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As
my fifth Walden class, EDUC-66711I-1 Bridging Learning Theory and
Technology comes to a close, it is time to reflect on how my personal theory of
learning has changed since writing it during the first week of this course.
I can't say that my personal theory of learning has changed much, if at
all through this course, but I have learned new ways to integrate technology to
make learning meaningful and engaging for my students.
In my own classroom I incorporate a variety of learning theories
and teaching techniques to meet my students' unique needs and to increase the
number of times students are exposed to the content. I put great effort
into teaching math concepts to my students using a variety of strategies such
as modeling, explaining, using music and kinesthetic movements, along with
scaffolding learning to meet the multiple intelligences of the students in my
classroom. I agree with Dr. Patricia Wolfe who states, "The more
modalities you use to enter information into the brain, the more avenues you
have to retrieve it" (Laureate Education Inc., 2011 Brain Research).
The learning theory I most closely relate to is the constructivist
theory. It states that knowledge is unique to the individual who
constructs it and it relies on the cognitive concepts of inquiry-based learning
and social interaction (Lever-Duffy & McDonald, 2008). Although this
is the theory I relate to most, I have found it challenging the past few years
to utilize it in my teaching due to changing standards, time limits, and
switching grades. I have had the personal goal to work towards creating
more hands-on experiences based on my fifth grade math students' interests to
allow them to interact with the content and construct their own meaning.
"Lessons in which students are engaged and invested in goals they
helped to create have potential to stimulate and restimulate networks of new
memories as students actively process information in the construction of
knowledge" (Willis, 2008, p. 427).
Although I already valued the use of technology in the classroom,
this class has supported my opinion that technology plays an important role in
the classroom. "Technology is best viewed as a robust set of
instructional tools that help you accomplish the objectives of the
teaching-learning process" (Lever-Duffy, & McDonald, 2008, p. 9).
Technology should allow us to do different things instead of just doing things
differently.
Research shows that we are limited to approximately seven pieces
of information to process at any given time (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011).
Technology can facilitate the learning process by allowing students to
focus on the content. For example, spreadsheets allow students to focus
on the solution of a problem allowing for more accurate comparisons instead of
expending all of their energy towards accessing the data or making complex
calculations. By participating in a WebQuest students can focus on the
content instead of the process of finding the information.
This course introduced me to a variety of new ways to include
technology to enhance my lessons including voice threads, blogs, podcasts,
concept maps, virtual field trips, and simulations. I also attended a
conference at the Indiana Association for the Gifted and learned effective uses
of voice thread, iMovie, and prezi. I was most fascinated by how the
presenter at the conference uses voice thread as the way his students submit
work. This allows him to grade essays at home without taking home stacks
of papers and it also creates somewhat of a portfolio of his students' work,
including his video comments. Although it will take some time to fully
implement each of these new technologies in my classroom, I strive to utilize
each of these in the coming years, and found myself once again, excited about
teaching.
Our text, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that
Works focuses on nine clusters of instructional strategies.
These strategies are: identifying similarities and differences,
summarizing and note taking, reinforcing effort and providing recognition,
homework and practice, nonlinguistic representation, cooperative learning,
setting objectives and providing feedback, generating and testing hypotheses,
and cues, questions, and advance organizers. These are common strategies
that are utilized in every classroom but are not effective unless students are
proficient in using them. According to the research, identifying
similarities and differences was the instructional strategies witha percentile
gain of 45 points and Marzano's original meta-analysis, using graphic
representation had one of the highest impacts on student achievement (Pitler,
Hubbell, Kuhn, Malenoski, 2007). As a result, I plan to focus on
utilizing nonlinguistic representations, and identifying similarities and
differences, along with cooperative learning in my classroom. Once my students
and I have mastered these, I intend to extend my focus to some of the other
instructional strategies.
The immediate changes I will make is incorporating and focusing on
the mastery of nonlinguistic representations and identifying similarities.
I will also use our Edmodo site as a collaboration tool. The last
few months of school my students and I dabbled with Edmodo and learning of its
uses in the classroom. I posted links and assignments but the students
were not using it for classroom discussions. I would love to use this as
a tool to get students to communicate their thinking and to reflect on how what
we are learning applies to real life. "Research indicates that
online discussions have numerous advantages-such as promoting students'
critical thinking and knowledge construction, and improving students'
relationships" (Wang, 2008). "It is the conversations
that the students engage in that really help concretize and help them
understand something" (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011b).
The resources throughout this course have inspired me to improve
my teaching by incorporating more technology, so selecting only two long term
goals seems very limiting. Two things I would love to use in my classroom
are simulations and robots. However, it is hard to find math simulations
at the elementary level for anything other than money based economic
activities, and we simply don't have the funding to purchase robot kits or the
software to program them. So, at this point I would say that my two goals
will be promoting technology with colleagues, parents, and our technology
department and creating an online math journal or notebook.
As an educator, it is not only important to utilize technology in
the classroom, it is also crucial to be an advocate for educational technology.
Colleagues, and parents need to be shown how the new technologies
actually enhance learning. They need to see how it enables students to do
different things that would not be possible without the use of technology. In
addition to colleagues and parents, some technology departments also need some
convincing about technologies that are appropriate for students. For
example, our tech representative made the comment to me, "Why do kids need
to access the cameras built in the netbooks?" I was shocked! I
immediately rattled off a number of ways this can be a beneficial learning tool
including skyping with experts, or other classes, collaboration, demonstrating
knowledge for those who struggle with writing papers or performing in front of
the class, and for the creation of voice threads.
For years I have been trying to figure out how to incorporate math
journals in my classroom, but have not found a way to make them organized or
fun. During this class I came up with the idea of having students create
an online math journal by creating a group wiki. This will allow them to
add pictures, links to videos or games, and it will allow them to organize the
information neatly. Students can create a page for each standard, such as
number sense, or data analysis, and will be able to manipulate the information
with ease. It will also allow them to access the content, provided they
have internet access, instead of being out of luck when working on homework and
their journal is in their desk at school.
"Teaching is a systematic, planned sequence of events that
facilitates the communication of an idea, concept, or skill to a learner.
The act of teaching requires an understanding of learning and an
understanding of the individual and environmental factors that affects the
learner" (Orey, 2001). To best meet our students needs teachers need
to incorporate a variety of learning theories, instructional strategies, and
technologies in the classroom. They also need to change their view of
mastery from students working independently, to allowing students to
collaborate to solve complex problems and construct artifacts. "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, 139)
References
Laureate
Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011a). Program eight: Social learning
theories [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and
technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011b). Program two: Brain research and learning [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1
Lever-Duffy, J., & McDonald, J. (2008) Theoretical foundations (Laureate Education, Inc. custom ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Orey, M. (Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Main_Page
Pitler H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Willis, J. (2008, February). Building a bridge from neuroscience to the classroom. Phi Delta Kappan, 89(6), 424–427. Retrieved using the Academic Search Complete database.
