Instructional stategies

        Cognitive learning theories are based on how our minds process information and how we learn.  There are several instructional theories that help learners deep their learning and cause learning to move from short-term memory into long-term memory.  For information to be moved into long-term memory the information must be rehearsed, practiced or manipulated.  This creates pathways in the mind to the memory.  There are three ways in which long-term memories are stored declarative: these are facts, procedural: this is how things are done, and episodic: events in life(Laureate Education Inc., 2008a)

When learning occurs it is important to help students move information into long-term memory and there are several ways in which teachers can help create long-term memories out of lessons.  Cues, questions, advance organizers, summarizing and note-taking are all instructional strategies that help students create these long-term memories.  In cues, teachers are to give out hints or cues that help students make connects and active prior learning.  In questioning, teacher are to help students gain a deeper understanding by asking higher order questions.  This will deepen and help make learning connect to other concepts.  Advance organizers are visual organizers, concept maps, and anything that will help students with ideas and concepts visually.  Seeing an image will help students to recall that image, which will help with recall.  We code information visually along with information.  So when we give the students the option to visualize the concepts we help students to recall that information again.

Concept mapping along with Virtual field trips can create long-term memories by creating episodic memories, which are very powerful memories.  By using these instructional strategies teachers will deepen the learning of their students and hopefully create long term memories.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Cognitive learning theories. [Video webcast]. Retrieved from http://www.courseurl.com

Concept Map

Reflections

This course at Walden University of the use of Technology in the classroom has empowered me and inspired me to be to look at teaching curriculum differently.  In the beginning of the class we talked about using technology to do the same thing differently versus teaching differently.  I really want to keep this in the forefront of my mind when mapping out my curriculum for this upcoming school year.  This course has reminded me and shown me many new ways to integrated technology into the classroom to enrich the learning and engage the students in a more meaningful way.  For the first couple of years in my teaching I was very committed to using technology in the classroom and this class has inspired me to use technology differently to make my job easier and not add to more work.  Like many teachers we have so much on our plate that adding new things and new ways of doing things can be a challenge, sometimes using technology can be viewed as just something more we as teachers have to do.  However, during this class I have really looked at ideas that will make my job easier and teaching more efficient.

During this course it has really enlighten me on what corporate America is like today.  Being a teacher we are very isolated from the outside world.  Our work environment has not changed near as drastically as those work environments in the corporate world.  This has really lead me to think about my students who will be entering this work force just 3 years after I have them in my class.  I now see just how important it is to incorporate 21st century skills into my classroom.  This course has really made me focus on some real issues that my students need to know how to do, like cooperation, collaboration, and communication.  These are skills really need to be the basis of what we  teach and the curriculum should fit inside of that.  This course has also made me realize just how different kids are learning these days.  Our students are thinking more collectively than ever before.  Collective knowledge amongst a group of individuals is the way the world is driven these days and our learning must reflect that, while we give them opportunities to think and create collectively.  Companies no longer rely on just one individual to run it, but rather a team of collaborators.  Our classrooms can be the same way.  I do realize that it can be challenging to go from the norm of assessing each student individual but if our main focus is to help our student work on social skills and problem solve collectively, then we need to give the opportunities.  

This course has reinforced my philosophy of teaching, these days as teachers we do not need to see or actually be all knowing, our role is mere facilitators.  It can be challenging but we know through research students like to have options and do much better when they feel like they are constructing their own learning.  This generation of students like to customize everything in their life, from their phones, to their computers, to their learning.  Constructivism is a great philosophy of teaching and we as educated, educators know this but our current accountability system makes this very difficult.  Our students and teachers are under huge pressure for out students to perform well on tests so have the students construct their own learning can be very challenging, when we need every child to know to the same material so that they can pass a standardized test, the teacher is stuck on balancing what he/she knows it the best method of teaching and what will get the students to perform well on a test.  I lucky that I teach a content area that is not tested so I can have more student lead learning, and I can play the role of facilitator, and let my students construct their own learning.  I hope this continues, all teachers should have this freedom, hopefully one day we will.

I really have a true passion when it comes to technology and I love being knowledgable about new and upcoming technology, so in the next few years I plan on making real efforts to stay on top of new ways of integrating technology.  I also plan on continuing taking classes that are in this field to stay with the up and up.  In the future I plan on working with my students to teach them the skills they will need in their future careers.

21 Century Skills

Over the last few years in my school district there has been lots of talk about 21st century skills and teaching them in the classroom.  On the website Partnership for 21st century learning you will find a great deal of information about what teaching 21st century skills is all about.  On the website you can find out what initiatives there are you in your state or surrounding states.  I was a bit disappointed that Tennessee was not listed as having made a commitment to integrating 21st century skills on a state level.  In our district this concept has been pushed for several years but in Tennessee it must be a district to district initiative.  In my district the term "common core" has been tossed around and I have heard that our district will be implementing common core standards next year, and I have to admit I really didn't know what this meant until I read more about it on this website.  One of the biggest things I see when it comes to 21st century skills, is that these ideas are big idea skills and relate to all content areas.  I've always been a big idea or big concept person so these concepts makes a lot of sense to me.  Over the last few years my teaching team or PLC has worked every year to develop and teach interdisciplinary units and it is a very difficult thing to do.  Especially when you have six content areas and six very different teachers, with all different teaching styles, it can be hard to get on one page and to successfully do a interdisciplinary unit.  For years we have been discouraged because it just seemed too difficult.  However, if you were to focus on using 21st century skills as our interdisciplinary unit, it might be much more successful.

Another thing that I found useful on the website was the resources section.  There are links to many different websites that I know will be very helpful once we start using common core next year.  They also have the resource rated to find the most helpful of resources.

I really believe that these concepts of implementing 21st century skills is the best for educating our students.  As we progress in teaching hopefully we will see more and more educators trying these techniques to engage learners.

Resources:

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2011).  Retrieved 05 23, 2012, from Partnership for 21st Century Skills: http://www.p21.org


Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2011) Route 21. Retrieved 05 23, 2012 from Partnership for 21st Century skills:http://route21.p21.org/index.php?option=com_jlibrary&view=browse&Itemid=179

Blogs, blogs, and more blogs.......

I have been considering how I could use blogging in the classroom.  There are really endless possibilities. One that I love is having a rotating job of blogging about each days assignments and lessons.  As to have for student work and as a collaborative portfolio at the end of the year.

But when I think of a specific lesson where I could use blogs and where blogging could enhance the learning experience, this lesson comes to mind.

Every year my team of ninth grade teachers do a interdisciplinary unit.  It revolves around my content but it incorporates elements of other content areas.  The unit is a "create your own country" unit.  I have been doing this project for years and every year we tweak and to make it better.  At the end of the school year the students in my World Geography class take all the major concepts that they have learned about countries, cultures, governments, and economics along with of course geography, and they apply this to making up a new country.

This project last around 6 weeks to complete.  One way that I think I could use blogging to enhance this project is they could create a blog about their country.  They would write about what life is like on their country.  The could talk about the history and historical events on their island.  They could make entries that would deal with the economic situation in their country, as if it were a news article.  They could write entries about the government and current laws or issues that may be arising in their country.  The students could incorporate all the elements of this project into one place, their blog.

I would be able to go to their blog and offer feedback.  This could be pushed further with interdisciplinary  but having students do various entries that would tie into what they have learned in English about writing in different styles, informative, persuasive and so on. 

In the past I have given the students an opportunity to create a website about their island which many students have done but this would enhance their learning much more by asking them to apply these concepts and actually think what life would be like in their made up country.

The only issue I see is that I would need daily access to computers and as of now we have 6 mobile computer labs for a school of 2400.  I'm not sure the librarians would allow me computers every day for a couple of weeks but who knows.  I might be able to come up with so way to work it out and if I was able to, I feel as though it would take this project to the next level of learning.

Standardized testing blues

Its been a tough week in public education.  In our high school we have had End-Of-Course or EOC testing.  In the middle and elementary schools in our district we have had TCAP assessments.  All the pressure and continuing pressure that these standardized test put on school is districts is just absurd.  My daughter who is 12 years old and in 6th grade can see that these test are absurd and in no way a reflections of what she has learned this year.  This year she had a really tough science teacher.  The teacher taught to the standards but also taught them so much more.  They did weekly experiments and really made science come alive for my daughter, so this week when I picked her up from school after the she had taken the science portion of the TCAP I asked her how she thought she did.  She told me that she felt like she did terrible.  The test was really hard and covered topics that weren't taught.  So I then asked her if she felt like she her teacher had taught her well and if she had learned a lot in science this year.  She told me she had learned so much and was disappointed that what she had learned wasn't on the test.  These test that our students are forced to take every year are just absurd.  My daughter, like many other students would like to show what they know instead of answering some random multiple choice question test. 

As an educator, we see research all the time that talks about how to keep students engaged in learning and it seems impossible to do what research suggests as best practices and also make sure you are teaching to the test.  In my opinion, and we are already beginning to see it, students will be less able to think and reason because they have been taught for some many years only how to memorize and regurgitate for a multiple choice test.  This is very frighting as an American.  We are dumbing down our curriculum because of standardized tests.  We don't allow students to construct their own knowledge and learn in a more individualized fashion, because we can't, these kids must pass a test or else.  So when does the educator have time to engage these learners?  When will we students be able to construct their own learning?  I believe the answer is when politics gets out of education and educators take back education.

I know this is probably a pipe dream, but I'm an optimist so maybe one day we will see then end of Standardized testing.

Welcome

Welcome everyone