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

Back to the Future: This video is on the blog Learning is Messy. Brian Crosby starts by telling how he is comparing how his students were at the beginning of the year, and how they have improved at the end of the year. His students did a lot of activities along with the reading and lectures. He has them embed videos of their group activities on their individual blogs. This video is inspirational, because he motivates his students to learn by giving them hands-on experience with what they are learning about.

Blended Learning Cycle: Paul Andersen uses a cycle that blends different learning styles in his classroom to help his students learn. He even had it styled like a video game at one point. The blended learning is when you use online techniques and a classroom style learning together. The Learning cycle consists of engaging, exploring, explaining, expanding, and evaluating. You then blend all of this together for you classroom. Starts with a question ( the hook), investigate (experiment), video, elaboration, review, and summary quiz. This style allows you plenty of room for creativity.

Making Thinking Visible: This is a book by Ron Ritchhart. It is about changing the way we teach and learn in a classroom. It talks about how we base knowledge off of test scores instead of the intelligence of the child's thinking. I think this would be a great experience in a classroom. Where test scores do not matter.

Sam Pane 4th Grade: Sam Pane uses a comic that he has built to teach the students about the safety on the internet. I think this is a wonderful way to teach children. It keeps them interested while teaching them things about making comics and writing, but also keeping them safe.

Project Based Learning: This is about a school that actually does not focus on a single subject, but a mesh of subjects. The projects also involve multiple subjects at once. I like this idea because the students aren't learning one thing but multiple things. It has made everything important and not just certain things. It has also given the students more time to learn.

Roosevelt Elementary's PBL program: This video shows what project based learning can do for both the students and the teachers. I like these ideas because it does help the students with many things and helps them learn what they are being taught. I would love to use this in my classroom in the future.