Teaching isn't a picnic Jane!

Hello everyone below Janes story unfolds creating more opportunities for success.

Continuing with my positive commentary from my previous post.
My basic points where as follows; 

-Preservice teachers wheren't being equiped for rural teaching.

-Jane needed to teach the fundamentals of learning, she needs to engage in the community  by connecting the classroom learnings  into community needs.

The further developments of the story what have learned now?


-Jane has been given an opportunity to understand what the community wants for their children and from the teachers.


- Parents are involved and know what the kids are doing at school, They have an opinion that is relevant to the community. 


- A discussion with them would shed some light on the history of the school.

- Homework is'nt catering for the distance kids are traveling to school.

- Some kids maybe suffering malnourishment, A opportunity for group exercise in nourishment possibly etc. (this was missed in the last assessment)

What does this mean how would we react what measure can Jane implement?

What 's becoming apparent with this scenario is the huge opportunity to use reflective practice's. Jane is tired, despondent and is overlooking the needs of the students. The past year's work load with no apparent gains and the overheard feedback have clearly rattled her self efficacy.

I will give a brief view of my thinking on the avenues for reflection in context to the modules of the course that we should do at the end of every year.

Human development just the ones I like.

-We have Piagets four stages of development most of the kids will be in formal operational.

-Then we have Vygotsky where development is linked to social interaction.

-Erickson's phychosocial stages, who I think probably has the broadest sense of what happens to us linked to our emotional spectrum coupled with a persons mental development. This is the crises for the students Jane Identity vs Confusion.

The main point I believe is that students are still in the best zone for learning they learn differently and gradually and socially.

Learning theory behaviourist/cognitive or humanist approches.

I believe essentially this is the point that Jane take a long hard look at her self.
The fact that the scenario hasn't mentioned any other faculty is a concern.
I don't think jane is taking a constructivist approach, I don't believe she is registering Maslows hierarchy of needs or Rogers watery freedom's to learn.
The situation needs a frank review of the past years work. Jane needs to ask for support from the community and the school faculty. The learning theory is just that it's not a support network Jane is operating solo and she shouldn't be.

Teaching all learners!!

This module is the most provocative and the most time consuming and emotionally taxing part of teaching.
My experience is showing me that a lot of teachers are taking the path of least resistance.
I believe they think that;

-The students can't learn what they are teaching.


-The students don't want to learn what they are teaching.


-That they are maintaining a standard of education.

This thinking remove's the teacher from the responsibility of the job. The thinking also relies on children to make adult decision on there future are we mad and blind?
Can the nine provocations help us understand these implications better?

Will I be allowed to be the teacher I want to be? Will I allow myself to be the teacher I want to be.

What will students want and need from me? What will I want and need from my students.

What kind of teacher do I want to be? What kind of teacher do students want me to be.

I think Jane needs to step away from her preconceived idea's, of what the role of a teacher was going to be in a rural community.

On a final point I think that what Jane needs to do is locally adapt to the needs of the students and remember.

-Relevence and emotion are the gate keepers to the mind learning.( something Sam in class said to me)

- Make connections with the community and use social constructivism theory.

-Introduce a food bowl program learning, growing and most importantly eating.

thanks........

Find the right ICT to enhance your class room.

Why doesn't ICT always enhance learning what are the barriers. The fact is that generally most teachers are using ICT to teach the same way they always have, they aren't adapting there assessment to capture the dynamic ability of ICT.

Ideally I believe every classroom should have a Smart board or interactive board for the class and a computer for every student, this access to the global opportunity would give the teacher the optimal resource for teaching effectively beyond their own style and pedagogy.
The reality is that not all schools have Smart boards, to compound this lack of resource teacher's aren't trained in effective use's of smart boards as the boards are rolled out. If they are they forget because they aren't integrated into their teaching or assessment.
It is interesting  that (Kennywell and Morgan 2003) site this as one of the barriers to effective use of Smart boards but we shouldn't assume that just because you have the skills and the equipment your going to be a great teacher with ICT.

This bring's us full circle to finding the right ICT to enhance your students learning. There isn't a right and wrong answer, any experienced teacher will maintain that you need a 1000 different strategies to motivate student learning and they don't always work.

This point of finding the right ICT is heavily discussed by (Harper, Hedburg and Wills 2003) they investigate 'designing learning with ICT' and that it needs to be assessed against quality teaching models. What I find they have uncovered is that teachers aren't sharing quality practices concerning ICT. This trend is changing but the application of ICT is up to the individual teacher.

The right tool for the job, connects outcomes and assessment in fun professional environment's.

You will find that ICT isn't a magic wand for teaching but what it can bring to the class is a new set of motivators.

This site outlines strategies you should implement to increases effective ICT.

http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/DigitalEducationRevolution/DigitalStrategyforTeachers/Documents/ICTStratPlanGuide.pdf

A great site to help with your own idea's of effective use's of ICT in CLass rooms.

http://www.effectiveict.co.uk/interactive/

HOW CAN ICT ENHANCE STUDENT LEARNING?

Thinking critically we really must question does ICT enhance's learning?
The simplest answer I have yet found is....  Yes it does and No it doesn't enhance learning. This statement springs forth from my understanding of the vast difference's of application of ICT by the teacher in classrooms in relation to the research.
Mostly teachers use ICT if they know how to and more readily if they can asses the work  in relation to their faculty outcomes.

I believe ICT enhance's learning by:

Introducing live information into the classroom.
Providing more creative collaboration at lower cost such as free online services for sharing content.
Allowing students learning to be stimulated by visual and audio media.
By focused use of technologies linking creativity to academic success and promoting positive student self efficacy.
Being a dynamic system with the ability to adapt to different types of learners.
By developing individuals thinking and ability to critically sift information( images, text, video) in a group dynamic to shared values and outcomes.

How ICT is enhancing student learning is teachers learning with and teaching to students, by communicating information with technologies like smart boards, computers, mobil devices and the WWW.

Yes ICT has many devices but generally is most effective when it is being used to innovate core or boring subjects like Maths and English. Thats not to say it's not effective in any of the other subjects like Arts or Sciences, but when used by an experienced teacher, can be a wonderfully collaborative exercise that focuses students attention and motivates them to learn. I agree with both (Higgins 2000), (Blackmore & Owens 2003) that ICT must be thoroughly intergrated into learning outcomes and that when ICT is used it's tailored for specific lesson outcomes. The focus now is, what types ICT are best for what outcomes.


To be continued .....

Thanks

Communication and Technology what does it mean!

ICT=Information    +   Communication    +   Technology 

Communication and Technology are interconnected here the graphic shows the world being connected through digital devices operating in concert of one another.

I suggest that the world is us in our classroom and now teachers and students are connected or networked globally.
While verbal and text instructions continue, the National Curriculum outlines that computers must be included in communicating to students.
This change in a teachers communication tool and learning tool has had standards emerge in regards to competencies of students computer literacy. Also this change has resulted in the expectations that parents place on teachers computer literacy being able to in turn teach and communicate effectively.

So what are the different ways of communicating with technology?

Well we have hardware which we all ready know most of them and use them daily, some not so much but basically phones, TV, Radio, Computers, Overhead projectors, Magic boards, CD's, World wide Web, projectors etc.

Then we have software. there are standard office software application like microsoft word, presentation software and desktop publishing or graphic software. Then there are Specialist software like computer aided design or rendering programs and media packages like Adobe creative suit.
We now also have online service's like Prezi.

Communicating or sending information generally begins with a teacher working within a school network or internal local area network (LAN), This is managed by Intact and a member of the schools faculty.
This network  always has a filter to allow or disallow the type of information or content  the teachers and parents want.

The other network that student's would access from home would be a external wide area network (WAN).

Essentially ICT is the teacher using mixed technologies to communicate rich content or information to students.

So..... How can ICT help enhance students learning?

To be continued.........

Understanding ICT for classroom dummies 101.

As I've already pointed out, the outcomes of learning are more then just the assimilation of knowledge and more about the way you use knowledge critically.
Here the statement, How ICT can enhance student learning? will have to wait to be answered, until we understand what ICT is in context to teaching and some terms of reference have been applied to the concept.

What is ICT?                                        ICT=I+C+T

Information 

We have 5 senses that information can be transmitted and received by to communicate.

I would agree that information or knowledge was once only found in people, books, pictures, caves, paintings, song's and stories etc but now I argue that it's different, information has changed. Today we can teach to the disabled by tailoring information for specific learning abilities and sense,  such as brail and audio files for the blind.

My point is, that the nature of information has evolved with our ability to encoded it, what we now have is information systems 'data bases' and strategies for delivering information such as video and audio to compliment the original text and verbal formats for learning.
The information is now data is not just text it's rich media like audio and visual this information is controlled and managed by Nations and has always been part of Education.
It's now a digital based system not a paper based file system like a library.

to be continued...............

Enhance me now computer!

Wouldn't it be cool if we could simple turn on computer's  and dump information directly into kids mind's. We still would need to maintain appropriate control on what knowledge goes in and how we guide it's application, it's of no use giving a student the means of understanding everything with out connecting it to relevant life experience's.

This truth I personally think can be explained when a person's attitude comes into play with knowledge, I admit my parents would have told me thousand times to work and study hard and life would be easier. I knew they were right, but I wanted to test that knowledge, now I know it's true how do I teach my own children?

Our main goal is teaching students to think critically, it is by disassembling and analysing the information/knowledge we give them into their own focused learning pattern, that they gain self efficacy. This thinking should be fun an easier to achieve together with computers.

The technologies we have are not so far removed from the device I'm talking about here, the staggering amount of information we have stored, the speed and distance it can travel are all leading to learning machines (LM's).
Unfortunatly for us that world is a few years off so we have to understand how the Information Communication Technologies we have now can enhance learning for us.

But what is ICT.

to be continued.......thanks

Learning Machines the future is out there!!!!

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