Blog post #2

The central message that the author in the videoMr. Dancealot is trying to convey is that not all college classes can be taught sitting in a lecture hall having the students take notes with no interaction with each other or the teacher.  In this video, the author shows us this by using an example of a dance class.  In order to understand how to dance you must practice dancing. However, in the video, the teacher has the students sitting in a lecture hall the entire semester taking notes on how to do different dances and when the students try to practice the dance the teacher gets upset and tells them to sit down. Once the final comes around they are required to dance the different dances they have “learned”. The students are confused and upset because they had never practiced the dances before that time. I agree that a teacher standing in front of a group of students lecturing is not as effective as the students getting to be interactive.  Most students zone out during a lecture and they do not take notes or pay attention. Therefore, they do not learn anything, they simply wait until the last minute to cram as much information as they can into their head the night before the test and then as soon as the test is over they empty all the information out and never think about it again.  I think in order for students to actually learn and want to learn we need to have more interactive classes.  

            After watching the video Teaching in the 21st century by Kevin Roberts, I have realized how much different it will be teaching in the 21^st century than when I was in grade school.  Roberts talks about how teachers now are not the primary resource for information or knowledge, but are simply filters.   There are so many ways for students to get information but it is our jobs as teachers to teach them the best way to find information and to make sure that the information they do find is credible and reliable. It is our job as teachers to teach students the proper way to use technology and resources available to them. I agree with Roberts when he talks about how teachers need to engage students in the learning process with hands on projects instead of just entertaining students.

                        

 The video clip The Network Student, by Wendy Drexler, show us the benefits of students taking online classes. Also, we see the importance of a teacher in online classes. There is so much information on the Internet and it is hard to know where to begin. Once you find a good place to start it is still hard to figure out from the information what is true and what is false. Having someone there to teach you where to start and how to know what is good and bad is important. Also, to know that there is someone always willing to help you when you get stuck or do not understand something is comforting to know. The role of a teacher is to give the students the confidence and resources in order for them to be able to learn.  In my own experience with online classes, it helped having someone available to help me when I needed some guidance.  

            In the video Harness your students' digital smarts  the thesis is that when students only have pen and paper they are limited on what they can learn. I agree with this because living in a world that is so focused on technology there is so much we can learn.  Students learn in all different kinds of ways and at all different speeds. When we use just pen and paper, this is limiting either the students that work faster than others or the students that work slower than others.  But, when we use technology, everyone can work at their own speed and it allows students to be more engaged in their education. Also, thanks to the Internet we can be sitting in a classroom in a small town in America and be interacting with people all around the world. This gives students who might not ever leave America to have the chance to experience another country in just a small way. Instead of just talking about different cultures in a textbook, we can now interact with students from those different cultures. Technology has given us endless possibilities of ways to teach children.

            The answer to the question, “Who’s ahead in the learning race”, in the video by Dr. Strange is children are ahead. Children are ahead of the college students because they are doing things with laptops and technology that most college students do not know how to do themselves. I agree that we need to be teaching the younger generation how to use technology and we need to incorporate it into the classroom. However, I do not think expecting adults to learn at the rate that children are learning to use technology is reasonable.  You learn new things quicker when you are a child than when you are an adult.  It is like the saying, “it is hard to teach an old dog a new trick”.  I am not saying that adults do not need to learn how to use technology because they do; all I am saying is that I do not think it is fair to compare how quickly a child learns something to how fast an adult learns something. Growing up in a world where technology is everywhere gives the children an advantage, in my opinion, verses adults who have to learn at an older age.  

           

             The video Who's ahead in the learning race showed me a new teaching approach where students watch a video of their teacher teaching them the night before coming to class. To be honest I am not sure how I feel about this new teaching method. When I was a child, by the time school was out I was ready to go home and relax and not have to worry about school.  I would not have wanted to go to school all day and then have to come home and watch a video and learn a new lesson. However, from a teacher’s perspective I think it could be a great way to have more time in the class for teachers to re-teach the parts that the children did not understand.  On the other hand, having a mom that works in a Title 1 school I cannot help but think about the students that do not have the computers at home to do the work and the students that do not have the parental support. A kindergartner whose parents are not interested in their education is not going to sit down at home by their self to watch a video.  I think flipping the classroom could be a great teaching method if you had the right type of class in order for it to run smoothly.  

           

            After reading Brining the locker room into the class roomI find this teaching method to be very interesting.  Growing up I never wanted to make a mistake so I would always ask the teacher what the right answer was and I would write down exactly what they said and then go home and memorize that for the test. However, I began to realize that I was not leaning anything and I do not want to be a teacher that just feeds my students the information.  With the method, “coaching in the classroom”, this eliminates teachers from just teaching the information. Instead, it gets the children engaged in what you are teaching them and allows them to think on their own to find the right answer. The students must do the work; the teacher simply guides them. Yes, I would definitely use this method in my classroom.