Reflection

It has always been my personal belief as an educator to have students interact and have hands on instruction as much as possible to help learn. This method can be summarized in the Chinese Proverb “Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I will understand.” Students receive so much information as they sit in class after class, day after day. I recall when I was a student and I could only remember those activities that kept me engaged and involved. While every class day cannot be a memorable experience, through the use of technology students can be engaged now more than ever before. This course helped me identify technological tools that will allow them to explore options that exist outside of the classroom walls. One change that I would like to make to my learning theory is to add more cooperative learning experiences. I often find that student skills vary when using technology and many could benefit from working in small groups.

I identify most with the constructivist learning because I feel students must be involved and have a hands-on learning experience. While I plan to integrate all of the tools that I was introduced to at some point to my students, I have chosen Virtual Field Trips and Web quests as a start. I feel that my high school students could greatly benefit from exploring these tools because the options are immeasurable.

Two long term goals to my instructional practice regarding technology are to encourage more teachers in my department to integrate technology and continue professional development so that I can grow and successfully integrate technology. Although technology integration is my passion, I know that it important for all students to learn tech skills. I am committed to lifelong learning and I will seek workshops, courses and any other tools that will keep me abreast of the technology that is available. It is my personal goal to have technology integrated into every lesson that I teach. I teach in a computer lab for 3/4 of the week and I feel that it is necessary to use the technology that is available to the maximum benefit for my students.

Social Learning in Practice

Cooperative Leaning allows students with varied learning abilities to get a better understanding of the subject by working with their peers. One strategy that is used school-wide by all teachers at my school is Think-Pair-Share. My administration encourages all teachers to use this strategy to increase cooperative learning. I also partner my students when they have difficult projects and each student is assigned a role to ensure that all tasks are completed equally.
I often use WebQuests with my students when I want my students to learn more about a subject. I plan to begin using Collaborative Organizing because I really like the idea of shared calendars for students that need to work from home or different locations. I have a lot of students that are absent while their partners are at school and they are not able to collaborate and share information.