Heather's EDET668 Blog

Essential Question 6: What are the challenges in shifting content from "what" to "where" and "how"? When I first read this question, I began thinking about how we make information relevant for our students.  I thought the question was asking how I make my students understand the where and how specific information (what) can be used so that they have a better understanding of the information.  Upon reading chapters seven through nine of A New Culture of Learning , I found that I was mistaken. According to Brown and Thomas (2011), what is the information we know.  It is easy to test whether or not students understand the what and therefore is particularly useful in school. They go on to explain that where is when we put that what into context.  Since we live in the Information Age, the what has become less important than the where and that should be reflected in the way that students learn at school (Brown and Thomas, 2011, p. 95). So that leads u...

Essential Question 5: What are your thoughts about “learning in the collective”? Before this essential question, I had not heard of the collective.  Brown and Thomas (2011) wrote an entire chapter trying to explain the collective and from that I gathered it is a collection of people that are actively engaged in the learning process.  Collectives are successful when there is participation and "improve with size and diversity" and they "are not bound by physical or geographic constraints" (Brown and Thomas, 2011, p. 53).  I read through Chapters 3 and 4 several times and still felt unsettled with the collective due to the line on page 54 that reads, "Any effort to define or direct collectives would destroy the very thing that is unique and innovative about them." (Brown and Thomas, 2011).  This seems like a cop out and the exact opposite of a the point of a collective.  Instead I expected to read examples and stories of ways to create collective enviro...

Essential Question 4: What does the way you play have to do with embracing change and how does this impact you as a professional? "In a world of near-constant flux, play becomes the strategy for embracing change, rather than a way for growing out of it." (Brown & Thomas, 2011, p. 48). As I reflect on my teaching, the moments I felt I had prepared the best lessons happen to be the moments that I prepared the least.  Not to say that I didn't do my research or really think about the objectives I was trying to teach, but I was willing to give my students the tools to complete a lab without knowing whether or not it would work.  Instead, I worked side-by-side with them to find out what was going to happen.  We tinkered together and learned together.  Unfortunately, more often I find myself expecting my students to give me a specific answer or outcome and I don't take time to include the element of play.  There are many times that my students ask if they ...

ESSENTIAL QUESTION 3: How different is your current classroom from the one in which you learned when you were a student? I was in seventh grade during the crisis of Y2K. While I had no idea what was happening, I did know there was a chance that the world was going to end! Really though, I was in school during at the beginning of the internet age and it was a frightening time. Backing up a year to sixth grade, I can recall our classes going to the library and taking turns using the two computers to type things into this new thing called the internet. It is crazy now to think about the overwhelming feelings of uncertainty and nervousness I had as I look at my four year old daughter who just tells me to "look in up on the internet" or "ask Alexa".  My, how times have changed. In high school, I got my first cell phone. It was a Tracfone that allowed me to make phone calls and text using the number buttons and corresponding pushes to get the specific letter you...