When I look back at what I have learned the past seven week
in EDUC 6711, my most recent graduate course, I can now see that a lot of my
goals and ideas on learning theory are now very tangible in my classroom. In the first week of the course, we
were asked to write our own personal learning theory, and describe how we think
students learn in the classroom today.
The major point in my theory says that I think students learn best when
they are in a technology rich environment and have a lot of hands-on learning
experiences. Part of what helped
me develop this theory came from Dr. Patricia Wolfe, who said that students are
more likely to remember something they have experienced rather than something
that they heard or wrote down, and that teachers should try and create more
meaningful experiences for their students (Laureate Education, Inc.,
2011a). This really got me
thinking about my own classroom and how I do a lot of lecturing and have my
students doing a lot of note taking.
I teach high school math, and I know what college math classes are like,
so I never thought that lecturing and note taking were that bad because that is
what they are going to see at the next level. In addition, just about every math teacher I had used the
same strategy and I loved learning this way and was very successful with math. However, I am math teacher, and a
person who loves math, and math lovers are a very small population in high
schools today. So I began thinking
about what I had been learning in my graduate program, which is all about
implementing technology and began to shape my personal learning theory. I began to think about how often
students are using technology and how much I use it myself. The Internet is a very large and
powerful tool that creates a lot of opportunity for independent learning, as it
plays the role of the teacher and the students can learn at a pace that is a
more tailored to their pace. The
Internet is a piece of technology that creates more hands-on learning as the
students themselves are doing the research and learning information on their
own. Using technology in such a
manner makes the Internet a learning tool in the classroom, as opposed to an
instructional tool. According to
Dr. Michael Orey, an instructional tool is something that helps the teacher
present information and a learning tool is something that students use to help
them learn something new (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011b). The key words in the previous sentence
are ‘helps the teacher’, and ‘students use’. Instructional tools are great for teachers, as they usually
make our lives easier, but at the same time we have to think about making sure
our students can benefit from them as learning tools. Dr. Orey says the best way to make a piece of technology a
learning tool is to let them actually use them.
Moreover, I am very eager to try implementing some of the
many great ideas I have picked up from this course. The first thing I want to implement into my classroom this
coming school year is more trips to the computer lab to use Microsoft
Excel. I teach statistics and
there is a lot of calculating and recording that take up a lot of time in
class. By using Excel, students
will have a more realistic experience of calculating data, as it is rarely done
completely by hand any more. In
addition to Excel, I also plan on using the Internet a lot more in all of my
classes. Part of what I realized
in this course and all the others before it, is that lecturing is not the most
effective teaching method. I have
already made a major change in my classroom by having students constantly
working in groups, which has been a very positive change in my opinion. Now, one of my goals is to try and do
less talking and let the students work more independently in their groups. One way I can achieve this is by
letting students work with the Internet.
By letting students explore a new topic on the Internet allows them
freedom to work at their own pace (with a little monitoring from me, of course)
and find resources that are more relevant to them. Dr. Orey says that the more ways students have information
presented to them, the more likely they are going to remember something
(Laureate Education, Inc., 2011c).
So in the past, I would lecture and go over guided notes with my class,
which was one resource they had to consult, and they also had their
textbook. So unless students took
it upon themselves to use the Internet to seek out alternate resources on their
own, they really only had two resources to rely on learning the material. By giving students the chance to use
the Internet to learn something new gives them the power to find a resource
that relates best to them. In
addition, I would also like to start using the Internet to extend conversations
outside the classroom via blogs.
Blogging is very similar to something my students are already very good
at, which is text messaging, and it also extends the cooperative element
outside of the classroom.
Finally, I feel that my ‘bag of tricks’ just got a little
heavier after all the I have learned from this course. It was a bit of a culminating course
for me, because we began learning about how technology relates to learning
theories. This was a big deal for
me, because it gave technology some validity in how well it works because it is
already a big part of my students’ lives already. I have also set two major long-term goals that I hope to
achieve within the next few years of teaching. The first is to change my role in the classroom from
teacher/instructor to facilitator.
One of the most important things I have learned through out my graduate
experience is that my students to not have to hear everything from me in order
to learn it in my class. Not every
student in my class is going to learn best by hearing me talk about math all
hour and show examples of how to do things. It would be more effective to have students working in a
cooperative learning and technology rich learning environment. In this environment, I hope to see
students working together to gain knowledge on new topics, as I monitor and
step in to help when students ask for it, or when I see a major struggle. By becoming a facilitator I am letting
my students create their own interpretation of what math is, rather then having
them try to remember what I tell them mine is. My second goal is to use the Internet and various software
applications in my classroom on a regular basis. In order to achieve my first goal to become a facilitator, I
need to have this second goal in place.
This is what is going to allow me to achieve this goal and will likely
have to be achieved before I become that facilitating person. I am lucky enough to teach in a school
that has multiple computer labs that I can use, and I have not taken advantage
of this very often. I know it will
take some time to achieve these goals, but I believe that it is in the best
interest of my students. Their
futures are going to be full of technology and cooperative work environments,
and I want my classroom to reflect that.
