Evaluating and Identifying Online Resources

Identifying and evaluating good resources can be a daunting and time consuming task I have found!

During this week’s reading, I became increasingly concerned about the lack of instruction of metacognitive learning strategies; teachers have been taught to use these strategies but we do not teach them.  We are a learning focused school and the classrooms are filled with advanced organizers, we preview material, review material, make students explain the material to someone else, and explain to us how they can use it in their lives.  Teachers are told not to just lecture to students; that students should be actively engaged in the learning process.  Students are issued textbooks but they are also issued guided notes to go along with the readings.

I will have to admit that I do not have much knowledge of what goes on in the advanced placement classes at my school.  I work in the career, technical, and agricultural education classes only.  Ah! Career Tech, those kids don’t need learning strategies, everything they do is hands on! That is the case some times but do you really want to have a veterinarian performing a procedure on your dog if they do not know the anatomy of the dog?  Do you want your hair stylist mixing the color for your hair if she did not learn the proper mixture of base and chemicals? I am concerned that being forced to make the grade has led our schools to spoon feed children and to focus more on regurgitating the right information rather than spending the time teaching them how to learn.  Or teaching them WHY we teach them the way that we do.

Graphic organizers are so useful to me when trying to comprehend the difficult material I encountered this past week. The text book was very confusing to me. It seemed repetitive and I couldn’t grasp the material until I put it all into a graphic organizer.  If only Dr. Paige had designed a graphic organizer for me, then I would have known what he wanted me to know.  If Dr. Paige was a high school teacher, that is what he would have done. When this occurs, students are not able to apply what they know or think to the material, they are not able to critically reflect and miss out on the opportunity for high level learning to take place (Paige, 2011).

This leads to how I approached the assignment for this week.  The assignment is to find at least two resources on this week’s topics: the brain and learning, information processing theory, and problem solving methods during the learning process. I chose to research teaching metacognitive strategies to learners.  The most effective learners are metacognitively astute (Laureate Education, 2009). I want to help my students become effective learners.

I found an article detailing a study http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ890653.pdf  by Helen Ngaozi ibe from the Imo State University in Nigeria of the effects of metacognitive strategies on classroom participation and student achievement in high school science classes. The study involved three groups – a think-pair-share (TPS), a metacognitive strategy (MS) group, and a control group. All three groups were given a reflective journal topic at the beginning of each class. The control group was given a cognitive question, given time to write and then asked to share their thoughts with the class.  The TPS group was given the same prompt but then paired up with another student to discuss their thoughts and then asked to share with the class.  The MS group was given a metacognivitve question and then asked to share their thoughts with the class. The pre-test/post test results were not greatly different between the MS group and the TPS group.  Both of those strategies worked and the author pointed out that that this goes along with the constructivist theory of the teacher to encourage reflective and autonomous thinking (ibe, 2009). These students were creating meaning from their own experiences (Ertmer & Newby, 1993). The MS group did have higher quality discussions.

Using metacognitive strategies can help motivate students as it can help them know that they have not learned everything that they need to learn – they won’t stop studying too early! Also, can help them apply the learning to every day life which is motivating (ibe,2009) . Giving students a metacognitive journal topic forces them to encode the information differently because the problem is much more complex (Laureate Education, 2009). If these students could then share with a partner, the information would be encoded using socioaffective strategies (Orey, 2001). That could be a VERY powerful learning tool.  If the students were instructed why this was done, their study habits could possibly be influenced.

I found a presentation on teaching metacognition strategies that reassured me that my high school students may not be lost.  http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI08104.pdf

It seems that professors are also worried by the lack of performance by freshmen especially (Lovett, 2008). College is supposed to be different from high school.  The presentation was interesting.  Lovett studied high school and college students and even modeled an online course for the high school students.   I found “wrappers” to be useful. A wrapper is an activity that helps students clue in on the important aspects of a lecture, reading, or homework.  In lectures, the professor present tips on active listening, then lectures, students are asked to  write down three key ideas from the lecture.  The professor then tells the class his or her three key ideas. Across three successive lectures, the key ideas increasingly matched the professor’s (Lovett, 2008).  This is a powerful tool to teach students.

I am going to use this with lectures and assignments as well.  It could be carried on to giving students resources and a discussion topic and have them read and identify three key ideas from the reading.

Teaching metacognitve strategies does show improvements in test scores.  Introducing these skills and giving students practice at them, improves learning (Lovett, 2008). I am excited to start teaching these strategies to my students!

References

Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (1993). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly.

ibe, H. (2009). Metacognitive Strategies on Classroom Participation and Student Achievement in Senior Secondary School Science Classrooms. Science Education International, 20(1-2), 25-31. Retrieved from EBSCOhost

Lovett, M. (2008, 1 28). Educause Teaching Metacognition . Retrieved September 16, 2011, from Educause : http://www.educause.edu/Resources/TeachingMetacognition/162556

Paige, R. (2011, September 16). Re: Understanding how the brain processes [Discussion group comment] Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5693693&Survey=1&47=9451864& ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1

ID and Learning Theory Blogs

This is my very first experience with blogs.  I have felt a little overwhelmed by all of this. Some of the ID blogs are way over my head at this point in time.  I have perused a large number of blogs over the past week. Until I enrolled at Walden, I had not widely used web based research. Looking over blogs has reminded me how important it is to analyze information we are receiving and whether or not it is valid. I looked for blogs that had frequent and recent posts.  I have discovered some interesting blogs through the RSS feeder but when I visited the actual blog, there was little content and sometimes it was years old. 
These are three that I found useful.

http://christytucker.wordpress.com/2007/05/26/what-does-an-instructional-designer-do/
Christy Tucker is a wealth of information on being an Instructional Designer.  Reading her blog reassured me that I have chosen the correct field of study.  My bachelor’s degree and teaching certification are in special education.  I would like to go in another direction, particularly at the college level; but not as a traditional professor.  I chose the path of instructional design and technology because I thought it would be less dull than a lot of other areas.  Now I know not only will it be more exciting than other areas but I know what I would ultimately like to do. I would like to be an ID at a college.  A friend of mine is going to embark on her first online teaching experience.  I hope I can be of some help to her! There are interactive tutorials and Tucker responds to questions and gives advice on how to look for an ID job, which schools to take classes at, whether a degree or a certificate would be the most appropriate route, etc.   Tucker’s weekly bookmarks cover everything from questioning learning theories to gender differences in software training.  The blog is easy to access and to maneuver around.

http://usablelearning.wordpress.com/

Julie Dirksen is an independent consultant in instructional design and e-learning.  This blog appeals to me because it is my goal to retire from public education and become a consultant.  I think Dirksen has some really informative presentations but at my present level of learning, they are a bit over my head.  Dirksen discusses some gaming issues which have no interest to me at all but everything she discusses is well researched.  Her entry on learner motivation was intriguing to me.  Once again, if I am going to teach adults, motivation and control will be a great deal different than working with teenagers.  Dirksen discusses the TAM model and as I was reading it, I was picturing myself at various trainings I have been through.  I will keep the TAM model in mind when conducting trainings from now on.

http://www.learning-theories.com/

I almost did not include this site. It is not a blog but a knowledge abse and webliography. But it is an interactive site and a comprehensive data base for learning theories, models, and perspectives.  It will be a handy “pocket guide” on my computer! I like the idea of a clearinghouse if fairly recent research.  All of the research is documented.