Taking Time for Reflection Helps in the Learning Process!

Are we giving our students enough time to think about what they are learning or are we pushing them through the lessons to just get to the next? Nanetter Fondas (2014) explains that "learning is more effective if a lesson or experience is deliberately coupled with time spent thinking about what was just presented." Students need time to think about their lessons, to write a reflection or verbalize it to a peer. This process gives the students time to think about how they finished the lesson and discover if there may have been a better way. Giving students time to reflect gets them thinking about other possibilities for the idea or concept. Is there an easier way I could have done that? "In a lab portion of the study, participants completed a math brain teaser under time pressure and wrote about what strategy they used or might use in the futures to solve the problem. This group did 18 percent better in a second-round test than their control group counterparts, who were not given time to reflect" (Fondas, 2014). 

We try to remember as teachers that if you let students have time to explore, teach others, and reflect on what they are doing then they start to think about concepts in a different way. they start to come up with more creative ways of doing lessons. We give them confidence in what they are doing. The reflection lets them feel like there is some control in their education and they can change the way that they are learning. 

This is not a new concept but it is something that needs to be reiterated once and a well. Teachers get stuck in their routines and with how we are being told what to teach and when to teach it, we forget to take the time with the students to think about what we are learning. Instead of cramming everything into the students' brains, we need to have time to think about what we are learning and reflect.

Fondas, N. (2014, May 15). Study: You Really Can 'Work Smarter, Not Harder.' Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/05/study-you-really-can-work-smarter-not-harder/370819/

 

Weblogs - I had no idea!

I have never really thought about the whole idea of a blog. I always saw it as more of a journal or diary that someone kept on the internet for everyone else to read and respond to. I never really looked at it as a tool that could be useful in the classroom setting.

After reading chapters 2 & 3, in Will Richardson's Book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, my idea of blogs is totally different. Now I am ready to try my own and actually start to seek out other peoples' blogs on topics that I am interested in.

There are tons of ideas in the book about how to use blogs in the classroom and it does seem like a better idea than a plain website when trying to work with parents and other educators. Blogs feel like they are more often geared towards upper elementary into college but as I read through the chapters, I realized that kindergarteners and first graders that are just learning how to write could be making video blogs. Students have the ability to record themselves with school and home devices and post it on the web. There would probably be more privacy on these blogs due to the fact that you are posting the videos of students but it would be a great tool for parents, teachers, and other students to use to interact with each other.

Well, this is the first time ever that I have written a blog, other than class materials that had a layout of what I need to write! I hope that I am moving in the right direction.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.