Building My Bridge

As I reflect on the course Building Learning Theory, Instruction, and Technology, I discover that I have built a stronger bridge to connect me with my students. I am one side with learning theories, curriculum, and technology. They are on the other side, eager to learn, digital learners.

The students in my classroom come from varied socio-economic, cultural, and religious backgrounds; therefore I must create a learning environment that meets each student’s individual needs. Lever-Duffy and McDonald (2008, p.18) state “To do that, you need a working knowledge of learning theory. Then once this knowledge base is in place, it is wise for you to develop your own, possible eclectic view of various learning theories.” At the beginning of this course I stated that my personal theory is an eclectic model of different theories. Students learn in the many different ways described by Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, community plays a role in learning developed by Lev Vygotsky, students learn by being active participants in an immersive experience constructed by Jerome Bruner, and students learn by stimulus-response described by B.F. Skinner. (Laureate Education, Inc., 2008d).

Which additional learning theories am I?

Behaviorist? Definitely, homework and practice are important in my classroom. "As an extension of the classroom, homework provides an opportunity for students to deepen their understanding of the content and to gain profiency with their skills (Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K., 2207, page 187.) Web resources allow students to practice the skills needed online at school and home. They provide instant feedback to students and allow teachers and parents to monitor mastery (Pitler, et. al, 2007, page 185.)

Cognitivism? Certainly, connecting previous knowledge with new information is what teachers do best. Concept mapping and virtual field trips are two new resources I found that strengthen my lessons. Concept maps are different because they allow the student to construct the meaning or connections between the concepts and "help students focus their learning (Pitler, et., al, 2007, page 73.) In the DVD, Dr. Michael Orey states that "concept maps are a graphical way of explaining the network model of memory" and because they are "a visual representation they tie into Paivio's Dual Coding of Information" (Laureate, 2008b.) One concept that is hard for my students to learn is to make connections between the levels of specificity from our California State standards for Language arts. (e.g., poodle/dog/mammal/animal/living thing (California Department of Education, 2010.)I will use concept maps with images and text to make these connections. Afterwards, I will have my students create their own. Dr. Orey states that "images are powerful tools" and reinforce Paivio's Dual Coding model (Laureate, 2008b.) Virtual field trips take students to places around the world to enhance the learning taking place in the classroom, add to the "episodic memory" and help students make connections (Laureate, 2008b.) I plan to add virtual field trips to my language arts lessons to enhance the stories. We live in Southern California, yet many of my students have not been to the beach, desert, or mountains. Not only can I take them to visit places in our home state but to the places around the world where the characters and people from our stories are from.

Constructivism?Constructionist? Actually, I have always had project based learning in my classroom. It is important for students to create an artifact that explains and demonstrates their new knowledge. There are many examples of technology that can be used by the student to accomplish this goal, Microsoft Word, spreadsheets, power points, voice threads, podcasts, wikis, and blogs, to name a few.

Technology used by the teacher as an instructional tool and by the student as a learning tool are supported by research based instructional strategies. Dr. Debra Pickering states that “Strategies are effective only if students become proficient at using them” (Laureate Education, Inc., 2008a.) I have two long term goal changes to make regarding instructional practice and technology integration to reinforce the bridge for next year. First, I need to get technology my students. Dr. Orey states that we should "not be afraid to give technology to the kids" (Laureate, 2008c.) Too many times, I get caught up in getting the lessons done to get ready for the test, or saying, "we do not have enough computers, or time." I plan to start the year teaching blogs and charts with the first theme of our reading series. I spent last week developing the blog questions and charts that I outlined in application 7. I already made up the blogs for themes two through five. Second, I want to add concept mapping to my lessons. Next week, I plan to go back to the first theme and add concept maps to the stories. By the time summer ends, I will have blog questions, concept maps, and virtual field trips for each story in my reading book. Finally, I will tie these technology tools to the standards for the benchmarks and standardized tests.

References

California Department of Education. (2010). California academic standards for english language arts. Sacramento, CA: Author. Retrieved June 17,2009, from http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008a). Program eleven. Social Learning Theories [Motion picture]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008b). Program four. Instructional Strategies, Part One [Motion picture]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008c). Program thirteen. Cognitive Learning Theory [Motion picture]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008d). Program one. Understanding the Brain [Motion picture]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Lever-Duffy, J. & McDonald, J. (2008). Theoretical Foundations (Laureate Education, Inc., custom ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom
instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.