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