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.