Blog Post 11

Back to the future - Brian Crosby

As Mr. Crosby gave his lecture, you can tell his students had moved around a lots. Some kids didn't know their address, phone numbers, or what city they lived in. It's good to get to know who your students are. These students were very disconnected. Mr. Crosby is a teacher full of excitement, with crushing cans and hot air balloons in his project. These type of projects will surly catch the imagination  of any kid. He has a classroom full of active learners. He treated a little girl that had lukemia,  just like she was one of the other students, she was pictured on a lab top in the video. He really had to take time to do this with his class . Mr. Crosby is a very dedicated teacher, and he wants the schools to be dedicated to them also.

Blended Learning Cycle, In the video the class was turned into a video game. The teacher explains blended as being online, mobile, classroom learning. He also talks about the learning cycle that includes the 5 E's, engage explore, expand, explain, and evaluate. Paul believes in the power of questions. He spells the word Quivers, which is a very good question, it investigates, use videos, elaborates, review and has a summary quiz. If students appear not to know the information, they go back to relearn it. He still believes in the old fashion test taking. He believes in  students really explaining what they have learned, and know what they are talking about.

Making Thinking Visible, Mark Church allows students to look at the world, to see and define problems in creative ways. To see how the world influences them, and think about things deeper. As a teacher he wanted to get kids to thinking. He says thinking really make things take off, and help them understand.

Building Comics, Teacher Sam Pane ask students to focus on super digital citizens, creating a digital citizen "Super Hero" using the internet safely, respectful, and responsible. The students created their own character and used their imagination in a situation. This comic strip was all about them, a visual way of learning, and making good choices. They also walked around the classroom to look at each others work to see weather it was safe, respectful, and responsible. This was a great way to allow the students to express their good values in a given situation.

Project Based Learning, A high school classroom where three teachers combine history, english, and information processing, using technology to help bring in project based learning. They ran into road blocks going across the curriculum, but they blended ideas and got feedback from students and made it work. Students began to write poetry, and found themselves going pass the finished project and made it better. This made them appreciate their work better, and they went beyond the curriculum.

Roosevelt Elementary School PBL project, The learning style is very different at this school.
PBL is:
* In depth learning
* Integrated theme instruction
*Based "real-world" problems
*Research based
*Project and presentation
The students in the program think for themselves, and show they understand through what they have learned. The students have public speaking skills at a very young age. They learn by making their own decisions. Students work in groups and independently. In group work they answer to each other, they see what worked and what didn't. The students also used rubrics to reflect on their learning.