Developing Technical Training by Ruth C. Clark
Ruth C. Clark's opening chapters validates what good teachers have known for a very long time: the level of instruction is what causes the greatest impact on student learning, and not the type of media. Some tech companies would love for us to believe that their 5 million dollar program is the Alpha-Omega for student learning when in reality all a student truly needs is explicit instruction. I especially appreciate the statement she makes that learners benefit from high quality training AND time to practice.
I had the serendipitous opportunity to speak to one of my former students this past weekend. She is now a very successful high school student, but she had a run-in with a long-term substitute teacher that left her quite shaken. This former student comes from a very poor family. Since they do not own any iPads, computers, or even a Smart phone, the family doesn't have any need to subscribe to an internet provider. For the past 11 years, this young student has been turning in her homework on paper. Well, this was not acceptable to the new substitute teacher. When the student tried to explain that she couldn't do her math homework online because her family did not have a connection to the internet, the teacher became angered with the student and sent her to the office for defiance. Now, the teacher claimed that since she herself can't perform Math higher than basic Algebra, she must insist that students use the prescribed tech tool for said Math class in order for them to stay on track until their "real" math teacher returns. Hmm.
I've always said that it is not only extremely important for me to teach the writing process, it is also extremely important that I explicitly teach keyboarding and word-processing skills. I can't assume that my kids "just get it" because they have been exposed to tablets and iPads. I know how frustrated I feel when I've been given a five minute tutorial on any one of the many online dashboards I have to use for the various subjects I teach. I know how frustrated I felt when I asked for the Benchmark Advance websites user's guide only to be told that a) there is no such thing, b) just play with it and c) put that away cuz we have to move onto something completely different now. If I felt frustrated, angry and overwhelmed, I wonder how much worse my nine and ten year-olds must feel.
From the Mind’s Eye of the User: The Sense-Making Qualitative- Quantitative Methodology by Brenda Dervin
Dr. Dervin's text gets easier and easier to chew with every repeated reading. This is not an easy read, but it's powerful stuff. The key take-away this for me is that my kids make their own individual reality despite how much I try to control the outcome of every lesson I write. My kids are processing information based on what they have already experienced and what they are currently learning. This is a very dynamic process, constantly remodeling itself. As I read Dr. Dervin's words, I am constantly going back to The Learning Pit. I sound like a skipping LP record from 1979: In order to make bigger, stronger muscles, you have to lift bigger, heavier weights. I tell my kids this every time they complain that the work is too hard. "It has to be hard in order for you to become a stronger student!" They get it, but they still complain. I find it ironic that From the Mind's Eye is the learning pit I'm in as I'm learning how my students wade through their learning pits. I hope you get that.
The Visual Connection by Bobbe Baggio
So far, this is a great book. Fast, easy read yet chock full of interesting and relevant information.
I appreciate every chapter I've read so far, but Chapter 5 and 6 spoke directly at me. I was surprised that the percentage of visual learners was so high. However, it does make since once you understand how educators and students got confused on how kinesthetic learning was defined. I was one of those people who identified as a kinesthetic learner. Actually, no. I'm a very, very visual learner. Most of my students are visual learners. Take Read-Alouds, for instance. Maybe to save trees, or ink, literacy programs started pushing The Read-Aloud. Depending on the age of your students, you could be reading ten to twenty minutes per day. Supposedly, kids would be so engaged that they would spontaneously develop the ability to fluently read 145 words per minute, make text to text connections, spell " onomatopoeia," and write the Greatest. American. Essay. Ever. Yeah, that happened...said no one.
Kids were not engaged. Five minutes of listening to your straining, exhausted voice, kids were gone. You could see it in their bored little faces. Thank goodness, we are out of the dark ages and kids can once again hold literature in their hands. They maybe following along as some one else reads, but thankfully, they are not trying to literally pull words out of thin air. I believe kids have to see a word, read a word many, many times in order for that word to comfortably live in their long term memories.
Sometimes, I worry that I will forget everything that I am learning in the Innovative Learning program. I worry that my brain will become overloaded as Dr. Baggio describes and will start pushing some of this valuable information out by the bucketful. Thankfully, I had the hindsight to buy the books. The great thing about a book is that as long as you have that book, it won't let you forget what you've learned. The Visual Connection is a keeper.
Ruth C. Clark's opening chapters validates what good teachers have known for a very long time: the level of instruction is what causes the greatest impact on student learning, and not the type of media. Some tech companies would love for us to believe that their 5 million dollar program is the Alpha-Omega for student learning when in reality all a student truly needs is explicit instruction. I especially appreciate the statement she makes that learners benefit from high quality training AND time to practice.
I had the serendipitous opportunity to speak to one of my former students this past weekend. She is now a very successful high school student, but she had a run-in with a long-term substitute teacher that left her quite shaken. This former student comes from a very poor family. Since they do not own any iPads, computers, or even a Smart phone, the family doesn't have any need to subscribe to an internet provider. For the past 11 years, this young student has been turning in her homework on paper. Well, this was not acceptable to the new substitute teacher. When the student tried to explain that she couldn't do her math homework online because her family did not have a connection to the internet, the teacher became angered with the student and sent her to the office for defiance. Now, the teacher claimed that since she herself can't perform Math higher than basic Algebra, she must insist that students use the prescribed tech tool for said Math class in order for them to stay on track until their "real" math teacher returns. Hmm.
I've always said that it is not only extremely important for me to teach the writing process, it is also extremely important that I explicitly teach keyboarding and word-processing skills. I can't assume that my kids "just get it" because they have been exposed to tablets and iPads. I know how frustrated I feel when I've been given a five minute tutorial on any one of the many online dashboards I have to use for the various subjects I teach. I know how frustrated I felt when I asked for the Benchmark Advance websites user's guide only to be told that a) there is no such thing, b) just play with it and c) put that away cuz we have to move onto something completely different now. If I felt frustrated, angry and overwhelmed, I wonder how much worse my nine and ten year-olds must feel.
From the Mind’s Eye of the User: The Sense-Making Qualitative- Quantitative Methodology by Brenda Dervin
Dr. Dervin's text gets easier and easier to chew with every repeated reading. This is not an easy read, but it's powerful stuff. The key take-away this for me is that my kids make their own individual reality despite how much I try to control the outcome of every lesson I write. My kids are processing information based on what they have already experienced and what they are currently learning. This is a very dynamic process, constantly remodeling itself. As I read Dr. Dervin's words, I am constantly going back to The Learning Pit. I sound like a skipping LP record from 1979: In order to make bigger, stronger muscles, you have to lift bigger, heavier weights. I tell my kids this every time they complain that the work is too hard. "It has to be hard in order for you to become a stronger student!" They get it, but they still complain. I find it ironic that From the Mind's Eye is the learning pit I'm in as I'm learning how my students wade through their learning pits. I hope you get that.
The Visual Connection by Bobbe Baggio
So far, this is a great book. Fast, easy read yet chock full of interesting and relevant information.
I appreciate every chapter I've read so far, but Chapter 5 and 6 spoke directly at me. I was surprised that the percentage of visual learners was so high. However, it does make since once you understand how educators and students got confused on how kinesthetic learning was defined. I was one of those people who identified as a kinesthetic learner. Actually, no. I'm a very, very visual learner. Most of my students are visual learners. Take Read-Alouds, for instance. Maybe to save trees, or ink, literacy programs started pushing The Read-Aloud. Depending on the age of your students, you could be reading ten to twenty minutes per day. Supposedly, kids would be so engaged that they would spontaneously develop the ability to fluently read 145 words per minute, make text to text connections, spell " onomatopoeia," and write the Greatest. American. Essay. Ever. Yeah, that happened...said no one.
Kids were not engaged. Five minutes of listening to your straining, exhausted voice, kids were gone. You could see it in their bored little faces. Thank goodness, we are out of the dark ages and kids can once again hold literature in their hands. They maybe following along as some one else reads, but thankfully, they are not trying to literally pull words out of thin air. I believe kids have to see a word, read a word many, many times in order for that word to comfortably live in their long term memories.
Sometimes, I worry that I will forget everything that I am learning in the Innovative Learning program. I worry that my brain will become overloaded as Dr. Baggio describes and will start pushing some of this valuable information out by the bucketful. Thankfully, I had the hindsight to buy the books. The great thing about a book is that as long as you have that book, it won't let you forget what you've learned. The Visual Connection is a keeper.