Blog Post 11

In Brian Crosby's video Back to the Future, he goes on to give his take on the disconnect students seem to have. It is a really cool video and he goes into some pretty heavy topics. The video is even more interesting because his microphone makes him sound like a robot. Also Back to the Future is also the title to one of my favorite movies. Back on topic h
e said that almost all of his students have trouble with what should be common knowledge. Some of the students had trouble naming the city they lived in. All most the whole class could not name what country they live in. That is kind of a startling observation that left me with a lot of questions. He said this is probably due to the narrow curriculum that most of these poverty stricken kids have been on since birth. Crosby sets a goal for himself to make the education these guys receive to more interesting and meaningful. This will in turn hopefully give them more enthusiasm for learning and their performance will be greatly improved. He ,like all most all the teachers we have studied this semester, has incorporated a wide range of technology into his classroom. All the students have a blog that they post on and he uses and interactive whiteboard. They do a lot of projects that help them acquire knowledge in a meaningful way. He incorporates a lot of real world elements which helps prepare them for the future. All in all Mr. Crosby seems to be another role model for us entering the teaching profession. We should also seek to make our classrooms more engaging and interesting.

In Blending Learning Cycle, Mr. Anderson explains to us what the namesake of his article means. You will find right away that his true gift is his use of acronyms. One of those is QUIVERS. What do those clever arranging of letters stand for you may be asking. Well let us break it down.

• QUestion - What is the question?
• Investigate - Let's try and investigate it.
• Video - Maybe we can find videos that relate.
• Elaborate - Explore it in further detail.
• Review - Let's check our understanding.
• Summary - Take a quiz.

This is a really good method to get students to really think about the content that is being delivered to them. 

Well being the superhero buff I am this watching Super Digital Citizen was a real treat. He relates the popular heroes to ways they can stay safe while on the internet. "With great power comes great responsibility." He uses this quote from the character Uncle Ben to really relate to the students that the internet is a wonderful tool but like everything should be used with caution. They even get to make their own superhero in class! If only you could see the jealousy coming from my face right now. They take these characters and place them in situations where the will have to practice internet safety. As Mr. Pane ,the teacher, says it gives them a greater sense of ownership of their decisions. The visual presentations these students put together were astounding. They really got the material that was brought before them because it was so engaging. 

In the video Project Based Learning, three teachers set out to take this way of teaching to the next level. How did they do this? Well all three worked together cooperatively and combined their courses to together to make a very effective learning experience. The subjects combined was history, language, and information. They say like we have been told before that this project based learning keeps kids engaged and thus learning is more meaningful. Seeing these three educators work together on such a level is really awesome. Another cool thing I observed was that the teachers are constantly looking for new ways to help improve their classrooms. 

In Roosevelt's Elementary's PBL Program we are once again showed a group of teachers that use PBL in their classrooms. They break down the method in a way that can be easily understood for those new to the concept. The students are put in situations were they will have to work together and solve problems for themselves. They are also doing a lot of public speaking and this helps them improve their communication making them better rounded students. As we have seen many times this teamster PBL seems to be an enjoyable tool for us to use in our future classroom. It has the seal of approval of many respected educators and the enjoyment the students seem to have cannot be ignored.