Teaching+with+Technology+Week+4+Update

This week, our focus was on the importance of cooperative learning. This is a practice that I find very valuable as a teacher because it allows the students to become the "teacher" in a variety of ways. For example, one year after teaching a series of lessons on division, I moved my students into learning groups for an extension of the lesson. The students were allowed to choose their own groups on this day, and I was so proud to see and hear my students that "got it" teaching and explaining to those that struggled in earlier lessons and then seeing the light bulbs go off and the "a-ha's" filling the room. I have to remind myself that not all groups are like that each year, and cherish when it is. I see the value of cooperative learning as building students to be more successful adults. My readings and videos this week offered a multitude of reasons and examples of how cooperative learning work in the classroom. Author Howard Pitler gave helpful guidelines on grouping students in //Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works// that sometimes get overlooked. These include the sparing use of ability groups, and using a variety of criteria to group students. Examples of how cooperative learning postivitely impacts students involved many applications of technology use, such as WebQuests, simulation games, blogs, wikis, and Skype. Cooperative learning wasn't just discussed for the students, but teachers as well benefit from learning in cooperative groups. The McREL Technology Initiative suggests that peer coaching and developing an internal expertise are essential for teachers, as well as including content and collaborative worktime in teacher training. The idea of different content teachers working together to teach came up in some of the videos watched on [|www.edutopia.org]. This reminded me of when teachers taught by themes, rather than a calendar of when certain concepts should be covered. The website [|www.edutopia.org] (mentioned above) provides lots of ideas and interviews that are helpful in this redefining of education that is needed to keep students, even at the elementary age, motivated and interested in learning.