Week 6

Readings

Hoffert “Book Clubs”

Book clubs have evolved over the years. Thematic approach allows readers to read books that possess the same themes instead of everyone reading the same book.  This appeals to people who normally do not attend book clubs, but might enjoy the topic.  Another aspect that’s different is linking books with other media such as plays, movies and videoconference.  These new clubs attract not only the avid reader as before, but also new people.  They build a community.

It’s funny, one of my not-for-schools book I reading mentions how cool it is to be in a book club now a days.  I thought this was interesting because we are talking about it in class now and the book was written less than a year ago.  I’m in a book club now and I think they are fun even if we’re pretty traditional.  I’m always looking for an excuse to read more. J

Metzger, Margaret. "Teaching reading: beyond the plot."

In this article high school students were have a difficult time understanding complex text; therefore, Margaret Metzger, a high school teacher, modified the Socratic Seminar to help.  A Socratic Seminar is a focused discussion made up of a group of students that revolve around a specific text.  Student takes turns voicing their opinions, ideas, and questions based on their interpretation of the material with little or no interference from the teacher.  It took a few tries and alteration of executions, but in the end Margaret Metzger found that the students were able to understand the material better.  Being engaged allows for more absorption and comprehension in learning settings.

I mentioned this is my last blog, but I had a teacher who used the Socratic Seminar and it really facilitated the learning processes.  I’m not much of a debater but they were always interesting discussions.  I wish more teachers implemented this method.

Lynda Tredway “Socratic Seminars: Engaging Students in Intellectual Discourse”

With the Socratic Seminar students develop their critical thinking skills and bounce their ideas and questions off of one and another.  As the article states students participate in active learning, therefore, should retain more information.  Students also develop their vocabulary, text analysis, and interpretative and comparative reading (27).  In addition to the educational benefits, students gain self-worth and esteem.

Teachers have slightly different roles as a seminar leader.  They are not just pushing the information out to students in hopes that it gets absorbed.  Instead they guide students to

1.       A deeper and clarified consideration  of the ideas of the text

2.       A respect for varying points of view

3.       Adherence to and respect of the seminar process (28)

My favorite part of this article is the end.  It says that the schools primary purpose is to prepare “thoughtful citizens for active involvement in a democratic society” (29).  The Socratic Seminar is supposed to facilitate that.  I think it just might…

Class

I have to admit I was kind of drained during class since I had lots of homework due this week; however, the cheesy, old Valentine’s Day cards perked me up.  Normally, I think I recap well, but this week I may be lacking.

                                                                                                                                                    

We discussed transfer and how it has tied into our semester readings so far and how it applies to not only K-12 librarians, but all librarians.  After all, aren’t libraries environments where transfer is supposed to occur?  Before I only thought the idea really applied to K-12 librarians, and now I am beginning to rethink that.

We also talked about “hook questions” and Kristin used the example of how a person would do research to obtain information about cars.  Lots of good answers…

Finally, we picked partners for our book club assignment and discussed what type of material we could use.  I think we may be leaning towards a children’s book.  Yeah, I love children’s books.  I still have most of mine.

 

Week 5

Wow, so some concepts are beginning to click as I realized that many of the themes we have been learning about reoccur.  Ideas are connecting and the light bulb has turned on. J

Readings

Wiggins & McTighe’s “Put Understanding First”

This article talks about high school curriculum and the difficulty students have about trying to apply their knowledge into various problems.  The authors state that the goal of high school is not to teach students content but to prepare them for the real-world.  To do that the high school curriculum must accomplish three things:

1.       Acquire important information and skills

2.       Make meaning of that content

3.       Effectively transfer their learning to new situations both within school and beyond

These ideas of transfer, meaning, and acquisition make up the majority of the ideas in this article.  You must have these happen to be a successful learner.  Teachers need to improve their methods by incorporating the teaching methods that provide direct instruction, facilitation, and coaching.  Unfortunately, high schools teachers and/or the curriculum fail to teach in the manner needed, which causes students to not be able to achieve these goals. 

I must agree with this article.  My favorite teachers were the ones I learned from the most because they use different teaching techniques.  It seemed like it was mostly my AP teachers that went above and beyond basic lecturing.  In fact, one of my history teachers made us participate in Socratic seminars, like the article mentions, throughout the semester facilitate our learning of the material. At the time I hated them because I do not like to speak in class, but they proved extremely informative.  I also notice that Kristen also uses different methods of teaching to help with our learning.

Chapter 3 “Learning and Transfer”

The idea of transfer continues with this chapter. Certain kinds of learning experiences lead to transfer.  These are the main characteristics of learning and transfer (53):

·         Initial learning is necessary for transfer

·         Knowledge that is overly contextualized can reduce transfer

·         Transfer is best viewed as an active, dynamic process rather than a passive end-product of a particular set of learning experiences

·         All new learning involves transfer based on previous learning

Other key points from the chapter about transfer and learning are that there is a difference between understanding and memorizing, the amount of time to learn affects transferability, the content in which one learns affects it, and all new learning involves transfer.  Of course these readings wouldn’t be complete is they did have the word “meta” somewhere in it.  This week the textbook discusses the metacognitive approach.  This approach assists students to learn about themselves as learners.

Like Wiggins & McTighe’s, the textbook also agrees that “Transfer from school to everyday environments is the ultimate purpose of school-based learning” (78).  After all what is school for? Most of us won’t spend the rest of lives in a school setting (even though somedays it feels like it); therefore, we need these transfer skills to help us be successful in the real-world.   I completely agree we the readings for this week, however, I'm kind of tired of all the "meta" words. My spellcheck doesn like them all either!

Class

Last class we dicussed summative evaluation questions,  split into groups, classified sets of questions, constructed models based on our classifications then walked around looking how other groups divided the questions. We watched a video with Dr. McGonigal: gaming can make a better world. This is what she discussed:

·         We need to play more games and games are powerfuld

·         We are not as good in real life as we are in game world—we are our best selves in game world

·         Playing games build trust between people

·         Give people the power to achieve epic wins

We did a workshop survey assessment based on Dr. McGonigal's presentation and we formative assessment strategies.

All in all, not a bad night. 

Week 4

Class

In class this week we viewed a few screencast from a couple classmates and I must admit I was impressed.  I know I personally recorded mine 10 times or so before I ended up with my final product; however, the few we watched blew mine out of the water.  They were so professional and helpful.  My best didn’t even compare to theirs.  I guess I need to practice more or download software that allows me to really edit my screencast.

We also we split into groups and tried to define information literacy without the terms “use information”.  It was interesting and more difficult than originally anticipated because each one of us had different ideas what information literacy is.  Some definitions were theoretical while others were practical.  We all agreed, in the end, that “understand” should be included. 

Not to sound like a goody-goody, but each class get more interesting and informative. I've never taken a class that instructed methods of teaching.

Readings

Formative Assessment and the Design of Instructional Systems

This article discusses two main concerns--formative assessment and feedback.  The author states that even with good feedback from teachers, students’ work does not improve, therefore, formative assessment is needed.  Formative assessment can be defined as the concern "with how judgments about the quality of student responses can be used to shape and improve the student's competence by short-circuiting the randomness and inefficiency of trail-and-error learning" (120).

In order to improve their work these things need to happen:

1. Students "must develop the capacity to monitor the quality of their own work during actual production" (119).
2. Students "have the evaluative skill necessary for them to compare with some objectivity the quality of what they are producing in relation to the higher standard" (119).
3. Students "develop a store of tactics or moves which can be drawn upon to modify their own work" (119).

In the end, there should be a move from feedback from teachers to student being self-monitoring.

I personally prefer articles that are more practical versus theoretical which is what this one was.  Maybe students do not change their work for various reasons that do not have to do with the way they judged.  For instance, in the past I’ve ignored the assessment of teachers and did not change my work because I did not feel they were right.  Some assessments are based on one’s opinion and I do not always agree with the teacher’s opinion.  In another example, I was too lazy or did not wish to make the improvement in my work.  It wasn’t worth the few extra points to exert more effort.  While I respect many of the points this article makes, I do not agree with them all.

Chapter 6: The Design of Learning Environments

This chapter assesses the four different learning environments

1.      Learner-centered environments connect students’ previous knowledge to current academic assignments.

2.      Knowledge-centered environments help students to learn skills to understand and organized knowledge.

3.      Assessment-centered environments states that feedback is important and teachers should attempt to understand their students and help them build self-assessment skills.  Formative assessments and feedback fall in this category.

4.      Community-centered environments advocate a sense of community and that everyone has similar learning values and objectives.

I have to wonder, can librarians really provide all of these things—learning environments and formative assessments?  It seems like a large job.  While these articles offer theoretical examples can these all be applied to everyday life?  It's a lot to digest.