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

Reflection

This course has helped me tremedously in regards to new technology practices. I am excited to implement podcasting and blogging into my curriculum for next year. I think that my students will enjoy itvery much and it will give methe opportunity to broaden what my students learn while ensuring the retention of information. I know I still have a lot to learn in regards to technology and I am looking forward to learning new things to bring into my students educational expereince.

It was not difficult to become a student again as opposed to being only in the teacher mode. I think that most teachers continue to broaden their knowledge of their content area as well as advancing with the times and things that are presented. We have to always be prepared for the things coming our way and technology is one of the biggest advances being presented. I want to continue adding new forms of technology into my curriculum in order for me to become more familiar while allowing my students the opportunity to become more familiar as they learn the information neeeded.

GOALS:
1. My first goal is to take advantage of the technology opportunities presented in my school district. I want my students to have a more in depth experience while in Health class so that they retain the information while learning important life long skills. I plan to do this by adding at least one technology based lesson per semester in which the students are engaged in in depth lessons while using technology. I want my students to engage with other cultures and make plans for their future health practices.

2. My second goal is to develop lesson plans that will utilize a one to one lap top expereience for my students. In one year I will have all of my 7th graders with lap tops in my health classes. I want to be able to use this to my advantage while giving my students the most out of their learning experience. I think that blogging with other cultures and lerning more advanced information will become much easier through theone to one lap top experience.

Student Interviews

My student interviews were very sucessful. It was great to see the differences in the use of technology between the three students I interviewed and between the males and the female I interviewed. I asked my students the following questions:
1. When you get home from school, at what point do you turn on the TV?
2. How long do you normally watch TV in a day?
3. How much time do you spend on the computer using the web for personal use?
4. How much time do you spend on the computer using the web for academic use?
5. When you are on the WEB do you use Instant Messaging?
6. Do you play video games? If so what type of product do you use and how lond do you normally play a night?
7. Do you have a cell phone?
8. If so, how long have you had your cell phone?
9. How many text messages do you think you send in a day?
10. Do you use different types of technology in school? If so, what types of things have you done?

My podcast URL is http://tteachersmart.podOmatic.com

Trisha

21st Century

"Today's education system faces irrelevance unless we bridge the gap between how students live and how students learn." I think this quote says everything we as educators face in today's schools. We are trying to focus on teaching the standards so much in order to pass THE test, that we lose focus on how important it is to teach in a manner that reaches our students on many different levels. On the 21st Century website it gives several areas that need to be worked on in order to reach our students as 21st Century scholars. It said we still must teach the core subjects first and then move on to teaching the 21st century skills. We could also learn a lot about how to incoorperate the 21st Century skills into our core subject area curriculum. It would make it much easier to teach the subject areas in a meaningful way for students to retain the information they need.


Reference:http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/images/stories/otherdocs/p21up_Report.pdf

I teach PE and Health so using a blog in PE is not really practical, however, using it in Health is something I would love to begin doing. I think that using a blog would be a great place to have discussions between students regarding topics discussed in Health. I would love to post a prompt and assign the students to post a comment on how they feel regarding the prompt. They would then have to reply to two other students' comments and discuss the ideas presented by each student. I think that 7th and 8t hgraders would love this assignment and I belive I would get much much more out of my students regarding their ideas and thoughts.

Trisha Smart (Faulkner)

I teach 7th and 8th grade Health and have a great relationship with my students. That relationship has given me some insights into what is going on with some students in our school system. I have struggled with how to get my students to realize that the choices they make right now in their personal life and in their academic life can affect them for the rest of their lives. It is something I stress every day, every semester, every year, but I still feel as if some of my students have not gotten the point. If anyone has any ideas into how I can reach my students on that level I would greatly appreciate some feedback!!