There was a great strategy we learned about in our video this week.  Talking about moving the clip, as a student displays a certain behavior.  The clip will be moved either up or down depending on the behavior both good and bad.  This is form of behaviorist learning theory.  We just have to be careful that we don’t rely too much on behaviorist theory.  Mainly because the learning environment can become very negative very fast, and we must try to keep it a positive one.

Reinforcing our students effort is a very important teaching strategy.  Students need to be given many examples of what a good effort is.  They are so apt to just not try if they feel it is something they are unable to achieve in.  I have so many students in my art classes that tell me they can't do something even before they start the lesson or even pick up a paint brush or carving tool.  They need to know how effort relates to achievement.  How do we expect our students to be able to know just how far they can go if they were never pushed or shown what their true limitations are.  We always tell them give us your best.  How do they know what their best is if they don't have good effort?  It is up to us to show them they can succeed. 

Now I do not assign home work to my students.  I recommend to them to take work home if they are falling behind but only as a way to stay caught up with the other students in class.  It is hard to tell students to practice at home and really mean that.  I know when I was in school homework was never looked at as a good thing.  So I never allowed myself to think of it as a way to reinforce what I learned at school or to strengthen new concepts taught or skills learned.  So the idea of homework goes back to that idea of negative learning environment.  I am not sure how we can show a positive spin on behaviorist theory and homework.  If anyone has an idea please share with all of us.

References

Pitler, H., Hubbel, E. R., & Kuhn, M. (2012). Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works. Alexandria: ASCD

In what ways has this course helped you to develop your own technology skills as a professional teacher?

I feel that this class has opened my eyes to several new forms of technology that I can incorporate into my classroom.  I had never had the opportunity to create a blog before, nor have I ever heard of a wiki.  It is important to introduce the new forms of technology to my students.  I must use different forms of inspiration and we live in a technology driven society.  It makes very good sense to use as much of that technology in my classroom.

In what ways have you deepened your knowledge of the teaching and learning process?

With the different forms of technology that we learned about during this class showed me several way to inspire learning.  The class allowed me an a glimpse into what education could be like if you had the opportunity to learn how to use today's new technology.  It is so important to inspire when your teaching.  So the idea of deepening of knowledge goes to the simple idea to inspire.  Through this class I have many new ideas on how to inspire learning within my classroom and school.  I have several ideas that I can share with my fellow teachers that I hope will also inspire them within their own classrooms.

 

In what ways have you changed your perspective from being teacher-centered to learner-centered?

Being teacher-centered educator I would teach my lessons and not really look towards outside my classroom for  information.  Much like the idea this is our book and we are going to learn what it has inside and not look for any other points of view.  Being a learner-centered educator you are always looking for many different points of view.  You have your school book but you also have different kinds of media to help educate your students.  Using Wikapedia is one that i would never use until now.  I was under the understanding that anyone could post to it and there for was not the most accurate form of information.  I learned a little more about it and now trust it more.  So this is one more form of information to use in the arsenal.  The more points of view you have the easier it will be to get the entire picture. 

In what ways can you continue to expand your knowledge of learning, teaching, and leading with technology with the aim of increasing student achievement?

We have been given a glimpse into how to use pod casts, blogs, and wikis.  We are able to mast all or one just depending on how much work we want to put into them.  It is just like anything in life, you will get out just what you put into it.  So they have shown us the door but it is up to us to open it.  We are now equipped with new ideas and new ways to introduce old ideas.  The more i use my blog and introduce different wikis to my students the more I will be able to find new ways to fuse technology and school together.  We have to be willing to try new things in education.  If our students are already using them why not bring them into your classroom.  How else are we going to prepare our students for the real world?

Set two long-term goals (within two years) for transforming your classroom environment by which you may have to overcome institutional or systemic obstacles in order to achieve them. How do you plan to accomplish these goals?

Goal number one will be to have a blog that will be updated on a very regular bases that will allow students and parents to be involved on what is gong on in class.

 

Goal number two is to have my students creating their own wikis that will be uploaded to the blog.  The blog will be evolving as fast as the students can push it.  it will be a great collaboration between all classes and something that will be viewed by classes to come.

I just hope that the amount of internet usage that is available in the school will be one that allows everyone to use it.  Right now we do not have a great amount that can be used during the day without have problems like computers crashing and other problems with computers.

                         

Evaluationg 21st Century Skills

I have an assignment to review a web site called Partnership for 21^st Century Skills.  This web site can be found at http://www.p21.org/.  Looking at this web site I see a well instructed and structured web site.  It flows very easily from one topic to another.  There is a lot of information on this site, and it does feel a bit over whelming.  I was very surprised to see that they have a section for Art Education.  There was an easy to read map for art educators in the classroom.  One that I feel I could easily refer to when I am in need of  new ideas in my classroom when trying to incorporate skills in the 21^st Century.

I did get a feeling when reading about the arts and how they were being used in this idea of 21^st Century Skills that core teachers were going to be intergrading the arts into their classes.  It sounds great but I disagree with this.  That Math classroom should not be a one stop room.  In other words, as an art teacher I try to incorporate some math with measuring and other skills.  By no means am I passing my class off as a math class.  That is what I am getting out of the information that the core teachers will be incorporating in their rooms the fine arts. It is one thing to integrate different subjects like art and math in elementary but for middle schools it is a different ballgame. We need to have highly skilled educators teaching the material to our students. 

We are experiencing this right now in our elementary schools because we do not have an art program for K-6 grades.  So the core teachers have to pick it up and the art lessons are really craft projects as opposed to fine art concentrated subject matter.  As an 8th grade art teacher I can really tell that they are coming to me with no art experience and the quality of there art is years behind the level is should be.  This can only work if there are art teachers in the school developing the techniques and building a base of information.  The core teachers can touch on elements of the arts and then the art teachers would be able to go much deeper with the lessons.

Blogging in a classroom setting

Using a blog in my classroom could help with several ways of getting the ideas of the lesson across to my students.  I have a few ideas as to how I want to use this blog.  My first idea is to have all my lessons on the blog step by step so if students are absent or need to understand one of the steps in the lesson they can go and look it up.  I teach eighth grade art so the lessons that the students are working on have several steps or stages and this is just one way they could check to make sure they are doing it the right way.  Another way to use the blog is to post works of my students.  This could be a great way to showcase the great work that is being created in my classroom.  Students could see each other’s work and use that as a motivation tool.  Students would also be able to communicate to each other in different classes using the blog.  One aspect in teaching art that I struggle with is having my students be able to correctly critique each other’s work.  I could have my students create their own blogs.  This could be the first step in expressing what they like about the work of art and what still has some room for improvement.  This would also be a great tool to keep the lines of communication open to the parents.  So many times students just toss out their projects or stick into the lockers to never be seen again.  I always have parents asking what we are working on at parent teacher conferences because their children hardly bring anything home from any subject.  This way the parents can simply look at the blog and find out exactly what their child is creating. 

Exploring technology in the art world

I am taking masters classes in education focusing on technology.  I have decided to get it in order to introduce technologies into the classroom.  Technology is something that I have not been able to utilize in my classroom, but I am hoping to change that.  My first obstacle is the simple fact that I do not know how to utilized the different types of technology that could be adapted for use in an art classroom.  The second obstacle is the lack of technology in my very old classroom and school which will fortunately be changing this school year. We will be moving into a new school building for the start of the second semester.  We have been told the technology will change and all classrooms will have smart boards as well as ELMO's.  Right now in my current classroom I would just be happy with a grounded outlets if you can believe that.  So this transition will be very exciting to be in a new classroom and be able to explore these new technologies to make more dynamic lessons for my students.