Personal Theory of Learning

My personal theory on how students learn seems to agree with Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligence Theory. As an instructor I need to take into consideration the fact that people learn differently. I try to vary the way I present my lessons in order to reach as many of my students as possible.
After finishing this course, the modifications I would make to the way I present materials to my students would be: 1) to create more student centered lessons where the students are the presenters, the "teachers" of the materials and 2) to incorporate some of the web sites that were discussed in this course. Some of the sites such as those that help the students create mind maps can be used for many activities in class. Sites that introduce students to Voice Threads are tools that can be readily used and will be considered entertaining and hands on by the students. These sites are also simple enough to incorporate into lessons without many complications.
As far as incorporating more technology into my lessons , I will continue to have my students use the internet as a learning tool by continuing to have "virtual field trips". I will have to speak to the IT Tech at school to check school district policies on blogging and wikis as they may be restricted as many of the internet sites such as You Tube are blocked by our district.

Voicethread

Hello,
Here is a link to my first ever voicethread. I like this tool! It is easy to use and I can already see the many things I can have my students do with this tool.

http://voicethread.com/#q.b892870.i4759172




Enjoy

Cooperative Learning

This week's assignment revolved around cooperative learning groups and strategies. I have to say that I used to shy away from using this type of strategy in my classroom because there would always be that one student that did the majority of the work and the rest would get the grade without participating. I also feel that there are times when I need to know what that one individual child truly knows. A few years ago I met a teacher who uses this type of learning in his classroom and he explained how he grades his students. He assigns each member of the group a task and basically gives them two grades; one for individual work and one as a group. I do use cooperative group work and strategies such as "Jigsaw" in my classroom now more regularly. I think working in groups helps with social skills and students are more apt to listen to their peers than us at times.