"Become familiar with common terms, definitions and
elements related to online environments"
For this artifact I have chosen my Pecha Kucha power point project. This power point presentation is showcasing my ideas surrounding what I believe my online classroom will look like once I have all the tools to complete the vision that I have in my head. I believe that we as teachers should be pushing our limits and although I am not able to offer all of the opportunities I have listed in the presentation at this current point in time it is my hope that within the next two years everything “I imagine...” will be “I can see (in my student’s learning)”.
While completing the “I imagine...” statements I forced myself to think about what I would want if I were a student enrolled in my course. I know that some of my statements are currently ideals and possibilities based on my experience and resources but over the years I will gain knowledge and tools that I can adapt, modify and apply to my classroom and overall be a benefit to my students. To accomplish most of these ideals I will have to employ many different online learning tools and elements. Until recently I did not see much of a value in blogs and wikispaces was nothing that I had even thought about exploring, yet alone using. Google Docs was also something that was brand new to me. Now I am exploring ways to meet my ideals through the use of these tools with my students. If in just one course out of 10 I have gained three new tools, I can just imagine how many tools I will gain
over the next nine courses.
If we, as teachers, do not understand the terms and elements related to online learning, how should we expect our students to know and understand them? This all goes back to the fact that I believe that teachers need to stay current and up to date with their practices and theories so that they are not handing out the same stale worksheets and assignments year after year. It would interest me to go to a school and mention the word ‘blog’ and see what reactions I receive. I am hoping that with my students, they will see the value in collaboration and inquiry and through that deepen their learning and understanding.
While completing the “I imagine...” statements I forced myself to think about what I would want if I were a student enrolled in my course. I know that some of my statements are currently ideals and possibilities based on my experience and resources but over the years I will gain knowledge and tools that I can adapt, modify and apply to my classroom and overall be a benefit to my students. To accomplish most of these ideals I will have to employ many different online learning tools and elements. Until recently I did not see much of a value in blogs and wikispaces was nothing that I had even thought about exploring, yet alone using. Google Docs was also something that was brand new to me. Now I am exploring ways to meet my ideals through the use of these tools with my students. If in just one course out of 10 I have gained three new tools, I can just imagine how many tools I will gain
over the next nine courses.
If we, as teachers, do not understand the terms and elements related to online learning, how should we expect our students to know and understand them? This all goes back to the fact that I believe that teachers need to stay current and up to date with their practices and theories so that they are not handing out the same stale worksheets and assignments year after year. It would interest me to go to a school and mention the word ‘blog’ and see what reactions I receive. I am hoping that with my students, they will see the value in collaboration and inquiry and through that deepen their learning and understanding.
| breanne_quist_pecha_kucha.pptx |
"Integrate current cognitive learning and brain-based
learning theory"
For this artifact I have chosen my Online Learning Model. This model was created so that I could demonstrate my understanding and approach to online learning from a teaching perspective. I believe that as teachers we need to have a good understanding of where we want our student’s learning to go. Our model needs to be clear not only to us, but also to our students and must be continually updated to include the most current theories so that our practice does not get stale and outdated.
I have created many learning models through my courses in the bachelor of education program but this was the first time that I was stretched and asked to go beyond my understanding of the ‘brick and mortar’ classroom and broaden my thoughts to the online learning classroom. I had always known that I could relate my experiences in the classroom to my teaching in an online setting but to actually put these relations down in writing it made it more real for me, it has made me feel like teaching online isn’t as scary as I thought and that my students will be able to experience just as deep of an understanding as if I were standing with them in a face to face classroom. I was worried about the amount of collaboration that my students would experience through online learning as opposed to face-to-face being that my online students are asynchronous but the research I have been starting to read for my inquiry project is just proving to me more that my ideals for online learning are not that far out of my – and my students – reach.
I believe that as a teacher it is very important to stay up to date with current cognitive theories and ways of brain-based learning. If we were to keep the theories and ideas from when we graduated with our education degree and have the same way of doing things our whole career then I would hope that our career is short because we would not be giving our students the best experience possible. Far too often teachers are stuck in a way of doing things and are near retirement so they don’t see the value in changing things up a bit and going a little outside of their comfort zone and when this happens, student’s learning stuffers. We expect our students to be constantly learning new things and taking risks without the fear of failure, why not have the same expectations for ourselves?
I have created many learning models through my courses in the bachelor of education program but this was the first time that I was stretched and asked to go beyond my understanding of the ‘brick and mortar’ classroom and broaden my thoughts to the online learning classroom. I had always known that I could relate my experiences in the classroom to my teaching in an online setting but to actually put these relations down in writing it made it more real for me, it has made me feel like teaching online isn’t as scary as I thought and that my students will be able to experience just as deep of an understanding as if I were standing with them in a face to face classroom. I was worried about the amount of collaboration that my students would experience through online learning as opposed to face-to-face being that my online students are asynchronous but the research I have been starting to read for my inquiry project is just proving to me more that my ideals for online learning are not that far out of my – and my students – reach.
I believe that as a teacher it is very important to stay up to date with current cognitive theories and ways of brain-based learning. If we were to keep the theories and ideas from when we graduated with our education degree and have the same way of doing things our whole career then I would hope that our career is short because we would not be giving our students the best experience possible. Far too often teachers are stuck in a way of doing things and are near retirement so they don’t see the value in changing things up a bit and going a little outside of their comfort zone and when this happens, student’s learning stuffers. We expect our students to be constantly learning new things and taking risks without the fear of failure, why not have the same expectations for ourselves?
