Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

The instructional strategies described in this weeks learning resources most definitely correlate with the principals of social learning theories. "When students work in cooperative groups, they make sense of , or construct meaning for, new knowledge by interacting with others (Johnson, Johnson & Stanne, 2000)." The text talk about having a base group or home group for the students to come back to and that this groups remains in effect for the whole school year. It is important for the students to branch out, but at the same time they need to know that they are also responsible for reporting back to a main group. This correlates with real-life as we all work with our teams, but ultimately we are responsible for reporting back to the administration.

The resources that were presented included multimedia, web resources, and communication software. These tools all help students build or construct meaning, either together or alone. The resources all incorporate technology and allow the students to work within their district or branch out into the world. Social learning allows for students to construct materials that aid in their learning ability and cooperative learning helps with that construct ability as well.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E.R., Kuhn, M., and Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

VoiceThread

Here is the link to my page on VoiceThread. Please stop by with your thoughts and ideas.

http://voicethread.com/share/2667553/

I can't wait to read and hear everyone's ideas on ridding our grade level of conflict.

Constructivism in Practice

The instructional strategies this week focused on Generating and Testing Hypotheses. The basic description of these terms states that the students are engaged in complex mental processes, applying content, and are enhancing their overall understanding of the content (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007). Linking that to the definition of constructivist and constructionism learning theories is not all that hard. The constructionism way of thinking is that students are to not only be engaged in the learning process, but to be building as well. That building can take place with whatever tools maybe available to the student. In terms of today's students, that is most likely to be some sort of technology.

The examples given in the course text talk about a class using an Excel worksheet and appplying their knowledge of compounding interest and saving money. As the students in that example began to figure out which way to invest their pretend money, they were also building a spreadsheet that encompassed graphing and mathematical skills. In other words, the students were building very valuable lessons, and they were not even aware of it. The final outcome was a spreadsheet that demonstrated overall how much money they were making on their investment and they constructed it.

Constructionism is a tool that helps students build their schema to include so many more items or pieces of content. When I sit and think about it, many of my lessons could include more constructionist approaches. Building is the important factor, as the students are going to be more able to recall the information at a later date (as they were responsible for building the final product).


Pitler, H., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Cognitivism in Practice

There are many strategies that can be used with students to improve their learning. This week we are exploring cognitive learning theories. The recommendations are to use expository advance organizers, narrative advance organizers, teach our students the importance of skimming, use graphic organizers, and to ask analytical questions (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski, 2007). All of these wonderful recommendations flow nicely with technology. Each one has an application that will help guide students to the highler level of learning that we are looking for.

The next recommendation was to help students with summarizing and note taking. It was here that a light bulb went off for me. Students really do not know how to take effective notes, at least notes that they can reflect back on for an assessment. They need to be taught and this is something that I am going to incorporate the first few days of the new school year. What better time? There are so many things to learn in those days, they will have a chance to learn how to take notes and a way to look back in case they forget a classroom rule.

Cognitive learning takes many approaches to helping students remember material longer, we need to get the information from short-term (where it is rehearsing) to the long-term area where future connections can be made (Laureate Education, Inc., ND). By demonstrating the material with the available applications, the students as they progress through the school year and through the years have many resources, that they in turn will be able to use at their disposal. One student may like to use graphic organizers, but another student learns best from watching BrainPop mini-movies. Both represent cognitive learning, but at different levels based on the learner.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (ND). Cognitive learning theories. [Motion picture]. Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology [DVD]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Pitler, h., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M. & Malenoski, K. (2007). instUsing technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Behaviorism in Practice

Two instructional strategies evaluated this week were "Reinforcing Effort" and "Homework." Both of these strategies have wonderful places in the classroom. By reinforcing a students effort, a teacher ends up building self-esteem, acceptance, respect, and creating a desire to be a good student. Within the text many exciting ideas were presented, one of which is the effort chart, which I personally liked. The effort chart helped students to not only complete homework assignements, but they were responsible for charting their behavior over a given course of time (Pitler,Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007). Technology was incorporated as the students themselves created the charts on Excel or on Microsoft Word. The student is responsible for creation of graph, maintaining the graph, and handing in the final document. It reminded me very much of self-monitoring of progress. A great idea in deed!

The strategies introduced in the "Homework" section of the text offered great ideas as well. In this chapter many websites were introduced that allowed students to work together, either from their school district or from around the world. In many ways, they were like Wiki's as students could post their work and then their peers would many necessary changes to help produce a product worthy of handing in. A website that was new to me was http://writeboard.com that site looked very interesting and user friendly. This was such a site that work could be posted and thoughts and comments were to be shared by other.

Both of these chapters demonstrated very exciting strategies that modeled the behaviorist learning style. The ideas presented were young, fresh, and full of technology to keep students learning.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Bridging Learning Theory, Instruction, and Technology

Venturing into the land of educational theory and technology. This next course sounds really interesting as the course materials really try to link up how we learn with what we learn with. Technology and the brain is a new area of research and one that should prove to reveal some great information. I am looking forward to reading my classmates blogs as well as their thoughts/opinions on topics presented. In all, should be a great 8 weeks.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!