Constructivism in Practice

"Generating and Testing Hypotheses" reminds me of teaching science and figuring out what's going to happen in each experiment. I'm not really sure how I could use hypotheses in other subjects. Using technology when generating and testing hypotheses is a great idea and very twenty first century, but I am not sure how as a 2nd grade teacher I would incorporate using hypotheses with my students. "Using technology to maximize instructional time and meet learning objectives" is a great concept. It's just a matter of modifying and differentiating for each grade level and each student.

I beleive that "Generating and Testing Hypotheses" relates closely with constructivism/constructionism with the whole role reversal mentality. Instead of the teachers teaching the students and having templates prepared for the students, the students are creating and building their own templates and own learning style.

If anyone has suggestions on how I can incorporate "generating and testing hypotheses" with 2nd graders in more than just Science, it would be greatly appreciated.

Cognitivism in Practice

Cues, Questions, and Advance organizers gave a lot of great ideas when introducing a topic or lesson. They talked about using a KWL chart when introducting a key concept. What do the student's already know? What do the students want to know? and what did the students learn? Of course adding to those questions would be my EQ (essential question). Probing the students with the EQ can really pull out information that the students didn't even know they knew about a certain topic. Another great idea was using a graphic organize or advance organizer. Starting out with a picture and the essential question get's the students mind running with questions and answers based on that lesson or topic. Using cues, questions, and advance organizers can help students get prepared and want to go further into the topic than what the original EQ asks.

Summarizing and Note taking is another key component in understanding and learning a skill. Summarizing is very important when reading a large amount of information. Finding the key points in a reading and then writing them in your own words helps the brain to remember the information in ways that work best for the reader. One of the ideas that they mentioned in the book was taking notes in a word document and write them not verbatim, but in your own words so that you can understand them. My school was given projectors last year in every classroom. We can hook up our lap tops to the projector and whatever we have on our lap tops is then on the big screen for the students to see. With my class, we read our weekly story together and the students will stop throughout the story and tell me the key components they think I should type in my word document. By the end of the story the students either tell me to add more or they tell me to delete some of the notes that aren't very important pieces. It has been a huge success with helping the students to undertstand how to summarize a story and how to write or note take the important ideas.

As I continue to learn different ideas that involve technology, I hope to use them more frequently in the classroom and feel comfortable doing so.

Behaviorism in Practice

I found "Reinforcing Effort" to be a very important tool in the classroom. Students need to see their progress and be able to chart their scores or efforts on their own. If they are held responsible for grading their own effort based off of a rubric they will be more apt to try harder. Some students can do really well in school naturally, but yet put no effort into their work. I beleive that if they had to chart their effort and achievement, their scores would sky rocket. If students were responsible for their own success I think it would cut down on behavior problems, because they would be more concerned about learning rather than being disruptive. Granted, I do understand that there will always be some form of a behavior issue.

Homework and Practice is another crucial part in students being successful. In Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works they stated that "Mastering a skill or process requires a fair amount of focused practice." I think the homework that is sent home weekly should closely relate to the standards or concepts being taught that week. The more practice and repetition they have, the better chance of them learning the skill. I differentiate my students homework depending on which students are grasping the concepts and which students need a little more help. I will send home either remediation work or enrichment work depending on each student. Sometimes I send home both, in hopes that after a few nights of remediation homework they can then do the enrichment homework.