Wow!
Where has time gone! It honestly seems like just yesterday I was beginning my 5th
class at Walden University and writing my personal theory of learning. Here I
am, seven weeks later, and filled with information and ideas on technology
integration and different learning theories/strategies.
This course has deepened my knowledge and
understanding of learning theories and the use of educational technologies. Now
I know not only the four different learning theories, but I also know different
instructional strategies to use with each learning theory. I still believe that
I teach and implement bits and pieces from each of the four learning theories.
All four learning theories, behaviorism, cognitivism, constructionism/constructivism,
and social constructionism, implement the idea of having the student actively
involved in his/her own learning. This course has taught me the importance of
implementing technology in my teaching. Not only is it important for me to use
technology in my teaching, but it is also equally important, if not more
important, for students to use and experiment with technology while they learn.
Through this course, I have realized
there is an immediate change I need to make to my own teaching. I need to let
go of the teaching reigns. So much of my teaching is teacher-centered. I am
talking to the students. The knowledge is coming from and going to them. I need
to make my classroom more student-centered. I need to allow the students to be
in charge of their own learning. I need to give them a task and allow them to
experiment, explore, and learn on their own, with the use of technology. In
order to make my classroom more student-centered, I need to implement and try
more types of technology. One example of technology I would like to try in my
classroom is virtual field trips. Just the other day the students were working
on a math problem that involved data from Old Faithful. I asked my students how
many people had seen the actual Old Faithful geyser. None of them raised their
hands. I then asked my students how many of them know what Old Faithful was.
None of them raised their hands. Situations like that are awesome opportunities
to pause instruction and take them on a virtual field trip. A second type of
technology I would like to implement in my classroom is Google+. I would like
the chat-room like feature to create on-line classrooms for my students. Although
those are only two examples of what I would like to try, this class has given
me countless amounts of examples and ideas on how to incorporate and integrate
technology into my instruction.
In order to implement more technology
into my instructional practices, I have created two goals for myself. My first
goal is to give my students more freedom. I want to create more
student-centered lessons. I want to give my students a task and tell them go,
“GO!” before I explain it. In order to achieve this goal, I will sign out a
computer lab, give my students a question they must answer, and tell them they must
use the Internet and each other to find the answer and then may not ask me.
This is only the start of achieving this goal but it will at least allow me to
ease into the process. My second goal is to try two new technological tools
before the end of the school year. In order to achieve this goal, I will create
two different lessons implementing the two different kinds of technology.
Depending on how well the lessons go, I will continue to implement the technologies
tried.
