Group items tagged

This article explores ways to enhance online communication between students.

Rob Kelly discusses how to he used online discussion boards in a skills based course. This concept could be followed for any type of study group. Given students learn best when they not only teach the information but share and collaborate with others, this idea enhances the learning process.

I'm the only Accounting teacher and have been teaching for 2 years at the high school level. I feel this article does a great job not just on how discussion boards can help and guide deeper levels of thinking among Accounting students, but provides the opportunity to take baby steps including technology in the classroom and push critical thinking. I can appreciate this article greatly because I believe we all learn through experience and as Gee mentions, some of the students have worked in the field and may be able to offer their peers another insight.

A discussion of "disruptive innovations" and how online learning can be used in brick and mortar schools to engage students in richer, more complex learning experience and increase student/teacher interactions.

The article explains the importance of Problem-Based Learning in Education. It is crucial to create lessons that incorporate interesting, safe and useful activities.

I read this and thought how true it is that giving feedback to students taking an online course...or working on a website etc. is as important as feedback we give on essay writing, reading, speaking and listening. Feedback is a key communication tool for students to know where they stand. As is any feedback - provided it is constructive.

February 21, 2013 By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching and Learning Almost everyone agrees that student presentations benefit the presenter in significant ways. By doing presentations, students learn how to speak in front a group, a broadly applicable professional skill. They learn how to prepare material for public presentation, and practice (especially with feedback) improves their speaking skills. (Much of what we want for our students is to work, respect, support, find the good in one another, have fun and use web tools together! Highlighting the peer evaluative piece was one I am doing my best to work on. Great resource!) ~Tara

Tara, Good find. A nice way to get more students engaged. An interesting, approach to student presentations. The author does a nice job of describing advantages, as well as disadvantages, to requiring students to critique their classmate's presentations. The image of the "comatose" classmates in their seats as yet, another presenter tries to impress the teacher is comical, yet accurate. The students doing the critiques also had a vested interest as it represents a portion of their grade. A significant statistic was that," Seventy-three percent of the students agreed or strongly agreed that completing the evaluations made them pay more attention to the presentations. " A final point of interest is that students were clear in not wanting their classmates critiques to have an impact on their grade. Tom

Student debate has the capacity to both deeply engage the students in relevant learning, and to encourage students to be deep thinkers. Debate is more than simply arguing. It has structure and rules that are designed to keep both sides calm.

This article highlights the academic and intellectual benefits of student debate activities. According to the article, students who study and practice debate are able to think more deeply and critically and defend their opinions with evidence--definitely elements of HOTS.

An intriguing article delineating several useful methods to bring online classrooms to life. While text and self-teaching methods were the way of the past, we now have a multitude of means to engage the student both visually and audibly via an incredible assortment of tools and resources just brimming with creative potential.

Using online math course as the example, this article provides teachers and students with a lot of technology tools to create a rich online learning and problem-solving environment. With these digital tools, students get more engaged in learning and become more creative thinking. It's a good reference for subject teachers.

This article asks how we teach students the tools to learn how to talk, read, write, and think online. It mentions many of the media literacy tools presented in one of our readings.

This article introduces a contest which promotes reading and media skills that began in 2008. It is sponsored by major publishers such as Simon and Schuster and Scholastic and 5 regional libraries, The contest is for students in grades 1-6. The students need to create a storytube on a book they have read. It is important to point out that teachers are not replacing a written report or are using this to enhance the report. I reviewed some of the winners and it is so great to see kids excited about what they read and using technology so easily. With students creating video media at such an early age and being so comfortable doing it only leads me to believe that when these students reach high school the work that they will create will be fantastic.

This article originally appeared in SLJ’s Extra Helping. Sign up now! By Jennifer Pinkowski -- School Library Journal, 07/09/2008 Funny accents, strange wigs, and spoiler-free plot summaries are the common elements in the winning videos made by contestants in StoryTubes, a new contest for kids that promotes reading-and new media skills-by capitalizing on the popularity of YouTube.

This link explains how libraries are using the power and popularity of YouTube to promote learning, literacy, creativity and technology. StoryTube is a great project idea that uses the power of the contest as a wonderful motivator.

In this article, teachers are urged to push students beyond simply providing personal opinions as answers. By offering better prompts and questions, students need to be pushed into "critical reflection and evaluation" of the topic at hand. Having students move beyond simply Q/A formats, they are more engaged in their learning in terms of both the process and the outcome. Teachers need to provide feedback, challenging prompts, and encourage the discovery process (among others) to improve critical thinking skills. In addition, teachers can post open-ended questions, provide models of what synthesis looks like, and refrain from being the authority on the subject. While this article was not specifically related to Web 2.0 tools, the elements of how to increase critical / higher order thinking skills apply to all of the elements of technology use in the classroom.

Collaboration is key to establishing an effective learning environment. The teacher and the students share the responsibility of creating an environment where optimal learning can take place. Students are often unaware how their behaviors do or don't contribute to learning. Teachers may not be aware how they need to modify their own behavior to meet their students' needs. Teachers and students need to work together in identifying the characteristics of an effective learning environment and then in making their shared vision of the classroom a reality.

Blogger Raleigh Werberger, a high school history and humanities teacher, describes a PBL unit that flipped a class from 'just good enough' to creating a working business model and seeking funds to launch a startup. The creative approach to teaching students on multiple levels, including how to market a start-up, and how to make sure students have genuine vested interest in success shows a great way for students to be engaged in their own learning. As the article points out, "[Students'] social media use took on more significance and had a more authentic stake for them, as students began communicating with web journals and community organizations to expand their online presence and gain 'endorsements' for their products." This is a great way to bring students together for a project that demonstrates real life lessons.

This is a link to a video of a high school that uses only Project-Based learning PBL, a teaching/learning style where students create projects to demonstrate their learning of the objectives set out by the teacher. It goes through the process of how to set up PBL projects as teachers. It's a decent introduction to the process: something to pique one's interest. At the end there are links to other videos with more information about PBL.

Project-based learning has come to the forefront of education as it is being used to assess what the students know and how they can use the knowledge in the "real world" to problem solve. The approach by the school to implement PBL into their curriculum goes directly back to state standards. I thought the video was well informed and I was impressed with the 60-65 times the students speak in front of others (public speaking).

Go inside Manor New Technology High School, part of the New Tech Network of schools, where an unwavering commitment to an effective schoolwide PBL model keeps both students and teachers motivated and achieving their best. More to this story.

At an educational technology conference in Boston July 27, Harvard University physics professor Eric Mazur explained how he uses "peer instruction" to help his students engage in deeper learning than traditional lectures can provide-and he unveiled a brand-new ed-tech service that can help educators take this concept to a whole new level.

This article by Dennis Pierce discusses events at a July 27 technology conference in Boston. The point of the article is to stress that education needs to move from information giving to student creation. He explains that students need the ability to assimilate the information given so that they can then apply it to another context. Web 2.0 tools have allowed for this "flipped" type classroom that he references, where students read up on a concept for homework, then in the f2f classroom use the higher order thinking skills....application, analysis, creation and publication with the new tools available.

A comprehensive adaptive online curriculum resources that individualize each student's learning experience, It is a new social learning tool. The tool promote increased online collaboration among students and with instructors. The goal is an approach to community-based learning is to deliver a more engaging educational experience where each student can benefit from a high level of support and interaction.

Using an online exchange project called PenPal News Red-Blue,middle-school and high school students across the country are participating in conversations about election-year issues with peers from different parts of the country. Students are asked to use facts- not just personal experience to converse with their peers about election issues.

This article made me think of some of our discussion topics this week about blogging and how it engages students. I had wondered about the use of threaded discussions rather than a blog. However, this article focuses on how students preferred the blogging. They felt an online discussion was more academic whereas blogging allowed students to engage with their learning by applying to their existing lives and knowledge base. Students felt they could develop their own voice and create a more meaningful sense of community with their online classmates. I thought this was interesting because I have used both forms in my VHS and f2f classes. I really find the threaded discussions to be more productive, but it appears that students feel the blogging is more productive. I will need to rethink my tools.

One way that web 2.0 helps students improve information literacy is to give them to tools to present information. An excellent way for students to present (as well as teach!) information is by building an app! More and more app building programs are popping up.

I like the idea about incorporating cell phones in the lessons. It is a technology that students are familiar with. They like using it. I like the rules for using cell phones described in the article. I am going to try using cell phones in my classes along with the website www.polleverywhere.com . If it works I may get a prepay phone to do quizzes as described in the article.

This article presented that a common discussion point amongst schools is how to engage the student in order to make them more successful in the 21st century. It provided an angronym "SAGE" that helps the teacher focus on how to engage students so that they are using techniques to problem solve and process their learning. It is based on "Instruction that supports the development of globally competent student provides multiple opportunities to investigate the world, recognize and weigh diverse perspectives, communicate ideas and take action." I feel this article does provide great "coaching" for the teacher to help students use HOTS.

As more and more students learn in a virtual classroom, teachers need more facilitation skills that work in an online learning environment. This article provides teachers with some practical online facilitating strategies and how to use many features to keep students engaged in learning.

Two teachers collaborating together with Biology, art and technology to create a video on DNA.

For any teacher that wants to experience what cross disciplinary, project based teaching and learning can be, I recommend the short video, " Team Teaching: Two Teachers, Three subjects, One Project http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ASO9FM6gDLs The video explores the opportunities that exist when a traditional physiology topic, blood, is integrated with multimedia. The results are motivating. The viewer experiences art and science coming together under the umbrella of one topic. The team teaching approach is aided by the fact that teachers begin their day an hour before students in order to meet and coordinate the team approach. Students engage in research as they work toward creating multimedia presentations that are placed on display at a local art gallery in order to promote blood donation. This project based approach allows students to share their works with a large audience while creating a community connection with the local blood bank as well as the local art gallery. The teachers guide students through the project and become a resource, rather than only a "holder of knowledge". Students are given real world deadlines and are held accountable by their teachers through online digital portfolios. The exciting part of this project, for teachers interested in attempting this approach to learning, is the opportunity it provides for the teacher to grow outside of their normal curriculum.

Social media can be a wonderful way to generate student engagement in learning, but still must be introduced in a way that will excite students to participate.