Taking a Look at Engaged Learning

    Before teachers can see how engaged learning can affect the education of their student's one has to take a look at the definition of it. Engaged learning happens when students take ownership of their learning from very early on in the learning process. In engaged learning students make decisions about the subjects that they are learning. Students in this method relay on research, discussions, creating projects, and technology to aside them in their education. In this method the students are the true star and the teacher merely acts as a facilitator. Teachers who use this method really on calling upon real life activities and do not focus on one subject but try to interrogate many different subjects in their teaching.

    Engaged learning is something that falls into the effective practices. Students learning in this form take the ultimate responsibility for their learning because they will be making decisions on what they will learn and how they will learn it. Because they are taking ownership of their work, students will take more pride in their work and the will produce quality work. With the increased work output of quality work the learning will excel as well.

    As a music teacher, I feel engaged learning can help students learn in virtually ever facet of music education. Students could create rhythmic compositions where the students make decisions on whether to create a song or a rhythmic composition. From there student could decide what the instrumentation of their piece could be. This activity would call upon a vast amount of musical resources, and the students will have to have knowledge in all facets of assignment to be successful. For example, students will have to call upon how to write rhythms and how to correctly use the musical staff to notate those rhythms. Student will also have to have knowledge of instruments and how to properly write for a particular instrument. Finally, students will need to know how to read the music they created when they present the composition to the class.

    Engaged learning can play a crucial part in a child's education. If the assignment is facilitated right by the teacher then the students learning ability is greatly enhanced. This type of learning promotes projects that usually results in a tangible project that the students can see and present. In essence student who are engaged in their learning have real physical proof of their learning that they can display and be proud of.

 

 

 

 

 

How to Effectively Integrate Technology into Teaching

For my blog this week I came upon this article entitled, Integrating Technology into Instruction, by Bill Robertson. This article offers a way for teachers to start integrating technology into their teaching. Mr. Robertson writes about a five step program to help teachers in this goal and the steps are as follows: planning, research, development, refinement, and implementation. The author then writes about each step and how the next tier can be reached. He also listed one overall objective that the teacher will have to complete in order to go on to the next step.

In the planning section of his paper Mr. Robertson’s objective is, “To define the current knowledge base and to develop the foundation for the organization of learning.” In this stage, he suggest the idea of backward planning where teachers should have the ultimate goal in mind then work backwards in order to determine the best way to achieve that goal. The teacher needs to provide a “hook” in the lesson to capture the student’s interest. A “hook” is an open ended question that asks the students to access prior knowledge in hopes of answering the question. Brain stormingis an important part of this process, and it is at this time technology can be introduced as a form of note tabulation. Whiteboards, computer programs, and data entry programs can all be used to aid the students with this task. When these things are all mastered, the teacher is now ready to enter the research phase.
“To allow the learner to explore the content area and to deepen their knowledge base” is the objective set forth in the research phase of the paper. A teacher can integrate technology into a class project by having the students utilize computer programs such as e-mail, Internet Explorer, and countless other search engines to research various educational topics. The research stage is set up in such a way that students can explore and broaden their knowledge base by completing independent, cooperative research strategies. Students can also learn from each other by group collaboration that can be carried out by using e-mail.
In the development phase the objective set forth by the author stated, “To provide the learner with the opportunity to construct their knowledge following the curriculum materials and scope and sequence of the instruction.” The development stage is about students taking the ideas that they acquired in the research phase and start to develop them in to a paper or project. As far as technology integration is concerned, this can be a great opportunity to use word processing programs that challenge the students to not only write a report but include pictures and other media that they discovered in their research. This is the stage where students start projects, but it is not until the refinement stage when their work is scrutinized.
“To further the development and to lead the learner to the implementation phase”, is the objective set forth for the refinement stage. This stage is about students getting ready to display their final project. Students complete their final project by creating a website that they will post for the entire world to see. Students will be more willing to create a worthwhile project if they know that a larger audience has a potential to view them. As the objective suggests, the refinement stage is all about preparing for the final tier which is the implementation stage.
The objective for the final stage of implementation is, “to demonstrate the learning that has taken place through the phases.” As the objective suggests, this is the stage were the student publish their information on the internet. Not only will this allow the teacher to gain insight on the students work, but the students themselves will have an opportunity to read and review other’s work as well. So not only will they be learning about their own content, but they will be learning from their peers’ papers as well.
Bill Robertson wrote about integrating technology into classroom lessons by following five stages. I thought that this site was useful for teachers who wish to do a project using technology, but are unsure on how to carry out a lesson of such magnitude. I thought his ideas set forth in this article really gave ownership of the learning to the students. I agree with the author when he wrote about students creating better work as a result of having to publish it on the internet. With that said, being an elementary music teacher, I am not sure to what extent I could have my students complete similar projects. Creating a website may be something too advanced for children at the primary level, but I will certainly use some of the ideals in this article by having my students use the internet and various other computer programs. This article provided me with thoughts about technology that I have not considered, and as a result, of reading it, I plan on implementing more research project like the ones set forth in this article in my own teaching.