Sunday, May 30, 2010

Construcitonism

This week in learning, I was exploring constructionism in the classroom and how it is visualized. Constructionism is the theory that states people learn best when they build on external artifacts and something they can share with others. This theory is similar to project base learning. Where students are actively engaged in the learning process. For example, if you were teaching on Africa, you could utilize technology to take a virtual tour of the continent; gather facts and other information; next synthesize your information in the form of a Power Point presentation or construct travel magazines to be presented. There are a number of websites that focus on this style of learning. www.Edutopia.org is an excellent source of knowledge integrated using technology and constructionism.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Cognitivism in Practice

This weeks information on Summarizing and note taking gave some excellent strategies that line up with cognitive learning theories. The recommendations were 1. Give students teacher prepared notes, 2. Teach students a variety of note-taking formats, 3. Use combination notes. The recommendation seem to focus on the procedural section of cognitive learning theory. The information also focused on integrating technology to assist in facilitating the note taking and summarizing exercises.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Behaviorism

Behaviorism is primarily concerned with observable and measurable aspects of human behavior. We use behaviorism everyday, whether we are working on homework or punishing a student for not adhering to the rules.

One of the resources I explored this week was reinforcing effort and achievement using spreadsheet software. By using Microsoft excel you can create an effort chart for the students to document their actions. This explicitly teaches students about the importance of effort. I tried this last year with some low performers and they were amazed how their grades turned around once they could see how effort is tide to achievement.