Blog Post 9

Blog Post #9 - By: Shakeya Andrews, Tracy Armstrong, and Emma Boren What can we learn from these teachers?

Back to the future We learned that there are many teaching styles that we can use to help students. In ”Back to the future,” the students in the video were in the 4th, 5th, and 6th, grade and they lived in poverty. The teacher realized that the students were not very knowledgeable of where they lived and their phone number after giving them a survey. Brian revealed in his survey that the students lacked knowledge by no fault of their own but because of the narrow curriculum. Even though the students lived in poverty, there were still opportunities for the students to receive a valuable education, which was proved in Brian’s video. As future educators we should know that not all of our students will have knowledge of the things that they should know that’s why It is important to allow our students to be creative in the classroom and to be interactive with each other. When we allow students to interact with other students they will be able to think on their own and share common thoughts. In the class the students learned to create by hands on experiment which is what we plan to do in our classroom. We also learned that students can be empowered and motivated when collaborating on their own.

It seems that a good teacher is one who empowers, motivates and includes every student in the learning process. We learned that as future educators it is important to use various tools and resources that will spark imagination and creativity to build passion among our students. Brian used tools such as skype, class blogs, and videos to connect his students globally, to gain an audience, and even to include the students sick classmates in the learning environment. The requirements of the ACCRS were met when students tied into a learning network with a school in New Zealand and shared what they learned through reading and writing. Also, students invited their community and inspired other students around the world by blogging about their “high hopes.” By watching the video our group learned that students can benefit from real world experiences like the students in Brian’s video did when Brian brought in an engineering graduate student to talk and work with them. The students were engaged by actively building a boxcar of their own. One of the most important lessons we learned from this video was once students were given the opportunity to build schema for the world, they were empowered and motivated to teach other students. as we so eloquently witnessed through the teaching of the can crushing method to other students by Brian’s students via skype. Watch Back to the Future

Blended Learning Cycle There are 5 E’s to learning science, which are engage, explore, explain, expand, and evaluate. The five E’s can be blended with online resources and classroom instruction. The video instructs us that it’s okay to stop and make sure we have an understanding of what is going on. In fact, the teacher says he doesn’t allow his students to go on to the next level until he is sure that they can summarize and understand what they have learned. He doesn’t encourage burp back education and neither should we. We want our students to be able to take what they have learned and apply it to daily experiences.

Mobile, online, and classroom learning blended together is Paul Andersen’s definition of The Blended Learning Cycle. Two things were presented in this video. One was the power of the question and the other was the power of learning. Andersen explained that learning begins with a question that really gets the students attention. He went on the explain the acronym, “QUIVERS.” “QU” is for the question or the the hook to begin the learning process. “I” is for the investigation or experiment that the class will conduct. It also stands for inquiry. “V” is for the use of videos in place of lectures. “E” is for elaboration through reading the textbook in order to gain more depth and to practice problems. “R” is for review of the lesson by meeting with each student individually to ask them question to test their understanding. Last but not least is “S,” which stands for summary quiz. We also learned that another tool that can be used to teach students it live data. Watch Blended Learning Cycle

Making Thinking Visible After completing assignments students worked in small groups to talk about what they learned in a previous lesson. We learned that we should ask questions that will challenge our students after they have done a project. The students seemed to be more interested and involved when they were asked to think about what they did in the previous lesson and it also helped the teacher know who was really involved in what they were learning. In Mark Church’s video, Making Thinking Visible,” we learned about the power of collaboration. It seems like this works best when students work together in small groups. The students were able to come up with their headline by bouncing ideas off one another through brainstorming. Watch Making Thinking Visible