Friday, February 08, 2013

Students Amaze Me

The more my students are active in their learning, the more they amaze me. Today was one of those days. Toward the beginning of class, two of the students led the rest of us in thinking about an important topic for our weekly devotional. The guys talked to us about the wise man and the foolish man and helped us make the connection to our own lives.
 
Then in one class period, students went from using a mobile app for French language exploration called Busuu to using AirDrop, Google Docs, Keynote and Pages to pull together an interesting presentation that teaches the rest of the class about their researched topic.

The most amazing thing about this is that most of those applications were their ideas to use. They simply knew they had a task to complete and chose the tools most applicable to them in order to accomplish the task at hand.



I really can't wait to see the presentations next week. Why would I ever "pour out" information to my students when this level of engagement can be achieved through students working? Besides I really do want my students to work harder than I do!

1 Comments:

Anonymous Eddie K Martin said...

Great post! I've heard it called constructivist teaching or the 5E's, whichever you choose it is the way technology will have to be used if we are actually going to teach on computers. Research proves that students are active seekers and constructors of knowledge and that they bring their own curiosities to the classroom (Brooks & Brooks, 1993; Piaget, 1969). The traditional teaching methods of pre-determined plans and skills being pushed out from teacher to student does not fit into the scenario of the millennial generation, kids today are social learners. Vygotsky (1962), stated about development that students depend on social interaction with one another. The teachers responsibility is to create a classroom environment where students think, explore, and construct meaning WHILE including opportunities for students to have social interaction. It sounds crazy but Jaqueline Brooks (1993) said that we should let students re-invent the wheel everyday. We should allow them to discover answers and learn for themselves while we guide from the side.

February 11, 2013 at 8:31 PM  

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