Blog Post #11

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What can we learn about teaching and learning from these teachers?

This week I watched six different videos of teachers and their methods of teaching. Brian Crosby did a project where the students were able to send a ballon into space. They had multiple steps to complete throughout the project, but one of the most important parts in my opinion to this video was when the students had to post videos onto their blog about the project. The students would post the video, have multiple views, and become encouraged that other people were interested in what they were doing in the classroom. At the end of the video the students even skyped with a New Zealand class about the project they performed because another class wanted to do something similar but did not know how. This not only aloud the students to show something they were proud of, but also gave them exposure to another culture. The second video I watched was by Paul Anderson and his steps for the Blended Learning Cycle. The Blended Learning Cycle had six different steps: QUestion, Investigate, Video, Elaboration, Review, Summary quiz. One important things that he said was that there is "power in numbers", and this is very true with PBL. The students working together in small groups allows for the expansion of ideas being put forth towards a project. The third was a video based off of a book called Make Thinking Visible. This was giving an example of how learning can be brought to life in the classroom. How it worked was the students read a little bit about a book and then were formed into small groups to create a headline about this book. The headline was a short few words drawn onto a long piece of paper. The students then presented their headline to the class, and once everyone was finished presenting the headlines were displayed throughout the room. This gave the students the chance to display their creativity, and also learn about their classmates viewpoints about the book. The fourth video was from Sam Pane and his "building a comic" project. This project seemed very interesting to me, and is something that I could see potentially trying to incorporate in my classroom. The teacher opened the lesson with a quote from spiderman. They were learning about how to be a good citizen on the internet. What they meant by being a good citizen is someone who chooses to act safely and respectfully online. The students were each asked to create a superhero through this superhero builder website. Once the superhero was built then they were asked to make a storyline about how their superhero taught a citzen (themselves) to be safe on the internet. Once the project was completed they did a "gallery walk" inside the classroom and walked aroung the room looking at other students completed work. A project like this deals with real life lessons, as well as age appropriate material to keep them engaged. The fifth video was about a classroom which they started incorporating PBL by combining a History and English class. The class counted for 3 credit hours and aloud for a longer period of time to teach in the classroom. Combining classrooms like this is not only beneficial for the students, but the number of possibilities in the classroom also increases for the teacher. Teachers who are trying new learning styles like this and documenting them for others to see is really helpful to see what worked as well as what did not. Finally the sixth video was of Roosevelt Elementary and their incorporation of PBL. They have their students working in groups on a project for a longer amount of time. The benefits are greater in depth learning, the ability to make decisions are their own, learning real world skills, learning to work collaboratively, as well as positive student interaction. In this elementary school they are teaching the students to work and present these projects to the class at a young age. This was something that I thought was important personally. My biggest fear throughout school has been public speaking, and I think by exposing children to this life skill at a younger age will allow them to grow more comfortable with this task.