For the past seven weeks I have been taking a course that focuses on learning theory and how teachers can use technology to support these learning theories.  I looked at behaviorism, cognitivism, constructionism, and cooperative learning theories.  I came into this course with my own theories of how students learn best.  Prior to finishing this class, I simply thought that there were various learning styles and that teachers needed to use instructional strategies to meet the diverse needs of the students.  For example, if I was teaching about the Civil War I would have a decent mix of lecturing, independent reading, videos, and some type of project.  This class has taught me the details of the various learning theories and how I can best help students learn by utilizing various instructional strategies.  All of this information was coupled with how to integrate technology while planning with the learning theories in mind.

Constructionism, for example, is the idea that students learn best by creating artifacts to show their comprehension of something.  Rather than simply lecturing on the American Revolution, giving reading assignments, and testing the students with a traditional exam, teachers should have students construct something.  Students are much more engaged when they are actively involved and this is especially true when technology is integrated.  For example, students could use PhotoStory to create a presentation which discusses the causes and effects of the Revolution.  They could also discuss the causes of the war with students from another class in England on an online blog.  This online collaboration would couple the learning theories of constructionism and cooperative learning.  Michael Orey, a professor at the University of Georgia, explains that having students work together to construct an artifact that they then share with others is a very powerful learning tool (Laureate Education, 2010)  This course showed me that it is necessary to carefully plan and think about learning theories.  In my initial theory, my teaching was too dependent on teacher-centered instruction.  With the new information I learned in this course, I realize I need to provide more time for the students to work cooperatively to use technology tools to create artifacts.  In turn, this will increase engagement and raise student achievement.

Michael Orey (Laureate Education, 2010) also discussed the difference between using technology as an instructional tool or a learning tool.  In the past, I have used technology more as an instructional tool.  The smart board makes for a great projector and online blogs help to provide students with assignments and updates.  However, the real power with technological tools is when they are used as a learning tool.  As teachers, we need to put the technology in the students’ hands and let them use it to learn about content or to show us what they know.  For example, students can create concept maps to illustrate their understanding of a topic which in turn allows the instructor to clear up any misunderstandings.  Students could make videos on a historical topic that they could then share with others.  Moreover, students could use google docs to complete a cooperative assignment outside of class.  I think I do a good job of integrating technology into my classes, but one of my goals is to start having the students use it more so it becomes a learning tool rather than an instructional tool.

As a result of completing this course, I have developed two long-term goals.  First, I think it is essential that students provide depth rather than breadth when it comes to covering content.  If students are to truely learn, they need to work cooperatively with others and build artifacts to illustrate their understanding.  Teachers cannot simply skim over a topic for a single day and move on.  This does not allow for higher-level thinking to occur.  Therefore, I hope to work with others to change the curriculum so it covers less topics, but with more depth.  Only then can teachers plan with these learning and instructional theories in mind.  A second goal is to continue to move away from a teacher-centered style to more of a student-centered approach.  This can be done by putting technology into the students hands.  Lessons would need to become more inquiry based as well.  Perhaps the greatest thing I took away from this course is that students learn best when they are given various avenues to access content and are then given the opportunity to create something to demonstrate their understanding that can then be shared with others.  For this to occur, I need to take a step back and let the students drive the instruction and give them the time necessary to make use of the technology tools to cover information in depth.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010f). Program #: Constructionist and Constructivist Learning Theories with Michael Orey. [DVD]. In Walden University: Bridging Learning Theory, Instruction, and Technology. Baltimore: Author.

A learning theory known as connectivism, proposed by George Siemens, is gaining popularity, especially in the time of web 2.0.  Technology is so prevalent that information is literally at our finger tips.  There is so much information available to do us, due largely in part to the development of the read-write-web.  Siemens explains that connectivism is the idea that “learning is the act of forming networks or navigating networks of knowledge.”  Wikipedia, blogs, youtube… these are all examples of networks of knowledge.  The main idea of connectivism is that students need to be able to differentiate between important and unimportant information.  Students also need to know that information and viewpoints are rapidly changing.  The existence of networks helps students to learn information.  Clarissa Davis, Earl Edmunds, Vivian Kelly-Bateman are professors at the University of Georgia.  They do a nice job of explaining these ideas.  A link below which contains there summary is provided.

http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Connectivism

As educators, the question is how do we integrate technology with this learning theory to raise the achievement of our students?  Something as simple as reading and commenting on blogs is an example of sharing information in a network.  By commenting on others ideas, knowledge is gained through discussion.  A link to a blog which discusses the myths of the Boston Tea Party is included below.

http://www.blog4history.com/2010/06/the-boston-tea-party-myths/

Another type of online tool that allows collaboration and cooperative learning is voicethread.com.  A great example of a voicethread on the genocide in Darfur and the network of people discussing the issue is below:

http://ed.voicethread.com/#q.b62276.i322457

In conclusion, the idea of connectivism is that students learn through networks where they continually rethink information they have learned.  Information is ingrained via communication with others.  Online tools such as those mentioned above help to allow cooperative learning and to help students acquire knowledge.

Check out my voicethread and join the discussion.  Do we need more computers in school to help integrate technology? 

http://voicethread.com/#q.b1548723.i0.k0

A theory of learning that seems to be generating steam within the last few years is constructivism.  The idea is that students construct artifacts to demonstrate their knowledge.  In this student-centered approach, the teacher acts more like a facilitator rather than a feeder of content.  The Department of Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology has put together a sort of online book that discusses different learning theories and how technology can be used to support the various theories.  I have included a link which discusses the idea of constructionism below.

http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Constructionism%2C_Learning_by_Design%2C_and_Project_Based_Learning

The authors of the text above state, “Knowledge is not simply transmitted from teacher to student, but actively constructed in the mind of the learner.”  Furthermore, they explain that learners are more engaged and make learning meaningful when they are assigned authentic, real-world tasks.  The implications for us teachers is that we should be implementing project-based learning experiences and problem-based learning activities.  I will attempt to explain what this would look like in the classroom and the various technological tools available to us to create such a classroom.

Let’s imagine that a teacher needs to get the students to understand the bubonic plague, or the “Black Death” as it was called.  In traditional classrooms, teachers would probably lecture, provide notes, have the students read about the causes and effects, and perhaps even show a video.  In most curricula, this would be covered in about a week.  Let’s fast forward to the 21st century with a constructionist approach.  Elena Aguilar, a teacher in California, took the content and taught it in a project-based learning experience.  She focused on the depth of the plague rather than breezing through it.  In fact, she spent an entire quarter on it.  After spending time providing the information, she had her students construct a type of “live museum” to demonstrate their understanding.  The students were engaged throughout this process as they took their knowledge and applied it in a fun, engaging manner.  A link with a summary of the unit is provided below.

http://www.edutopia.org/summative-assessments-motivate-challenge-students-aguilar

The lesson above is a good example of project-based learning.  In terms of using technology to enhance the presentation and to make the project more seamless, various technological tools could have been used.  The students could have used Google Docs or a wiki to collaborate outside of school.  They could have used various web sites to look up primary sources about the plague.  Perhaps they could have even downloaded a podcast to their ipods to listen to a lecture about the plague.  All of these ideas would be much more engaging than having a teacher stand in front of the room and lecture.

Now, all of the above might be a bit unrealistic given the structure of schools and county or national mandates.  If that is the case, something as simple as having students create something to demonstrate their understanding of content falls in line with constructionism.  Students could be assigned various topics in jig-saw fashion and put together a flipchart to teach the class about their topic.  During the past week I presented information on the Constitutional Convention and the students participated in a little simulation.  They took what they learned and created a glog.  I think this is a good use of a technological tool to support constructionism in the classroom.  A student example is linked below.

http://778sligo053.edu.glogster.com/glog-9426/

What are your thoughts on constructionism?  How have you used this theory in the classroom?

Cognitive learning theories are concerned with how information enters one’s brain and how that information is stored and eventually used.  Teachers should be conscious of this theory because it is directly related to what we are trying to do as teachers.  We provide students with information which we hope they remember so they can eventually use it.  Whether we are teaching them skills or content, we need to understand the mental processes students make while information is inputted to their brains.  Moreover, we need to be aware of the processes that occur when they recall information to use it.  There are many technological tools available that can be used in the classroom to assist students with acquiring and using their knowledge.  I will discuss a few below, with a focus on virtual field trips and concept mapping.

One simple cognitive tool teachers can use is an excel spreadsheet.  Anytime students are working with large amounts of data and calculations, students can use the formulas within excel to make simple computations.  Rather than wasting time making rote calculations over and over again, they can save time by having excel do it for them.  For example, I could have the kids look at precipitation amounts for different countries in Africa for each month.  They could then use a simple formula to determine how much precipitation various countries received in one year.  They could then use that information to make a generalization about the climate of different countries in Africa.  Adding the numbers manually would take a lot of time and would not be engaging.  Excel frees up time to allow the students to engage in higher level thinking skills.

Virtual field trips are another powerful cognitive tool, especially for social studies teachers.  For example, I could teach a lesson about the Battle of Gettysburg and have the students take a virtual tour of the battlefield.  The website is below.

http://www.nps.gov/archive/gett/getttour/day1.htm

With this, the students would have a visual of what the battlefield looked like.  Michael Orey, a professor at the University of Georgia who specializes in learning theories and the use of technology, explains that these virtual field trips can provide rich learning opportunities for kids as they help build “episodic experiences.”  For those that are interested in this topic, I have included Orey’s professional page below.

http://www.coe.uga.edu/~morey/

Lastly, I am gaining more interest in concept maps.  This is a powerful cognitive tool because it can help people do various things such as organizing information or simply representing your knowledge of an issue visually.  As a teacher, I might use a concept map as a pre-writing tool to help kids organize their thoughts prior to actually writing the paper.  Students can also use them simply to help them think about a topic.  Included is a link below which explains concept maps.  At the bottom of the page is an example of a concept map related to Reconstruction.

http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~shale/humanities/composition/handouts/concept.html

As you can see, there are a plethora of tools available that students can use to help them learn and to help them demonstrate their knowledge.  I think the next step is that schools need to provide the access to the technology needed to make use of these tools.  Ideally, schools would have a one-on-one program where each student would have a laptop they could use.  In my current school, implementing these ideas is difficult simply due to a lack of technology.

Ivan Pavolv, bells, and dogs.  Remember that concept from psychology 101?  Pavlov and then Skinner developed a psychological theory known as behaviorism which is the belief that all learning is learned habits.  Operant conditioning is an important aspect of behaviorism.  People can use reinforcement to increase the probability of a desired behavior while they can use punishment to decrease the probability of an undesirable behavior.  In terms of education, a desirable behavior might be coming to class on time and listening while the teacher is talking.  Or in terms of academics, students could use there, their, and they’re correctly in sentences.  So is behaviorism is an accurate theory, how can teachers make use of it?

Perhaps its greatest use is through managing behaviors in the class.  A simple smile or comment can reinforce a positive behavior.  Giving a student detention may prevent an undesirable behavior from occurring in the future.  In Fred Jones’ “Tools for Teaching,” Jones discusses his tool of preferred activity time at length.  This is a simple form of reinforcement and punishment.  If students display desirable behaviors, they are rewarded.  If they display undesirable behaviors, they are punished by losing time.  A more complex form of behaviorism in terms of management would be to provide students with behavior contracts and to reinforce the desired behavior while punishing the undesirable behavior.

Behaviorism also plays a role in the classroom.  In a book titled “Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works” the authors present ways to move students towards the idea that effort is linked to success.  They also discuss ideas to strengthen skills through repeated practice via homework.  Once again, behaviorists believe that behavior is simply learned habits.  Therefore, if students are not putting forth effort to do well in class, we simply need to teach them the correct behavior and have them repeat it while reinforcing it.  One way to do this is by having the students keep a record of how much effort they put forth.  They can then track the correlation of their effort with their grades by keeping a spreadsheet in excel.  This activity would show them that their grades improve as their effort improves.  Teachers could continue to stress this to it became habitual amongst the students.  If this occurs, the teacher helped the students to unlearn an undesirable behavior and replace it with a desired behavior.

In terms of homework, there are various drill and practice websites for different content areas.  Again, students could drill and practice to remove old habits (such as using the wrong form of there) and to replace them with new, desired habits.

These are a few examples of how behaviorism works in the classroom.  Can you offer insights as to how else it works?

I recently just completed a course that covered how to integrate more technology into the schools.  In the course, I had many discussions with my colleagues as to what is the job of the educator in the 21st century.  What exactly is our role?  I have learned that we need to become mor facilitators of knowledge and not providers of content.  Today, students can simply get online to find the location of geographic features or to identify the major battles of the Civil War.  I believe our task has changed to teaching kids how to find information and how to determine whether or not that information is reliable.  We can also facilitate discussions that allow students to think critically.  Lastly, we should create inquiry-based classrooms where students work collabortively to produce and share their work.

I have learned some rather fascinating technoloy in the course.  I learned about the power of blogs and how they can be used to carry on discussions outside of class.  No longer are our classrooms confined to the school walls.  Also, these blogs can act as class archives where students can go to retrieve notes and such.  Moreover, I learned how to make wikis and how teachers can have their students construct wikis to demonstrate their knowledge of content.  Lastly, I learned about the power of podcasts and how to create them.  These could be great for schools to send out updates and other information to parents.  Teachers could use them to send lectures and other information to their students.  Students can also create podcasts as a different way to demonstrate their knowledge.

All of these advances in technology have tremendous implications for our schools.  We need to move away from the assembly line vision of schools, where students go from class to class on a bell schedule.  Also, teachers and schools need to rethink their assessments.  Why waste time giving students a multiple choice test to assess their knowledge of content?  Again, having students memorize basic facts is somewhat worthless today as students can go to wikipedia and find the content in seconds.

Beggining next year, I have a few goals for myself as an educator.  First, I hope to get away from the teacher-centered classroom.  I feel as though I lecture too much and the students do too much sitting and listening.  I can accomplish this goal by creating more collaborative projects, such as having the students create presentations, wikis, and podcasts.  Also, I hope to maintain a class blog where the students can assist one another by asking and answering each other’s questions.  I can also post links for students to visit as well as post homework assignments and class notes.  Lastly, I really think there have be serious changes made at the local, state, and national level.  Too much stress is put on content and not enough on depth.  I hope changes are made so teachers can “teach a mile deep and not a mile accross.”

Check out my latest podcast which discusses technology my students use at home and the technology available to them at school.  Please leave comments and/or suggestions as to incorporate more technology in our schools.

http://kbuffum.podbean.com/2010/02/04/technology-in-the-schools/

Thomas Friedman did a great job of explaining the important changes taking place throughout the world that have vast consequences for the global economy and the United States.  In about a decade, Americans went from competing with millions for good jobs to competing with billions.  The growth of technology has lead to many companies outsourcing jobs that can be done more cheaply overseas.  It is high time that students acquire 21st century skills if they hope to land a good paying job.

A website put together by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills outlines the steps educators need to take to ensure that students enter the global society with the skills they need to succeed.  Their mission statement on their site urges educators to fuse “fusing the traditional 3 Rs with the essential 4 Cs (critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration and creativity and innovation.”

One part of the website is titled “Route 21″ and this does a nice job of breaking down the skills that students need to be competitive in today’s global society.  The skills fall into the following categories:  Life and Career Skills, Learning and Innovation Skills, Information, Media, and Technology skills, and Core Subjects and 21st Century Themes.  The site contains links to each of these skill sets and does a nice job of breaking them down into details.  There is also a part of the site that contains videos which show teachers using lessons that provide students with the skills listed above. 

Although I agree with the site’s premise, I think it is very tough to achieve the goal of providing students with these skills when teachers are struggling to provide students with the basics.  In my school, most students I teach are far below grade level.  Many can barely comprehend what they read from a newspaper, let alone reach the higher level thinking skills such as understanding point of view and bias.  Yes, students need 21st century skills.  But so many of our students struggle to simply read.  I think some schools need to overcome the task of meeting AYP before they can step up to the task of teaching 21st century skills.  With that being said, school districts should use the website and work some of the goals into the curriculums.

A link to the site is below:

http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/

I teach in a school where I’m guessing 40% of the students are below proficient in reading and math.  A good 15% of these are very basic and cannot read beyond a third or fourth grade level.  On top of this, many of these students are socially unaware.  They seem to lack a social filter and act inappropriately in school.  Everything from putting their hands on other students, to swearing, to wandering the halls, etc.  Yes this may be the case for quite a few middle schools.  However, my thoughts are that middle schools where students are struggling academically and socially should do away with the schedule where students rotate from class to class.  I think these schools should be treated like elementary schools.  Each teacher should pay attention to thirty kids and not 120 plus kids.  Students who lack social skills struggle when shifting from the routines and expectations of one teacher to another.  Interestingly, while my students are on-level in elementary school, there is a drastic drop off once they get to middle school.  Why not copy the structures that are in place in the elementary schools?

With this being said, I would not support it as a teacher.  I’m not sure how elementary teachers do it.  Trying to come up with 5-6 lesson plans a day sickens me just thinking about it.  Too many teachers in our struggling middle schools have a high school mindset.  I am guilty of this myself.