Reflection

I can't believe this course is done already. I have to first say that out of the many courses I have taken through Walden University I enjoyed this one the most. I learned so many new things that I can use in my classroom. The text was extremely helpful and the handouts that were in the each chapter are terrific to use in the classroom. The most striking revelation I had was how to teach students how to use the internet effectively. I learned several ways to help the students learn how to choose effective websites and how to tell if they are reliable. The way the course was structured helped me each week in thinking about how to go about teaching my students these new literacies. I now have an array of artifacts to use with my students as I begin to plan more interesting projects. Since I teach self-contained students I have to change things up frequently to keep them engaged. I also have to teach all of the major subjects so using the same ideas for projects can get boring and redundant. This course has helped me create new and exciting project ideas for my students. One professional goal I would like to reach is to work with my department and teach those teachers what I have been taught about the new literacies. I am the head of the special education department so I would do this by setting up several meeting times and create different presentations for my teachers. I would also have the handouts printed out so that they could use them and hopefully would have a student project to show them. Several of my teachers struggle with keeping the students engaged and I believe it is because they do not truly understand all that is out there for them to use with the students. For the first time in a while I am excited about assigning a unit project to my students and have them enjoy working on it.

Reflection

My name is Rachael Threadgill. I teach self-contained emotionally disabled 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students. This past week was our first week back with students and I am looking forward to a great year.
In week one of this course I reviewed my idea on learning theories. I stated that I combine parts of the Behaviorist Perspective and the Constructivist Perspective and as this school year has begun I find that I still believe this. I continue to use the Behaviorist theories when it comes to my behavior policy in my classroom. The students are given a point sheet each day that monitors their behaviors for positive behaviors they earn points for negative behaviors they lose points. The points are added up each day and put into an account book to be spent on activities in the class. This fits with the Behaviorist Perspective in that “the learner acquires behaviors, skills, and knowledge in response to the rewards, punishments, or withheld responses associated to a behavior (Lever-Duffy & McDonald, 2008). As for instruction I continue to use more of a Constructivist Perspective because it “relies on the cognitive concepts of inquiry-based learning and social interaction (Lever-Duffy & McDonald, 2008). This was our first week back and one of the first assignments I had the students complete was a learning styles inventory. As I begin to plan out each lesson I try to make sure I am addressing each student’s learning style which I have found keeps them focused and more interested.
After learning about so many different technologies that are available I have already begun to change some of my lessons. I am working on creating an online scavenger hunt for my social studies and science classes that will coincide with the first chapters of the book. I have also began to look at designing a project that will allow the students to create a voice thread for an upcoming unit in social studies. This past week I also set up accounts for each of my students to complete a blog each week in math that will consist of them answering a math problem and commenting on other students blogs.
What I would like to do by the end of the school year is have my students become more effective users of technology. By using different forms of technology in the classroom throughout the year in all the subjects I teach, the students will be allowed to learn different ways to do things. They will have the opportunity to practice with each new form and improve on what they do. Another long term goal that I would like to achieve is to continue to improve my use of technology. I don’t want to continue to use the same things over and over, such as power points. I want to use more and be able to teach other teachers how to use different technologies. We have a new middle school opening next year and I would like to be the new technology integration specialist for the school. By continuing to take classes and practice I may just get there.
As the beginning of the new school year begins I hope everyone has a great year. I can’t wait to show my students what I learned this summer and have them learn the new technologies as well.
References
Lever-Duffy, J. & McDonald, J. (2008). Theoretical Foundations (Laureate Education, Inc., custom ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

This week's resources talk about social learning theories and how they can relate to the classroom. After reading this week's assignment I realized that I already do a lot of social learning in my classroom. One of the activities mentioned was Webquests. I have had my students complete a few of these of the past year. The students enjoy them and learn quite a bit of information that they might not get from the text book. I have had the students work in groups to complete the Webquests because I feel that there is too much information for them to handle on their own. Another activity that was talked about in Using Technology with classroom instruction that works was the use of blogs. Towards the end of the year I had my students using blogs each week. I would post a math problem each Monday and the students had until Friday to respond to that problem. They had access to each other's blogs and could blog each other about the problem to get help. They then had to tell me how they solved it, as well as respond to at least two other students in any of my classes. This not only gave them access to me and the students in their class but also to other students I teach through out the day. Also towards the end of the year the school set up a Twitter account. It was mostly used for the school to post things that were going on but parents and students could follow us and post things as well. I am looking forward to setting up blogs for my class this year and using them for other subjects as well as setting up a facebook page for my students and parents and a twitter account. I enjoy using these personally and can see the benefits of using them with the students.

Rachael Threadgill

*** here is the link for my voicethread****
http://voicethread.com/share/568075/

Constructionism

The strategies from this week's reading and video support the theory of constructivism and constructionism. Dr. Orey states that constructionism is "a theory of learning that states people learn best when they build an external artifact or something they can share with others" (2009). The first example is Mrs. Omar's project on interest rates and investments. Having her students complete the spreadsheet allows them to make predictions and the investigate what the results are. This allows students to do what Dr. Orey suggests in that they are building an artifact that to learn from. Another example that also is an example of constuctionism is Mario's travels around the world. This is another project that allows the students to research and build an artifact to share. Any project based or experiment that allows the students a chane to learn from building or creating something is a good example of constructionism.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Constructionist and Constructivist Learning Theories [Motion picture]. Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology . Baltimore : Orey

Cognitivism in Practice

In my classroom I use graphic organizers for many different subjects. Being responsible for all the major subjects for three different grade levels can be overwhelming at times so the use of graphic organizers really helps me. In this week's reading Pitler et al. gave examples of how to use graphic organizers and other technologies to enhance student's understanding. In the past I have always created the graphic organizers my students would use and had them complete it by hand, however after this week's reading I now see how to use something as simple as Word would enhance my students' learning. Having the students create and complete an organizer for pre-selected questions would allow them the opportunity to have some control over the information that is presented.

The section on summarizing and note taking really got my attention. I do many of these types of activities with my students however, I have never used the technologies they presented to do this. In the past I have used foldables to help my students organize the information presented to them. I started by completely creating the foldable down to the questions so all the students had to do was answer them. Further into the school year I began to have the students develop their own foldable for the information and gather what they thought was important. What I began to notice was that the students were just writing verbatim from the book. They did not really know how to take notes. After this week's reading I now have ideas on how to teach the students how to take notes. Using the track changes and auto summarizing parts of Word really grabbed my attention. This coming year I will start with teaching the students how to use these functions of word and other programs so that they will learn how to take their own notes.

All of the concepts presented in this week's reading relate to Orey's description of cognitive learning. Each of these concepts allows the students to move the information from short term to long term memory. It allows them different ways to store the information so that they can recall it at a later time.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Cognitive learning theories [Motion picture]. Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology . Baltimore : Orey.

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

Instructional Strategies and Behaviorist Theory

All teachers use behaviorism in their classrooms whether it is through instruction or through changing a student's behavior. Dr. Orey states that behaviorism is focused on operant conditioning which as two components; reinforcement and punishment. The first, reinforcement, can be done through effort. Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski state that "the instructional strategy of reinforcing effort enhances students' understanding of their relationship between effort and achievement by addressing their attitudes and beliefs about learning" (2007). The first strategy that was discussed was a spreadsheet that students used to correlate their effort on a particular assignment. I can really see the benefit of using an assignment like this with my students. It gives them immediate feedback on how well they are doing and lets them see the correlation between effort and grades. It also allows them to see the consequences of not putting forth enough effort to reach their goals.

Another strategy discussed this week was through the use of homework and practice. I strongly believe in homework but only as a reinforcement of what we have done in class. I try to never assign my students anything that we haven't already gone over and discussed and I usually try to give them a few minutes at the end of class to get started in case they have any questions. One of the strategies presented this week was with the use of Microsoft Word. I have had my students use Word before but not as a research tool. I can see how that would be beneficial for them to just open up a side window and search what they are looking for. Again it is immediate and gives them the right information they need to continue with the assignment. As I continued to read the next strategy got me thinking about how I could include that in my class. At my school all math students are required to complete a certain number of objectives on a program called Accelerated Math. The teacher assigns the students the objectives and they work at them at their own pace. The objectives are based on what the students are learning in class and the program continuously pulls from other objectives to continue to reinforce those concepts. The problem becomes that the students wait until the last minute to try and get all of their objectives mastered. By having students set up a spreadsheet that had columns for practices, assignments, tests, and mastered objectives the students could plot their effort and see what they need to change in order to master all the objectives required.

I have used the Behaviorist theory on reinforcement and punishment each year in my classroom to curb unwanted behaviors but I never thought of using it to gain motivation and effort in my students where instruction and curriculum was concerned.

References:

Orey, M. (Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved 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.