Behaviorism in Practice

         In an effort to keep abreast of educational theory and technology, I am continuing work on my Graduate Certificate in Integrating Technology in the Classroom at Walden University.  I am currently enrolled in EDUC 6711:  Bridging Learning Theory, Instruction, and Technology.

It is amazing to me how learning theory has evolved over the years and has been integrated with educational technology.  I took my first education classes in 1983 and was so busy with the business of teaching those first years that I did not really synthesize learning theory in a way that informed my teaching practice at a satisfactory level.  However, getting my Masters in Literacy Education reignited my interest in current research and how it can be used to improve teaching, and the journey continues with my technology classes at Walden. 

In class this week, our reading assignments allowed us to revisit the behaviorist learning theory.  With all of the strides we have made in educational practice, why would we even consider using behaviorism theory in our classrooms?  Certainly, behaviorism has its uses in terms of behavior and classroom management practices, however, one might think that as far as classroom teaching is concerned there is no place for old, outdated ideas like operant conditioning.  To my surprise and delight, I discovered that behaviorism is alive and well in today’s classrooms and is being used to motivate and reward student effort in the form of tracking data and progress. 

One of the strategies we learned about this week looks at the relationship between effort and achievement.  Students must have a sense of self-efficacy if they are going to make an effort to engage in a task and believe it is possible.  According to Marzano, Pickering & Heflebower (2011) students can develop a sense of self-efficacy through tracking and studying progress which would include tracking achievement, setting personal academic goals, and examining effort and preparation.  That’s where motivation and behaviorist theory comes in; Skinner’s behaviorist theory of operant conditioning has manifested itself in the form of reinforcing effort using technology (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn & Malenoski, 2007, p. 155-164).  Spreadsheet software and data collection tools are used by students to track the effort they make on studying and assignment completion and then compare that data to the scores they receive; the results give immediate feedback and show students that there is a direct correlation between the amount of effort they put toward studying and the grades they can achieve .  If students can see that making an effort will pay off such as being successful, getting better grades on a project, or receiving positive reinforcement from a teacher or parent, then they are more likely to make an effort in their classes (McREL as cited in Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn & Malenoski, 2007, p. 155).  That reinforcement, or payoff, along with immediate feedback from using technology to track the effects of their behavior and the grades resulting from that effort, will serve as motivation.  Hartley believes that “reinforcement is the cardinal motivator” (as cited in Smith, 1999).   When I read how this strategy was used by combining data from surveying peer groups and sharing that information with incoming freshman as a tool for motivation to do well in school, my mind was reeling with ideas on how I could use this same strategy to help with freshman transition in my high school.  Forty percent of our freshmen have failing grades during the first trimester.  We already have access to Survey Monkey and now I have access to information on how to go about asking the right questions and gathering data with a purpose in mind.  I am taking this idea to the next Student Achievement Leadership Team and am very excited by the prospect of trying this.

One behaviorist strategy that I have used that involves technology with students and promotes self-efficacy is to instruct students on how to use the readability statistics in Microsoft Word when writing a paper for their classes.  This strategy is discussed in Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn & Malenoski (2007, p. 190).  This is an excellent motivational tool for students to use to improve their writing because they can get immediate feedback on what they might need to do to improve, particularly if they are writing far below their grade level.  In fact, one of the members of my cohort did a similar project for her Master’s thesis in Literacy Education.  This chapter has a plethora of links and resources that support using technology to help students with the rote rehearsal of concepts they need for success in math, science and language arts as well as resources for students to use for collaborative projects which would help students make deeper connections to what they are learning (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn & Malenoski, 2007, p. 192-201).  Behaviorist theory supports the use of technology with students as they practice, review and apply learning because it has several key principles to reinforcing learning:  students are learning by doing, practicing frequently through repetition, and receiving immediate feedback using programmed instruction (Hartley, 1998 as cited in Smith, 1999).  With all of the strides we have made in education, of course we should use behaviorism in our classroom.

One of my favorite blogs is http://www.freetech4teachers.com/, it has won several awards including “Best Resource Sharing Blog”.  It is written by Richard Byrne, who is a teacher, writer and consultant and is passionate about using technology to engage students and help them achieve.  If you would like to learn more about how to engage students in the classroom using motivational strategies, I recommend that you check out www.marzanoresearch.com/, it has a variety of free resources for teachers as well as a considerable amount of research to peruse.

So, what are you waiting for?  Try out a little behaviorism in your classroom and reap the rewards.

Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D., & Heflebower, T. (2011). The highly engaged classroom. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Standridge, M.. (2002). Behaviorism. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved 2012, May 8, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/

This week is my final week with EDU 6710: Integrating Technology into the Classroom. I went into this course with much anticipation about what I would learn that could enhance my literacy and FACS courses. I am pleased to say that it has met my expectations and more. In the first week of our course we were to complete a self-assessment checklist concerning how we support 21st Century Skills in our classrooms. I had heard of 21st Century skills because I am involved in a collaborative group called Teach 21 that connects the local state university with our public school district to help train future teachers. This class was a great resource to better prepare me to bring issues to the discussion table. I also feel armed with a myriad of new ideas and resources to inform my own skills in technology. As a digital immigrant, I have always been excited about what new things I can do with my classroom such as PowerPoints, developing web quests and using my school website to inform students and parents about upcoming assignments, but I realized that I was doing the same old things in a different way (Laureate, 2010a). I discovered that to become a truly innovative and professional teacher of 21st Century skills, I needed to hone my own skills first. Richardson (2010) believes that teachers need to use the tools available “in our own practice first so we can understand the pedagogical implications for the classroom” (p. 9). I have learned about and practiced using Wikis, Blogs and Podcasts in addition to Edmodo in order to learn the power of social media and determine how I can use it in my own classroom. With the goal of preparing my students for the new literacies online, I need to be able to teach and model how to make ideas and products available to others (Richardson, 2010, p. 149) so my experiences in the class gave me that opportunity. Another tool that I am using more and more is an aggregator to organize the information in the blogs that I am following. I had never even read a blog before this class, let alone create and use one. Richardson (2010) states that “posting on other people’s blogs before you start you own is a great way to get the feel of publishing your thoughts” (p. 44). I found it interesting and engaging to read a few blogs before I created mine. I have explored social bookmarking, which I have found hugely beneficial to me when accessing and organizing the great resources I have been introduced to in this class. Writing and responding to discussion board and blog posts has given me insight into the challenges my students may face when they engage in collaborative discussions and projects. 

There were a variety of tools and resources in this course that deepened my knowledge of the teaching and learning process. Reading the course materials and listening to the videos provided the foundation for my learning. I discovered that most of the PDF’s allowed highlighting and inserting comments, so this allowed me to annotate and highlight what I was reading and synthesize the information as I went back and reread the information. I also took notes on the videos and found the interviews and presentations informative. I liked hearing some of the teachers share their perspectives and was able to relate to their experiences. The debate between Dr. Thornburg and Hall Davidson (Laureate, 2010b) allowed me to further process what I had read in the article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants (Prensky, 2001) and gave me enough information to discuss this with my peers. This course utilized a variety of sources that not only informed my learning, but prompted me to do further research and find additional resources to deepen my understanding. The discussion board and blogs we created gave us, my peers in the course and me, an opportunity to process what we learned and get feedback on our thoughts. Writing for an audience gave us the “opportunity to communicate within a global forum, build knowledge content as a community and publish writing to an authentic audience” (November, 2008, p. 80). It also prompted me to carefully read my posts before submitting them and check for grammar, spelling and accuracy (Laureate, 2010c). Collaborating on the creation of a Wiki and working with a group of people I had never met gave me the insight I needed to understand the challenges that my students would face when they collaborate on projects such as Wiki’s. Learning how to create my own podcast led to more understanding about the challenges of using technology that is completely foreign to me and the rewards of trying something completely different. I found the instructional videos on blogs and wiki’s helpful as I applied what I learned from Richardson (2010). I feel that the technology tools provided in this course to deepen my understanding were all designed for the me to learn from technology as I watched tutorials and read about the idiosyncrasies of creating Wiki’s, Blogs and Podcasts, but also to learn with as I read the foundational information and wrote and responded to my peers online (Cramer, 2007).

As a Reading Specialist, I already knew that teachers need to change how they teach in order to increase reading comprehension and student engagement; however, my eyes were opened to the ways that we can use technology to help us do that. According to Dr. Thornburg (Laureate, 2010d) we are entering the “communication age” which involves and increased need for collaboration to solve problems and build knowledge. In order for our students to be able to compete in the global workplace, we need to prepare them to be able to work collaboratively in a virtual workplace using high level thinking and skill in communication (Laureate, 2010e). Our students are digital natives, born using technology and from what I have learned from my students, attached to their technology as they take it everywhere with them, even to bed at night. As we move from teacher-centered to learner-centered classrooms, we need to understand that teaching is conversation, not lecture (Richardson, 2010, p. 151). Students need to become directly involved in their learning and teachers need to model what it looks like to ask open-ended questions and find the answers using technology (Laureate, 2010f). They need to help students discern what a valid source is and how to be safe (Richardson, 2010, p. 12). The biggest change in my thinking was when I surveyed my students on their technology use and interviewed some of them. I was very surprised that 100 per cent of my students had Internet access at home and 99% of them had cell phones. These digital natives are engaged with their technology 24/7 and I have realized that we need to begin the shift toward the classroom of the Read/Write Web now (Richardson, 2010, p. 149). Prensky’s articles on providing opportunities for students to have a voice in their own learning and the ways they would like to be engaged were helpful when synthesizing what my students were telling me about their technology use (Prensky, 2005, 2008). The learner centered classroom is going to require a shift in thinking and pedagogy and it is going to require patience and an open mind as we struggle to change a long history of doing the same old thing.

I am not going to stop learning. This course has provided not only very usable knowledge and practice, but it has also given me an appetite for more. I am going to take the remaining classes for the graduate certificate in Integrating Technology into the Classroom. If I hadn’t already earned a Masters in Literacy, I would have pursued one in technology. In order to continue to expand my knowledge of learning, teaching and leading with technology with the aim of increasing student achievement, I plan to continue following the blogs I have found that support that effort. According to Richardson (2010) “teachers are employing Weblogs and wikis and the like in ways that are transforming the curriculum and are allowing learning to continue long after the class ends” (p. 148). I think it is important to keep up on the latest research, so I will continue to conduct my research, access the resources we were directed to in class, including P21.org, and engage in conversation with others who share my interests in education (Richardson, 2010, p. 149). According to the ISTE article, teachers need to “exhibit leadership by demonstrating a vision of technology infusion, participating in shared decision making and community building, and developing the leadership and technology skills of others” (2007) so I will continue to participate in curriculum and school improvement committees.

One of the main reasons I am taking technology courses is to inform my own teaching practice and to be able to mentor other teachers as they explore theirs. I am involved in the District Improvement Team, the Curriculum committee and the Student Achievement Leadership Team, all of which are highly involved in improving reading and math scores through increased student engagement. My main job at the high school is as a Reading Specialist and my main role is as a coach to help teachers improve their practice with fresh new ideas that engage students in higher level thinking and get them more involved in their own learning. I have two long-range goals for transforming my classroom environment. One goal is to complete the transformation from teacher-centered to student-centered learning in my classroom and the other is to model that practice as I mentor my peers. This will require a big shift in thinking and preparation on my part to gather the resources I need to create this transfer. Richardson (2010) states that teachers need to see themselves as “connectors of not only content, but of people” (p. 154). I will need to research what kinds of sources are out there to connect my students to expert knowledge and with peers. Once I have that information, I will need to decide which tools are going to facilitate the use of those resources and connect my students with a larger audience. I will also need to become a “content creator” (Richardson, 2010) by continuing my use of the social tools that connect me with others in the field (p. 154). One of the biggest shifts in thinking will be to consider myself on a more level playing field with my students as we collaborate and build knowledge together. I have already begun to do this through the use of the discussion tool on Edmodo and have had some interesting conversations with students as they process what they are learning about child development theory. It takes practice to be able to ask the right questions as my students discuss their thoughts and make connections to their lives and their learning. Richardson (2010) makes two more recommendations for redefining what it means to teach in the 21st century and that is that teachers need to think of themselves as coaches and change agents (p. 155). I will not only be coaching my students as I model the skills that they need to take charge of their own learning, but I will also be modeling to my peers as I connect with them in their classrooms and discuss and model strategies that they can use to engage their students. The biggest challenge will be implementing change as some teachers will not readily want to do something new or different. Not everyone likes change and it will require finesse and patience as we begin to transform our thinking and make the changes necessary to engage our students. The district administration is very interested in supporting our efforts to engage students and mentor each other. Professional Learning Communities will be formed next year and we will be coaching and helping each other make changes in how we do things. I know it will require baby steps as we begin the discussions. One of the ideas I am taking with me into this new adventure is to include the voices of our students as we make decisions for change. Prensky (2005) stresses the importance of including students in the discussion and that teachers should get their input in terms of how they would like to be taught (p. 10).

As I finish up this class and look back at the Practices to Support 21st Century Skills checklist, I find that how I approach my students and my colleagues has changed. I am more confident and willing to share the resources that I use to improve student learning and engagement. I am more willing to take the time to listen to my students and what they think and using Edmodo for this has facilitated that process. I know that by next year, I will be checking most boxes as sometimes or often, while many of them were checked off as rarely at the beginning of this course, particularly in the section about my teaching practice such as enabling the students to take charge of their own learning and collaborating with students to explore new and emerging technologies. It is an exciting time to be a teacher.

Cramer, S. (2007). Update your classroom with learning objects and twenty-first century skills. Clearing House, 80(3), 126–132.

International Society of Technology in Education. (2007). Profiles for technology (ICT) literate students. Retrieved from
http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS-S_2007_Student_Profiles_EN.sflb.ash
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010a). Program one. The emergence of educational technology [Webcast]. Understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010b). Program fourteen. Debate: Digital natives vs. digital immigrants? [Webcast]. Understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010c). Program nineteen. Transforming the classroom with technology: Part 2 [Webcast]. Understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010d). Program three. The third wave [Webcast]. Understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010e). Program nine. The changing work environment: Part 2 [Webcast]. Understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010f). Program eighteen. Transforming the classroom with technology: Part 1 [Webcast]. Understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society. Baltimore, MD: Author.
November, A. (2007). Banning student “containers.” Technology & Learning. Retrieved from http://www.techlearning.com/article/banning-student--containers-/44387
Prensky, M. (2005). Listen to the natives. Educational Leadership, 63(4), 8–13.
Prensky, M. (2008, March). Turning on the lights. Educational Leadership, 65(6), 40–45.
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Checking out the Partnership for 21st Century Skills

One of the assignments this week was to peruse the Partnershipfor 21st Century Skills website. This Partnership for 21^st Century Skills provides tools, resources and information to educators, policy makers, and parents and communities for the purpose of readying students to perform and compete in a global economy. My first reaction was that of being overwhelmed with information. It is organized well and is fairly easy to maneuver through; however, it is tempting to just start clicking links. I recommend a person begin by looking over the home page. The Announcements and Latest News sections provide several places for both newbie and veteran P21 users to look for up-to-date information. There are a wide variety of offerings from Webinars to podcasts of interviews to online access to publications. Many of the resources that I looked at were developed collaboratively by professionals and organizations across the country. I was amazed by that. Think of the amount of time and effort that has gone into the ongoing development of the resources on this website. The members of this organization are vast and are committed to providing support and resources so that every student can become 21^stcentury ready. I found it quite interesting that the skills deemed crucial for student success in the 21^stcentury were the very same skills that Dr. Thornburg mentioned in the video our class was assigned this week (Laureate Education Inc., 2010a). Collaboration and critical thinking as well as creativity and innovation come up over and over again in our readings.

It was no surprise to find a blog on the site. Every month, two well-known educators are selected and given a question to respond to on the blog that pertains to the challenges of providing 21^stCentury Skills to everyone. What did surprise me though, was I could not identify a way to subscribe to the blog or to access an archive in order to read past posts. That was disappointing. Another thing that surprised me was that the Exemplars section called Route 21 had not been updated since 2010. I found the P21 Common Core Toolkit, accessible under Educator resources, especially usable because we are implementing the ELA Common Core Standards in our district and having a resource that has already aligned 21^st Century Skills to those standards is a no-brainer, in my opinion. I was a bit taken aback by the fact that only 16 states are implementing the 21^st Century Skills initiative and Wisconsin is one of them. I live in Minnesota and I would like to think that we are on board with our neighbors. We share boundaries and our students cross those boundaries to attend universities, everyone needs to be prepared for the future.

Even though I didn’t find any information or opinions that I disagreed with, I did find myself wondering if there was any political agenda behind this initiative. There are a lot of big corporations that are involved in supporting this organization. I do not profess to be too involved in the drama of politics and the influence of big money from corporations, but it made me wonder. What do you think? Even if there is, would it be a bad thing? What would be the motive other than preparing the young people of our country to compete on a global level?

As an educator that is highly engaged in learning about technology and in implementing innovative ways for my students to participate in their own learning, I am very interested in the message behind the 21^stCentury Skills initiative. One of the issues, of course, is how do we get everyone on board so that we can prepare our students for the future. According to Levy & Murnane (2006) the jobs of the future are going to require expert thinking and complex communication (p. 62). Dr. Dede (Laureate Education, Inc. 2010b) states the same thing when he talks about the expert thinking and complex communication skills required to solve some of the wicked problems that are in our future. There is no doubt in mind that we need to motivate our students to become impassioned and engaged in caring for our world. The questions I have for my fellow bloggers is are you scared? How urgent is this matter? How in danger is the United States of falling behind and being left in the dust by other countries? Does it mean the difference between our economic survival and failure? We have read a lot about global collaboration on some of those wicked problems we are already dealing with such as global warming, tsunamis, and hurricanes. Can we have faith that our world will shrink and boundaries will disappear as we collaborate on big world problems? I am probably thinking too hard.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010a). Program eleven. Skills for the 21st century [Webcast]. Understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society. Baltimore, MD: Author

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010). Program twelve. Technology interfaces [Webcast]. Understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Levy, F., & Murnane, R. J. (2006). Why the changing American economy calls for twenty-first century learning: Answers to educators' questions. New Directions for Youth Development, 2006(110), 53-62.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2011.). A framework for 21st century learning. Washington DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/overview/skills-framework

Creating a class blog for my Child Development class.

In class this week, we were asked to come up with an idea for using a blog with our students.  I will be teaching a Family and Consumer Sciences (FACS) class next trimester called Exploring Childhood.  The class consists of a mixed group of male and female 9-12 graders.   In a nutshell, the learning objectives for the course are to identify developmental characteristics of two to five years olds and analyze and apply knowledge of child development theory toward the planning and implementation of a five week preschool.  There is a lot to process in this 12 week class.  Students collaborate in teams of three or four as they plan activities for the preschoolers.  They are expected to adjust activities to the age and developmental levels of the children they are working with.  They are also expected to observe children as the engage in play and collect anecdotal evidence to support established theory.   In the past, this class has consisted of a lot of discussion and feedback, seemingly mostly on my part, as we evaluated the activities that students planned for the preschoolers and related back to established theory.  There is a considerable amount of scaffolding taking place as I model my thinking, however, I am wondering if perhaps using a blog might be advantageous as students begin to apply their own knowledge and experience to this process.  Knobel and Wilber (2009) suggest that “collaborative class blogs are helpful in any subject area.”  Why not FACS?

Thinking along the lines of using the blog for reflection and extended study as suggested in Chapter 2 of our reading this week, I visualize posing a question each week for students to respond to that relates to our study of child development (Richardson, 2009, p. 33).  As students reflect on what they are learning, they can use resources that I provide on my class blog to extend their thinking.  I would require them to respond to the blog posts of at least two other students and provide feedback on those posts.  In the video segment Evolution of Technology and Pedagogy, Dr. Christopher Dede suggests that technology isn’t going to make a difference to our students unless we change how they are learning with that technology (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010).  I think that choosing a blog over in-class discussion will be achieving that end because they will be doing something different.   In her blog post, Michaelsen (2012) shares the perspective of Peter Senge who wrote the The Fifth Discipline:  “The problem with school he says is that it is very individualistic…it is never about the smartest guys in the room, it is about what we can do collectively.”  All students will be reflecting on a much deeper level and engaging in a higher level of critical thinking and reflection with their peers.  I am hoping that the discussions my students will have will be far more engaging and interesting to them than if I was directing them in the front of the class.  

One thing I would have to spend some time doing at the very beginning of this experience would be to prepare the students for blogging etiquette and safety.  Richardson (2009, p. 45-46) gives guidance on how to begin with students by introducing them to blogs and letting small groups respond to the class blog; creating clear expectations with administration and parents before students create their own blogs is also paramount.  I am excited at the prospect of creating a class blog for this class.  I think both my students and I will find that we have a lot to learn.

Knobel, Michele, & Wilber, Dana (2009, Mar).  Let's Talk 2.0.  Educational Leadership, 66 (6), 20-24.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010). Program two. Evolution of technology and  pedagogy [Webcast]. Understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Michaelsen, Ann S. (2012, March 6).  Peter Senge-what schools need to focus on now!  [Web log comment].   Retrieved from

http://annmic.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/peter-senge-what-schools-need-to-focus-on-now/

Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press.

Introduction

Welcome everyone! 

I am so pleased and excited to work on my very first blog. I created this blog as an assignment for an online class that I am participating in at Walden University: Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society. After spending considerable time trying to come up with a clever and catchy name, I realized that sometimes simple is better. I have named this blog My Learning Journey into Technology because it best represents the fact that technology will be an ongoing thing in my life without a final destination in mind; not meaning to sound cliché.

I am already in a bit of a quandary, though. Since I am the type of person that likes to throw my ‘all’ into a project, I have discovered that I am already spending far too much time playing in the blog world, looking up templates for cool looking blogs, and investigating all of the interesting links and resources for class that you all are sharing. I am going to have to set a timer or something, because I have a job as a high school Reading teacher and serve on several school improvement and curriculum related committees that keep me pretty busy as well. I look forward to this journey and am most looking forward to the wonderful ideas and resources that will engage my students in doing something different with technology in my classroom.