Hello and welcome back! I am unsure where to start this week as both readings presented many interesting ideas as well as questions!! This new ecology of learning once again confirmed my belief that learning is motivated by an interest as well as the importance of teaching students transferable skills, like evaluation and decision making. Yes, we know students are more apt to learn when interested, but sometimes it is hard to interest kids, especially high school kids. How can we create more motivation as well as interesting learning environments when sometimes kids are just not buying what your selling? In the second article Connectivism: A Theory for the Digital Age, by George Siemens states that in a networked world, “the need to evaluate the worthiness of learning is meta-skill that is applied before learning itself begins. When knowledge is subject to paucity, the process of assessing worthiness is assumed to be intrinsic to learning.” I conclude that to make them more interested and motivated we need to make it relevant & personal to their own lives and use methods interesting to them.
Secondly, I confirmed my thoughts about the need for more skill based knowledge, especially in the area of evaluation and decision making. Siemens goes on to state multiple principles of connectivism. The one principle that stood out is decision-making. I see this as a vital skill in the new ecology of learning. Learners should be able to take current information, assess the meaning, determine the worthiness but understand tomorrow if could all change. With the plethora of information available today and the rapid pace at which new information becomes available makes me question what practices/methods/activities can we provide to better help students decipher what is worthy, relevant and useful information?
To address the questions presented this week, I feel the shift in learning is more focused on the process, not the product or outcome. Transferable skills, such as making decisions on what content is worthy and where to find this information is important. Lastly, I see the shift in learning to become more student led, focused on problem solving/real world and more collaborative/social with an emphasis on innovation.
After reading both articles, the perspectives that resonated most with my view of learning would be what I mentioned above with the interest/motivation for learning, making connections with information and creating engaging learning environments. Although I am not exactly sure how to do that all the time! An aspect of this new learning ecology that may be more challenging, is having the flexibility to do all of this and more in the classroom.
Sonya,
You mentioned to help students be more interested and motivated we need to have more personal connections and use methods that interest them. What do you think these methods are and do you ever have problems trying to connect but not being able to reach every student on an individual level? I find when I try to make a lesson more personal it can be a struggle because I think I am still in the mindset of teacher driven instruction when I really need to make it more about the students and by doing this when they create or make something, it becomes more individualistic. Making a personal lesson is time consuming and we do need to be more thoughtful in our creations of lessons and the development of them. Hopefully with more teaching communities/blogs/networks, we can unload the work and not have to do it all ourself because this would be a heavy task. Thanks for your thoughts!
Hi Megan! I definitely do have problems connecting with every student, sometimes students just aren’t interested. Despite that, I have tried to make my classes more project based and over time have been able to add more options to how the students complete. It is a lot of work and it has taken me a couple years to incorporate. By allowing them options of how to finish a project, I find that they are more apt to complete if they have a say. Some examples I have used would be allowing them to research a topic of choice within our unit (topics are created by me generally, but sometimes I let them add ones) and choose how they want to present the information. That could be a PowerPoint, Prezi, Video, Pow-Toon, etc. I allow them choices but the research and presentation have specific elements they would need to meet. I hope that helps ! I am always looking for more ways to incorporate new ideas into my projects.
I also agree that we need to make personal connections and use interesting methods to motivate students, but it is hard to please everyone. In the past, I created lessons that a majority of the students enjoyed but I still had a handful of kids that didn’t like it or thought it was stupid. I feel like there is always someone who is going to complain.
I just completed a lesson about 5 minutes ago for my discovery (its a time set aside for character development). We showed this extremely motivational and engaging video to the students and they were to answer a couple follow up questions. They didn’t have to write anything down. They just had to share their opinions. It was completely silent. The questions were: How are you living? Who motivates you? and Who is your hero? But there was no response. This was something extremely simple and they couldn’t do it. So, this makes me wonder how do we make a connection with students who just don’t care? They had the opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions and all they wanted to do was complete their homework for other classes or talk with friends. You should check out the video. It was called the third grade dropout.
I honestly don’t think that the students truly know what they want or like. They are quick to say that something is “stupid” or “gay”. When you give them the chance to come up with something different, they can’t think of anything or agree on what to do.
I just want to know what you do in these situations? Do you experience the same?
Hi Kelly,
You are right, as a teacher you cannot please everyone and YES I do experience a lot of the same attitudes. I struggle with those handful of kids that just aren’t interested no matter how awesome you make it. Have you ever tried instead of them writing answers to allow them to post answers to questions using apps like Poll Everywhere or Padlet? I have had much success in getting those students who are reluctant to participate to answer questions this way, Then based on their answers we can have even more dialogue.
The way we learn is constantly evolving, and technology plays a huge role in shaping that experience. Traditional methods still have their place, but digital tools and online platforms have opened up so many new opportunities. It’s nice to see how different resources contribute to this shift, including reviews like https://alibris.pissedconsumer.com/review.html , which highlight user experiences with educational materials. Adapting to these changes makes learning more dynamic and accessible. The more flexible we are, the more we can take advantage of what this new learning environment has to offer.