Learning With Technology: A Constructivist Perspective
Chapter 6
Learning By Reflecting With Technology: Mindtools For Critical Thinking
Mindtools for critical thinking is the focus for this chapter. The authors, Jonassen, Peck, and Wilson, argue using technologies to teach does not exploit the capabilities of the technologies or the students. The authors note that a good teacher is superior to a computer when it comes to teaching. The tools of the technology teach to the students. The students do not learn from the technology, they learn with the technology.
Classroom Instruction That Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement
Chapter 8
Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback
Setting objectives or goals was first introduced in this chapter for reflection by the authors. The definition provided for goal setting is the process of establishing a direction for learning. Those persons that have mastered this technique are successful in achieving their short-term and long-term desires. One of the keys indicated for obtaining ones desires is the focus.
Chapter 9
Generating and Testing Hypotheses
The keys for reflection the authors, Marzano, Pickering and Pollock, are to engage students in the most powerful and analytic of cognitive operations of generating and testing hypotheses.
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There are several conceptual and practical reasons why computers should be used as Mindtools. Students can use technology for their individual uses. When learners design instructional material they are engaged in deeper analysis and articulation of the subject. When a learner only reads material they are not fully engrossed with the material. Learners should use the tools to construct knowledge bases that reflect and represent what they understand. Technology mindtools require higher order critical thinking skills. Students must use evaluation and analyzing of information to make a connection to the ideas present.
Creative thinking also is needed when working with technology. Students are required to use synthesizing skills, imagining processes, outcomes, and possibility thinking strategies for elaborating on information.
Students must solve problems and represent their knowledge by engaging in complex thinking skills which include problem solving, designing products or ideas for decision making. The combinations that students face while working with mindtools. There is a cost and effort efficiency that make mindtools effective resources in schools. The cost is minimal when one considers the advantages of the final product, the students.
Computer programs distribute cognitive processing appropriately. Students and technologies can be partners in learning.
The activities that make this chapter focuses on are the constructing of databases and the management of the system. This is very similar to the processes the Web pages we students are working on in this class. The databases permit one to organize and reorganize the information in order to answer queries. One can use these databases to seek out specific information for recovery. Databases can become study guides for groups of students.
The key concept here is that there is a learning process that is being constructed. It requires the learners to articulate the content they are studying. The student roles when engaging in the construction of a databases is to gather information that they feel pertinent. Other students may use the database for its accuracy. All students should work together to develop questions for other students that would be working in the databases. The teacher’s roles in the process is to teach students how to use a database and provide feedback about the databases structure. The assessment process for the teacher is to view the databases to check for the content accuracy, the importance of the record, are meaningful queries answered, and what relationships are implied by the queries the students write.
Through the construction of semantic networks students can produce study guides for record keeping and easy access presentation.
Computer technology offers a wide range of information and visuals that cannot be duplicated without many hours of planning by the teacher. The Internet can give immediate access to weather around the world, A weather visualizer can produce output for a science lesson and scan a continent from ones computer instantly. Chemicals that are not permitted in the classroom are available for student research. The learning process with visualization tools facilitate active and constructive. Students are able to manipulate and investigate the scientific method without danger. The exploration of microworlds is now possible to every student that has access to the Internet. We are in a virtual hands-on classroom when we can access these sites.
The theory of providing feedback is a teacher strategy that is considered by the researcher John Hattie to be the most powerful single modification for enhancing achievement.
Feedback has four generalizations that require noting.
(1) Feedback should be corrective in nature. Students are provided with an explanation of what they are doing that is correct and what they are doing that is not correct. The best effect on student learning and comprehension is when the student is given an explanation as to what is accurate and what is inaccurate in terms of students response.
(2) Feedback should be timely. The timing of feedback is critical to its effectiveness. Feedback right after a test is best. The more delay involved, the less the improvement in achievement.
(3) Feedback should be specific to a criterion. Criterion referenced feedback tells students when they stand relative to a specific target of knowledge or skill. There is an impact on the student learning that is more powerful than that presented in the norm-referenced criterion.
(4) Feedback can be provided by the students. Students can monitor their own progress as research indicates. The use of student feedback in the form of self-evaluation has been strongly advocated by researcher Grant Wiggins.
Classroom practice in providing feedback can be done with the use of rubrics. Teachers can utilize a generic rubric for information to a topic of study. Rubric adaptation is also a way of getting away from the norm-referenced standards that test usually present for assessment.
Feedback for specific types of knowledge and skill are also necessary for teachers to have their students realize their highest potential.
Two generalizations are given for use in the classroom for these theories.
The first type of generalization is that hypothesis generation and testing can be approached in a more inductive or deductive manner. Deductive thinking is the process of using a general rule to make a prediction of what will happen in the future action or event.
Inductive thinking on the other hand is the process of drawing new conclusions based on information we know or are presented with. Students need to experience hands on experiments to evaluate and make their hypothesis. When the experience is unavailable it is better for teachers to present principles directly and then ask them to generate hypotheses.
The second generalization is that teachers should ask students to clearly explain their hypotheses and their conclusions. Writing is the preferred method used for explaining a hypothesis. Explaining their thinking helps students to deepen their understanding of the principles they are applying. With an inductive approach students may be asked to explain the logic underlying their observations, how their observations support their hypothesis, how their experiment tests their hypothesis, and how their results confirm or disconfirm their hypothesis.
The text presents a variety of structured tasks to guide students through generating and testing of their hypotheses. This subject matter is most beneficial when studying the scientific method of discovery and assisting students in becoming scientists in the classroom and preparation for the real world of scientific notation.
System analysis can provide an explanation for how a system functions and how the parts interact with one another to make a system work. How the system can be altered with variables can be used to test student’s hypotheses. When students understand problem solving they will develop the ability to identify the goal the teacher is attempting to accomplish, describe the barriers that are preventing one from achieving their goal, are able to identify solutions, try new solutions and decide if a hypothesis is correct.
Through the use of the strategy of historical investigation students are engaged in examining an event in the past, identify what is known or agreed or disagreed upon, offer a hypothetical scenario of their understanding of the situation, and seek out and analyze evidence that it is plausible. Investigation is a task that requires students to generate and test hypotheses.
The framework offered by the text is students need to describe a situation they want to improve or need to respond, identify specific standards, brainstorm ideas, suggest ideas that will work, develop an invention to test ones hypothesis, and if necessary revise the invention unitl it reaches the standards that have been set.
The next point of interest of this chapter is the use of experimental inquiry. Briefly this process can be described as the teachers use of the following framework to help students engage in the experimental inquiry:
(1) Observing something of interest and have the students describe what they have observed.
(2) Apply specific theories or rules to explain what they have observed.
(3) Based on the student’s explanation, generate a hypothesis to predict what would happen if you applied the theories or rules to what one observed or to a situation related to what one observed.
(4) Set up an experiment or engage in an activity to test ones hypothesis.
(5) Explain the results of ones experiment or activity.
The last point of interest provided by the authors is the strategy of decision making. Students are encouraged to use the following framework to guide them through decision making tasks.
(1) Students describe the decision the teacher is making and alternates what needs to be considered.
(2) Identify the criteria that will influence the selection and indicate the relative importance if the criteria by assigning an importance score from a designated scale.
(3) Rate each alternative on a designated scale to indicate the extent to which each alternative meets each criteria.
(4) For each alternative, multiply the importance score and the rating and then add the products to assign a score for the alternative.
(5) Examine the scores to determine the alternative with the highest score.
(6) Based on ones reaction to the selected alternative, determine if you need to change any importance scores or add or drop criteria.
In conclusion to this chapter students are encouraged to make sure they can explain their hypotheses and their conclusions which is the second generalization in this chapter.
