MOST

Upon reading the articles I had very mixed reactions to this model. I am not an advocate of children watching television, I would encourage reading instead. I started reading my classmate's blogs in order to help me form an opinion on this method. I began to think about the Rosetta Stone program. Isn't it supposed to work better because it teaches with videos and images? It sets the scene and helps to eliminate certain vocabulary words. Obviously if I see a child in the video I would eliminate adults from the picture. I think that by starting with a video, students are able to narrow down the information and start sorting through what they are presented with. I thought about a crossword puzzle and how much easier it is to solve if you are presented with a word bank, or means to simplify your choices.

 

The MOST model provides students with a visual approach and is targeted at at-risk students. These at risk students probably have not had many life experiences. We build and form our knowledge based on what we already know. I can just imagine a teacher explaining a concept verbally or trying to "set the scene" and students not following because they don't have the background knowledge needed. How can I imagine learning about building a sand castle if I've never been to or even seen the beach? As a young at risk student I would need to see pictures or video to help me understand. I think the MOST approach has a time and a place. I'm not sure if I'll use it teaching middle school but I do see the merit in using it with younger children.

 

To implement the MOST model using technology, teachers would have to have access to video sources or create their own sources. I think photostory is a great free source that can easily be used by teachers to string photos together into video form. Also youtube could come in handy. I see the limit of classrooms without technology but I feel like by this point the majority of teachers have a computer and at least a TV in their classroom. They could always hook up their computer to the TV and project the images for the class.

STAR LEGACY

• The star legacy model seems like a great approach to involve students in learning. By providing opportunities for students to take control of their learning they will hopefully find the work meaningful and put more effort into the lesson. I love how this model gives students a chance to reflect on their knowledge and compare their knowledge to what they should know. In addition, this model allows the student to go back and revisit the information and relearn parts that they have yet to master. I am a strong believer in the "mastery concept" and support any theory that engages the student while providing several opportunities to master the material.
  
• Another component of the star legacy model that I find useful is the application to the real world. I like the opportunity to enrich my lessons with an application project. My classes are set up with a lecture, short learning activities, a quiz, a collaborative project, and finally an exam. I am going to start substituting the star legacy method instead.
  
• I would definitely take advantage of free websites to create a learning environment for my classes. I have the luxury of teaching in a lab so I can implement many of the online learning techniques. A sample lesson about creating a marketing plan could include a challenge to create a marketing plan for the Charlotte Bobcats, the thought step would pose questions such as: what should be included in a marketing plan, who is a marketing plan presented to, and when is a marketing plan necessary. I could provide several resources and even some video segments from examples of other students presenting a marketing plan, as for the assessment I would go through each part of the marketing plan and ask the students questions about their plan. I really love this aspect in that it should save some time for me. I would list questions that I would generally be thinking of in my mind when grading the reports that my students usually turn in. By checking themselves off, I will hopefully receive a higher quality report that includes that information that I am looking for. In addition, I would "go public" by having my students present their marketing plans to different members of our school and community.
  
• This method lends itself perfectly for web based content. Although I am a big fan of the wiki for collaboration, when creating a report online like this in a group, I would encourage students to the use the reviewers part of Microsoft Word to make changes to the report during the assessment part. I would encourage the use of a group site such as google groups to post content. I would also encourage my students to skype to practice presentation skills. I also like screen toaster for narrating their powerpoint presentations. I also just learned about panopto and I think it would be a great way for my students to share information. Panopto allows the presenter to show notes or a document (marketing plan) on a screen along with posting a video in the same place. My students could present their powerpoint while also allowing those viewing the presentation to read over the marketing plan document at the same time. I also like its ability to allow the view to click on several different screen shots to skip to that portion of the presentation. I don't think it would work well in a group presentation though.
  

Anchored Instruction Environments

I really enjoy this model and I think that my students will also. My favorite part is that it is embedded in a story. Not only will my students need to READ to help them solve the problem, they can also WRITE their own problems for other students to solve. I like the fact that it can be so realistic and entertaining. I was even interested while reading about Jasper. I could definitely see this model working well in a math classroom. In my classroom I will be using to help teach excel. This method is a good way to provide real-world context to a skill. I think that for some students this may be difficult because they are impatient. It is VERY important that you read the details in anchored instruction. I can see some of my students trying to rush through the activities to be the first one finished and missing the details. I can also see the frustration of having to go back and reread information. Not that I think this is a bad thing, just an observation from a 12 year old point of view.

 

I see this model working well when students are taught a skill then individually asked to perform that skill. I had a difficult time translating the "teaching" skill part to web content. All I could really think of was creating a video or doing something similar to what they did on scholastic's website. I think using this in conjunction with other online assessment tools (quia) would be very beneficial to my students. I really enjoyed looking at the sample projects that were created in plain HTML. Anything on the web captivates my students! If I were doing this online, I would combine the skill-and-drill teaching of a video with the exploration of a website or webquest.

 

Cognitive Apprenticeship

Generally speaking after reading the weekly articles I have a difficult time applying the information to my classroom. It's hard for me to make the connections learned from studies performed on university students to my 11 year olds. Thank goodness for the Darling article! The article provided a plethora of ideas for me to use in the classroom in addition to giving me a much better understanding of the cognitive apprenticeship method. After reading the first few articles I felt like there was no way I could implement this method in my classroom. I couldn't afford to develop expensive computer simulation software nor could I take my students on field trips everyday that would provide authentic learning experiences.

After reading the Darling article I began to think about how to implement this in my classroom and realized that I already am! My 7^th grade marketing students are creating a project where they had to develop a product, come up with a target market, create promotional materials for their product, create a marketing plan, and present their product to the board of directors (our administrative team & parent volunteers). I've been working side by side with my students to "coach" through the project. I've provided examples of real promotional materials and corporate marketing plans. I have developed an outline to help them pre-write their marketing plan and provide advice and feedback throughout the process.

So now I feel confident that I can apply this method to my teaching, I am beginning to think about how to make the transition to online content. If I made this an online assignment, I would provide links to several examples of student work, and articles I found that could help my students learn about each aspect of the product. I would help them set up elluminate sessions to discuss details of their products with their group members, I would teach them to use skype to present their product. After the use of skype, I could record their presentation and add my voice comments and post the video for all class members to see and learn from. I also just took a look at furl.net (diigo.com) and would definitely incorporate this tool to help my students research the elements of a marketing plan using articles that I've preselected. This would help scaffold them about the type of article I expect.

Problem Based Learning Environments

• What are your initial reactions to this theory/model? What are barriers to its use? What benefits might be expected for those who overcome the barriers?
  
  • I am very much in support of the PBL model. Much of the information I retained from undergrad was learned through the PBL model. Generally this model is structured so that the instructor probes students to use higher level thinking skills. The instructor should be present throughout the problem solving process. One major barrier to the use of PBL that I have encountered as a student is lack of presence of the tutor/instructor. In my experience, instructors present the problem and allow students to work but rarely participate in questioning students throughout the process. The instructor must have an active role in this type of learning for students to acquire and develop critical thinking skills.
    
• Would you attempt to use this theory/model with the students you are currently teaching or hope to teach in the future? Why or why not? Could elements of the theory/model be modified so that it would work with your current/future students?
  
  • I'm struggling to find situations to use this model in my curriculum. I do think that extracurricular programs such as Odyssey of the Mind provide excellent opportunities to use the PBL method with middle school aged students. Odyssey of the Mind allows students to work in small groups with facilitators. I think it would be challenging to implement this model in a classroom of 30 students with a single instructor. Considering the amount of material that we are required to cover each year, it would be difficult to switch from breadth to depth. I can see modifying this theory by creating smaller problems that don't encourage students to go into such depth with a topic.
    
  • An example would be for my marketing students to figure out why students are not interested in attending student athletic games and perform a SWOT analysis of a particular game. The hard part would definitely be finding the time in a 45 minute class to implement the project as well as providing support/"tutoring" for 5-6 groups of students. It would be a challenge that I would like to implement in my classroom because I do think that critical thinking & problem solving skills are definitely lacking among my students. We are also taught that middle school students need to make real life connections to their work in order to find it meaningful. I would really need to consider my students interested in order to create a problem they would find meaningful and be motivated to participate in solving.
    
• Since we're taking learning theories/models that were not necessarily created with the Web in mind and turning them into Web modules, what Web-based tools or resources could be leveraged to carry out this learning theory/model online?
  
  • In order to virtually implement the problem based learning model, you would need a real-time communication application such as elluminate. A wiki would also work well as group members could post them opinions and make changes to others ideas based on results. Groups would have to make use of sites like google groups to post videos of interviews like the ones suggested in the medical school patient interviews.
    

Cooperative Learning Environments

 

Initial reactions to this model is "ughhh, I hate group work"! Through the readings, I realize that it does have value but most of the time I feel like our society has become so accustomed to rewarding the individual that even in group work individualism still prevails. I like the idea of having group rewards when everyone does well individually (like on a test or assignment) but that to me reinforces tutoring your peers rather than discussion and learning together.

 

I currently teach middle school and am having nightmares about using this in the classroom. My students LOVE to talk and LOVE to work in groups together however, most of the time the work is poor and the conversation is focused on the latest gossip. I also deal the problem of teaching an elective class which most students see as a joke. I think my students could really benefit from cooperative learning if I set it up right. Through learning about cooperative learning in this unit, I have a few ideas to implement this in my classroom. First, I like the idea of students really forming a group identity. Hopefully this is establish a willingness to lose the individuality and really allow them to learn from each other differences (very hard for a middle school students who tries to conform). I think this is also necessary to help them get over the preconceived notions they have of each other. If the student is viewed as smart, they feel the pressure to make the group work together. I normally get emails from these parents about the stress level of their student! I like the think, pair, share approach as well as the find-the-fib. I think by having my students use creativity to create the fib, the lower performing students will get more into the assignment. They love anything that is off topic or silly.

 

As for the web approach… I can see this working using online chat and real time capabilities. I envision assignments where each student adds a little and then comes together at the end to discuss and reevaluate how they've done. I would use an online tool such as a wiki to foster cooperative learning. Each student can post their part as well as change their classmates. I think by having to reevaluate the changes made their part by other classmates, the student is forced to learning from their peers. This would also eliminate the in class face to face discussion that I worry would be off topic with my middle school students.

Audio-Tutorial

• Upon first reading these articles the AT method reminded me of learning how to spell in kindergarten. I did not realize it then but after talking about it with my mom today; I learned that the above grade level readers were sent to a computer lab to listen to words using headphones and then practice spelling them on the computer, which provided immediate feedback as to whether the spelling was correct. I thought it was a great way to help challenge students who needed additional enrichment while the teacher could work on students who were behind in reading. This example shows how the AT method can be used not only to remediate concepts to students who were not performing well but also to enrich advanced students.
  
• I think barriers to the use of the AT method would be making changes to the lesson. As a business teacher, my examples always change with the times and student interest. I would have having to redo lectures each quarter. A benefit to maintaining audio tutorials would be for my absent students. It's a great way for them to catch up on what was missed. I also attribute my passing Pre-Calculus to this method! After a failed attempt to pass the course in a traditional classroom, I took an online class through N.C. State and passed with an A+. For my learning style being able to rewind and fast forward and watch the numbers move made all the difference!
  
• My middle school students constantly struggle with concepts such as saving to a flash drive, printing, logging onto their Quia account, navigating Edline (our assignment management system). I will definitely start creating audio tutorials for my students after learning about this method. Rather than explaining a concept several times, these audio tutorials will save my sanity and also assist my students in mastering a skill rather than waiting for me to do it for them. Yay! I think this would actually be a great project for some of my advanced middle school computer students to be able to create some of their own audio tutorials to be used to teach other students. I'm liking this method more and more!