Blog Post # 11

In Back to the Future, I learned to give students a chance. When these students first entered Mr. Crosby's classroom in fourth grade; most students did not know their address. Two years later they are sent a balloon into the different layers of the atmosphere for their "high hopes" project. The amount of learning that takes place inside of Mr. Crosby's classroom is unbelievable. The students are learning from every aspect of their project. Group learning, searching the web, Skyping with professionals and class members, and blogging are just a few ways in which Mr. Crosby implements learning in his classroom.
The blended learning cycle is composed of six components: question, investigation, video, elaboration, review and summary. In our video the instructor uses the topic of natural selection. He gives the class a driving question and allows the class to investigate independently for an answer. He also so shares videos with the class to further their knowledge of the topic. Once the students have completed their research and have found an answer to the driving question; the instructor then elaborates one on one with students to make sure they have a complete understanding of the topic before allowing them to move on the summary quizes. This method of teaching is great because it allows the students to work independently or within a group, and uses technology as a way of learning. It is also a great method because it allows for the students to self evaluate their work and allows for the instructor to ensure the topic is fully understood by the students before taking their quizes.
In Making Thinking Visible the instructor puts his students in groups and asks them to create headlines stating what the unit being covered is about. He then posts these headlines in the classroom for the remainder of the unit. This allows students to see these headlines throughout the unit. Once the unit is completed the instructor asks them if their headline is still the same. By doing this the class is allowed to continuously have the headlines in front of them everyday and allows them to use
these headlines as a guide, or allows students to see how their focuses change throughout thee unit.
Super Digital Citizen was a really cool video to watch. The instructor allows the students to make their own digital superhero, and then allows the students to create their own comic with using their character they made. This is a great way to teach writing skills. It also means more to the students because it is a more personal project. This drives students to take more pride in their work and makes them want to create an outstandin piece of work.
The video on PBL showed us an itegrated studies classroom. The class was a combination of Canadian history, english, and information processing. I think this is a great idea because it allowed for three subjects to be learned collaboratively. I also like the fact that the students are constantly engaged by not only other students but by three different teachers as well. It allows for a more well rounded learning experience as apposed to traditional single subject learning. In this class they used PBL which engages students more effectively and provides a deeper understanding of the material among the students.
In Roosevelt Elementary's PBL program they stressed the importance of PBL in the classroom. I found the perspective one parent very interesting. She stated that PBL incorporates public speaking and that it teaches children to overcome their fear of speaking in public at a young age. I think this is a great skill to be learned. I didnt take public speaking until college and it is one of the scarriest things I have ever done. Although I grew up doing theater and drama, being on stage and playing someone else is easy; standing in front of an audience as yourself is a completely different scenario. I also liked the participation and involvement of the parents at Roosevelt Elementary. I have a lot of friends that teach and they say the hardest thing about teaching is that parents are not involved with their childrens education. It seems that the parents really and truly care at Roosevelt. and that is amazing. One last thing I found inspiring about the video (as well as the previous videos) is the implementing of integrated studies when using PBL. This allows for students to take real world situations and learn more about them using a variety of skills.