Reinventing My Wheel?

Over the past eight weeks I have participated in a course that has allowed me to question my overall approach to teaching. It emphasized the use of technology with regards to instruction and personal learning theories and instructional strategies. When the class began, I naively wrote a personal philosophy that broke my personal approach into two or three exact learning theories. However, the more time I spent with the materials in this course, the more I began to understand that true educators should not approach teaching as "this is how I do it," but to accept that although learning theories can approach learning in extremely different ways the important step is to use all learning theories to help the educator reach the student and maximize their potential for learning. I am not saying to turn your own personal theory away and start again. I am simply stating that open-minded educators are more likely to access student engagement in a positive way by probing all the possible strategies.

For my own part, I will be making a couple of immediate adjustments in my classroom due to this course. First, I will not attempt to label students anymore, but to merely recognize their connections with material and certain strategies and assess the best mode to reach their individual potential. Secondly, I will be attempting to improve communication between myself and the students so I am able to recognize their level of engagement. I feel that I should respond more to what my class is telling me works, than simple going off my own judgements. Most students will openly respond to your questions and as a teacher I need to continue to respond with what is working. It is important to note that each class is different and you cannot continue to use the same techniques every year. We must adapt to our groups and continue to be open-minded in our approaches.

This process will include two long-term goals for my classroom. First, I will continue to accumulate a wide range of technologies that I implement in the classroom. I am very thankful to have found a group (donarschoose.org), that allows teachers to seek personal grants for needed things within their classroom. Last year I was able to attain new books and furniture, as well as Leap Pad Readers for my students through this online group. I plan to continue to use this group and other potential means to gain even more access to technologies that will benefit my students. Secondly, I am planning to better develop the use of my new smart board with my class through more student interaction. I am hoping to move away from using it mostly as an instructional tool and create its use to being mostly used as a learning tool. This will entail many hours of creating flip charts that harness the ability of the board to be used as a learning tool, it will require my participation in more classes and seminars that expose me to more uses and approaches with the smart board, and I will also continue to collaborate with my fellow educators on information and products already available to me that I can use to create an actively engaged, learning tool centered, classroom.

Math Assessment Fix?

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Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

Dr. Michael Orey classified social learning theories as "learning when actively engaged in constructing artifacts along with others while interacting" (Laureate Education, 2009). In today's society of "everything must happen now" attitudes, the use of collaborating and cooperating through learning is a major contributor to success. George Siemens discussed Connectivism as a theory in which you find "information in abundance and our cognitive capacities must be transferred onto a network, thus allowing networks to be rich in ability, opportunity, and overall content" (Laureate Education, 2009). Connectivism allows us to reach each other and bring about multiple learning stances and knowledge, combining information and growing from each other's experiences and ideas. Social Learning and Connectivism harness the power of Web 2.0 and the world's constantly changing technological progression.
With the use of technology we can find many opportunities to support these styles of learning. The book, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, offers many technological outlets for cooperative learning. In this post we will discuss a couple and how they embody the spirit of social learning and connectivism.
"To be prepared for the fast paced, virtual workplace that they will inherit, today's students need to be able to learn and produce cooperatively" (Pitler et al, 2007). If we are to examine today's technology in relationship to our learning styles we can examine the idea of "keypals," or the use of applications such as email, facebook, twitter, and others that offer students the ability to exchange ideas and communicate quickly and from far away places. This is an exceptionally efficient way for students to communicate ideas over long distances: from other cities, states, or even countries.
Another form of these learning theories is through the use of WebQuests, or projects that are inquiry-based in origin and allow multiple students, across many different areas to work together towards a common goal. The authors state, "A well-designed WebQuest task is practical, engaging, and elicits student thinking. It provides a goal to channel student energies and also clarifies the teacher's learning objectives" (Pitler et al, 2007). This is well suited for the social learning theory and to the benefit of all students in that it is fully engaging them and can be used in whole-group, small group or even individual participation who connect via other means in order to discuss the outcome of the WebQuest.
Finally, Web site creation can be connectivism learning on a grand scale. In their book, Pitler and the other authors discuss a teacher who has her students create a website based on a city of their choice. The groups of students combine efforts to develop a multi-paged website based on the research of that city and then ultimately ask the city's chamber of commerce to look over the site and offer feedback. It is ideal for learning a lot about a set goal and incorporating the ideas and communication of all students involved.
Overall, with the large number of workplaces that are adding technology almost daily, our students, more than ever, need to at least experiences the ideas of connectivism and social learning if they are to accept their future in the workplace. Students will benefit from the ideas and experiences of such teaching styles.

Resources

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Social learning theories. [Motion Picture]. Bridging Learning Theory, Instruction, and Technology. Baltimore: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Connectivism as a learning theory [Educational Video]. Baltimore: Author.

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