Integrating Technology into Instruction

My personal theory of learning is that students learn through repetition and the Nonlinguistic teaching strategy - I called it, at the beginning of this class, the mind’s eye – this course helped me to put another name to my theory of learning, the nonlinguistic teaching strategy.   As is stated at the beginning of this course my personal theory of how students learn is repetition and, teaching students to use the mind’s eye - once again as stated by (Pavio, 1980), his hypothesis asserting that when we see an image, both the image and a label for that image are stored in memory.  It is my theory, that if a student put’s seeing and hearing together they will have a good memory, hands-on activities, project based learning, and learning through technology which makes the information being taught relevant to the students’ will all help the student to learn the objectives being taught.   This course has reinforced my personal learning theory by introducing me a teaching strategy that supports my learning theory the minds eye - Nonlinguistic Teaching Strategy.  As a result of this course, the immediate adjustments I will make to my instructional practice regarding technology integration are the fact that I will use technology to teach any objective I want the students to learn, I will make sure I give the information along with a picture to incorporate the nonlinguistic teaching strategy in my lessons.  I will include Wiki’s, Podcasts, Blogs, and Voice Threads technology tools to teach my objectives – because the students love to use technology I will use it to my advantage and let them use these technology tools to learn what I am teaching. Another immediate adjustment I will make to my instructional practice is to use the instructional strategy of cooperative learning. The two long-term goal changes I would like to make to my instructional practice regarding technology integration are to use the Podcast to teach various objectives in my class, and to use the Voice Thread to teach various objectives in my class.  I have already prepared lessons that include the Voice Thread, the Wiki, the Podcast, and the Blog to help provide my students with some of the twenty-first century skills.

Reference

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Program one: Understanding the brain [Video

           webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from

   http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecolleg com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1

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URL to my VoiceThread

voicethread.com/share/2510641/

URL to my Voice Thread

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0Ad2i0Zlsfp9vZGdtNDlqaGdfMmdtbjgyYmM3

Social Learning Theories

The Cooperative learning instructional strategy is definitely one way to apply the principles of social learning theories.  Students in the cooperative learning groups are allowed to collaborate with students that know more than they do about the topic, or they are able to use technology to investigate the topic/objective, and they are able to collaborate with a professional, the teacher, to learn even more.  The jigsaw strategy is another way to incorporate cooperative learning, and the social learning theory; it gives the students a chance to collaborate in their cooperative groups.  Both learning theories, collaborative and cooperative, assign specific tasks, both use groups, and both require the students to share and compare their findings. In both cases, discovery approaches are used to teach interpersonal skills and student talks are stressed as a means for working things out, as Orey, M (2001) stated; which illustrates the social learning theory. 

The majority of the social learning based technology that I explored, seem to support the social learning theory, with these technology tools students are able to collaborate, and work in cooperative learning groups to complete an objective, a task, or an artifact. I found only one that I had a question about its ability to incorporate the social learning theory, and that is the second life social technology tool; but  I guess it is a multi-user virtual environment so that makes it capable of performing the social learning theory.

Reference

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

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Program eight: Social learning theories [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1

Constructivist/Constructionist Learning Theory

Project-based learning is one way to incorporating constructivist/constructionist learning theories into the classroom.  Project-based learning allows for students to investigate, and it is usually done by groups of students that work together to collaborate their own ideas to create something, which describes what a constructivist/constructionist learner does to learn/discover information.  Project based activities also allows students to reflect upon their own ideas and opinions, collaborate; and make their own decision which brings into play the generating and testing hypotheses where the student is pulling facts from different sources and determining the outcome. Project-based learning, depending upon how it is designed, allows students to gain knowledge from investigation; which can be done through technology.  

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Program nine: Connectivism as a learning theory [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1

Project-Based Learning: The Online Resource for PBL

Cognitive Learning Theory

The Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers strategy correlate with the principles of cognitive learning theory, in that they can all help to support long-term memory.  The advance organizers helps the students to organize information they are to learn, if a students knows what he is to learn he can concentrate on finding that information; this is also true with the questions strategy – students are focused on finding information that answers the question.  When the student finds the answer the declarative memory comes into play and the episodic memory becomes active.  Summarizing and Note Taking bring in to play the mind’s eye which supports the declarative and episodic memory;  and it provides for elaboration where the student builds numerous connections so he or she can place the information into long term memory.  I will now have my students create Concept Maps before starting a lesson, began lessons with questions to spark interest in the objective, have students create advanced organizers to get their thoughts together when writing essays.  The virtual field trip tool supports the declarative memory because it is for visual learners as well as auditory learners this causes the declarative memory processing to occur, it allows for elaboration processing, as well as dual coding information processing which initially result in long-term memory.

Behaviorism

The behaviorism-based learning resources that I viewed this week were very good.  I could see myself using these resources to reinforce learning of different objectives, to reward students that are performing at the appropriate level, as well as use these resources to reinforce learning of the objectives being taught.  The behaviorism-based learning resources kept my attention, and kept me motivated to go to the next step of learning on the resource.  I could use several of the behaviorism-based learning resources to reinforce student’s efforts, and I could assign them for homework and practice to reinforce learning of the objectives being taught.

Reference

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Program four: Behaviorist learning theory [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1

I liked the website, it had lots of good information, it went into the 21^st century skills in more detail so there could be a better understanding as to what the students are to learn.  I was very interested in the information the website had to offer such as the overview, tools and Resources, state initiatives, events and news.  The website was user friendly, and filled with information.

Under the overview section I disagree with one theme that the students need to be taught – that is the global awareness.  I feel that we need to make our students aware of the financial, economic, business and entrepreneurial literacy, civic literacy, health literacy and environmental literacy before we worry about the global awareness.  Once we accomplish all of the above, we can then focus on the global awareness. I was surprised to see that Texas did not have an overview of state work.  I was pleased and surprised to see that the website had a self-Assessment tool to help schools and districts measure where they are in terms of student knowledge and skills; education support systems; leading and teaching; policy-making; partnering; and continuous improvement/strategic planning.  I was also surprised to see that they had a speaker’s bureau, and links to recent presentations given by the Partnership.  The implication for my students is that they have a lot to learn, and as an educator, I have a lot to teach.

THE VOICE OF EDUCATORS

The best Teachers find that they do not have to give many low grades, because they are such good Teachers that the students are always learning.