Reflection

At the beginning of this course, I described my personal theory of learning as one of relaxed, differentiated qualities. Now, at the end of our 8-week journey, I find myself editing this initial idea of how best my students will learn.  I had a lot of great ideas, but most of it was generalized and unintentional.  I use many different instructional strategies in my classroom, but after researching the differences between those and learning strategies, I realize there is so much more I can be doing to differentiate in my classroom.  I have learned of so many different ways to incorporate technology and use it to enhance the learning process for my students.  Not only have I been given great ideas, but I’ve learned about the theories that back up each one of the strategies I should be using.

In the immediate future, I see myself inserting more technology into my lessons.  Even if my goal is to use a new technology once a month, it’ll be more than I was doing before.  The one instructional tool I really want to start using regularly is the concept of a ‘flipped classroom’.  The more I read about, the more I want to implement it in my Calculus class. So often, my students struggle with their homework and they end up coming in to school for study tables because they got stuck on number 2 and were unable to finish the homework.  I’ve already started creating lesson plans for the Calc II curriculum so I can try out this technique.  As for the day-to-day lessons, I plan on adjusting some of the little things I do in my classroom. I am going to focus on dual-coding and have my students use visual AND audio learning strategies to secure concepts in their memories.  For example, just by having students explain their answers to a fellow classmate, the material they are working with will just solidify in their minds as they explain how they worked to get the answers.

One of the technology tools we worked with in this class was concept maps.  I would really like to use this tool with my students to reinforce the dual-coding theories I already referred to.  I also would like to use Prezi or another form of presenting (such as PowerPoint) to get my students aware of how they can display the information they acquire.  There are so many options out there and I now feel like I have a solid base of tools and techniques I can pull from in order to enhance my lessons.

My first long-term goal for my instructional practice is the use of more ‘learning strategies/techniques’ rather than just instructional strategies.  I want my students to become more hands-on with their learning and definitely move in the direction of teaching their peers rather than always listening to me teach.  I want my students to use their knowledge to teach other students and maintain a very student-based atmosphere in my classroom.  The second goal I have is, as I said before, to integrate more technology into my lessons, little by little.  I have a long way to go, but I accept the challenge and look forward to putting my new knowledge to good use.