Blog Post #8

“Bozemanscience”-Amber

Mr. Paul Anderson is a science teacher in Bozeman, MT.  He has created hundreds of science videos that have been viewed millions of times by students and teachers around the world. His blog is titled “Bozemanscience.” Coincidentally, I subscribed to his YouTube channel a while back before even knowing he would be apart of my next blog post! Mr. Anderson is a teacher that I admire. He is always learning and sharing new things. What can I learn about teaching and learning from him? First of all, I can learn that teaching can be fun and there is nothing wrong with learning with your students. This video, "Blended learning cycle," describes that in every way. Blended learning cycle is taking mobile, online, and the classroom and blending them together. Using them all as ways to have a more productive experience. In the learning cycle students are able to explore, explain, engage, expand and evaluate all within the classroom. Paul Anderson explains the importance of questions. He says that questions are something like the hook in learning. This means to ask questions that grab the students attention. Something that stimulates them to think deeper. He uses different types of technology to engage in the blended learning cycle. I learned from Paul Anderson an amazing skill to use in my future classroom. That is, how to use the blended learning cycle.

   “Back to the Future”- Brittnee

Mr. Brian Crosby an Elementary teacher at Agnes Risley Elementary School in Sparks Nevada, has came up with some great ways enhance his classroom. Every student in his classroom has access to a computer at their desk. He has each student create a blog, thus making them think “outside the box”. He gives a lesson and either makes them take pictures or video of what they learned and then embed it in their blog. Crosby teaches them active learning and in the video Back to the Future he shows us that learning doesn't have to be boring. We can learn from him that keeping a blog and sharing it to teachers and students around the world can help engage students and keep them wanting to learn. This video has taught me that even though it is just an elementary class doesn't make them any less important to the way we are teaching and learning. All these projects that he does in his classroom helps to empower, connect, collaborate, motivate, and include children. Something else in his video that I can learn from is when he talked about the student with Leukemia and how he connects with her every morning  by using Skype to let her be a part of the class. It has never crossed my mind of what I should do if I were in that position. He mentioned two different sites that can help him one site is ed.gov and the other is whitehouse.gov. I have learned some very valuable things from Mr. Crosby and I would use his example in my future classroom.

 “Making Thinking Visible”- Hannah

Mr. Mark Church is a teacher that promotes visible thinking. Visible thinking is a research- based approach to learning and something that we as future teachers should know about. One of its main goals is to deepen content learning. Getting children to think out loud and in a group is one of the ways that Mark Church shows visible thinking in this video. He wants to get children involved in the subject matter and wants them to care about what they are learning. Visible thinking is about creativity and the strive for knowledge. This is a way to encourage your students to be the best learners that they can be. Visible thinking is something that I had honestly never heard of. I think that Mark Church's book, Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners, would be a very good purchase for those trying to better the overall learning and thinking atmosphere in their classroom. I cannot wait to learn more about it.