Week 1: Group Discussion

Tennis Group

New Designs for Connected

Jill McCue, Nelda Baker, Kathy Leggett,
Pat McNerney (Secretary), Gretchen Halasi-Kun

Teaching and Learning by M. Riel

Introduction and Learning Environments

Home Back

After reading the introduction and the four types of effective learning environments, discuss examples of projects you have conducted with your students that could be categorized as learner-centered, knowledge-centered, community-centered, and assessment-centered. Share benefits and barriers you have encountered while implementing these projects. Pull together a web page that points to any of the projects that are web-based.

Introduction: Rapid technological advances, changes in social diversity and job skill requirements, and economic globalization contribute to ever changing educational goals and as educational goals change, the interactive learning environments should also evolve. As Jill put it, we wholeheartedly agree with Riel when she states that the role of the teacher must change as our learning environments change, our student population and expectations change, and our availability of instructional tools multiply at an alarming rate. Teachers are overwhelmed at trying to keep up with their own educational skills and the amount of training needed. It is a benefit if teachers can find resources that allow teachers to get students using them without a lot of pre-training.

Learner-centered: Riel states that learner-centered projects are authentic tasks in which the student is actively involved in constructing his/her own knowledge. All members of the group have been active in utilizing learner-centered authentic tasks. Most of our group members utilized authentic tasks within the science curriculum. One class researched roller coasters, built models, and created presentations. Another class researched energy, built generators and electric motors that worked, and shared knowledge with a classroom in another state. One class monitored the energy consumption and loss of their own school building and proposed ways for the building to become more efficient. Two classes are or will be studying rivers and actively collecting data to participate in projects to return the riverbeds to its natural course and to study and test water samples. A fourth grade class researched and wrote a book on the Texas History from A to Z. The book was printed, bound, and put in the school library and each student got a copy to take home.

Benefits: Students had feeling that work was going to be appreciated by others and were more motivated to develop a refined finished product. Students demonstrated ownership in their projects and more initiative to be successful. Students demonstrated a greater understanding of the topic and how it related to their world. Students develop new schema. Students took special interest in areas such as grammar, layout, checking of facts knowing their work was to be shared and viewed by others.

Barriers: Limited class time of 43 minutes did not give students enough time. Lack of access to good supplies was a big obstacle. Too much put into the curriculum to cover to allow time for learner-centered projects.

Web-based projects:

Web Quest Showcase: http://www.kiko.com

Knowledge-centered: Knowledge-centered projects use resources of all kinds (Internet, people, videotapes) which are considered primary sources so students can interact with sources that may produce multiple and more in-depth perspectives on topics. Students need to become proficient at collecting, categorizing, analyzing, and preserving data in order to utilize the knowledge meaningfully and in order to be able to make decisions on which knowledge has relevance. Examples where the group utilized knowledge-based projects included online virtual presentations and fieldtrips, access to historical documents archived online, use of the Hubble Space Telescope, research of topics online in order create and to teach a lesson, and on-line learning games in math and science.

Benefits: Students got very involved in researching and many good conversations on what knowledge was relevant were initiated within groups. Students got multiple perspectives on a topic. Students found up-to-date and more powerful data then was in their textbook. Sources presented by way of multiple media created understanding in more of the students.

Barriers: Students easily got off task by pursuing knowledge that peaked their interest. Students sometimes got frustrated where few resources were easily found. Lack of access to a variety of primary resources. Technology to access resources did not work correctly. Time for preparation by teacher to coordinate knowledge-centered activities so that all students were held accountable, kept on task, and expectations clear. Some students have difficult time deciding what information is good and what is a waste of time. Students with poor note-taking skills struggled in using knowledge.

Web-based projects:

Hubble Space Telescope: http://hubble.stsci.edu

Math Learning Games: http://www.coolmath.com

Interactive Science Labs: http://explorescience.com

Community-centered: Community-centered can open the door for learners to learn beyond the textbook and to see real applications of concepts, to participate in projects with groups of other learners, or to learn from experts. Many in the group had never participated in community-centered projects, but expressed interest in doing so. One group member participated in a Learning Circle with other teachers within their state to track climate, temperature, hobbies, places of interest, and each teacher kept a bulletin board. Another member had had experts come in to talk and assist students and had students collaborating with students from another classroom in a different state. Another group member successfully produced a web newsletter to get more parents involved. This group member also has been successful at getting deaf or hard of hearing adults to visit once a month to talk about their lives, families, careers, and successes to deaf students.

Benefits: Learning is enhanced beyond textbook. Teacher does not have to be expert on all concepts. Students can get specific questions answered. Students get access to other people sharing their interest or disability.

Barriers: Some community members do not want to participate with schools. Lack of resources and time.

Web-based projects: None submitted.

Assessment-center: Technology can provide a forum for discussion, resources for research, interactive test taking, evaluation of student work, and ways to disseminate information on new strategies. It can also help with preparing students for standardized test taking and for portfolio production and storage. Riehl makes a point for using technology to save teacher time in standard assessments and to make it easier for teachers to monitor student progress through assessment-centered projects, which are task or performance based. Within the group, members had experience with accelerated reader, utilization of the Internet to do ISAT coaching, use of technology to practice ACT/SAT programs to prepare for testing, and in utilizing the Internet to discuss state assessment within discussion groups and bulletin boards. Within science, some group members had students keeping a yearlong portfolio on scientific write-ups, which were passed up to the next grade and administered performance based assessments on safety and lab skills.

Benefits: Use of a good rubric made assessment easier. Emphasis was not on fact memorization. Use of portfolio shows growth and areas for remediation. Students demonstrated abilities and understanding.

Barriers: Access to resources. Limited time to develop, perform performance-based assessments, and to create portfolios. Limited knowledge and skill on assessment-centered learning.

Web-based projects: None submitted.

Conclusion: While our group had some knowledge of each learning environment, our exposure, knowledge, and skill at utilizing each environment type varied greatly and was also sometimes sporadic depending on the availability of time and resources. Community-centered and assessment-centered projects seem to be our weakest areas of utilization. Few web-based sites were submitted to be included in this discussion because many within the group had very limited and unreliable technology resources.