What Can We Learn About Teaching And Learning From These Teachers?
Brian Crosby: Back to the Future
Mr Crosby is a Elementary teacher, who has been teaching for 30 years. He is currently teaching 4th grade at risk students. In his video he tells us that he wants his students to learn outside the box. He helps his students to do this by doing different projects with them. One of the projects that was done was a science experiment where they sent a hot air balloon up in the air and recorded how high the balloon went before bursting. While conducting this project they took pictures, collected data from the internet, blogged what they saw, and even created stories describing the experience as if they were the actual balloon. After posting their experiences to their blogs and developing their personal learning networks, the students began to get people from all over the world looking at their post. From this video we learned that it does no matter how limited a student past learning was and that it does not determine their future learning. We also learned that students learn mostly from active learning, learning while doing and to be an educator you have to empower and motivate your students to learn.
Paul Anderson: Blended Learning Cycle
Paul Anderson is an AP Biology teacher at a school located in Montana. Anderson introduces the concept of the “Blended Learning Cycle”. The cycle is online but uses classroom learning techniques. With this concept he introduces the 5 E’s: engage, explore, explain, expand, and evaluate. Understanding the concepts is very important. The use of educational videos are a great way for students to see things differently outside the classroom. Students may understand things more clearly if they hear and/or see it from someone else. Reviewing is the next important, necessary objective. Students may be going from one topic/subject to the next and if they don’t fully comprehend the previous material they will be behind even more. The very last step of this process will be a quiz to test the students new found knowledge. They will be tested and graded on the material presented. This video taught us that it is very beneficial for students to work in ‘blended’ classroom. They get the use of technology, but also the one-on-one attention they may need.
Mark Church: Making Thinking Visible
Mark Churches 6th grade class was in the process of watching a movie on the topic early human beginnings, the origin of human society. Mr Church wanted his students to think about what was the real meaning of the topic, so he divided his class into groups and told them to come up with a one sentence headline saying what's it all about. He was going to hang up their headlines and in a few weeks, after doing some more studying, hes going to ask them aging what the heart of the topic is and see if it has changed. From this short video we learned to write down our thoughts, so that you are able to go back and determine if your thought process is the same, has it become deeper, or have you analyzed the whole picture. This is a great way to teach students to build on their thinking or thought process.
Sam Pane: Super Digital Citizens
Sam Pane is a 5th grade teacher in Omaha, Nebraska. In the video he discuss how to be a super digital citizen. A digital citizen is a person who chooses to act safely, respectfully, and responsibly when online. Pane creates with his students a digital citizen superhero that uses his/her powers to help people. With the website he allows his students to use and build their own character. He like for the students to use their own pictures and make the character about themselves. Building comics are a great way to do a visual presentation of learning. He then allowed his students to view each other’s superhero. The main point of this video was to teach his students how to be safe while on the internet.
Dean Shareski: Project Based Learning
This Project Based Learning, or PBL, video was different than all the others I have viewed. In this video, there are three teachers combined in one classroom instead of just one teacher in a classroom discussing how they have been operating their class. It was three teachers from three different subjects: English, History, and Technology. The teachers wanted the students to take all three subjects, combine the curriculum, and have the students create their projects in groups. The students have a very wide range for what projects they want/can do. The students get to learn more doing this because it was more than just one subject. PBL is a great learning technique. I did not grow up doing many group projects in school. Students today, love working in groups and meeting new people in their classes. I think PBL is a great way for students to learn. This video taught us that Project Based Learning can be used with numerous subjects in one project; not just one subject.
Roosevelt Elementary's PBL Program,
In this video Roosevelt Elementary students learn all about PBL. PBL is in depth learning, integrated thematic instruction, based on “real-world” problems, and research-based. The teachers at Roosevelt work together collaboratively to discuss what projects they will do with the state standards. Project based learning teach the students how to work on projects from beginning to end and it encourages public speaking at a young age. Roosevelt’s PBL program teaches the students to also work collaboratively. The video taught us that PBL is a great and effective way to teach students in the 21st century. The students are excited to learn.
