In reflecting back on the “Personal Theory of Learning” I developed in Week 1 of this class, I would enhance this theory with a couple thoughts as a result of my learning in this course. Analyzing each curriculum learning experience for which learning theory approach to use brings a solid research based decision, instead of a “hopeful teacher’s intuition.” In the “brain based research” presented over the last eight weeks, I have grown in understand not only what research says about how learning occurs best, but how and why each learning theory would be best suited for a particular approach in a curriculum activity. First, understanding behavior results in “learned habits” that are studied to understand how these habits develop, and the behaviorist learning approach can be recognized by strategies and technology that help change behavior through reinforcement and rewards. “Behaviorism directly links with “observable and measureable aspects of human behavior (Orey, 2001). On the other hand, I’ve learned cognitive learning theories reflect a process of putting together new information within the context of existing knowledge, helping the learners become aware of why and how they are thinking throughout the learning process. “Questions, and advance organizers support student’s cognitive abilities to “retrieve, use, and organize information about a topic (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007). Effective cues hint about the learning to come while questions provoke student’s thinking about prior experiences. This information then becomes the framework to classify and structure the new learning. Finally, “Constructionism asserts that knowledge is not simply transmitted from teacher to student, but is actively constructed by the mind of the learner” (Thurmond, 1999) while constructivism says, “each individual actively constructs his/her own meaning” (Orey, 2010). Students actively construct their own learning through generating and testing hypotheses. This course has deepened my knowledge and understanding of these learning theories and how to identify educational technologies and teaching strategies that meet these types of brain based learning.
Since taking this class, I would integrate virtual field trips and voicethreads as vital instructional technology tools in my classroom. These two technology tools will be helpful in supprting and enhancing my students’ learning in the following ways. First, in virtual field trips, students come away with a real world example of what we were studying and this became useful for sharing their own ideas in adding to their network of learning about the topic of study. As they share, they grow in their ability to think through their network of ideas as they explore their ability to apply their ideas in useful learning scenarios. This process of learning fully exceeds my expectations of what I would want my students to take away from a virtual field trip.
Second, I see voicethreads as an excellent tool to clearly understand the thinking of my students. In utilizing cooperative groups, I may not be able to hear all the thinking of each students, but through voicethreads this becomes a real possibility. I see this tool allowing students students to summarize their learning, develop discussion groups, input ideas, analyze problems, display understanding of process steps, and many more interactive strategies. My repetoire of instructional skills has expanded in these ways as a result of this course.
The following are two long-term goal changes I would like to make to my instructional practice regarding technology integration. First, I will place a major focus on having students connect nonlinguistic and linguistic representations for curriculum learning. Students struggle to know how to work with what’s in their head, and need cues in how to get these mental pictures actively involved in their learning process. As these two tools work together the effects on learning are profoundly effective. I can achieve the power of this practice through allowing students to video, take pictures, or build online concept maps to represent the merging of their linguistic and nonlinguistic learning. The approaches can be used as either an introductory or summarizing strategy to communicate learning.
My second instructional strategy goal includes promoting a stronger focus of students identifying similarities and differences within curriculum content. This instructional strategy allows them to “restructure their understanding of curriculum content” making “new connections, fresh insights, and correct misconceptions” (Pitler, et al, 167). This strategy can be accomplished by including more sorting, classifying, creating analogies, or even simple sentence stems such as _____ and _____ are similar/different because__________. Technology tools such as the interactive whiteboard, online concept maps, Microsoft Word and Excel present excellent tools for these types of activities. These two approaches will help me as I seek to improve my instructional technology integration practices.
Voicethreads are an excellent example of what Bandura was talking about when he said, "Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if people had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform them what to do” (Bandura, 1977). In exploring other voicethreads on the website, I observed so much creativity with students, teacher, and community working together to bring understanding and knowledge to the designated topic. "Individuals create meaning through their interactions with each other and with the environment they live in" (Kim, 2001).
Voicethreads would be an example of multimedia Pitler discusses in Chapter 7 on cooperative learning. Creating a VT requires many roles and responsibilities that can be accomplished through small group participation. Cooperative groups allow all students to take an active role in their understanding of the task at hand thus enabling their voice to come together in the community of voices that Bandura talks about in his theories of social learning.
Another example of connectivism that allows students to come together across the globe is through collaborative organizing. Web 2.0 tools or the "Read/Write Web" allows participants to "collaborate and share information online (Pitler, 149). Web based tools such as Delicous, Dropbox, Google Calendar and Documents, and wikis bring important information to once central storage area. Collaboration groups share information about any topic with the only requiring being a willing participants sharing their ideas, research, and data. These resources can be edited, enhanced, and changed by any participant within the group from any location at any time of the day, provided they have internet access. Many minds can come together to create a collaborative perspective of any curriculum topic.
Finally, communication software that allows classes to utilize instant messaging, video conferencing to share "real time" learning either through chatting or face-to-face conferencing. Programs such as Skype and TodaysMeet provide this powerful access to anyone anywhere in the world. Social networking and cooperative learning knows no limits through these powerful resources.
TodaysMeet: you have the capability to set up a private chat room for you students to discuss curriculum content. Invite epals, parents, and other teachers to join your converstion.
My voicethread: http://voicethread.com/share/1548750/
In 4th Grade, students experience classifying the describing the three main types of clouds. While clouds are not new to students, learning to classify and describe them is. My class studied weather in August and September, but I wanted a way for my students to review clouds throughout the year. This voicethread creation seemed like a perfect way to present this curriculum content continuously throughout the months ahead. I can see my students producing their own cloud voicethreads to springboard off of my creation.
I have gained so many ideas and inspiration for future voicethreads by browsing through the library on the website. After creating my voicethread, here are other voicethreads on clouds:
Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. New York: General Learning Press.
Kim, B. (2001). Social Constructivism.. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved November 30, 2010, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
