Part+2

Part Two, Observing Student/Student and Student/Teacher Interaction. Entry 3: How it's Done.... Watching, Comparing and Learning.

Student/Teacher and Student/Student Interaction Artifacts  click here  Before I became a student of online teaching and learning I didn't give that much thought to interactions. By that I mean, I didn't analyze the best way to encourage interaction nor did I understand how incredibly valuable interaction between all parts of the classroom are. I just did my thing and when we all meshed and conversed and worked and learned together it was a good day. Until my VHS classes I had never really observed interaction as something that could be stimulated, enhanced and encouraged within the classroom regardless of its venue.

After not only observing, but also being a part of the interactions in the VHS best practices courses, I see interaction as the core of a vibrant online community. This vibrant interactive community develops because the //facilitator designs it that way// by establishing dedicated areas for communication, and by modeled the excitement of student/teacher interactions. Students in turn find the discussions a safe place to both ask and receive validation and information. Questions are answered, suggestions are given, an interesting experience is shared and soon the interaction moves from the security of the discussion and questions threads to active collaboration. The tone set by the interactive community then allows for students to trust and desire peer comments and reviews. At this point an interactive learning community has been established.

In my practicum the master teacher has a way of stimulating interaction in the discussion threads by saying things like " hum, " I wonder if there is a connection here?" She has established multiple areas where students are expected to respond to each other. One interesting area is the Lab Forum . Before labs students speculate on what they might learn and how this might enhance their understanding of the weeks topic. After the lab they comment on what they did learn and compare that to their former expectations. In addition, the students are expected to respond twice to their classmate’s posts. This is the forum that they actually "talk" to one another in. In the journal reviews some times it like two year old's parallel play, but then Miss B will get something going and save the day. In the class blog students also discuss their week with each other. In "Breaking News" students review each other’s journal articles. Additionally students reflect on their test scores on the online tutorials. This area is also open to the class and the students will often complain to each other about how many attempts it took them to get a 100%.

Miss B is very quick. Technical and assignment questions are sometimes answered in a few hours and if she perceives a problem she will get to the student right away via the private thread. Miss B does not make numerous posts in the discussion areas but her posts are prompt and well distributed. How does she contribute most to student learning? I think that a student's ability to learn, or perhaps just want to learn, is directly linked to his/her feelings about how they are perceived by the instructor and how they feel about their place in the class. I have not yet seen Miss B. criticize or embarrass a student in a public area of the class, but what I have seen is sincere interest in the students as individual, and an honest appreciation for their efforts however great or small. Making the students feel welcome and appreciated is the way that Miss B. contributes most to their learning.

Strangely enough these high school students almost never interact in the student lounge and that seems strange to me. At the first of the class they chatted about snow and how to work the Jlab microscope but no one has entered in long time. In my son's college level class he says the same is true except for a few of the students that know each other. By comparison I never log in without checking the lounge. Maybe someone should do a study of this phenomenon. So where do the students in my practicum interact the most and what kind of interaction do they participate in? It is very hard to explain. Occasionally someone will ask for help with a problem and another student will reply with an answer but then they also say "yes, me too". "Let's ask Miss B". Each week’s work covers a separate body system and each student is required to do web reading, interactive labs, microscopic labs, home labs, journal reviews, and two to three written activities on the content covered. All of the work can be seen by all of the other students and they may make comments during several of these activities. Most of the interaction is in the Forums but the discussions are not well developed. This must be something you get better at with age and practice. The students do seem though to be well aware of one another and interested in each other’s work. Next week they will be assigned to small groups to begin the first stages of a final group project. This will be the first chance for them to really "work" together so it will be interesting to observe.

Out of the 21 students enrolled in the class only one or two are not fully engaged. Everyone else is achieving at different levels but still participating in a majority of the activities. There are also a few students that have a lot of late work but it almost always gets done and is of reasonably good quality. I think for a high school class the participation is very good. Student/Teacher and Student/Student Interaction Artifacts  click here

f2f Teaching Unit: The Student Garden Artifacts click here to view my favorite teaching tool, The Student Garden. Part Two, Entry 4:  Reflections On My f2f Class: __<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 150%;">How I learned to teach the way I had always wanted to learn. __ <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Over the past fifty years I have taken Educational Psychology four times in four Universities and Philosophy of Education Twice. Did I fail these classes and have to repeat? No, because I interrupted my teaching career several times during those years I felt a need to keep current and in touch with any changing beliefs and practices. Naturally the same old //Theory Guys// kept popping up. Their acceptance, or lack thereof, didn’t seem to change as much as the way their theories of learning and it’s implications for instructional design, were interpreted and applied in the classroom. Piece at a time I took a little here, a little there, until I incorporated their beliefs and applications into my schema labeled, **//how I think I should teach//**. I feel more aligned with the __**social learning theorists**__, the **Cognitivists**, (modeling, prior learning,meaningful) and the **Constructivists**( problem solving, openended learning) knowing that **behavioral theory** does have it's place at the ground level of instruction for any new material and moves upward to constructivists applications as the students command of the information increases, __for that information set__. Unfortunately this didn’t always sit well with those folks in charge. When teaching in a consolidated rural K-12 school in rural Missouri in the early 1980’s I was told to just keep them quiet and busy reading and writing. I brought in fish tanks and rocks and all sorts of interesting things to investigate. I showed movies, and some times we talked, just talked. I was considered a troublemaker and was given dirty looks whenever the principle walked by. Between teaching positions, and while raising five kids of my own, I spent a lot of time working with girl scouts and cub scouts and tutoring at the local schools. Good days were when the activities centered around something the kids could work on and have something really nice they had crated to take home. What they didn’t like so much was making worthless objects and sitting and reading or listening for extended periods of time. At home my own kids always liked to do what I was doing even if they needed lots of help to get it done right. After a while they learned to do things like cooking and helping pay bills by themselves. During the mid eighties I started doing volunteer work at my son’s Montessori school. I fell in love with it and went on to become certified and worked as a teacher there for several years before moving to Arizona. At Montessori I was again exposed to ideas that seemed obvious but had not been articulated to me before. If the environment is prepared correctly, and in a stimulating way, the teacher can act as a guide because the children come to learning instinctually. The teacher is a guide, helping as needed but letting the child interact with the environment and materials therefore constructing their own learning. Sensitive periods exist when children are ready to learn and these may vary with the child. And finally, //play is a child’s work.// Little by little I began to assimilate from my own experiences, from working with children in social groups, from teaching in a variety of school settings and from seeing not necessarily what worked while not destroying the students joy in learning. Over the years I constructed my own teaching and learning theories and I have been overjoyed, as well as validated, to see that the 21st teaching and learning experience has validated them.

My Beliefs: Although there are some situations where students must memorize material it is even more important that they learn how to interpret content, and how, and where, to find the information they need. Life is a //Group Activity// and students will learn to work cooperatively if they experience interaction early on an in a manner than is designed to foster cooperation. Children have different interests and strengths. Use this knowledge to engage. There isn’t any kind of content that can’t be taught if it is adapted and scaffold to the individual. If it isn’t relevant and authentic most teens are not interested. Children are born wanted to learn and it is their biggest joy. Do no Harm. Do not let the task of educating destroy the love of learning. Schools and teachers have an obligation to teach students the skills, beliefs and ethics they need to survive in the 21st century including tolerance, compassion, and global/ environmental awareness. A classroom should be active, a little noisy, and a safe place to challenge, question and learn. In my classroom room I value the fact that in spite of enormous diversity of all types intolerance is never acceptable and our classroom quickly becomes a community. To the best of my knowledge I have always been true to my beliefs and I fully believe that they are __**compatible wit**__ __**h**__ __** and transferable **__ __**to** **the online learning environment.**__

My Biggest Concerns: My ongoing concern is the understanding that to be successful in the online classroom I would need to be able to effectively communicate my concerns, feelings, beliefs, knowledge of content and joy for teaching in text format, as opposed to words, smiles and hugs, yes I give hugs, to heck with that rule! I am also concerned that I lag behind my classmates in technical expertize. I am addressing this now by taking short classes at the community college in word, windows excell, and multimedia presentations.

**What I Learned From The Old Guys, and Gals, that I assimilated into my (Things That Work When Teaching and Learning Schema).** = = = Dewey - Long Ago John realized the importance of Hands On and Active Learning and that teaching must be balanced with student experiences.= = =  **Montessori** **– Children are the hope of the future. They have brains from the very start and love to learn. Guide and encourage, do not stifle.** = = = Vygotsky – Learning occurs in a Social Context. Students create new learning from past experience. Keep the playing field level in terms of prior learning.= = = **Bruner** ** – Students construct their own knowledge from their experiences. Learning by doing, direct experiences that are open ended and may not be the same for all students. Problem solving is stressed **. = = = Bandura - Prior learning, practice, modeling, meaningful information, social context. Put that in your //schema.// = = = = = = Gardner – Our brains are not a mass of homogenous jelly. Students may be an Einstein in one area and not so much so in others. Understand, and use this to your and your student’s advantage. = //**For a super comprehensive, and relatively clear, article on these and other Theorists, and the implications**// **//of their thoughts on Instructional Design// //and which helped refresh my brain on this subject.//** click here <span style="background-color: #7fad89; color: #000000; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 209%;"> f2f Teaching Unit: The Student Garden Artifacts click here to view my favorite teaching unit, The Student Garden.