Post 6: Distance Learning

       “Technology tools and Internet have the potential to enhance lessons in a classroom, but when the tools also encourage inquiry, the student engagement can increase even more” (Coffman, 2013). Coffman talks about how technology can be used to engage students. I think that it is important to consider that technology is a huge part of children and teenagers lives today. As teachers, if we can find ways to incorporate technology into our lessons, we will help our students discover fun ways of learning. Coffman states, “Students can formulate questions and you can then help them explore results using technology tools and an integrated technology lesson plan” (Coffman, 2013). We need to use technology in ways that will enhance the way our students think. One of my favorite tools in doing this is the Smartboard, or interactive white board. The Smartboard allows for activities that will engage students. It can be used for creative Powerpoints with interactive elements within them. In my practicum classes, I have used the interactive tools on the Smartboard to demonstrate the slope of lines. During this lesson, my students were very engaged because I had them come up to the board and use the tools, they all had a good time with it. I also like the idea of using the Smartboard as a station. Students can work together to complete and activity on the Smartboard. Not only if there more engaging and fun, but the students are working together. In my experience learning, and especially math as been a collaborative process. When students work together, they are both teaching and learning from each other. If I can come up with lessons that use technology and collaborating students, I think that I will have more success in my classroom.

       For my web-inquiry lesson, I plan on using a few different programs on the internet. I plan on making my inquiry telecollaborative. The standards my students will be focusing on are tax, tip, and discount. I will have guidelines set up for my students and we will take a “trip” to another country. The students will be using Goggle Maps to create their unique map of their trip to France. They will have to include certain criterion that I have listed and perform certain math applications on some of these, but other than that the map will be their own. Along with this, the students will be communicating with a French pen-pal from our sister school. The American students will talk to their pen pals and gain advice and suggestions on what they should “see” on their trip. I am very excited about this lesson. I think that students will have a great time with them. They will not only be practicing their math skills, but exploring a county via the internet, being creative, and creating something of their own. I think that this lesson is very applicable to real life, which will make it more engaging for my students.

Coffman, T. (2013). Using Inquiry in the Classroom. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education

Post 5: Problem-based Learning

       Coffman states, “Problem-based learning presents a dynamic method to provide students the opportunity to explore a real-world problem or challenge around a curricular topic” (2013). She says that collaboration is an important part of problem-based learning. As a math major and a future math teacher I think that collaboration is key. In almost all of my math classes I have found small groups of people in my classes to work with. Collaboration is important to learning and teaching because it allows students to talk about the material at hand, digest it, understand it and why they might needs it, and to then be able to teach it to each other and provide them with a deeper understanding of the material. I think that collaboration is just as important in problem-based learning because students need to think about the content and how what they are learning relates to the “real-world”. I think that collaboration is a helpful element in them doing this. In my classroom I plan to use problem-based learning. Students are always asking when they are going to use what they are learning, especially in math. I plan to incorporate this by having my students solve real-world problems, collaborate with each other, use processes that reflect those in the “real world,” give them feedback, teach them how to process and understand material, and think critically. I also think that using technology to do this will be a helpful tool. I think one of the best ways to identify problem-based learning as an effective method in the classroom is engagement. If the students are engaging in the learning that is a very good sign. Engaging students also makes students excited about learning. 

       I plan to incorporate the use of technology into my classes. I think that technology can create engaging and real world relatable activities for students. In my class this semester I have learned several different kinds of technology to use. Two of my favorites were the use of QR codes into my math classes. I could do this within an activity or as a way of extending the notes without using more class time. Another use of technology that I liked was Google Maps. I created a map for my students to see and understand the real world application of surface area, area, and volume of rectangular prisms and cylinders. I think that using technology is a way to increase students’ interest and involve them in their learning. 

       “In the classroom, assessments provide an opportunity for learning and feedback for both you and your students” (Coffman, 2013). Like Coffman said, assessments are important to understand where you and your students stand. Some good assessments for inquiry learning are quizzes, work problems, discussions, self-asses, and work in small groups to create something. There are many other forms of assessment. It is important to consider assessments as part of the lesson and think about them during the lesson. They will be more effective.

Overall, I think that relating what students are learning to their lives is one of the most effective ways to excite students about their learning and deepen their understanding of the material.

Coffman, T. (2013). Using Inquiry in the Classroom. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education

Post 4: Designing Digital Age Experiences

      This week we learned about the importance of relating our content to the real world and developing lessons that force out students to think more deeply and applicably about the content.

      Problem based learning “encompasses rethinking of the entire curriculum so that teachers design whole units around complex, “ill-structured” problematic scenarios that embody the major concepts to be mastered and understood” (Bellanca & Brandt, 2010). The idea of problem based learning is to have the students investigating, thinking critically, and finding conclusions. A few key elements of problem based learning are: thinking about real-world problems, choices, collaboration, reflection. Problem based learning is important for developing 21st century skills by allowing students to create their own connects and use a variety of technologies to enhance these ideas and connections. Some technologies that have been found useful in problem based learning are the internet for research, images from the internet and books, collaborating through blogs, instant messaging, and Skype, and social media. These technologies allow students to learn more on their own and invent their own ideas. They allow students to collaborate with other people all around the world. 

     Research based instruction is important to ensure student development because it allows students to come to their own conclusions. Students who research the material at hand find their own connections with what they are reading and will then come to their own conclusions in their own terms. I also think that when students discover these conclusions on their own they are more meaningful and they will understand the material better. 

     What are hooks? “The Hook is the open-ended “big idea” question that grabs students’ attention and takes them into the problem to be explored and discovered” (Coffman, 2013). Hooks are important because they make students look at prior knowledge, grab their interest, give them ideas, and give the students a place to start the activity. 

     After the hook is presented, students will do research. What is important about good data for students to discover, explore, sift through, and make decisions from? Students can use the internet to explore real-world problems and find sources that support their opinion. They will need to analyze their data and find answers as well as learn the process of finding and using data. It is important for them to find good data and be able to sift through it because this will help them understand the initial problem. 

     “Telecollaboration provides opportunities for students to practice inquiry learning through the process of questioning, reflecting, and manipulating information using the Internet by collaborating and communicating with others” (Coffman, 2013). I think that using telecollaborative elements in lessons can improve students’ learning because it can broaden their ideas. They can gather information and ideas of other people from around the world. They can share and discuss ideas with people all over the world and incorporate their views into their own. I previously talked about students using social media, Skype, instant messaging, and other types of communication to collaborate with others. I think this is important because the learning is more in the hands of each student and allows them to make their own connections.

     I think the most important thing to take from this weeks lesson is that encouraging students to take learning into their own hands is great, but providing them with tools and setting up lessons that force students to do this is even better.

Reference:

Bellanca, J. & Brandt, R. (2010). 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn. Bloomington,      IN: Solution Tree Press

Coffman, T. (2013). Using Inquiry in the Classroom. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education

Post 3: Digital Age Citizenship

     This week’s post is all about collaboration. The idea of the metacognitive challenge for the 21st century skills movement is for education to grow and consider technology and more progressive ways into the curriculum. The movement is skills that people need for work, citizenship, and self-actualization. The framework for the 21st century skills movement is different groups working together. The groups are working in a way to make sure that their ideas are building off of one another. They are collaborating to create a framework for the skills movement.

     

     Talking about collaboration leads into the next topic. PLCs and PLNs stand for Professional Learning Communities and Professional Learning Networks. The important features of a PLC are 

“people must work collaboratively rather than in isolation. They must engage in collective inquiry to address the issues most essential to student learning. They must resolve issues and answer questions by building shared knowledge about their current reality and the most promising practices occurring both within and outside of the school and district. They must continually monitor student learning and gather evidence of that learning in order to inform and improve their professional practice, respond to students who need additional support, and drive their continuous improvement process” (Bellanca & Brandt, 2010).

The main idea of PLCs are all about collaboration. I think this is important because I work must better collaboratively. I think that sharing ideas, combing them, and improving them makes for better ideas than ones that I can come up with by myself. It is hard for schools to advance to 21st ways of thinking. These are listed in the following table. I think some of the more difficult reasons for schools to become PLCs are that it is hard for some teachers to work collaboratively, which is very important to PLCs. Teachers that have been working for a long time might find difficulty in changing the ways they teach, another difficulty is differentiating for all students. 

     Switching gears, this week in class we are focusing on Digital Age Citizenship lessons. The focus for my lesson is the Digital Footprint and Reputation. The age group I am teaching this to is eleventh and twelfth graders. Within this lesson I will incorporate the ‘big idea’ question. For this lesson the ‘big idea’ question for my students is “What do you think a digital footprint is?Why do you think that we need to understand the digital foot print? What effects does the digital footprint have on a person’s reputation?” The reasons behind this are that these students are looking into and applying to colleges and jobs. They also need to think about their safety. I will help them explore these questions with a video demonstrating what kind of information that they are posting about themselves and how it is on the internet forever. Including ‘big idea’ questions in lessons is important. These help students discover more and dig into topics more. 

Reference:

Bellanca, J. & Brandt, R. (2010). 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn. Bloomington,       IN: Solution Tree Press

Post 2: Digital Age Leanring

I had never heard of The Five Mind Theory before, but I find it quite interesting. It is the belief that there are “five” different minds, The Disciplined Mind, The Synthesizing Mind, The Creating Mind, The Respectful Mind, and The Ethical Mind. This makes sense if we think about learning styles and preferences. Different minds learn in different ways. I think that this is important as educators because we need to reach as many minds in as many different ways as we can. Dr. Howard Gardner describes a time that he was in a Chinese classroom; “ I was invited to observe a college course in psychology and was dismayed to find that the class consisted entirely of students simply reciting the textbook content verbatim” (Bellanca & Brandt, 2010). Gardner then went back and forth with the teacher why he/she did not ask questions that made the students think creatively about the knowledge, eventually the teacher essentially said, “Because we have done it this way for year, it works.” If we simply asked students to memorize the material they would not really be learning it. Information needs to be taken in, digested, and comes back out in, possibly, some other form. Students need to related the material to themselves and let their minds understand it, rather than spit it back out verbatim. 

Along with considering The Five Mind Theory in teaching I think it is important to incorporate critical and creative thinking into teaching and learning. Creative thinking can be thought of as “building on one’s thoughts and ideas through imagining and inventing something new, with the optimum goal of generating new ideas out of one’s existing ideas” (Coffman, 2013), whereas critical thinking has more to do with problem solving. Critical thinking is “to sift through vast amounts of information...to determine its effectiveness and quality and then reformat that information into new and meaningful knowledge (Coffman, 2013). We need to incorporate both of these kinds of thinking into our lesson plans because students need to be creative to successfully think critically. If we force students to think both ways and practice these skills, they will start to build on each other. Designing lesson that involve both kinds of thinking prepares students to do this all the time and to understand material on a deeper level. These kinds of thinking can be prompted with the “big idea” question. The big idea question is usually a more broad question to start a discussion that students must think about. They must think creatively and build on each others ideas. 

Technology can easily help these kinds of thinking and strategies to encourage them. Technology allows us to use so many different resources, students to do their own research, and teach lessons in different ways. Therefore technology is helping to teach supporting The Five Mind Theory. Using Inquiry based learning and technology promotes the asking of questions that students must discover and think creatively and critically to come to an answer. In the Digital Age, I am expected to use technology as a means of conveying knowledge to students in creative ways and forcing them to think and create their own conclusions about the material. 

Post 1: Technology Integration

This is my very first blog post! Well, on this blog at least. The only other blog I have had is a photography blog in high school. That blog was too keep track of our reflections and our photos in case we lost the hard copies. I am always nervous starting blogs or journals because I have a hard time keeping up with them. I am going to try my best to continue this blog when this course is finished. As for Twitter....a social networking website I will be experimenting with in my class this year. I have never used Twitter before and have never wanted to make an account. I am excited to see how I, myself, will end up using this and liking it and to also see how I might use Twitter in my future classroom.

Involving technology in classrooms can be a difficult thing to accomplish. I think that technology can serve a great purpose to push students to learn more and to feel comfortable with the content. I think that since technology is such a daily part of our lives that we need to integrate it into our teaching. Our students are used to using technology such as; phones, iPads, computers. If we integrate these devices into the classroom we instantly interest the students and the students may be more comfortable with the material being studied if technology that they are familiar with is being used. According to this article by Edutopia, “Seamless integration is when students are not only using technology daily, but have access to a variety of tools that match the task at hand and provide them with the opportunity to build a deeper understanding of content. But how we define technology integration can also depend on the kinds of technology available, how much access one has to technology, and who is using the technology” (“What is Successful Technology Integration?”, 2007). This is important to consider when when thinking about students that learn differently. Whether that be their learning styles or their learning preferences, lessons and activities need to be differentiated. By using technology in the classroom, this gives students different options. Some might work very well for some students and some may not work at all for other students. With technology integration we would hopefully have many different devices and uses of technology so that differentiating could happen easily and be helpful to the students. 

I want to be a secondary math teacher. Most people think that math is hard in general and even harder when technology is involved. Math can be hard, but using technology does not make it harder. I can use technology in the form of notes, games, supportive activities, and more! There are so many videos online to help student understand a concept. There are also tons of math games online that are free and easy to access. These are just a couple of ways to integrate technology into my future classroom. As a future teacher in the digital age, it is expected that I integrate as much technology into my classroom as possible. I like the idea of blending technology with direct teaching. Some concepts in math are more easily understood if the idea is taught and then a few examples practiced. After this, I would use different forms of technology to have my students practice what they are learning. The Technology Integration Matrix can help me decide how to use technology in my classroom. The matrix helps to organize different levels of engagement with technology. By picking a “Characteristic of the Learning Environment” and a “level of Technology Integration into the Curriculum” the combination of the two helps teachers decide what kind of involvement of technology they might want to correspond to their lesson plan. You can find the matrix at: http://fcit.usf.edu/matrix/matrix.php

Reference:

What is Successful Technology Integration?. (2007). Edutopia. Retrieved from

http://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-guide-description