Strategies
Students come into our Distance Learning Laboratory with varying skills – technological, conversational, writing, and reading. All of these skills are essential to their academic success – in our classroom and beyond. I need to employ teaching strategies that work towards strengthening these skills throughout the school year. One can talk with a number of my school colleagues to know that while my conversational, reading, and writing skills were strong I still needed to improve upon my technological skills! Immersing myself in this Distance Laboratory helped me to improve upon these skills. I searched out multiple opportunities to learn from my colleagues, district personnel, and spent numerous hours working with different types of practices such as Video Chat or Google Docs. My ultimate goal is to ready these students for the 21 st century learning that will be expected of them when they leave high school to pursue higher education or enter the workforce. This unit is early in the year and students must be working towards mastering the following strategies at the very beginning of our course to be successful throughout the year.
Collaborative Learning/Groupwork
Students need to learn how to work together to accomplish goals – those set by the teacher and themselves. This is a basic requirement for many positions or jobs that they will hold in the future. Working together, relying on each other helps to build team-working skills. This strategy is somewhat challenging for us in that there are two groups of students at three different high schools. For the intense conversations that follow the readings of important concepts such as gender, race, or religion a facilitator must be certain that there is a strong sense of camaraderie, trust, and willingness to work with and listen to others in the group. In collaborative learning, each group member is accountable to each other, dependent upon each other and contributes the established goals. Everyone has some strength to share.(39) Together, more is accomplished. Opportunities to learn about each other before and while working help to promote the collegiality and cohesiveness necessary to work well together. Individual and group evaluations are necessary to monitor the group's work (product) and their progress in teamwork.
Five-Step Homework Notes
Although I am unable to give credit to the person on the High School Psychology Server I belonged to, the gratitude I express now is not diminished in any way. This form of note taking regarding the textbook readings has greatly improved students' understanding of the text. This format helps to develop content area vocabulary knowledge and prepares students for class lectures and discussions, as well as assists them in studying for examples. The notes will help students to define the vocabulary terms, make connections/questions about the terms, and summarize the information. This helps to ensure that students will be able to identify, define, and apply all of the sociological terms that may seem foreign to students.
Google Docs
Technology is an essential part of classrooms today, especially at the university level. I see part of my role, obviously in this Distance Learning Laboratory with thousands of dollars of technological equipment, to use it with the students so that they become proficient in this new language of technology. Google Docs is one of the ways we have to provide students with a collaborative opportunity to participate in a joint writing process. Students will work with their peers to complete a piece of writing in response to a film, summarizing the key points to a lecture or reading, amongst others. I tell students that this skill they are perfecting in the classroom today will be beneficial to them at the university level in which they can work with their classmates across campus in completing group assignments without even meeting once! As an instructor, you can create and assign a Google Doc to group members. Also, feedback can be easily given even while a student (or students) is working on an assignment. Additionally, it is easily monitored through the Revision History, so that an instructor can keep track of who has completed what. Furthermore, for my teaching situation it helps to build partnerships between the students in two different schools.
Cornell Note Taking
This note taking system is one that was introduced to our staff at last year's pre-service teacher training. Our school was beginning it's first year of the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program and one of the teachers who had completed summer training introduced it to us. I thought it looked promising as note taking is not a forte of my own and I had seen many students struggle with this as well. In this technology-based classroom, I found a template that students must use each time they read a text or view a film/program in class. The template is divided into two columns – the Cue Column – one on the left being only a few inches in width while the Note Taking Column on the right being about six inches in width. On the right hand-side students should Record information from the lecture. Afterwards, students should formulate Questions to help construct/clarify meaning of the information. Then, they should Recite what they know to determine what still needs to be learned using the questions that were formed or cue words. Then, Reflect on the information – asking more questions to enhance the learning. Lastly, it is important for students to Review. They should spend time each week going over the notes.(40)
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