Module 6 - Learning in a Digital World

     Technology has a huge impact on the way that I learn.  I can listen to a lecture or watch someone review a power point presentation and walk away with not bit of new knowledge.  On the other hand, I can view a podcast at my leisure, rewinding and replaying key parts, or participate in an interactive learning activity, and immediately become engaged in the learning process.  This is when I gain new knowledge and skills. I am the type of person who needs reflection time and likes independent learning, so face to face appears to be so much more structured and rigid, while the online environment allows me to personalize my own learning.  

     I believe that knowing the standards that I am teaching is the most critical and non-negotiable element in teaching and learning.  Next, communication with administrators, colleagues, and most importantly, the students is key to successful teaching and learning.  I have learned much about the different learning theories and feel that a blend of all of these theories at the appropriate time and in the right way is the best way to prepare learners for a future in such a constantly changing environment.  My preferred theory is connectivism, however in my profession as a middle grades teacher, the maturity of those students and the lack of experience with theory on my part requires for sure that I incorporate behaviorism and constructivism into their education.  There are many elements involved in online and face to face education that are important factors and another important feature is flexibility.  The world is changing, technology is changing, and I must change and allow my students to transform with the rest of the world. 

I commented on the following blogs:

http://lyndamarshallsblogpage.blogspot.com

http://castanosblogs.blogspot.com

Module 5 - New Technologies

New technologies are arriving with amazing speed at our instructional doorstep and the enthusiasm with which they are met varies among educators.  Some are used, some are passed over, and some do not get a glance, however the method by which these technologies are introduced might make a huge impact on their adoption.  I am sure that I may have seen different outcomes during one such introduction of my own had I employed Keller’s ARCS model. 

Several months ago, I was introduced at the district level, to some new technological advances and capacities for an existing assessment software program currently used by our schools.  The majority of our teachers used the program to create score-able answer sheets for multiple choice and short answer assessments.  New additions to the program capabilities included test banks for nearly all subjects with various DOK levels and types of questions, online testing and scoring with immediate feedback potential, question validity and standard analysis, test comparisons among individual students, classes, or whole grade levels and a few other tricks to improve the process of formative and summative assessments.  I was completely on board with these new processes and was anxious to share with my colleagues. 

What did I do?  I got myself put on the professional learning calendar and redelivered the information to teachers who were required to attend my session during their planning.  I assumed that all of the hours spent placing screen shots on the step-by-step handouts might make me change agent of the year and expected everyone to return to their rooms and immediately begin sessions with the new assessment resources, creating tests, analyzing data, setting up student groups by standard, and initiating a new plan of instruction based on all of this new data from the technology.  Nothing happened.  Nothing changed.  There were a few teachers who used the new test bank to create assessments, and others who looked at the test analysis.  However, no one was motivated to take the time to learn how to use and implement the new additions to the program so many of the new software additions went unused. The teachers were busy, did not appreciate having to give up their planning time to attend a training that they felt might not apply to them, and some just did not feel comfortable using the computer program and felt lost the entire time.  Using Keller’s ARCS model might have given me the opportunity to motivate and encourage my colleagues to successful use of the program throughout the school. 

First, I never tried to gain their attention to the program other than by sending an announcement that professional learning would be about “blah blah blah” and attaching a schedule for training.  I may have changed the direction of their mindset simply by sending out a flyer, a quick video clip, podcast, or animated Voki,  highlighting the new attributes of the existing program and how much time could be saved by using these additions in the classroom, thereby making it relevant to each of them.  By including a quick “cheat sheet” of basic directions for use of the new functions, teachers would have been able to peek at the program or practice in private, giving those who needed it some amount of confidence.  Instead of just training, I should have had a fake class set up and allowed the teachers to implement the steps as they decided how to adjust the program to suit the new fake classroom.  By facilitating my colleagues in using the program, and allowing them to feel some personal success, I am positive that the results may have been much different. 

Reference

Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of Learning for Instruction. Boston: Pearson Education.

I read and commented on several blogs, including:
 http://castanosblogs.blogspot.com/
 http://loridodd.blogspot.com/