Blog 4

A runner has spent weeks training for a race. He has conditioned his body. By giving him running tips and encouraging him, his coach has helped him. Finally, the day came for him to race. His coach was sitting on the sidelines. The whistle blows for the race to start. As his feet pushes to ground, he feels anxiety gradually build up in his body. The anxiety subsides as he hears his coach cheering for him. He begins to run faster and faster. He sees the finish line. With one last stride, he completed the race. He enthusiastically walks to his coach. However, his coach stares blankly at him. The runner waits for the coach to utter a single word of congratulations. Yet, the coach says nothing. Feeling dejected, the runner walks away from his coach and goes to receive his medal for finishing the race. Similarly, students who finish a project without any suggestions afterwards from the teacher feel this way.

Verbal feedback is essential for students to have after ending a project. It shows that their efforts for the project are appreciated. If a project ended by just ceasing work without any suggestions, students would be negatively impacted. One negative impact would be that students would be aimless. They would be unaware of their progress. They would not know if they just completed the project with average work or above average work. Suggestions would provide them with their state of progress. Another negative impact would be improper closure. Students need the right type of closure at the end of a project. Suggestions would give them proper closure by allowing them to reflect on their work.

Blog 3

Giving students choices in their learning is important for several reasons. One reason is that current research points to the effective use of choice. Differentiated and multisensory approaches to learning helps students in various ways. It helps students who have different learning styles. It appeals to students’ multiple intelligences. Another reason is effective choices can increase student engagement. When students engage with other students, their learning is reinforced. They can discuss their different perspectives and benefit from it. A third reason is today’s students must have critical thinking skills that surpass memorization. By giving students choices, it makes their learning meaningful. It also makes the assignment more interesting. Lastly, different modes of delivery and assessment are made possible by technology. Technology makes it easier for teachers to give students choices.

I wish my teachers in the past had given me more choices instead of my classmates and me having the same project. When we presented our projects, everyone was bored because we knew what to expect. It was even worse when teachers would make us choose the project topic randomly out of a hat. It just made the project feel like an obligation. Alfie Kohn’s “Choices for Children: Why and How to Let Students Decide” (http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/choices-children/0) perfectly sums up what it is like for students to have little to no choices in school. I love how the article provides credible resources to support its research.

Collaborate and Communicate

Collaborative wiki editing project and traditional in-class group work have similarities. One similarity is that they both aim to help students learn about collaboration. Another similarity is that they both require students to actively participate. Also, they both allow teachers to supervise students’ work. For wiki editing project, the teacher can track students’ contribution on wiki. For traditional in-class group work, the teacher can look at the group’s completed assignments. On the other hand, the collaborative wiki editing project and traditional in-class group work have their differences. Since wiki is solely online, it is prone to more technical glitches. Traditional in-class group work will not have technical glitches if they do not use technology. Another difference is the traditional wiki project is disruptive. Students can engage in wiki wars which is when one or more students are editing at once. With traditional in-class group work, student can discuss which task they are going to do without having to worry about discarding their present work. Lastly, the wiki project takes more practice because students have to learn how to use the wiki and the wiki features. For traditional in-class projects, students just have to focus on the project.

There are differences between cooperation and collaboration. One difference is collaboration means students work on a single shared goal. Cooperating means students have selfish and common goals. Cooperation means student only helping if there are benefits for involved for them. Collaborating means everyone is in it together. Everyone’s priority is to the group. Cooperating means they simply support the group. Another difference is it is easier to cooperate than to collaborate. Collaboration requires more effort. Students have to unite together.

Collaboration can be taught by requiring students to work together with others to achieve a common goal. This can be done by allowing students in the learning community to feel comfortable and willing to contribute to the community. An example of this is seen in Flat Classroom projects. Students and teachers “friend” others in their immediate team grid. They leave messages of introduction. Also, they welcome each other through the network. Another way collaboration can be taught is by having students engage in dialogue. Teachers can do this by creating interactions. To create interactions, teachers can have students reach out and actively post.

Blog 1

I think that Feedly is a useful tool. I love how the articles from the sites are conveniently located. Also, I like how you can sort the feeds into categories. Moreover, I like that it provides suggestions for feeds to follow. Other teachers should use this as a tool. It will help them learn more about current events in education.

From reading my feeds, I learned plenty of information that I would use in my future classroom. For instance, I learned about how robots will be implemented in education. Since I am interested in robotics, I thought that information was fascinating. I would love to use robots in my class to assist me teaching. I also learned about how to have a more question-centered classroom. This type of classroom would help my students improve their critical thinking skills. I also learned how to involve social sites into the classroom. I would use social sites like Twitter to help students work together to complete a project.

I commented on Edudemic, MindShift, and 2 Cents. I enjoyed making comments. My comments can be found on particular websites: http://www.edudemic.com/become-listening-educator/#comment-288147, http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/02/02/finding-the-math-in-storybooks-for-young-children/, and http://2cents.onlearning.us/?p=4877. It allowed me to share my opinion. Even though I did not get a response when I commented, I enjoyed reading other people’s comments. Their comments gave me a new perspective on certain topics in education.