Friday, April 19, 2013

Learning to Unlearn

Change. Change is inevitable and for humans it is something that we often don't want to happen, but have to accept. As future teachers, we have to realize that the educational system is constantly changing and no matter what, we must learn to unlearn our previous ways of doing things, and adapt and relearn them to what is fresh and new. When each of us graduate and find jobs in school districts, we might be required to unlearn teaching methods that we were taught in college in order to comply with the school districts preferred method or in order to differentiate for individual students.

 When I was researching the true meaning of what it takes to learn, unlearn, and relearn, I found an article titled Learn, Unlearn, and Relearn. Author Marcia Conner states that "the secret to learning to new things is to be willing to unlearn--even if your behaviors previously brought success". In order to accomplish this method of learning, unlearning, and relearning, we must begin at the beginning, stay open to different ideas, look for people to help you reflect, examine your beliefs and set them aside to stay focused on relearning new concepts and skills.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Flipped Learning: Take One!

Long time no post! Over the last few weeks we have been introduced to a style of teaching called "Flipped Learning". To me, this was something extremely new and a bit overwhelming at first. I was not grasping the concept of the lesson, but I was quite determined to learn! I was weary about how well this lesson would work in Early Childhood Education, and growing up in a lower income area, I know that not all families have a computer in their home to access the Internet. Although I am still a little skeptical about the availability of computers that students have, I now realize that if there is access, students in 2nd grade and above should be able to handle this sort of lesson. What I have taken away from this type of lesson is that by presenting students with the material before coming into class, teachers are able to use classroom time to apply what they have learned. 

My flipped learning lesson taught students how to understand several types of graphic organizers. I should have planned for the video more, considering I made a couple errors, however, one was not my fault! HeHe :) My enthusiasm and confidence could have been better, but I shouldn't be too hard on myself, it was my first experience with Flipped Learning.....Anyways here it is!


The following day I would focus on creating a Timeline about the changes throughout history. My original idea for this lesson came from a different course I was taking. It was around the time of the election when I created it, and my plan was to have students form a timeline representing changes in Presidential clothing throughout history. However, after getting tips from my classmates in my Technology for Education class, I would much rather have students compare changes throughout history using a topic of their choice (i.e. music, sports, etc.).

Any more tips you'd like to share? Feel free to comment!
Thanks for reading :)