Blog Assignment #11

What did I learn from these teachers?

Back to the Future

This is an absolutely fantastic video of a elementary science teacher giving a presentation of some of the fun projects he has been doing with his class. The biggest take away I got was that learning MUST be fun and interesting. He had all types of innovative ways to engage his students. He makes a great point about we, as educators, must empower our students to learn on their own. I highly suggest y'all go watch this video. He sends a balloon 100,000 feet into the atmosphere with a camera attached. It was pretty awesome.

Blended Learning Cycle

Paul Andersen is a high school biology teacher. He has a video on his own personal blended learning cycle. He believes in the "power of the question." He empowers his students using his "QUIVERS" system of teaching. The video gives an in depth look at his process. I really like the way he went about the self-evaluation he allows the students to do. I have always been a fan of self-evaluation and find that it often brings about some honest reflection of effort in the student.

Super Digital Citizen

Sam Pane is a 5th grade teacher. He is teaching his students about being responsible on the internet. He really has a cool way of getting his students interested in the subject matter. He has them build a comic book hero, digitally, to teach and enforce safety on the internet. This is obviously super cool to his 5th graders. He has made school fun! The biggest thing I am getting out of all of these videos is that school needs to be fun for the kids. Gone are the days of blackboards and lectures.

Project Based Learning

Project Based Learning, Project Based Learning, Project Based Learning!!! This is one of the biggest tools I will take from EDM310. PBL is the teaching method of the future. This video is of a Canadian school which blended 3 subjects into single class for the students. This was just a quick video, but showed how successful thinking outside of the box can be. They were teaching beyond the curriculum and making their students better citizens.

Roosevelt Elementary's PBL

Another great example of PBL. This one is from an American classroom. It, like the one above, stresses teaching beyond the curriculum. It is really interesting that the education community has decided to push for the building of a better student, as a whole, as opposed to just teaching the subject matter. They are teaching skills that can be utilized in the academic world, but in the real world as well. Very cool to see this happening in the profession.