Reflection of Bridging Learning Week 8-6711

When I started this class I felt as thought I used both the cognitive and behaviorist theory in my teaching practice. During this course I have found out some great ways to strengthen the way that I teach, it also has open my eyes to some different ways other may teach. I found that it is very beneficial that if i give both consequences for positive and negative behaviors students will understand what is expected. Also I believe that it is important for the students to work together and teach each other information thought different assignments.

Some adjustments that I plan on making will be to incorporate different technologies into my assignments. This will help the students to familiarize themselves with different technology and also prepare them for what is to come. One resource that I can't wait to incorporate into my teaching are voice threads. This is a great online tool that students can us both in groups and alone and there is endless creativity. Secondly I will have my students create a jigsaw that will help them with gathering new information and sharing there knowledge with one another. I believe that this will create a learning environment that is conducive to a more hands on environment with technology as well as team work.

My two-long term goals are for my students and myself to us more technology so we are gaining the different knowledge, as well as working more hands on. I want to be able to challenge them with technology and see how creative they can be with different assignments like PowerPoint's, voice threads, blogs, and pod-casts. I will be able to schedule more time in the lab, so they will have more opportunities to work on the different projects with other classmates.

Voice Thread

http://voicethread.com/share/893513/

Social Theory

One of the great social theory approaches that we learned about in this weeks resources is the jigsaw strategy. This described by Dr. Orey and he states, that students learn about certain subjects and then they are able to teach them to the class. This helps the students to do their own research cooperatively and find a ways as a group to present to everyone else. I believe this is an effective way to use the social theory as long a the perameters are set by the teacher and each group follows them. According to Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, there are a few strategies that they talk about where blog sites and wikis are used and students can interact socially through the different technology (p. 150). they also said that when allowing studnets to work together they are allowed to share ideas to create better sites that would include more valid information compared to them creating their own. Blogs and wikis are a great technology tool that helps the students to strenghten the assignment as well as to furture the discussion topics.

Trenton