Throughout this class and our group and class discussions I have been able to share ideas with my peers, critique and give suggestions to my peers, and receive and learn from critiques and comments of my peers. It has been very helpful to have extra sets of eyes to read over my work and see things that need to be fixed, added, or taken out of my assignments. It has also been useful to have the opinions of other teachers in developing my learning theory and lessons that could be used in my classroom.
On our first assignment of writing about our theory of learning I discovered that several of my classmates shared the same ideas about learning as I do. It seemed to be a general view of all the members of our class that students learn best through hands-on, meaningful activities. It was very helpful to be able to read the learning theories of my peers when thinking about my own. It allowed me to think of ideas that I may have originally left out of my own.
For our second assignment we did a list of technologies that we have available at our school. Then as a group we compiled all the technologies into a list and then categorized them. This assignment was very eye opening because it introduced me to so many new technologies; even ones at my own school, that I was not even aware existed. This first group assignment was a little difficult to do because we were all a little unsure on what types of postings we were supposed to be doing, but after an email clarifying what out postings should look like we seemed to understand what we needed to do from there on.
Next we created an affordance analysis for several different learning technologies. I was pretty confused about what an affordance analysis was when I started, but after reading the course materials and having the discussion with my peers I have a much better understanding. I found myself having to think very hard at first about my list, but after listening to the suggestions and ideas of my classmates I was easily able to expand and redo my list. This assignment was the first assignment in which I had a response from a peer that I had to carefully read over and over again before I responded. I had to make sure my response was tactful and not defensive. I had to remember that my classmate was only trying to help me with my assignment. This was one thing that was difficult about working with peers online. It isn’t always easy to determine someone’s tone over an email/online discussion. This was something that I felt I got a little better at as the course went on.
For the next two assignments we looked at the learning theories of behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and social constructivism. These assignments allowed me t think back about a lot of the information that I have learned throughout my entire graduate school time. I read the course materials to review the characteristics of each theory. Then I was able to look at some websites, both familiar and new to me, and see which learning theory they fit under. I also was able to come up with lessons to fit under each learning theory. It was interesting for me to see the ideas of my peers and I look forward to trying to use some of the lessons in my room this year. This assignment worked very well with my group. We were easily able to discuss things and our group leaders did an impressive job in putting together all of our contributions. These assignments really helped me to rethink my theory of learning and what type of teacher I am. After looking at all of this information I feel that I am a pretty eclectic teacher that uses most of all these learning theories in my classroom throughout each day.
For our last assignment we were able to look at a lesson plan and improve it by adding in a technology. We also categorized the lesson under a learning theory. I liked being able to look at my peers lessons and would like to modify them to work with my kindergarten students.
Overall I really enjoyed this course. It was a very eye–opening experience to learn how to work so cooperatively with so many other students (teachers). I think this course is a great example of social constructivism. I was able to construct my own knowledge with the assistance of my peers.
No comments:
Post a Comment