they need to open a web browser for simple research that can be done with Microsoft Word's Research tools. Multimedia can also be an excellent learning tool. One challenge with using technology with homework however is accessibility. Over time I think this challenge will diminish. More and more students have computers in their home and some schools enjoy the benefits of one-to-one laptop programs in which students have a laptop assigned to them for the entire school year.

Reflection

Learning is not always easy. Meeting new challenges can be difficult but also rewarding in the end. That is one thing I learned from this course. Before this course began I had little or no experience with tool like podcasts, wiki spaces or programs blogs. I was familiar with these programs but had little knowledge of how to use them or how they could be used in the classroom.

As I pushed myself and began to learn how to use these technologies, I began to see how they would have a great impact in the classroom. Teaching in a fifth grade classroom, I saw lots of opportunities to use these technologies with my students. The tools I learned about during this course provide opportunities to engage my students and problem solving situations that challenge my students. The learning becomes more student centered with the teacher being more of a facilitator of learning as opposed to someone who gives out information. I also loved the fact that I had opportunities for students to work in groups, collaborating and working together to solve a problem.

As I continue with my career as a teacher, I will seek to learn more about these technologies. I want to become completely proficient in my knowledge of how to use them and incorporate them into the classroom. This in turn should improve student achievement in my classroom. One of my goals as a teacher is to regularly seek to learn about new technologies that I can incorporate into my classroom. Technology is constantly changing and students are usually familiar with these changes. If I want my classroom environment to be one that promotes the use of technology, I must learn about new things that people are using.

My final goal is to make sure that I use technology to challenge students in problem solving situations. Technology is great, but student need to continue to think and challenge themselves as they learn. I don't want the computer to be merely a place where students get information, but a place where they interact with others, and work with others to solve problems.

Laureate Education, Inc. (2008). Understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society [Motion Picture].Skills for the 21st century. Baltimore.