Technology and the Learning Environment

It is difficult to separate authentic, active learning and technology in education. Since technology is a part of everyday life, it should also be present in our students’ learning experiences. We use Web 2.0 daily in our own lives and our students should be taught how to use these tools as well. I have and continue to use google docs, social tagging sites like Librarything and delicious, wikis, facebook, teachertube, online databases, library catalogues, online ordering, and many more. An article I read for another graduate class described what happens when students go to school. They are asked to “power down” when they enter the school door. In other words, turn off their cell phones, their ipods, their personal laptops and other interactive tools. So instead of learning how to use the technology appropriately, we are asking them to turn it all off because it's a distraction. I would suggest we need to be teaching appropriate uses of these tools. Students need to be taught that there are times and places for learning and working and other times and places for playing and socializing. It really comes down to a matter of ethical use of the technology that’s available. We shouldn't be assuming our students will know the acceptable way to use it. I am reminded of another comparison I heard a few years ago. Technology was compared to keeping guns in the house. If we don’t teach our children how to handle them properly, there could be serious consequences for misuse. Schools must mirror what is happening in the world outside the school door.

Discussions

When teaching research skills to a class, not only is repetition necessary, having students discuss what they know and understand is also very important. Even though some of the skills seem simple, like using an online database or an online dictionary, many of our students have either not had the opportunity or the motivation to use them.
When I teach GED classes, the workbooks have most questions catagorized by level. Most of the time, students are able to read and answer the questions at the knowlege and comprehension level easily. The application and analysis questions seem to pose a slight problem and students often falter with the synthesis and evaluation questions. When this occurs, I often spend time one-on-one discussing the questions they have trouble answering. These discussions often add more teachable moments as they might have a general misunderstanding or the discussion could lead to additional reading assignments for them to gain more understanding.
I like to believe that I encourage my student's curiosity by not blindly answering every question they ask me. For instance, if a student asks how to spell a word, I say "How do YOU think it's spelled?" If they say they have no idea, I continue the quesioning until they can figure out a way to get started learning how to spell it. I don't believe that students will have to know everything that comes their way, they will have to know how to find the information to learn about everything that they are asked to do. They won't have a teacher following them around giving them all the answers. As teachers, we need to encourage life-long learning and information retrieval so our students can be successful.

Authentic Learning

In order for students to retain what they learn, they should be able to connect what they do in school with their world. Authentic learning is that connection. Unfortunately for some students, they can’t make the connection between some of the subjects they study and their everyday life. I am reminded about my own English classes in high school when we had to diagram sentences. I can almost see the classroom, the blackboard and the students going up to the board to show the others how it was done. I think I must have wondered at that time when was I ever going to use sentence diagramming after high school. Looking back now, I realize that doing those exercises has probably helped me become a better writer since it helped me understand syntax and word usage.
In addition to making the connection to the world outside the school walls, our students at the Youth Correctional Center deal with multiple personal difficulties that add to their learning challenges. While some have genuine criminal thinking errors, many also exhibit extreme mental disabilities such as ODD, oppositional defiant disorder, ADD, attention deficit disorder, drug and alcohol abuse, short and long term memory dysfunction, autistic tendencies and more. Since education has been shown to reduce recidivism in both juvenile and adult incarcerations, our students are required to attend some type of school while they are with us. We often have students older than 16 who have dropped out of the public schools including alternative schools. While at the Youth Correctional Center, they don’t have that option. We are a no fail school. As such, students are shown, often repetitively, that learning something on a daily basis is an authentic practice.

Checklist to address Formative Assessment

Some items I would have in a checklist for formative assessment are:

1 – Presentation of teacher. Is it understandable, is the volume good, is the language and speech clear?
2 – Use of advance organizers, something that allows the learners to become engaged with the lesson from the beginning.
3 – Wait for all students’ attention.
4 – Transition from one part of a lesson to another or from one subject to another.
5 – Modeling of the concepts by the instructor.
6 – Authentic learning, is there a “statement of purpose” ( Eby, p 177)

Formative Feedback

My videotaped lesson was on learning how to access and use online subscription databases through the library. My class consisted of students from the middle school classroom. They were given a research assignment and had to find some information without using google. I was very pleased that I was able to set up the video camera since I had not used that particular one before. Actually, I haven’t used a video camera much at all. When my own children were little, I had an 8mm movie camera. That pretty much dates me.

Our students can’t be photographed or videotaped if the video might be used outside our facility so when I set the camera up behind the students, I explained that I was taping my presentation and that they should not look back towards the camera during the lesson. They were very compliant and attentive throughout the class period.

A few of the points I noticed after watching the tape were:
1) I offered a short review at the beginning of the lesson from the day before.
2) I provided the students with handouts so they could use them later to navigate the sites.
3) I was able to demonstrate live on the Internet what I was going to ask them to do.

Some of the things I know to do now after watching this presentation are:
1) The lesson plan contained too much information for the age group
2) I need to allow the students more practice time regardless of their age
3) I don't usually stand in front of the class for long periods of time so it seemed a bit awkward. I would naturally go back and forth between the examples and helping students locate their own resources online.

Grading Activity

The grading activity in the textbook reminded me of the essays I read as the second reader for our GED program at the Youth Correctional Center. The classroom teacher and the compostition teacher work with each student so he will be able to successfully complete the five equivalency exams of the GED, General Educational Development, including an essay for part of the writing test. After a student writes a sample for the pre-test, he is given assignments and classroom instruction according to his weakest areas. By the time he is ready to take the final exam, most of his writing is error free. The essays I've read and scored, always seem to come out lower than when the student actually takes the test. I liken that to a comparison of writers. What I read and score are all average to below average in ability. The national readers, I am assuming, must see writing samples that are much lower in presentation so our students will often rank higher. This isn't a true picture of what our students can actually do in writing, but when a reader is scoring several essays on the same topic, the best ones seem to set the standard for the rest. I do believe that when an essay test is rated holistically, the score will usually be higher than if it had been objectively scored according to number of grammatical errors, spelling errors, lack of punctuation and so forth.

Feedback

As I was going over some of my coursework for the Valley City program, I realized that I didn't have any copies of any instructor's feedback. I have all of my original work, but the feedback was mostly posted in the blackboard gradebook and once the class is over, we can't get back into that area. At any rate, the feedback, as I recall, has been outstanding since I'm still in the program and seem to be surviving. Each semester, as I've started a new class, I've had a sense of dread that I wouldn't be able to complete the required assignments. The instructors have bolstered my opinion by frequently supplying positive comments and their own personal models of problem solving and teaching style. I am reminded that I have been teaching for most of my life and have never stopped learning along the way. Just having someone acknowledge that what I do has meaning and is important is very gratifying. I try to pass that same type of feedback on to the students I come in contact with on a daily basis.

Bases for Grading

I use both forms of grading and feedback when guiding students to the final product. Whether it be finding books on a library shelf, writing a complete, well developed essay, recalling particular facts or putting together a portfolio, formative and summative assessments are both used. My belief is as a student is developing a skill or expertise, the formative assessment will help to guide him along by offering suggestions, corrections or additional instruction. When the student completes his task, summative assessment tells him how well he internalized the instruction or if he needs to review and reapply some skills for further understanding.
The most important feedback I can give a student is to be clear and concise so the student can understand what needs to be changed or what needs to be developed further.
At our school, we have developed and use a school-wide rubric for all reports. Unlike the book stated, we do "grade" students on attitude, effort and amount of production. They receive a conduct score on a daily basis and all the scores are combined for a total each month when we go over their progress reports with them. I think this is the ultimate feedback when teachers go over the students' progress reports with them and allow them to comment on the grades, too. As an interesting sidenote, when students read through their reports, they are shown that the teacher didn't "give" them a certain score, they (the student) earned it. This holds true for both the high rank and the lower scores. It allows the student to take ownership of her grades.

Learning Objectives

Learners will locate 5 items in the library
Many of our students come to school at the Correctional Center with gaps in their learning. These gaps may be caused by any number of issues. When I instruct students in library use, I try to make sure the students know what is expected and keep it very simple to start. Students very seldom begin and end a complete school year at our facility, so whenever I’m teaching library skills, I try to find out what the students already know and help them as much as possible on an individual basis.
In the past, I have used an online assessment program called TRAILS which stands for Tool for Real-time Assessment of Information Literacy Skills. This online assessment tool originates from Kent State University and can be retrieved online at: http://www.trails-9.org/
After the students are shown the library layout and how to use the electronic catalogue to find books, they are either given a list of book titles to find, or they may search for book titles they are interested in finding. When they bring the books to the table and fill out a short information log on each book, we will discuss the activity. This discussion might include questions about where books are located, the dewey decimal system or other questions dealing with arrangement and books in the library.