reflections on Course EDUC 6714I-1

Reflection
Before I took this class I used the same strategies and styles of teaching that I was taught in my teaching program in college. Many of these strategies tried to do some differentiation or help students with learning disabilities, but they were all still teacher centered. I was doing a great deal of work creating different but simultaneous lesson plans for my students who did and did not have learning disabilities.
Learning the strategies and ways of teaching presented in this course has opened a whole new world for me. I now have new ways to teach that are by far, more effective than the old ways. During this course I had some difficulty understanding UDL and DI and how they related to each other. I am glad that I did additional study and research on these and now have a good working knowledge of them.
I am excited to put my new capabilities with UDL and DI to work in the classroom. I have already tried a few things and have found it to increase understanding and learning for the students along with more enthusiasm on their part, but also actually less work and more enjoyment on my part. It is exciting to see students who did not “get it” or did not seem to try before, finally start to understand the material and start looking forward to class each day.
What I have to do still though, may be more difficult. My school is set up with two computers per classroom and one computer lab that can only accommodate one class at a time. To make full use of the technology available and useful for UDL, and use it everyday, I will need to encourage the rest of the faculty to see the need for more computers and, more importantly, to see UDL and DI as the new way to go in their teaching. If I can accomplish that then there may be a hope that we can convince the administration, and in turn the district, to supply more technology to our school. Using only two computers in a whole class, limits you to how much UDL technology can be used. All that I have been able to use them for is use in large teams and groups, not concentrating on more individual needs.
I am totally sold on the use of UDL and DI, and will fight to make them a reality for all the students in my school. I am grateful for being exposed to these new strategies and hope there will be even more useful teaching tools presented in my last three classes at Walden University.

Reflections on Course 6711I

In my personal theory of learning that I wrote about in week 1, I mentioned that when I first started teaching it was based on verbal/linguistic intelligence. That is lectures, notes, homework, and tests. Over my teaching years I modified this into doing more visual and hands on type of learning. After being exposed to all the new possibilities for types of learning, in this course, I must say my personal learning theory has expanded tremendously. The many different theories of learning such as Social learning, Behaviorism, and others, and the different types of instructional strategies such as Cooperative learning, Constructionism, and more that are based on these theories opens up a whole new world of teaching that I never knew exhisted before. Combined with the many technology tools that are available to use with all these types of learning will deffinitely change how I do things in the future.
I am limited in my classroom with little technology availability but I now have many more options to use with these limited resources. One of the new technology tools that I am anxious to use in my classroom is the voice thread. It is so versitile and so much can be done with it that I can use it in almost any area of study in my 8th grade science classroom. Another technology tool that I have used before but am now encouraged to use more of are simulations. Especially with these two tools my students learning will be greatly enhanced because of a few reasons. They will be able to use unlimited creativity while working through problems and will absorb the content that they need to know without even realizing it, because this type of learning is fun.
My two long term goal changes that I would like to make to my instructional practice regarding technology integration in my classroom are these. I would like to convince that administration in my district that technology is essential to prepare these students for twenty first century jobs. The first change that needs to be made is we need to bring back a computer lab for our students. The second goal is for me to be able to use all of these new technology tools regularly once a new computer lab is reinstated. My strategy for achieving these goals is simply this, so the administration and my fellow teachers what can be done with even limited technology and convince them of how much more could be done with a greater amount of technology. The only way I can do this is by doing a good job using technology in my classroom now.

Phil Palumbo's voice thread on ed. tech.

This is the URL for my Voice Thread

http://voicethread.com/share/1441778/

Thoughts on Social Learning

Social learning theories such as Social Costructivism and Connectivism are catching on as the latest learning theories with subsequent strategies. The idea that people construct meaning primarily through their interactions with other people and their environment is one that I believe is flawed at the core. I personally believe that meaning is derived though inside thoughts, self thoughts and self discussion prompted by a catalyst possibly from the outside or inside.
But be that as it may we are now faced with using social learning in our classrooms. This can be a good thing when guided carefully and instruction is given regularly. One of the examples in the text book, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007) is using multimedia as a cooperative or collaborative learning project where the students create a video on a particular subject. By using this technology students can learn collaboratively using social constructivism. They can learn from and teach each other. Jig-sawing can also be used as an enhancement to the collaborative learning. Each student is responsible for a particular task or tasks and becomes an expert in it. Where the teacher comes in is where the students go beyond their zone of proximal development as discussed by Dr. Orey in the video Social Learning Theories. Once they go beyond this zone where they are able to learn from each other the teacher is needed to guide and instruct about the project on things that the students are unable to know by themselves. There is a need for a "more knowledgeable other" (Orey,2009) to help them learn.
I believe that there is a place for social learning and ultimately connectivism in schools today and that it can be used effectively in many situations. But I also think that the nature of it's meaning is flawed and it is not an overall nirvana for student instruction.

Resources:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Constructionist and Constructivist Learning Theories [DVD}. Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.

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

Resources to Previous Blog Post

Resources:
Cajun (1998) Food Chain (Cajun Software Inc., CD-ROM, 1998 release)
Maxis (1996) Sim Farm (Maxis Inc.,CD-ROM, 1995, 1996 release)
Orey, M.(Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and
technology.
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malensoski, K. (2007). Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Thoughts on Technology and Constructionism

In one of the readings this week, "Generating and Testing Hypotheses", the emphasis of creating questions and problems, and then how to solve them, is presented. This is something that I have used for many years in my science classroom. But, not until recently have I been able to use technology to achieve this. I have always used the recommendations given in the reading. The first one being, to make sure that the students can explain their hypotheses and conclusions. The second being, to use a variety of structured tasks to guide the students through generating and testing hypotheses. But now, I am able to use technology to achieve these recommendations. In the past I have used simulation software and simulation games to enhance and promote the creation of questions and hypotheses and to carry out the experimentation to find the results. Then the students would analyze the results and create new questions. This is one of the tasks presented in this chapter, that being "Experimental Inquiry". Some of the software that I used allowed the students to use their background knowledge, make decisions, and then see the outcome of their hypotheses.
One piece of software that I have used is called "Food Chain", put out by Cajun Games. It is set up as a board game in which the players make decisions on what and who other animals eat, or if they eat at all, and what the outcomes are based on these decisions. This was great when I was teaching Ecology. Another one is "Sim Farm", put out by Maxis. In this simulation software, students created a farm and made all the decisions to run the farm. As you would imagine this got into more than just how to grow crops but also, economic, labor, and market decisions. I use this when teaching a class on farming, which is what my Bachelors degree is in. Both of these programs had students create artifacts and learn from them as you do in constructionism. They were both also able to go on for extended periods of time culminating in realistic products or presentations from a series of artifacts building one on the other. I don't know if these programs are still available since it has been a number of years since I had obtained them.
What is good about simulations and games is that you can utilize them in a classroom with limited resources. I used these that I mentioned with the students in groups so everyone could take part even though I only had access to two computers. On the other hand Data Collection tools and software usually require more resources that aren't usually obtainable to many classrooms. But with the resources Data Collection tools and software can be quite useful.