Blog Post #11: What can we learn about teaching and learning from theese teachers?

In Brian Crosby's video Back To The Future he teaches us the importance of having a project based learning atmosphere. His kids were so excited when they were actually get to experiment with the lesson they were learning. You could tell that they were a lot more engaged in the lesson than they would be if it were just a pencil and paper lesson. I admire him for finding away to include Celeste into the classroom activities rather than work just being sent home for her to do. Mr. Crosby's class is a leading example of how project based learning should be incorporated in a classroom.

I have never really been introduced to the the Blended Learning Cycle but  I found Paul Anderson's version of the Blended Learning Cycle to be very interesting.

Quivers - Paul Anderson's version of the Blended Learning Cycle

1. Question: Something that catches the students attention.
2. Investigation/ Inquiry: You want the children to investigate, you need to be able to incorporate inquiry learning.
3. Video: This allows more time for class activity by allowing the students to watch a video on the lesson individually.
4. Elaboration: reading and use of Venn diagrams allowing the children to go more in depth with the lesson.
5. Review: The most important part, this allows the children to be worked with in groups or individually so that you know they understand the material and are ready to be tested on it.
6. Summary Quiz: Once the students have moved passed the review and you know that they are  ready to be tested on the material you give them a quiz on the information to show what they know.

In Mark Church's video Making Thinking Visible he goes into more depth about his book. He teaches us that teaching goes beyond classroom instruction and lessons. Teaching is about motivating the children to think and understanding the culture in which you derive your lessons from. Your classroom needs to have evidence of how the students are connecting and moving forward. Guest should be able to come into your classroom and see what the students are learning.

In Sam Pane's Super Digital Citizen he teaches us the importance of being safe on the Internet. He defines a safe digital citizen as someone who is safe, respectful, and responsible on the Internet. The students got to create a comic book character and use it in a story where their superhero demonstrates safe Internet use. I found this to be a good way to get students engaged into learning about being safe on the Internet.

I found the teachers in the Project Based Learning video to be very interactive, and wanting their students to learn in the best way possible. These teachers in the video pushed for their school to allow them to teach more than one subject with a group of students so that they would have more time with the students to be able to allow the students to engage in Project Based Learning. The teachers in this video stressed the importance of time in learning especially when its project based.

In Roosevelt Elementary's PBL Program they teach us the importance of PBL in the classroom and the benefits it brings to the children. It takes away the fear of public speaking because they have been used to PBL classrooms. They get to create and interact in projects and it allows them to gain skills that will use and apply in the real world. They become proud of their work. PBL at Roosevelt now enjoy working together and are performing well academically.