Blog Post #9

What can we learn about teaching and learning from these teachers?
By: Jennifer Hamrick and Dominique Jones

What we can learn from Brian Crosby in, Back to the Future, is how Mr. Crosby didn't let statistics or labels on his students hold him back from teaching them. His 4th grade class started the year with most of them not knowing what city they lived in nor their phone number. Mr. Crosby developed a project titled High Hopes and was about active learning and empowering his students to be learners. This project turned into more than just a science project. The lesson taught the students how to communicate with others, how to write a story, science and to articulate orally. It also helped the student teach themselves and problem solve on their own. In one instance, Mr. Crosby had asked the students to write down what their high hopes were for the future to be sent up in their project. One student thought outside of the box and asked if they could include other students “high hopes”. The students that they had been communicating with from around the world. By thinking outside of the box, the students’ world was opened up to current events around the world. Mr. Crosby also had an opportunity to help a student with leukemia. Celeste was a student enrolled in his class but couldn't attend class because of her fight against leukemia. Mr. Crosby used technology and webcams and helped Celeste be a part of his class on a regular basis. Mr. Crosby hasn't let statistics, labels, or standardized tests dictate how his classroom will run and we think that by thinking outside of the box and letting students be a part of their learning is the biggest lesson we could learn from this video.

In the video, Blended Learning Cycle, we learned about the Blended Learning Cycle. It is about taking compelling parts of online, mobile and classroom learning and blending them together with the 5 E’s of the learning cycle - engage, explore, explain, expand and evaluate.Paul thinks this is very useful in teaching Science. This is how the Blended Learning Cycle works: 1.Question - come up with a hook - You need a good question that will get their attention. 2.Investigation- How does this work? 3.Video- He puts his podcasts on videos and the students can look at it in their free time. 4.Elaboration- Use diagrams. 5.Review -Asks students about the material. If the students do not understand the material they can not go on to the summary quiz. The summary quiz test the students on the material and if they do not know it they have to go back. After the summary quiz is when the students take a test. The Blended Learning Cycle really engages students and stops burp-back education.

In the last video, Making Thinking Visible, Mark Church asks his students to come up with a headline about early human beginnings. The students watched a video that pertained to this the day before. The kids are divided in groups and have to come up with a headline on how challenging it is to find early remains and what they know about early human remains . It gets students to think and how their opinions have changed since watching the video. By putting the kids in a group, they get to discuss and share ideas to come up with a better understanding. Each group has something different.