Reflection

My personal leanring theory has not changed much except that I now realize how much technology is in my grasp to utilize with my students in class. I still use differentiation in my classes in order to make my students feel completely included in my classroom. I still have my students do journaling, but now instead of doing it on paper, they journal on a blogging site and have to respond to other students in their class, much like we did throughout this class. The students have really enoyed this alternative to journaling, as have I. I also like this because information retention is still my number one priority and all of the technology integration only helps build that more and more.

The journaling through blogging is one form of technology I have began using and plan to do so in the future. It's great to have the student pull up my blog and read a post or an article attached and then have them post a blog regarding the information given. I also want to begin including advanced organizers when writing papers and when developing skits or lessons they will teach to the class. I like both of these ideas because they are forms of technology the students can use in a lot of classes. I also think that many students are much better at developing their thoughts by using technology.

My first goal is to learn how to integrate the use of VoiceThread into my health classes. I really enjoyed working with VoiceThread and I think that if I am able to figure out how to bring that into my classes I really think my students would really enoy it. I also like this form of technology because it is something different and fun for the students to utilize and it would make information retention very easy.
My second goal is to continue integrating technology into my classes more and more. My students all have laptops to use in class and I need to become better at using them. It is a privlege to have the opportunity to teach students by using their laptops and I need to start having them use them on a daily basis.

VoiceThread

My Voice Thread is about turning in activity reports in PE and Health classes. My URL is:
http://voicethread.com/#u535042.b661561.i3498815

Trisha Smart (Faulkner)

Social Learning

I think that the lessons discussed and presented are exactly what social learning is about. The four recommendations listed in "Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works" are as follows:
1. Use a variety of criteria to group students.
2. Use informal, formal, and base groups.
3. Keep the groups to a mamageable size.
4. Combine cooperative learning with other classroom structures.
These four items are exactly what I did when making groups for my Health and PE classes. I made groups based off of the students timed mile, timed sit-ups, and consecutive push-ups done during a test administered the first week of school. I broke them into groups of 4 to 6 six students depending on on the class size. The students sit with their team in Health class, they line up and do warm-up activities in teams, they participate in team activities with their team, and they do group work in Health with their team. I have began developing more in depth group work assignments in order to utilize the teams fully.

All of these things give students responsibility in group work settings. A lot of students do not enjoy group work because they feel as if they do the majority of the work, however, in developing lessons that give each group member a job to do, all students are responsible for getting the project completed. This also allows me to grade more accurately because I am able to see who did what type of job on the project. Group work allows students the chance to learn from others while learning material and I think that this allows them to develop a stronger understanding of the material.

Trisha Smart (Faulkner)

Constructionist/Constructivist Learning Theories

Seymour Papert says that the constructivist learning theory is the idea that learners must individually discover and transform information if they are to make it their own. The constructionist learning theory says that people learn better when they are constructing things related to the information like robots or artifacts. I agree with this theory totally. Our school system does an 8th grade project called History Rocks. The academic teams all pull together their lessons for 3 weeks and the students have to create a project and presentation with visuals to set up for the entire school to view. It is an amazing undertaking and the students do a great job at it. They become lifelong learners thorugh doing this as they become more interested in the product or the sports team or whatever else they have researched the history of.

The learning resources this week relate to the same ideas. When students are able to take information and generate ideas, they learn how to think more critically. I do a project in 7th grade health called "LIFE." The students choose a job, choose a life situation (single, married, no children, children, pets), research how much money they would bring in per week for their job, and learn to pay bills through a check book. The only thing they have to do is never become negative. They are given hidden suprises as the unit continues, with bonuses or job loss or ER visit and they have to factor in all of that information as well. The students love this project and I love running it because it gives them a strong understanding of how to develop a lifelong plan.

Trisha Smart

References:
http://online.sfsu.edu/~foremanitec800/finalprojects/annmariethurmond/home.html

Pitler, H., Hubbel, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007) Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD

Cognitive Learning

I think that cognitive learning is the most important aspect of learning. How to get our students to retain information without memorizing is always our goal in teaching. Dr. Orey discussed the idea of using concept mapping and I think that it is a fantastic way of getting students to retain information. It allows the students to take a key concept and relate it to other items that they can remember more easily. Therefore, when they think of the concept they think of the other ideas and they are able to remember what they needed to know. For example, if the key concept is Cardiovascular, they may put heart in one of their lines. Dr. Orey also discussed the idea of Paivio's dual coding hypothesis. This allows students to correlate images with text so that they can relate information which again allows them to retain the information without memorization. Both of these concepts are extremely important in cognitive learning because students can correlate important information with key concepts being taught which allows for long term learning to take place.

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

Orey, M.(Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Main_Page

Behaviorist Learning Theory

Beavhiorism is a tool that can be used as a very useful tool in education today. The two theories "Reinforcing effort" and "Homework and Practice" both can be used as strong learning experiences for students today. The main purpose is to not allow behaviorism to be used as a punishment or as a tool used for students with low level test scores. When behaviorism and technology are related in these ways it does not support the students ability to use technology as a positive learning tool.

Trisha

Introduction

Hello!
My name is Trisha Smart (Faulkner). I am in my 7th year of teaching 7th and 8th grade PE and Health. I am the head coach of softball and cheerleading and love doing it all! I have a 5 year old daughter, Elayna and she is why I am in the on-line program. I am looking forward to working with all of you throughout this course!

Trisha