Blog Assignment #13

1. My TEDx Denver Ed- Brian Crosby- Back to the Future

This video was great! The students were incorporating technology into their studies and learning and were having fun and loving it. The difference in what I see in this video and what I feel we are being taught in EDM310 is that the children in this video didn't learn from the technology. They used the technology to help them do other things outside of the technology in order to learn. If this isn't clear, let me explain. Mr. Crosby approached his atmosphere levels/pressures standards as a way to get his students involved. He taught them the material then took them outside and let them live it. The made a real hot air balloon and got to watch it launch and explode and track it on a map. They really experienced it. THEN, they used technology to share it with everyone and write about it and reflect. I feel like in this EDM310 class, we are being taught that there is no need to take your students outside and do the experiment because surely there is someone who has already done it that we can just watch online. Let's just blog about it and see what others have to "say" about  this. Yes, students like technology and like the feedback they get from others around the whole, but the reason that Mr. Crosby's class is so successful is because he teaches then he DOES. The students get to touch and live the science. This is what they will remember for years to come. I have nothing against technology or against this class I'm taking. What I do not like it when someone tries to drill down my throat that technology is the ONLY way my students won't get left behind. I guarantee that when my students leave my class they won't say they learned by talking with others on the web and writing about their thoughts. They will say they know and like Math because they lived it and experienced it! They will use technology to help them learn, not to help them think..... There is a difference that some are missing. Mr. Crosby gets it though. Bravo! I loved this video, and it made me smile and almost cry.

2. Paul Anderson's Blended Learning Cycle

Anderson combines the Blended Learning (Mobile, Online, Classroom) and the Learning Cycle (Engage, Explore, Explain, Expand, Evaluate) into his own little system in which he calls QUIVERS. This stand for QUestion, Investigation, Video, Elaboration, Review, and Summary Quiz. He proposes a question to his class and lets them debate and investigate the answer. Once they have all agreed on what they believe the answer is, he shows them a video of his own presentation with his voice over that reveals the true answer. Then he goes into an explanation of the answer and elaborate on it. Then he has the class review by teaching each other and having them explain things back to him. Only once he knows that all of his students fully understand does he give them a short multiple choice quiz that tests their knowledge of the subject matter. I love his approach. I am taking a math logic/deduction/induction reasoning class this semester, and my teacher always comes in and asks a question and lets us debate it. He then continues asking questions that will purposely guide us to discovering the true answer. He draws diagrams on the board that might help guide our thinking and writes down anything we say that might be useful. Once we figure out the answer, turns out that we just derived a theorem all on our own. He then elaborates and gives examples and formal definitions for us to have in our notes to look back at. I believe that it is one of the best teaching styles I've had the pleasure of observing. I think this is exactly the strategy that Anderson is using with his students, and I think it's brilliant. I hope I can develop this type of style in my own teaching.