Principles of Teaching and Learning/A Meta-Analysis of the Effectiveness of Teaching and Learning

For 525 we read two articles.  The first was Principles of Learning and Teaching and the second A Meta-Analysis of the Effectiveness of Teaching and Learning.  Below you will find my reactions to the articles and how they apply to my world. 

Principles of Learning and Teaching
This article addressed 7 principles of Learning and Teaching.

Principles of Learning
1.  Students' prior knowledge can help or hinder learning
2.  How students organize knowledge influences how they learn and apply what they know
3.  Students’ motivation determines, directs, and sustains what they do to learn
4.  To develop mastery, students must acquire component skills, practice integrating them, and know when to apply what they have learned
5.  Goal-directed practice coupled with targeted feedback enhances the quality of students’ learning
6.  Students’ current level of development interacts with the social, emotional, and intellectual climate of the course to impact learning
7.  To become self-directed learners, students must learn to monitor and adjust their approaches to learning

Principles of Teaching
1.  Effective teaching involves acquiring relevant knowledge about students and using that knowledge to inform our course design and classroom teaching
2.  Effective teaching involves aligning the three major components of instruction: learning objectives, assessments, and instructional activities.
3.  Effective teaching involves articulating explicit expectations regarding learning objectives and policies
4.  Effective teaching involves prioritizing the knowledge and skills we choose to focus on
5.  Effective teaching involves recognizing and overcoming our expert blind spots
6.  Effective teaching involves adopting appropriate teaching roles to support our learning goals
7.  Effective teaching involves progressively refining our courses based on reflection and feedback

As an elective teacher, I agree with most of the principles of learning.  A lot of what I teach is technology and business based.  When the students have prior knowledge on a topic we are studying, not only is it easier for them to make connections, but also for us to enhance their knowledge further.  Even as a student myself, I found it easier to learn about a topic when I have some sort of background knowledge on it.

Another thing that I agreed with is that students need to acquire their skills, practice them and know when to integrate them in order to obtain mastery.  This past week, in 8th grade, we spent 4 days calculating sales tax and income tax.  The students complained over and over as to why I was making them do so many problems.  I had to explain to them that not only did they need to understand why their jeans didn't cost 29.99 even though the tag said, but also why their paycheck would be less than they thought.  To me, the repetition not only helps instill the task in their minds, but also will help to better make sense when they are in such a situation.

Not only do I agree with the principles of teaching, but I also implement some of them.  The first two principles, acquiring prior knowledge and aligning the three major components, are practices I like to use especially at the beginning of a new unit.  To acquire prior student knowledge, I often do some sort of a pretest when we study something new.  These pretests may consist of a vocabulary quiz or an informal raising of hands to answer questions I ask. This helps me to know what areas I need to spend more time focusing on and what areas I can just skim over.  I also like to let the students know the overall objective of the unit, how they will be assessed and different activities we will complete.  I've found that it eliminates student questions, but also lets them know what to expect as we further with the units.

A Meta-Analysis of Effective Teaching and Learning with Technology
I found this article very hard to follow, as it addressed many different studies and used a lot of jargon.  The article addressed how those who learned with technology did better than those that didn't.  I'm two-fold when it comes to this topic.  As I've stated in previous blogs, I teach at a 1:1 Middle School.  Each student has their own laptop, each teach has a laptop and either an iPad or an iPod touch, and a number of teachers have interactive whiteboards.  As a teacher of technology, I can see how all this is useful, but I can't help but ask myself, what good are we doing by allowing them to use these tools when they won't have these in their high school years?  Also, we're teaching them to rely on the tools at hand.  Just like in math, we have to learn how to do it on paper before we are allowed to do it with a calculator.  We're now showing our students a whole new world of technology, but are they really getting the purpose of it?  Do I think our kids learn better with technology?  On any given day that response always changes for me.  Some days I'd like to wipe out what we have at our finger tips and make the students learn how our parents did.  Other days, I'm so intrigued at what my students can do with technology.  Overall, I think it's effective, how it's applied and used on a daily basis puts me on the fence.