Final Reflection

As a teacher, one must understand learning theories and styles for the benefit of their own students. Lever-Duffy and McDonald (2008) affirms that understanding different learning theories and how it relates to one’s personal views will help teachers “design instruction that is consistent with [their] own view of the teaching-learning process and its principles” (p. 11).  Looking back and reflecting on this course, I have deepened my understanding of how important educational technologies are to students of today and how these tools relate to learning theories and instructional strategies.

               Through this course, my ideas of learning have not changed but have strengthened and reaffirmed my beliefs of how students learn and how to use technology to support this learning.  In week 1, I wrote my beliefs are closely aligned with the constructivist perspective. I believe that students must do, make, or construct in order to grasp and retain knowledge and ideas. I believe that students learn best by doing and experiencing activities and situations that allows them to develop knowledge by a guided or facilitated approach. Like Robert Gagne, I believe that learning is a mental process and “is a result of an individual’s cognitive efforts to construct his or her personal knowledge” (p. 18).  In reflecting, I beliefs are affirmed through the understanding of the importance of constructionism theory and the ideas of students constructing their own knowledge and sharing artifacts of the learning (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011c).  Also, this course strengthened my beliefs of students learning through others. According to Dr. Orey, students learn best from sharing ideas with others (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011c). Allowing students to work collaboratively through cooperative groups is directly aligned to the ideas of social constructionism (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011a)

               As a result to my learning in this course, I have two immediate adjustments to my instructional practice.  First, I plan to use more images during introduction of concepts and presentations through PowerPoint.  Images are a powerful tool to help students remember key information, which directly aligns with the cognitive learning theory (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011b).   Secondly, I want to use more collaboration and cooperative learning to allow students to share ideas and learn concepts. I plan on using tools such as VoiceThread or something similar to allow students to share ideas and comment on others work.  Through this course, my repertoire of instructional skills has expanded to include more collaboration tools such as Web quests, Google Docs, SpiderScribe, and VoiceThread.

As I move forward in incorporating technology tools into my instructional practices, I have two long term goals. As a kindergarten teacher, I want to help my students understand the power of technology and how it can be used for communicating and sharing ideas.  In order to accomplish this, I want to increase the amount of computer instruction and use in my classroom. I plan to check out the school’s laptop cart and create min-lessons on identify parts, keyboard features.  My second goal is to eventually allow students to create projects and share learning using Microsoft Word and PowerPoint and online collaboration tools. I, also, want them to learn to work together on using this tool to research and find information on the Internet.   My plan for implementation of these goals is to start now in this school year.  I have started allowing my students to explore key features of the computer and typing a simple sentence using Microsoft Word. As I move forward next school year, I want to start sooner so that my students have more opportunities to share ideas. I, also, plan to work closely with one of my colleagues who have a degree in technology instruction. She always has great ideas on how I can use technology tools to help students learn and do.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011a). Program eight: Social learning theories [Video

            webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011b). Program five: Cognitive learning theory [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011c). Program seven: Constructionist and constructivist

            learning theories [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology.

            Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1

Lever-Duffy, J., & McDonald, J. (2008). Theoretical foundations (Laureate Education, Inc., custom ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.