June 12,2018
During Virtual Session III, we first talked about the final version and we need to highlight the changes by using arrows ,different fonts and colors. This is to give our professor what we have done from the initial version to the final version. The reflection journals should be honest and provide a rational for any changes. I am happy I am on the right track.
We reviewed almost all the readings.
First, we talked about First Principles by Merill. Borin shared Learning is promoted when we apply old knowledge to new technology. When we learn new things, we recall our memory we have already known. When we teach kids, we had better create learning environments and products for kids rather than describing all the skills and knowledge.
Second, we talked about Advanced Organizers. It worked on lots of theories.
Assimilation theory will refer to the idea that learning involves relating new, potentially meaningful material to an assimilative context of existing knowledge. Thus the conditions of meaningful, assimilative learning includes the following three parts:
The reception, that is, all the learning materials should be received by the learners.
The availability which means the learner must possess, prior to learning, a meaningful assimilative context for integrating the new material.
The activation implies the learner must actively use this context during learning to integrate the new information with old.
In a word, Advanced Organizer helps us to connect, to present new information in a module that learners can be better encoded.
Third, we discussed about Providing concreteness.
The term concreteness means taking something new and make it concrete and hard. Using hands on manipulatives ( images and visuals that help make a problem concrete) helps learning learn abstract concepts. It is especially important when we work with abstract concepts. That is, to use concrete ways to learn abstract concepts.
Fourth, we talked about authenticity. This is the idea how we get to the learners. Sometimes we call them self-regulated learners. Anywhere we can build things for the learners that we can help the learners think about what their goals are and how their content relates to their goals. This is the way we can help the learners build a better relation.
Fifth, we talked about enhancing teaching and student activities. I remember these tips clearly. The one "Helping student to accept that there is more than one right answer" is very useful. In China, most of the teachers only think about how to deliver more knowledge and skills to the students rather than how to develop their critical thinking. Mostly of the time students only accept there is only one right or wrong answer. Maybe next time when teachers instruct the students, we can elicit there should be more than one answer to ask students to think about. There are also lots of great suggestions for lecturers. Like when we give a lecture, we can give a short lecture and ask students some questions to talk about. Then we can start again or send students to read some articles. There are more options. First we need to observe and see what it is going on. Teachers need to engage students in visualizing , justifying, writing about, collaborating on content no matter whether they are in the student-centered classroom settings or the teacher-centered settings. The ultimate goal is to help all the students enhance their knowledge, understanding and application.
These reading are not only useful for now to develop the storyboard unit, but also applicable for the studies and research in the future.
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