Blog Post #13

Back to the Future

In the beginning of this video it is shocking to see how little Mr. Brian Crosby's fourth graders know about what state they live in, what country, their telephone number etc. It is SO EXCITING to see how engaged these students become in this hands-on real world experience! The survey in the beginning showed that most of his students did not even know what country they live in. Through this video we see how eager these students are to learn, and how much they learn! These students are now much more advanced than most fourth graders I have seen. These students participated in active learning and the results are amazing. It provides educators with a tremendous amount of hope for active learning to succeed in ALL schools.

Blended Learning Cycle

In this video Paul Anderson provides an amazing display of blended learning. He explains this teaching style as taking the three components of mobile, online, and classroom and blending them together. He also uses the learning cycle which is engage, explain, explore, expand, and evaluate. He then blends these two things together,and he provides us with his learning cycle. He explains that you should "hook" the students, for example with some phenomena, and then ask a question about it. That leads to them investigating and inquiring. Next he uses video for instruction. I think that is a great idea, because as he suggested it frees the

teacher to help those who may need it or prepare for something else. Next is elaboration and review. Students are not able to move on the the last phase, summary quiz, until Mr. Anderson is sure that they have grasped this concept. Summary quiz is just a test of what they have learned. This is an amazing learning cycle for teachers to utilize in the classroom. Students are still being tested on what they have learned, but not before they truly understand the lesson. In class Mr. Anderson is going around and talking to students and asking questions about the lesson. Students answer in their own words, and if they do not understand they can repeat the cycle. This provides wonderful feedback for the teacher AND the student. The student has the opportunity to share what they have or have not learned before being tested, and the teacher is able to see how well the students are understanding the lesson.