Educational Philosophy

I believe education is a key point in our society; it helps shape how future generations will impact the world. It is to help the mind learn how to resolve problems and work with one another. Because not every student or generation will choose to impact the world the same way, I will adapt to the needs of the students and generations. As time progresses, the educators must be flexible to meet the new learning requirements of each new generation.

I view a great teacher is someone who is inspiring and challenges the mind of their students. A great teacher makes the student learn how to think on their own and how to apply the concepts learned in the class room to the real world. The role of the teacher in the classroom is not only to teach concepts and materials but to help students find the connection between concept and how it is applied outside of their book. It is to help the students’ minds find how the theory can be used to their advantage.

I would help the students find solutions not provide only one answer. Subjects like history could be explained not only in dates and events but why those events took place and how they have shaped society. A teaching style that I learned from was the way my high school American History teacher explained the course. He had a great way of helping us as students understand how the public lived and viewed an event in history by using music. He would give examples of songs and writers of a certain time period that represented how people felt, the stuggles they faced and what caused them to feel this way. History was more than a story in the textbook, in his class it was about people’s feelings, how they lived at the time and how they impacted the world. It was a creative way to engage the students to the class through the use of old records, 8-tracks and cassettes.

It is extremely important as an educator I incorporate the technology to students help the students understand the material. This will keep education up to date and keep expanding the minds of our students. This new generation of children is extremely savvy with technology. Many of them know more about the new devices than their parents and teachers. In a way, this gives many teachers a disadvantage because there is a lack of understanding to the way they learn. The world of electronics is moving at a very fast pace and as a teacher I would like to find creative ways to take advantage of these new gadgets. For example, a fourth grader might be struggling in spelling or reading and they might not be motivated in reading a book in print but we could use a tablet in place.

When I evaluate the learning theories, I am able to identify with the constructive view. I believe students learn more when they are challenged to think rather than provided answers to memorize. Learning is a process and the more a student learns about finding answers and solving problems on their own, the more success they will have when forced to think abstractly. In the real world, employers are constantly in need for new ideas and solutions that do not have only one answer. If students are taught only to repeat what they have learned or to mimic the past, they will have filled their heads with knowledge found only in books. I have confidence in knowing everyone differs in their learning style and has a different perspective. These views are shaped by their current environment, past experiences and how they perceive the future. These experiences need to be integrated it into their learning, so students can create connections.

Week 6 Reflection

This week I had a project to create a podcast, at first this scared me. I think most people are intimidated by recording their voice and letting people hear it. Once you get over that fear, you come to realize it can be a great tool. After using Jing, to turn a power point into a video with voice I realized this is a great tool. It allows students review the lecture on their own time. They can download it to their IPods, smart phones and use it when they workout or before they go to sleep. I don’t want to be naïve and say every student will use it but it provides them with a new tool. It is like ITunes U but this specific to their course in grade school. I would like to integrate as a form of review, after reviewing for a test also include a podcast with the information. This would help students if they felt they needed extra help before the test.

Week 5 Reflection

This week I went through a few websites that had been assigned to be viewed. One of them, California's Velcro Crop Shortage was very interesting. Maybe because it was the first one I clicked on and was unsure of the purpose of the assignment, I started reading about this shortage of Velcro crops and how this was turning into an issue. It was not until I was halfway down reading I realized this is not true and started questioning the information. What this experience reminded me about is my “week 2 reflection”, where we at times believe what we read if it’s on the web. For a few minutes, I became a victim of this. Maybe if I would have found more sites about this Velcro crop shortage I might have joined the cause. It is important to learn to distinguish fact from fiction online. Like we have found ways to protect ourselves from bogus information on the daily, we must now learn to also do it online.

For starters, we can look at the web address and look for easy to spot information. This is like if we were looking for a Wal-Mart and the address we were told is a residential street, we might not find what we were looking for if we drive to that location. The domain name and extensions (.com, .edu, .gov, .mil) are the easiest way to recognize where the information is coming from.

From the web address http://home.inreach.com/kumbach/velcro.html or the site California's Velcro Crop Shortage site or address we can spot it is from a www.home.inreach.com address, if we type that in it only takes us to a blank page. Giving us reason to suspect the information we just read might not be reliable. The next thing to do is use a few search engines to find out about this Velcro shortage. Using the search engine Altavist, we find more websites selling Velcro than when we use Google or Yahoo. Most of the sites found under “California velcro shortage” explained about the site of linked it back to Novemberlearning.com which provided valuable information about dissecting a website. When using another helpful site, such as www.easywhois.com no information was found. I tried typing in a big name site walmart.com just to see what information it was supposed to provide. I found the organization it was registered to and when it was registered created. After trying to find the background to the site and not finding much, I decided it’s just an unreliable site.

Luckily, I have come to the conclusion there is not a shortage of Velcro crops in California it does not exist and it is not a real problem in which we need to help our farmers in the West. The site was created to help people learn how to dissect a website. Its purpose is for education but not to educate the public about Velcro crops.

Week 4 Reflection

The Chapter in the book, Is it Age or IT: First Steps Towards Understanding the Net Generation, focuses on the changes that need to happen in higher education in order to adapt to the Net Generation. The Net generation is described as people born from the year 1982 to 1991. A generation who is about to see their last class graduate from college this Spring, Class of 2013 and will be used to try to implement more changes in the classroom. 

    From this article we learn the Net Generation are digital natives or people who grew up using the internet. They use multiple gadgets at one time and enjoy multi-tasking. According to the article they differ from previous generations because they dislike a slow pace. The Net Generation is used to “googling” question and dislikes waiting for answers. They enjoy social interaction as much as the latest technology and they enjoy a real classroom more than an online class. So what information can we take from this and apply it to students in grade school, since that would be a very different generation we must study.

    The information we can adapt to grades K-12 from this past generation are the way they absorb information. One thing that was important to the Net Generation was graphics and pictures, long picture less literature lost the attention of the learner. They disliked reading long instructions and at times would rather assume the rest of the directions than to continue reading. We need to implement instructional illustrations, graphics and videos into the lesson plans. They need to be fast paced enough for them to understand the concept but short enough to keep their attention. They also need to be able to communicate their questions to their teacher outside the classroom such as email, a discussion board or maybe even an IM conference time. After all these future generations did learn differently, Cookie Monster and Elmo were there first teachers making learning colorful and full of images.

Week 3 Reflection

After reading the article Electronic Portfolios as Digital Stories of Deep Learning and reviewing the 10 research principles of assessment for learning, there were some principles that stood out the most. One of the principles is an assessment for learning portfolio states it should focus on how the student learns; this is one of the outstanding differences from a portfolio of learning. Through evaluation of a student we can observe learning patterns and behaviors; we can have a detailed description of how the student learns best. Another important principle is it should recognize a full range of achievements of the learner, because it is specific to the individual it can give recognition to new areas such as art, technology, public speaking not only the academic subjects such as reading and math. This can give a detailed description of the individual rather than a comparison to the other students.

Assessment for learning profiles have a great potential in the classroom. It can paint a better picture of the individual’s needs, personal growth and talents without the classification of only scores. We can learn specific things about the students rather than a comparison to the other students’ performance or standards. Since the profile is not on a time limited, it can give the instructor the option to add information as observed. For example, if a student had a wonderful presentation in the middle of the year, the teacher can make a note of the students’ performance. This can be used when a new instructor is added or an evaluation is needed on the student because there is more information about the individual the new teacher can understand important facts about the student. An approach to instructing the student can be made before having to perform an observation and trial and error with a student.

I think if I created a learning portfolio for myself it could outline learning patterns, along with weaknesses and strengths as a student. I could evaluate which projects I succeeded in and which needed improvement. It would give me a more colorful picture of my learning rather than only looking at an overall letter grade on my transcript at the end of a semester.

Week 2 Reflection

As you guys can see I have added a concept map at the bottom of the blog. This concept map is about the way I view education online or merging education and technology. It should be painless and easy after all why use technology if it is going to complicate things, which is the opposite of the concept, right? I feel the use of eTexbooks, blended classed (lecture+ online assignments) and online classes make learning easier and are designed to be at the learners pace, they are more student centered than teacher centered.

While I was trying to figure out how to add this concept map I ran into many blogs and discussions, many videos and websites. All I needed to know was how to embed this video at a bigger resolution at the bottom of the page. What I found was a lot of opinions and believes about things that were unrelated to my topic. It brings me to my next question, what skills should we teach our children in schools about finding information online? Unlike a few years ago, when teachers assigned a research project on topic, let’s say the structure of the American Government, students were to go to the school library read a few books and write a paper. That was perfect the children read educational books found in their school library that had been approved by the school board. In recent years, children do not go to their school library to find a book they turn to the internet for answers. This new looking for answers on website and wiki can turn into a disaster. Yes, the internet has many great things to offer many ideas, opinions, and answers but we need to teach children in school how to differentiate between useless information and opinions and the real information.  Like the example I gave last week about the boy who found a site about the holocaust being a myth, there are many young minds (and old) that can be confused by the information they find online. Even I question the information I find online, the best way I have found is to validate the information with the school’s website a peer reviewed journal or the information found through the libraries page.

A new type of learning community that is growing is through social bookmarks. It is a wonderful idea, imagine you walk to a coffee shop where everyone has the same interest and topic as you for example everyone can like growing roses, fixing muscle cars or train a golden retriever. So people show you there favorite links articles and photos the only problem is this is so informal someone can be way off topic or while you were trying to do research on  a specific car someone can give you information about a truck. These websites are done by amateurs leaving the information found at times unreliable. Instead of going to the experts to learn how to prune the perfect rose you have a person read a website and recommends you view it.

This social bookmark cites can be a great tool to learn new information and share thoughts. There is no doubt this is a new on the rise way to locate information, people are no longer limited to ask questions to those they come indirect contact to. I have read the site del.icio.us to be easy to find information on but I have not joined, yet.

Stephen Downes' and Alan November's Articles

As of now I think blogging has a great potential in education. I think we are moving away from hand written work and only sharing our opinions in the classroom. Blogging would be a great way for students to interact with other students outside their classroom. The use of the internet is allowing people to share their opinions and their knowledge with people hundreds of miles away. This will greatly benefit new learners. I think we have not incorporated blogging into the American Education system yet this could be due to fear. I think many educators and parents are afraid of exposing children to the internet. I think many parents need to be educated about the benefits of blogging and how to also protect their children. I think the parents are a major result of why the education system has not embraces blogging. The internet is a great tool when people know how to use it and protect themselves online. In November’s article “Creating a New Culture of Teaching and Learning” states, we should teach children to do their research about the information they find on the internet. In the article, the section “If it’s on the internet, is it true?” gives an example of a teenager who read on the internet the holocaust never happened and did not do further research to find out information. It is important teachers elaborate on how to find correct information on the web and not everything on the internet is scholarly worth. Another point that I found interesting he mentions is we should teach second graders about web develop. This great point he makes because the world is slowly doing away with printed media and moving into a digital world.

My Philosophical View on Education

I am able to identify my views with the constructive view, I believe students learn more when they are challenged to think rather than provided answers to memorize. Learning is a process and the more a student learns about finding answers and solving problems on their own, the more success they will have when forced to think abstractly. In the real world, employers are constantly in need for new ideas and solutions that do not have only one answer. If students are taught only to repeat what they have learned or to mimic the past, they will have filled their heads with knowledge found only in books. Everyone learns different and has a different perspective. These views are shaped by their current environment, past experiences and how they perceive the future. We have to allow students to learn from their experiences and incorporate it into their learning.

In my view a great teacher is inspiring and challenges the mind of their students. A great teacher makes the student learn how to think on their own and how to apply the concepts learned in the class room to the real world. The role of the teacher in the classroom is not only to teach concepts and materials but to help students find the connection between concept and how it is applied outside of their book. It is to help the students’ minds find how the theory can be used to their advantage. This is why many students do not find the importance of school. They are only taught answers, dates, and definitions. Many schools only force children to memorize the textbook and because of it we are losing the students interest. Teachers and educators should help the students find solutions not provide only one answer. Subjects like history should be explained not only in dates and events but why those events took place and how they have shaped society. My high school American History teacher had a great way of helping students understand how the public lived and viewed an event in history by using music. He would give examples of songs and writers of a certain time period that represented how people felt. History was more than a story in the textbook in his class it was about people’s feelings, how they lived at the time and how they impacted the world. It was a creative way to engage the students to the class through the use of old records, 8-tracks and cassettes.

It is extremely important as educators we use the technology our students are interested in. This will keep education up to date and keep expanding the minds of our students. This new generation of children is extremely technology savvy. Many of them know more about the new devices than their parents and teachers. In a way, this gives many teachers a disadvantage because there is a lack of understanding to the way they learn. The world of electronics is moving at a very fast pace and as educators we need to embrace this and find creative ways to take advantage of these new gadgets. For example, a fourth grader might be struggling in spelling or reading and they might not be motivated in reading a book in print but we could use a tablet in place.

Education is a key point in our society; it helps shape how future generations will impact the world. It is to help the mind learn how to resolve problems and work with one another. Because not every student or generation will choose to impact the world the same way, we must adapt to the needs of the students and generations. As time progresses, the educators must adapt to meet the new requirements of each new generation.

Having my philosophical views written down gives me a clear perspective. Even if these views will change and evolve over time and experience, it gives me a starting point. It allows me to know where I stand at this time in my life and I know I can always reflect on them.