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Sunday, February 2, 2014

Chapter Three Post

Summary
We start off the chapter talking about the different learning styles, and how students learn. Students learn based off prior knowledge and building from it (47). I personally see myself teaching from the Behaviorism and Constructivism learning styles. Behaviorism basis learning in a teacher-centered ideal, where I would choice how slides came up, and what information is chosen to talk about. Constructivism is based on the student's creating their own form of how they learn, in other words student-centered. With having both these in mind, I plan on using both to help the students best I can. I would want to start of with the student-center, so then I could grasp and idea of where the student are. Following this I would then include what information I thought needed to be enhanced or jsut reviewed. The best of both worlds.
Following this the textbook talks about critical thinking, problem solving, information and digital literacies, and how groupwork/collaboration are greatly enhanced when teachers' intergrate technology into them. Then we come to a section based on creativity. This section surprised me because I apparently knew the least about this section. Creativity is not just thinking outside the box anymore, it is now defined as something that changes the soceity or with-stands the times (pg 62). I don't agree with this idea at all. How could someone say that a child is not creative if they think or do something completely different from the rest of the group?
We end this section talking about digital citizenships, and how teahcers are incharge of teaching it to their students. I agree with this idea because the teachers are pretty much the ones who "force" the students onto the interwebs for projects and essays, so they should be the ones who help and teach the students the essentials of them. However, I do believe parents should have a part in teaching these essentials as well. Therefore, I suggest that parents and students be given "cheat-sheets" on the essentials, so if they forget them or need help they are right there. 

Focus Question:
1) What are the essential ideas for teachers from research on the science of learning?
The most important concept from the research is that students, well all human beings, learn from prior knowledge. With that in mind teachers should try and relate their topics to that of which students already know (pg 47). If teachers do this, students will be more likely to understadn the topics better because they already have some idea of what they are learning.

Tech Tool 3.2
Web Resources and Apps for Developing Digital Literacies (page 60)
Since I want to become an English teacher, I found The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore app and the website Dipity to be extremly interesting ways of intergrating technology into my lessons. While Mr. Lessmore is considered off grade-level for high school students, I believe that it could be used to get the students to remember the basics of fictional story writing, and review the basic concepts. As for Dipity, I think this would be a perfect tool for story mapping novels for the reading projects, and just everyday essays. The students are able to add music and video that makes them remember the information they just viewed, which goes back to enhancing learning through prior knowledge. 

Resources
Textbook - Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.  

1 comment:

  1. You highlight two great web resource/tools - hope you have them bookmarked through delicious! :)

    It is often difficult to balance a teacher-centered classroom with one more focused on students - albeit, there's a place for both of them. Having explored the concepts, though, will help build an awareness which will allow you to re-direct your focus if one side or the other needs to be pulled back 'in check'.

    Regarding creativity, there are likely different levels to the definition and your point is understood. Perhaps the book points to the 'deeper' level of where creativity can go... and grow! :)

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