Cognitive Module

"Cognitive learning results when information is stored in long-term memory in an organized way." As teachers, this is the type of learning that we strive for. We want to teach our students skills that they can remember, use, and apply to everyday life for years and years to come. The key to allowing students to store information into their long-term memory is to teach according to their liking and learning style. The challenge we face every single day is to plan lessons to make this happen for each and every student we have.
I personally do not have the best memory and find it hard to remember things that have no direct value to me. I do remember from school, however, group projects, lessons applied to real-life situations, and theories I founded by my own research. Because these are the things that I still remember from years ago, I use them in my instruction today hoping they will work for my students as well.
Starting with group projects, I always found them to be fun, engaging, and beneficial to learning. Sometimes, the best way to learn is from your peers. Working together as a group to find solutions help my students to feel more comfortable, important, and active. Weeks later, when I reference to that topic, they automatically remember it, the solutions they came up with, and who they worked with to find it! As for real-life lessons, as soon as I am able to make a connection between solving an equation on paper, and solving an equation to find a real life value, my students are instantly engaged and more open to learning and remembering the process they used to solve it. Lastly, individual research also always proves to be influential for cognitive learning. If I give my students a topic or mathematician to research, down the line, they remember certain things about it because they had to find out the information for themselves, and feel accomplished after doing so.
The most rewarding aspect of teaching is being able to send our students out in the world with an education and with skills to succeed in life. Children need to participate in their own learning experience if you want true education to occur. Being that learning is such a complex procedure, us teachers need to facilitate the learning so that students are able to “code, transform, rehearse, store, and retrieve information.”

Constructivism

After reading through the PowerPoint's and articles on Constructivism, I was left with so much information that I'm having a problem organizing my thoughts! For the most part, what I took out of all that reading was that a constructivist classroom is not one where a teacher stands in front of a room and dictates notes for students to copy all period, but rather, is a classroom that actively engages each student in their learning. Learning, in this type of environment, is a mental process of development, where the students actively learn and build knowledge.
I could not be any more of a supporter of this type of classroom. I am a junior high/high school math teacher and the only way I can get my students to understand my material is by actively engaging them in the problems. Math is a subject that A LOT of students struggle with and I have come to the conclusion that the reason is because most of them can not see the relationship between math lessons and real life. A constructivist classroom is based upon students having prior knowledge about certain topics. Furthering your education in math is also based upon this. Students can only move forward by building upon past knowledge.
One specific lesson that a constructivist approach worked well in was on computing the sale price of items. The point of this lesson was to teach different applications of percents. Students needed to use their prior knowledge on calculations involving percents and apply it to calculating the sale price of an item. The way I introduced this topic was by explaining that we would all be going shopping with coupons and that discounts are based on a certain percentage off of a price. With that, students developed a method to calculating discounts and were actively working together to solve each problem. I was more than satisfied with the way this lesson went because students were engaged, relating math with real-life, and using prior knowledge to answer questions. For me, a constructivist classroom is an effective and successful classroom!

Thoughts on "GLEF" articles

I'm not really big on reading long articles and books (I'm a math teacher--I'm better with numbers!!) but the articles from the GLEF website were so informative and interesting I couldn't stop reading. I was particularly attached to the "Caring Schools and Emotional Intellgience" article giving ten tips to creating caring schools. The one I like the most is on "Character Atheltics," which talks about students awarding cerftificates to players of opposing teams for showing good character throughout the game. Nowadays, everything in life is a competition--who has the better clothes, who finished the test first, who scored the most points in a game, etc...We always celebrate and cheer for those who end up on top that we forget about everyone else. This article talks about acknowledging the students who may not have played the best game, but played with the best spirit. The students who truly have dignity, respect, and heart. I think that this is an amazing idea and has the capability of changing the actions of students everywhere. Every student likes to be in the spotlight and get an "award", why not give them one for solely having great character. This idea basically urges students to be better, more caring, and act as mature adults.
I really enjoyed reading this article and the affect it had on some kids already.

Blogging in Itself

I finally have my blog looking normal!! Only took me about 1 month into this program!! Now that I'm getting the hang of it, I guess it's kind of nice to have a place to write things it. I've been taking a look at some of our other team members pages and I must say I'm a little jealous at how fancy they all look! Good job everyone!

Hopes for the Future in TEAM

I am walking into this technology program with basic computer/technology skills. I am a mathematics teacher at a high school on Long Island and I am hoping that I can use this program to bring technology into my classroom. I want to learn ways to differentiate learning for all of my students, keep my lessons interesting, and bring something new to their lives. Overall, through this program, I am hoping to open myself up to a new world that I've been intimidated by--the world of technology. In the end, I know that this program will make me a better person, as well as educator.