Chapter 7: Knowing, Making, and PlayingQuote - "They are homo sapiens, homo faber, and homo ludens - or humans who know, humans who make (things), and humans who play" (90). I picked this quote because it represents the different ways of learning presented in this chapter. How there is ways of gathering information through being told or reading, gathering information by just doing it, and finally gathering information through experimenting or playing. If students have the impression that they are playing in the classroom, not only will they absorb information, but they will have fun and want to do it. School will become less work, and more fun. Questions - How can we bring play into the classroom and still make it educational? I can have my students play clash of clans all day and they would do it, and learn something from it, but it probably would not be science related. Connections - I made a connection to my 20% project. In order for me to be able to be successful on my project, I had to go through gathering information, making a plan, and playing it out. Even though I spent hours on research on the topic, I got more out of the experience in the 5 minutes I was in the water, than I did gathering the information. Epiphany/Aha - Just how important playing is for human existence. We play all the time, even when we do even realize it. Children play more because they do not have all the experiences that adults have. Somewhere down the line when students start growing up and finding out the playing is not cool, we lose that part of ourselves, at least in formal education. In an every changing society, we better learn to get play back, and teach our students that it is okay to play in the classroom, it is still cool to be playful. Chapter 8: Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking OutQuote - "The richness of experience and social agency produced by hanging out and the sense of embodiment and personal agency created by messing around, combined with the sense of making, produces what we think is the ultimate goal of indwelling: learning" (104). I picked this quote because it encompasses the whole idea of the chapter. It breaks down the pervious chapter and places the aspects into hanging out, messing around, and geeking out. With technology, people are either finding their place, figuring out what works, or creating new things. All three done will equal what we are all trying to achieve in our classroom - learning. Questions - How can I incorporate my own technology base community in my classroom? My worry is doing so not all my students will have access to it. Connections - I connect this chapter with our Google+ community. I can see myself slowly, and i do mean slowly, away from the hanging out part, just trying to find myself within the technology based world, into a more messing around stage, just trying thing out. As I find myself messing around with the community, sharing thoughts and ideas, I know that I will be able to transition to creating my own communities from which my students will be able to participate in. Epiphany/Aha - The community is not a place to sit and watch, it is a place where you need to participate and experiment. For the most part, there is no judgment of failure or doing something wrong. You just have to do it, learn that it will not bite back, and adjust your own thinking about it. In other words, just play around with it, you might like it and learn something. Chapter 9: The New Culture of Learning for a World of Constant ChangeQuote - "Games, which allow learners to play, explore, and experience, also allow them to discover what is important to them, what it is they actually want to learn - and that keeps them playing" (111). Making the classroom a place of playing and games, will not only make the environment more fun and exciting, but will be a place that the student want to be.
Questions - How can I incorporate games like World of Warcraft to encourage self-learning in my students? Connections - My connection is with my 20% project. There is research done online, like with gamers, but until you try it, or play with it, you will never know if you can complete the task at hand. Epiphany/Aha - I will admit, I play World of Warcraft and was one that would do research and theorycraft. I never thought of it as a way of learning because it was fun to me. Now, after reading this chapter, I know it is a form of learning, and it was meaningful learning to me. Chapter 4: Learning In The CollectiveQuote - "In the new culture of learning, people learn through their interactions and participation with on another in fluid relationships that are the result of shared interest and opportunity" (50). I picked this quote because learning today happens in a collective. Group of individuals getting together, contributing their own ideas to a certain goal. The classroom could be run the same way. Everyone with equal say, working together for a common goal. Questions - How does a teacher establish a collective rather than a community in the classroom? We have been told over and over that community is important, we should establish a community. Is it time to move away from the community word and start calling for collectives? Connections - Our collective on Google+. We all belong to this collective in order to learn from each other's experiences and interests. We get more out of the experiences from our colleagues than being told what information that we should be learning. Epiphany/Aha - Collectives are not passive. People cannot idly sit around and get information from the collective. They have to be active participants in order to really experience a collective. If everyone sat around and did nothing but watched a collective, then the collective will die. Chapter 5: The Personal With The CollectiveQuote - "Sharing something personal with a collective, therefore, is very different from taking something private and putting it into the public domain" (57). I picked this quote because I truly feel that this is the hardest part for me to wrap my head around in the new culture of learning. There is a lot of fear and apprehension when it comes to what I consider private while others feel is personal. Questions - How do we teach without the use of objectives or learning goals? How do we release the control of objectives and have the students develop their own goals in their own learning? Connections - With out Google+ community. We are a collective that is constantly playing around with new ideas. A place where everyone can see each other's thoughts and ideas, and build, or feed, off of each other to create something greater than ourselves. Epiphany/Aha - The example of the astronomers collective. How the sum of all the amateurs looking at many parts of the sky was better than one professional looking at one piece of sky. They got better data from everyone working together that competing against one another. Chapter 6: We Know More Than We Can SayQuote - "It turns out that while people are very good at describing those things, they're not very good at communicating how they all come together" (75). I just like how this quote relates to so much in life. The not being able to describe the whole picture to the class all at once. But taken apart, describing each individual process or step, then the students are able to develop their own picture of the overall process in their minds. Chunking information.
Questions - How to bring in the student's passion and imagination into the classroom? Do I start my first day of class with "what do you want to learn this year?" Connections - Moving away from "teaching students" to "student learning." It is true that students get more out of their own experiences than being told about the experience. Telling someone that flames are hot is very good and useful information, but until the student feels the flame and how hot it is, they will never truly understand. I connect this to my 20% project. I can be told how to wakesurf, all the steps and procedures to be successful. But until I get out there and try it, I cannot say I know how to do it. Epiphany/Aha - My aha moment comes from the part of the book on inquiry. I understand theory of inquiry being a great way for students to learn, but didn't take it as its ability to have students develop their own questions. If students continue to build questions throughout their learning, they will always question and be a life-long learner. Also with the honors program students, not knowing what questions to ask because they feel their passion doesn't belong in their formal education. Chapter 1: Arc-of-Life LearningQuote - "what he looks for in other people's programs, he told us, "something really cool you could never know yourself" (23). I chose this quote because it really put in perspective what students are looking for when they are working with Web 2.0 programs. It is not a place of competition, but a place for collaboration and helping each other to get the most out of the experience. Question - Maybe this is a little silly, but when is alright for me to bring in playing of MMORPG's in my class? Connections - That most learning happens outside of the classroom, not within the four walls. I find this connection with the 20% project. I have yet to do any real learning for this project inside the classroom, maybe the start thinking of ideas. The majority of the project was and continues to be done outside the classroom, on my own time surfing the web and activity going out and trying it. Epiphany/Aha: My aha moment really comes from failure. What seems like a failure, in reality, is a success to some students. You cannot chalk up a lesson, activity, lab as a failure until after to have re-examined it and talked to the students about it. What you see happening inside the classroom might not be what is happening in reality outside of the classroom. Students may be getting more out of the activity than you can actually see. Chapter 2: A Tale of Two CulturesQuote - "embrace what we don't know, come up with better questions about it, and continue asking those questions in order to learn more and more, both incrementally and exponentially. The goal is for each of us to take the world in and make it part of ourselves. In doing so, it turns out, we can re-create it" (38). Every student needs to know that it is important to ask the right questions to stimulate their own learning process. Two people can look at the same object and see two completely different things. That's why there are so many variations of learning. We need to embrace the difference and let the students find out their own way of looking at the world. Questions - How can I show my students how to observe the world and get them to start asking the right questions? Connections - Bringing in the student's own interest will help them to being questioning. Small steps at first, then the students should take off, controlling their own education like our 20% project. Epiphany/Aha - More of a "hmmm, well duh...." It is easier to learn and question if you are interested in the topic. Chapter 3: Embracing ChangeQuote - "Yet it is hardly cutting edge. It assumes that there will be an endless supply of fish to catch and that the technique for catching them will last a lifetime" (40). I really like the way the author took the old saying, teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime and related it to education. It is true, the old way of learning might still work, but the process does change and it is important to be able to keep up with new technologies. Questions - How would you model "play" for your students? Connections - I feel a lot of my connections so far are to the 20% project, but again, I made a connection to that with this chapter because of the idea of playing to learn. I was able to get out and have fun, try something new, fail a bit, but really just go out and play to learn. If students feel like they are playing in the classroom, more engagement will happen and students will want to be there rather than feel like they have to be there. Epiphany/Aha - I want to give more opportunities for my students to have fun in the classroom. Give them more of a reason to be there. |
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May 2015
Kyle HutchinsTeacher Candidate at Cal State San Marcos. Currently doing clinical practice at Orange Glen High School in Escondido. Categories |