“Teachers of 21st Century” pp. 1-3 Week 2 Jan. 28-Feb. 1 Assign. #2a
I think that author makes a great point that the curriculum should drive
the technology usage, not having the technology drive the curriculum.
Technology is a means to further understanding of a curricular area and
gives another tool to gain more information and make knowledgeable decisions
and opinions. She makes a lot of sense to a teacher, like myself,
when she says that integration of technology is not putting computers into
classrooms and letting the teachers try to integrate them into their curriculum
on their own. Without training, most teachers with computers in their
classrooms don’t use them effectively, because they
don’t know how to use them effectively. I think some teachers
use computers in their classrooms, but I don’t think many integrate them
into their curriculum.
The way that I see myself using this information in my classroom or school is to make sure I have a purpose in a subject area for my lesson and integrate the technology into that lesson. That way the main focus of the lesson is not not using technology, but using technology to find information and help with the primary academic skill. This article also helps me to see how important it is to become adept at using technology so that I can use it in my classroom to help students know how to use computers to help them search for information, motivate students to want to learn, and develop computer skills through the process of using them to learn, not just learning to use computers.
Questions I have would be how Jerome, Idaho did their inservice for their teachers. I would like to know what was successful for them in training their teachers how to integrate the technology into their classrooms.
This article is about using slides in a presentation. The author is right on the money when she says that it is easy to lose your audience when doing a presentation. I like her idea of the four-pass edit to make your slides more engaging for your audience; edit your content, make your slides concise, copyedit, and proofread. Since audiences only recall 10 percent of most oral presentations, it makes sense to do what you can to keep their interest. She makes a good point when she says don’t read the slides verbatim. It is likely that your audience can read! It is important to engage yourself with your audience and not bog them down with reading slides. Text should be limited on the slides, so the audience doesn’t have to choose between you and your slides. She listed 9 faults and their cures in giving slide presentations. The faults are too many words, too many bulleted points, too much information, slides that say nothing to the audience, long or meaningless titles, cryptic phrases, abbreviations, and jargon, nonparallel construction of text, conspicuous punctuation and capitalization, and spelling errors.
This article will be a good guide for me when setting up a presentation. It gives me a good idea of how to be critical when looking at my slide presentation and if I feel it will engage the audience. Since audiences recall only 10 percent of oral presentations, I need to make sure that the 10 percent will stay with them and maybe even try to bring that percentage up with a thought provoking and creative presentation.
Cooperative Learning is two or more students working together as a group in a respectful manner. The author feels that cooperative groups allow students to know one another’s names, teacher observation and intervention, groups process their effectiveness, task and process emphasized, shared leadership and responsibility, and individual accountability.
Pairs work well for teachers if they don’t have much experience with small groups. Three is an ideal number because it is large enough to allow for diversity of ideas, but small enough to allow all in the group time to talk. A group of four is nice so that they can break into two pairs. Except for special projects, five is too large a group.
Groups can be formed by counting off, by where they are sitting, telling students to organize into groups of x, or by asking questions like what is your favorite season, kind of food, etc.
The author feels that in his experience that when students work in heterogeneous groups, the results are better than when the groups are constantly changing. He thinks cooperative grouping may help students later in life when they enter the work force and have to work with others in teams. He has his students work in groups an average of 50 percent of the time. He tends to form “base groups” early in a semester and keep them together for half the term.
Some cooperative group structures are Think-Pair-Share, Stand Up and Share, Roundtable, and Jigsaw.
Before cooperative groups can be effective, students must have certain social skills. They must be able to stay on task, use quiet voices, encourage everyone to participate, eye contact, use first names, and listen.
Roles can be established for each member of the group. I’ve used this form of grouping in a method called literature circles.
The author gives me some great ideas for organizing cooperative groups and ways to develop the groups as a semester goes on. I feel I can take bits and pieces of what he does and use these ideas in whatever way fits my specific class at the time. One of the best things that I take from the article is that no one way is perfect, that you can adapt your groups to what works best with your group.
This article is also about teaching with cooperative groups. Many of the ideas in the “Cooperative Learning” article are presented again in this article. The author, like the author of the last article, feels groups are best put into heterogeneous groups, for depth of understanding, quality of reasoning, and accuracy of long-term retention. He feels task-oriented students should be placed with non task-oriented peers. Both authors feel that the groups should be teacher-made, but that students can be allowed to list students they would like to work with and place them with one person they chose and other students the teacher chooses. They both feel that groups should be allowed to stay together long enough to be successful.
The groups are allowed to develop interdependence through materials interdependence, information interdependence, and interdependence from outside enemies. These allow assignments to be completed by the groups in a way that promotes a “sink or swim together” learning situation.
Although the author has different names for the roles than the previous author, they feel that giving roles to each member of the group promotes more effective and responsible interdependence among the members. This is also one way for an instructor of a larger class to have group members check understanding among themselves.
It is important that the instructor is clear with objectives and criteria involved in the lesson and what the group is expected to learn. Behaviors must also be clear to students and individual accountability checked regularly.
To communicate information to students, a structure called jigsaw can be used as an alternative to lecturing. The task and procedure creates a clear understanding among the students as to what the lesson will entail.
I think this article, like the previous one, has some very good advice on how to start teaching with cooperative groups. Although I’ve taught using some cooperative learning methods before, I think the suggestions given here will make using groups in my classroom even better.
This article has more information about how to make cooperative learning successful in the classroom. Positive Interdependence is when the students feel that to be successful in completing a task, they need each other. Students help each other to learn by helping, sharing, and encouraging each other. This is called Face-to-Face Promotive Interaction. Each student is expected to be accountable for their performance. Social skills are an important part of working in a group. These skills are taught by the teachers in the form of decision-making, trust-building, communication, and conflict-management skills. The group needs time to discuss how well they are doing as a group and if they are reaching their goals. Teachers also monitor the groups and give them feedback as groups, individuals, and a class.
Schools began using computers in the early 1980’s, with elementary schools using them with gifted students to study BASIC programming and remedial students reinforcing software to reinforce basic skills. High Schools used computers in business education, mostly using word processing and spreadsheets.
This article is critical of the early use of computers in schools because they were rarely used to develop critical thinking skills. Still today, computers in schools are used too frequently for basic skills drills, without much interaction between students and little to promote development of higher order thinking skills. Cooperative learning techniques using educational software with a cooperative learning context is emphasized in this article.
Females using computers within a cooperative environment vs. a competitive environment experience increased motivation, confidence, achievement, and attitudes. Combining cooperative strategies with computer-based instruction have been found in studies to have a positive impact.
The lessons must be designed so that students are held accountable individually for their work, as well as being interdependent with their group. Students must know how to use the computer independently before they can use the computer within a group setting. Software must be used that promote collaboration.
The teacher’s role in cooperative learning involves making decisions and helping the cooperative groups make decisions, setting the lesson, monitoring and intervening, and evaluating and processing. This involves deciding what lesson would be most beneficial to the groups, making sure the students understand the task and how to reach their goals, making sure the students are working together, and working with the class to decide how well the goal was reached by the groups.
This article talks about the use of technology in a science classroom. The internet can provide a wonderful resource for schools and this article describes some resources and how to integrate data into science lessons.
Change is a pattern prevalent in science and mathematics is the language used to describe these changes in nature. The Web provides many resources that help students study these changes. Four software tools are described: Web browsers, graphics programs, image-processing software, and spreadsheet programs.
Schools with limited internet access need highly structured projects. Ideas for teachers in organizing lessons are given, and based on internet access, varying degrees of preparation are needed.
Many useful websites are listed that have real-time data analysis. Data manipulation involves trend analysis, animation, enhancement, and measurement.
Assessment strategies for this type of scientific investigation will not be conventional. Having students create reports describing what they learned is a good way to assess what students have learned.
Using Web resources to teach science and patterns creates a learning environment, not a memorizing environment. Students “do science” instead of learning what others have told them they need to know.
People across America are calling for change in our schools. The federal government has taken an active role in this change, setting national standards, giving financial support to districts, and legislation in Congress.
Some feel our schools are doing an adequate job and others feel major changes need to be made. The people who feel major changes are needed don’t feel the information being taught is as much a problem as how it is being taught and how students learn. Technology is thought to be a big part of this restructuring of our schools.
Americans have high expectations for our schools and many feel that when our children are falling behind other countries in the world of technology, science and political matters, that our schools aren’t getting the job done. Schools are supposed to prepare our children for the future and when citizens feel they are not prepared, they feel schools need to change.
Many proponents of school change feel that schools need to focus on higher-order thinking skills and problem-solving, using techniques such as collaboration to find solutions, instead of recall of knowledge and memorization. Students need to learn to think for themselves and create knowledge for themselves, with teachers not being “information-givers,” but guiding students to seek information and learn what to do with that knowledge.
With so many students in so many schools, and taught by so many teachers scattered across our country, restructuring our schools will not be easy and will take much time. To restructure, there are many factors to consider; school structure, teaching philosophies, curriculum, organization of the classroom, assessment techniques, and technology uses.
The world, our country, and our communities are constantly changing. Schools are structured according to the changes that happen over time. Our schools need to change once again, to meet the needs of our future graduates. This is the information age and our students need to learn how to use higher level thinking, collaborative problem solving, and an ability to create new knowledge.
Outcome-based education (OBE) is a model that many school systems in America are adopting. In the OBE model, the learning outcomes are first identified for the students, then the most appropriate instructional organizations are designed to meet these outcomes. This model of outcome-based education is a leading force across the nation for reforming our schools. This restructuring will influence how our teachers teach and how our students learn. Students must be engaged learners, must construct their own knowledge, and not acquire knowledge from traditional methods. Recall of facts, knowledge acquired through lectures, and being able to communicate what one has learned by remembering the information has been a long standing practice in education. Studies suggest that students should develop their own understandings based on their own experiences and observations.
Teachers' roles must change, based on this new information on how learners best learn. The lecture-practice-recall method of instruction must be replaced by one that helps students find ways to find knowledge on their own and how to apply that knowledge to their experiences and background. The information age has replaced the industrial age and we must adapt our teaching and learning to reflect this change. Teachers will be mentors, models, coaches, and resources for students, not lecturers and fact givers.
Research has shown that students who are actively involved in solving problems using project-based activities related to real problem-solving gain a greater understanding of a problem. Cooperative groups lead to more creative solutions and engage more learners in the learning process.
Part of the restructuring process has to include technology, with the advancement of technology in the past twenty years. Technology won’t change schools, but integrating technology into the teaching and learning process needs to be a part of the restructuring of schools.
Middle school learners can benefit greatly from inquiry-based learning methods. They can develop questioning skills, problem-solving strategies, data analysis, and judgments about claims.
The World Wide Web is a tool that will help middle school classrooms with inquiry-based learning. There is so much information just waiting to be found on the Web and there are many middle school teachers wanting to learn how to use this resource.
Subjects that engage learners in inquiry are typically math, social studies, science, and language arts. There are National Standards that promote inquiry at the middle level in each of the subjects. Technology is emphasized as a resource in the inquiry process and the National Standards have recommendations in the uses of technology.
The Web is full of misinformation and students often lack the skills to search for pertinent information. Students can waste much time looking for information and hyperlinks can send a user from site to site, leading the student away from the initial purpose of what they were searching for on the Web.
Science inquiry explores questions about the natural world and the Web provides access to much data that can be downloaded and analyzed. Current events and new findings in science are available on the Web. Mathematics inquiry is based on the exploration of patterns in the theoretical realm of numbers. As in science, social studies inquiry can be made more exciting by current events found on the Web. In both science and social studies, image is a valuable source of data.
Inquiry in the language arts involves questioning novels, short stories, and poems, as well as research on authors and historical and cultural aspects of the work. Language arts teachers that want their students to understand the way different communities use language can have their students participate in on-line discussions.
Although meaningful inquiry can take place without the use of technology, it serves as a useful tool. Teachers must still provide a meaningful framework for their instructional method. The Web provides immediate access to a wealth of information on many subjects. The Web is useful to facilitate the inquiry process in middle school. Much more training needs to be done to allow teachers to use the Web effectively. The first step is to train teachers in the basics of using inquiry in the classroom, without technological resources.
Some schools preparing their students for the future are providing their learners project-based interdisciplinary opportunities, using collaboration techniques over long periods of time. Teachers tend to be more like coaches than dispensers of knowledge and spend more time with individuals and groups than whole classes.
Computers play a significant role in many classrooms today. Computers however, are not the only form of technology being used in classrooms. CD-ROMS, telephones, facsimile machines, modems, television sets, video cassette recorders and camcorders are also used widely in classrooms. Technology has three general roles; provide information, develop knowledge and skills, and link different locations.
The use of technology has implications for the teacher. Expectations change and methods of instruction differ. Students will also have different reactions to the use of technology in their learning. Data recall will be replaced by problem solving and using technology to find data that will help in problem solving. Teaching styles must change and classroom management issues must be thought of in advance of the lesson to make the lesson run smoothly.
To create and effective environment for use of technology in the classroom, there are some essentials that are necessary:
Educators have been using technology with assessment for 60 years: the bubble sheet used with standardized tests. It has been such an effective tool that it is still used today. With the technologies available today, there is so much more we can do. Digital Portfolios are on such technology that can be used to link assessment to student work.
A Digital Portfolio uses audio and video to hold all the work that a student creates, instead of all the paperwork and folders and files associated with traditional student portfolios. In this article, six Coalition schools became part of a project from 1993-1996, to use Digital Portfolios as a regular part of its assessment and also to allow students to show their skills. Each school received customized software to integrate student work into a portfolio.
Each student's portfolio had a main menu with a set of goals. In this main menu, one can click on of the buttons and go to an entry that the student feels best demonstrates his or her ability to meet the goal. Several types of media were used in the displays.
In order for a school to use Digital Portfolios effectively, a school must have a vision of what the students must know and be able to do, students must be able to demonstrate the school vision, what technology will be needed, when and how the information will be digitized, and the relationships within the school culture that allow a digital portfolio system to work.
I think Digital Portfolios are a great idea for assessing student knowledge, progress, and skills. There are a lot of components that are involved in making it work within a school. It seems that one of the most important of these components is that the whole school must buy into the system; the teachers, the parents, and maybe most importantly, the students.
In preparation for the challenges facing our students in the future, educational technology will play a big role. The question is, will it improve student learning to integrate new technology into classrooms.
Computer Technology has received the most attention, with schools purchasing computers to help student performance. Computers cost a lot of money and educators often ask , "Are Computers worth the money?" The research says yes, it is worth the cost.
Children prefer computers to television. Computers are an interactive activity, while television is a passive one. Therefore students like classrooms where computers are being used. Students are engaged when using effective computer software, and when students have considerable control. This type of participation tends to keep the students on task more and develops student interest. Computer technologies also increase student attitudes toward coming to school and improves student attitudes in the subject areas. Putting students in more control of more of their learning improves self-concept and esteem, making them feel better about their abilities in the classroom. I feel it is important to incorporate cooperative learning principles into the use of technology and computers in the classroom. Allowing students to work together on problem-solving and idea presentation allows more student interaction in a positive and helpful manner.
Studies have shown that when students use computers in educational settings, student performance is affected positively. Some direct impacts on student performance are higher academic gains, better writing outcomes, faster learning rate, better retention, and at-risk students benefit more from computer-assisted instruction.
Computer technologies have been used for communication support and skill building, developing research skills, increasing problem-solving abilities, learning through simulated environments, distance learning,
Even with the use of technology, teachers still play a very important role in the development of independent learners. Students will be able to go off and teach themselves new skills and concepts only after we have taught them how to pursue and manage their own learning.
Teachers must feel comfortable using computers and feel confident that using computers will enhance the learning process before coming up with ways to use one computer in a classroom. Not many schools can afford to have more than one computer in a classroom. There are many ways to use one computer in a classroom, including using it as a smart chalkboard, mini laboratory, or demonstration tool. Access to an overhead projection system is a great way to use one computer, so that all the students can view one screen. Whether it is a one computer classroom or there are many available to the students, the students must use them often to feel that they are a personal tool that is integrated into their lives.
The most common technological tool used in schools are films and videotape. Because of the constant movement of images in television, film, and video, recall of information is greater than by single medium presentations such as viewing pictures, reading, or listening to the material. Video-based information has been shown through research to help children remember information longer. So many children see things in the world through television and video that they wouldn't see otherwise that I feel it is a great medium if used properly. I learned much in my early years from watching Sesame Street and The Electric Company on television. An inner city child would maybe never have the chance to see exotic places, other cultures or animals without the use of these types of mediums. Seeing historical events, viewing natural occurrences, or science experiments as they happen are so much more interesting to see than just hearing or reading about in lecture or books. Current events are often taught using television and video, using programs like CNN news, for example. This chapter has some very good points in the effectiveness of using TV and video in the classroom, if used appropriately and if critical thinking and discussion follow.
This article is about using information gathered on the internet effectively. Using Internet tools and resources in educational ways is a challenge to teachers and students alike. Teleresearch is finding and using information from distantly located data sources, or successfully locating information online. The difficult part of this process is identifying worthwhile educational activities for students to find and retrieve. There is much more to teleresearch though: specifying, locating, sifting, sorting, interpreting, evaluating, synthesizing, and applying information in many contexts of learning.
Teachers need to help students know what to do with the information once they locate it. Teachers can help students know how to search purposefully , rather than surfing the web aimlessly, then use the information they have gathered to create knowledge.
The author has identified six purposes that can help guide teachers as they design activities that incorporate teleresearch: (1) to practice information-seeking skills, (2) to answer a specific question to find out more about a topic, (3) to review multiple perspctives on an issue, (4) to generate data needed to explore a topic, (5) to help students solve an authentic problem, and (6) to publish synthesized or critiqued information overviews for other students to use.
The main point of the article is that there is much information that can be gathered, researched, critiqued, and formulated through teleresearch, but it can only be beneficial if there is a purpose to the research. It is a means of gathering information, but not the end to the process. Students must be taught how to use the information and also how to search for relevant information to make their investigations worthwhile.
Teachers model good writing practices by demonstrating the process of generating ideas, organizing them, and composing a first draft when teaching students how to write narrative or expository essays. The teacher must also demonstrate editing and revising skills. For some reason, many students in secondary school have very little experience in writing. Secondary teachers not only have to demonstrate the process of research reports, short stories, and multimedia presentations, but also the basics of writing narrative and expository writing.
Peer grouping in small groups is a great way to help students learn what is wrong with their writing and improve their writing. This way they can critique each others' writing regularly, but this must not be done until the teacher has taught the students how to critique skills and making suggestions for improvements. Demonstrating the editing process is most effective by involving the students in the process, using an overhead display and copies for each student.
With word processing, editing and revising papers is less time-consuming and boring. More of the focus goes to identifying the problems in one's paper and and improving the paper.
Multimedia presentations can be composed and edited in much the same way compositions are written and edited. Multimedia communications require further skills however, including choosing which media will be appropriate for a particular purpose and audience. Integrating videotape productions, computer displays, audiotape sound, and other multimedia technology into presentations can be taught using the same processes as teaching written communication, with an extension of the steps to include composition with other media.
Collaborative grouping has become a popular teaching strategy, which is positive since the research shows that students learn more when they work, explain, and defend on their ideas with others. To make groupwork effective, the students must be taught how to work cooperatively. Students must be trained to work with others so that one person does not end up doing all the work and so the group can stay focused on their task. Groupwork is now being used for technological projects and it has been shown to improve student learning significantly.
Interdisciplinary learning involves either teachers in differing curricular areas covering similar topics at the same time or teachers in a subject area integrating many disciplines in their curricula. The most effective method of interdisciplinary learning and teaching involves teachers integrating their disciplinary areas into one curriculum. This, however, requires a huge commitment of teacher planning time and coordination. The benefits are that this method mirrors the real world more accurately, is more sensible, and makes it easier for students to understand complex ideas.
Distance learning uses many technological tools, such as telephone, television, computer, video, fiber optics, cable broadcast, and satellites to send instruction to students of all ages at various locations. It allows school districts with limited funds to give their students access to educational opportunities that they may otherwise be denied.
Video technology has been the fastest advancing technology in the classroom. Most schools have videotape players and in many schools every classroom has videotape players. In order for the use of videos to be an effective tool in the classroom, it must be an interactive experience, not a passive one as is often the case at home when viewing the television. Teachers need to preview the tape, stop the tape for discussion during viewing, discuss the tape after viewing, and show brief clips instead of the whole video.
Television can be a positive addition to a classroom if used properly. There are a number of television programs geared toward classrooms and most include geography and current events. These programs offer supplementary materials to be used in the classroom and some even offer free equipment if a teacher agrees to watch the program daily.
Alternative assessments are a major part of the move to restructure schools and to measure the progress of students. Some of the assessments are outcome-based education, performance-based assessment, authentic assessment, exhibitions, portfolios, and video assessment.
The teacher's role in a computer learning environment is to plan and manage the instruction and guide the learning that takes place. Software and computers are only tools and are there to make the job of the teacher easier. Teachers must be very involved in the processes and not just let the software be the teacher. This is one of the main problems I see teachers having with technology, they don't know how to use it.
In order for instruction to be effective, the teacher must learn how to use the software. The teacher must learn the mechanics of the program and understand what the program is designed to teach. It takes time to learn any new software, and it takes time to figure out how to best use it in instruction.
In a strategies approach, there are five main components of the teacher's role: 1) planner, 2) manager, 3) facilitator, 4)guide, and 5) participant. If a teacher thinks of their role in these ways, they will be able to formulate a better plan of instruction to reach their goals and help their students become more effective and critical thinkers.
I think this is a great article and makes some very good points. Teachers can't be replaced by computers. A good technology program and the uses of technology in the classroom should be completely overseen by effective teaching prinicples. A teacher can use these technological tools to help make learning better, but by trying to allow the software and computers to do the teaching, learning will be minimal, if at all. The teacher understands the aims of the school program, the appropriate software to help reach these aims, how to plan for computer access for the students, and can allow for cooperative grouping when using the computers. The teacher has to manage how the computers will be used most effectively, thinking about components such as equitable computer usage for all students.
Students need help as they learn how to use software and new strategies. They need support until they can work through strategies automatically and can take responsibility for their own learning. They also need time toreflect, perform tasks, think, explore, and discuss with others the tasks they have completed. Learners need feedback, they need correct behavior reinforced, and they need praise for when they have done well.