#w310

My time in this class has taught me a lot about techniques used in the classroom, especially through these readings. Chapter 2 of the text talks about “leveraging their expertise”. Which basically means using these pros to help you move along the rest of your classroom. My favorite teacher from the 4th grade would do this. When I finished my worksheet early, he would then instruct me to help a student who was having some trouble with the assignment. Another method that the book mentions is “scaffolding”. Which is giving those who might have a hard time with the content some assistance until they get the hang of things and then letting them take it, on their own. Dirksen also talks a lot about making connections in order to move something from working/short term memory to long term memory and I think to really get our students to learn we really need to focus on that. Using things that students already know, to make connections while they learn is going to be the easiest and fastest way for them to learn.

           It seems to be easy to pay attention when something is important to you personally. It can seem difficult to get today’s lesson plans to relate to students on their own level however, I feel that at least at its most basic level just putting a student’s name into a problem can somewhat pique their interest. Now obviously there are more and better ways to bring lessons to the front of students’ minds, but this is a very simple tactic that I think is very effective. It can be a real challenge to pay attention when something doesn’t feel important at all. Many times, in high school, I remember classmates asking when we would need to use a unit circle in our day-to-day lives. Very few teachers were able to answer these questions and those who could really seem to be able to reel their classrooms back in to focus.

           Dirksen talks in Chapter 9 about habits and how they are created. I feel that for devices to be used efficiently in the classroom students need to be taught habits of learning through devices, not just mindlessly playing with them. Following Dirksen’s model their trigger would be getting out their devices and the habit would hopefully begin to morph into learning. This habit would be a very hard one to create however, given that the students would most likely be playing on devices at home and most likely they would not be learning. Therefore, I feel that spending time cultivating that habit would be the way to have the students fully use their devices for learning.

I watched Case #4: Collaborative Digital Presentations Enrich Projects and Case #6: Teaching Teamwork Through Video Game Development.

             In the first video the teacher’s role seemed to be mostly as a guide for the students. She was having her students create their own presentations in order for them to teach their own peers about their section of the lesson. She really put the actual teaching aspect on the students which seemed to make them take learning about it more seriously. In second video the teacher was maybe a bit more involved, but it was mostly the same. He basically gave the students their projects and included a project manager even in the groups as a way to keep them on task. I’m sure that he was there for any questions they had, but the students really engaged and managed the project on their own.

             The students in the first video, as I said, acted as educators for their peers. They spent time creating their presentations, as well as notes to go along with the presentation as a way to keep them engaged, and finally created an activity for students to complete after the lesson in order to really cement it in their minds. Students were expected not only to learn the material themselves, but know it well enough to teach it, which is the highest level of learning. In the second video students were placed in groups of three and each had a different job. As a task manager the students were expected to keep their teammates on track and on task, as programmers the students were expected to program the game, and as designers students were expected to design graphics for the game, not only concept art but what actually showed up in the game. Furthermore, all of the students in the group were expected to contribute to the game’s theme as well as its overall concept.

             I wasn’t really surprised by anything in the first video, I’ve been in classrooms or had teachers who’ve had me complete assignments like that one. However, I really liked how she made them go a bit further than just having them create a PowerPoint and had them extend that learning for the students they were teaching. I was pleasantly surprised in the second video. When the teacher brought up creating these games for 5th graders that these students had actually met, I thought that was an amazing idea. Students are so much more engaged when a ‘problem’ becomes ‘real’ to them. Having students complete an assignment like this with no foreseeable purpose can make students feel like they’re just completing busy work, “no one is ever going to play this game, why should I even finish it?” Spending time to connect this project to real life and giving students a way to get actual feedback is a wonderful way to get and keep students engaged and definitely a way to get them to work hard on it.

The first thing in this PowerPoint that I felt needed to be changed was that the entire presentation didn’t have an overall theme. Each slide was very different and there didn’t seem to be any sort of organization in how the slides were set up. I settled on a sort of neutral navy-blue background and to add some variety I made some different gradients or patterns to the background. The next thing that really stood out to me was how the graphics on each slide really varied. Some slides contained around seven photos and others had none. I did my best to balance out the number of graphics on each of the slides about two or three for each. I also varied my graphics by putting them in different shapes or instead of using photos using icons/clipart.

Nowadays there are so many distractions in the classroom. Whether it is because students like to talk a lot, or maybe it is because students become distracted with technology. It is important as a teacher to know how to not let your students lose attention and make sure they are always giving you their undivided attention. According to Dirksen, in order to keep a learner’s attention you need to “talk to the elephant.” When it comes to attention there is the elephant and then there is the rider. The rider is the rational part of the brain. It is always is steering you into the pathway of success. Whereas the elephant is the “attracted-to-shiny-objects,” part of the brain as Dirksen states. To make this a bit more understanding the rider is the one telling you to eat a salad, and the elephant is the one telling you to just eat the mcdouble instead. 

So, as a teacher I believe it is important to set an example for your students so that they are more than likely always going to listen to their rider. I have had teachers in the past who just brush off their responsibilities as a teacher and put a movie in for the whole class period that way they can grade papers. Then I have had teachers who plan out their lessons so that there isn’t a minute throughout the day where we weren’t learning and interacting with classmates. As a student, seeing a teacher just brush off their job is very discouraging. Usually in those cases my classmates and I would just pull out of phones and not even watch the movie. However, being in a class that was fun and engaging all the time really helped me to listen to my rider. With that being said, as a future teacher I will always make sure I am learning about my students’ personalities and figuring out how to get them to listen to their rider. 

If I had all the resources I needed in my classroom, I would have 3D or virtual reality so that my students could learn about history or be able to dig into an autobiography of a historical figure that they admire. I would bring in food (gluten-free, peanut-free, soy-free, red dye-free, and sadness free) that ALL my students would be able to enjoy. I would also maybe bring in real food such as donuts (vegan, sugar-free, or full of happiness), foods from all over the world so that they can be culturally aware, and maybe even help my students to take food home if they present to me that they are in need :(. (You can’t a student’s attention if they are hungry).  

(me after a long day, eating my feelings)

I will capture my learners’ attention by engaging it within the lesson so I will tell my learners stories, surprise them, show it things that will interest them, tell it others are also doing it, and leverage the learners’ habits. Each culture already has its own ways of telling stories that keep the audience interested so I will use that to my advantage. Stories should have a nice flow, have suspense, and should be entertaining, for the most part (lol). I can also surprise my audience by bringing them unexpected rewards such as food that is eaten in other parts of the world. And sometimes I can keep stories at a cliffhanger that urges them to ask me questions at the end or them research their questions and dig deep into subjects. Showing my audience interesting things will keep them entertained even more. The last way is to tell my audience that other people are doing it. This would benefit things that should be more immediate such as recycling or most importantly reusing stuff to keep landfills clean and saving our turtles!! (save the turtles) Of course, some may be skeptical of me using the word everybody or they are just not competitive, but I can show them videos of people composting and reusing things to save the Earth. 

My fourth-grade teacher would use the “bring your audience rewards” trick all the time! She would tell us that if we participated, we would get raffle tickets and then at the end of the week, she would bring in candy and whoever got their name drawn, would get candy! It wasn’t much of a surprise, but it definitely helped students that were not as confident or extraverted to raise their hands and participate when they knew the answer! Like I said in Blog 2, my British literature teacher used stories at the beginning of each lesson to keep her students engaged. It worked super well because she used “shelves” that we already had and just constructed more onto them by giving us surprising details of legends we knew some things about! 

It seems easy to pay attention when there are details that can stand out to students such as if they answer a question right in class and they get a raffle ticket, they will most likely remember why they were able to get a raffle ticket. It is also easy to pay attention when there are interesting visuals that the audience can use such as a video or a family tree that shows who in history they are learning about and why they are important.

There is a lot that goes into the process of remembering information and storing it in our memories. The first step in the memory process is encoding and retrieval, also known as, memory in and out. While taking in information it is just as important manipulate, combine, and be innovative with the information you are learning. The brain is constantly changing while retrieving new information. It creates new connections, both strong and week, and builds upon connections that were already formed. To sum it up, in order to remember things we must retrieve information and then relate, combine, and compare all the new information that is being learned. 

When it comes to helping my students remember things I already have a few tricks up my sleeve that I want to try out. The first concept I will implement into my classroom is consistency. I will be consistent in my teaching style and my classroom procedures. Creating a consistent environment will help learners stay more focused on the content they are learning, rather than how they are learning and processing it. Another thing I believe is important in helping my students remember things is always going back to certain skills or topics. What I mean by that is if I talk about addition one day, move on to subtraction the next day, and then give them a quiz over addition a week later it may be hard for them to remember everything they learned about addition. Now I am not saying I will teach addition for a week straight, but instead I might teach it for 30 minutes two days in a row, and then review it with them a few days after I taught it. 

So, I plan to teach (hopefully) in either the 4th or 5th grade. I feel drawn to these grades because I really feel that these ages were when I personally had a real sense of curiosity and that I really wanted to learn. Obviously, in any grade, you are going to have students that are hungry for knowledge and those are planning their next summer break. What I really want to achieve as a teacher is to get those students excited to come to school even if it's just for a little while.

Personally, as a student, I was mostly bored in school even though I loved to learn. I would quickly grasp whatever lesson was being taught and then want to move on, but we would stay with that topic for THREE MORE DAYS. As a kid, it was pretty agonizing. This resulted in me talking… a lot. I still have issues with it to this day. I’m hoping that as a teacher I will be able to lessen this feeling for students who may be able to grasp some concepts quicker than others. Chapter 2 of the text talks about “Leveraging their expertise”. Which basically means using these pros to help you move along the rest of your classroom. My favorite teacher from the 4th grade would do this. When I finished my worksheet early, he would then instruct me to help a student who was having some trouble with the assignment. This also ended up basically being my career choice as well. However, just because this method kept me occupied doesn’t mean that it should be used with everyone. Students that are really impatient would be more likely to just fill in the student’s worksheet that they were supposed to be helping them with.