When I was reading “Reinforcing Effort”
and “Homework and Practice” from the book Using
Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works I was amazed with how many
examples the book provided and how great that was. After I read the chapters I went back and
looked up some of how they worked.
The first strategy that I connected with was the spreadsheet rubric. The purpose of creating a rubric is to “give students a clear idea of what effort looks like” (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn & Malenoski, 2007). This chapter stressed the importance of effort, “not all students realize the importance of effort” and to some students effort must be explicitly taught to them. For these students a rubric is exponentially helpful. A strategy that I may try later on in the year to help stress the importance of effort is to collect their own data. I believe that this will help show them how important it is but it can also teach graphing, data collection, and recording. In addition, later in their schooling collecting data or creating a survey will be important in their education. Introducing them to the technology of how to create and send out a survey in 5th grade will only help them next year in 6th grade and on to high school.
These first two strategies correlate to behaviorism by trying to get the students to perform in a specific way. The specific skill that these strategies are striving for are success. Of course all teachers want their students to succeed, so why not use the behaviorist theory to try to get them there? I think that by using these strategies you would be pushing the students to see that effort relates to their scores, that the harder they try, the better they get.
In the chapter “Homework and Practice” the information that stuck out to me most was the list of recommended websites for homework. I think this will be very helpful because when we send homework home, we really don’t know who is doing the work. We can only rely on work that was done in the classroom under our supervision. For this reason, when we get work back we provide feedback but cannot use it as an actual grade. “McREL’s research on homework [does] support [that] parent involvement […] should be kept to a minimum” (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn & Malenoski, 2007). Another strategy in this chapter I found useful was the Research tool in Microsoft Word. I knew that it existed but have never really found a need for it. I can see, however, how it would be better for elementary, and even older, students to not have to get on the internet and find information. For students to be able to search for information that they know will be reliable right from their word processing document will make the process much easier. I know that students do need to know how to do research but for smaller projects it may be easier for students to just use the research feature instead of trying to sift through all of the World Wide Web’s information available. I believe that this feature relates to behaviorism by trying to help guide the students to correct information. If we only allow them to use one source, and encyclopedia, then we are only allowing them to use that one site. That way we are causing students’ research to go one way, the way we want it. This may not be our first purpose but this is one way in how this strategy relates to behaviorism.
In conclusion, you can find behaviorism in many teaching strategies and many of these strategies are beneficial for students and teachers. I believe that many of the strategies in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works will be helpful in my teaching career. I find them to be particularly applicable with my grade level of 5th graders.
The first strategy that I connected with was the spreadsheet rubric. The purpose of creating a rubric is to “give students a clear idea of what effort looks like” (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn & Malenoski, 2007). This chapter stressed the importance of effort, “not all students realize the importance of effort” and to some students effort must be explicitly taught to them. For these students a rubric is exponentially helpful. A strategy that I may try later on in the year to help stress the importance of effort is to collect their own data. I believe that this will help show them how important it is but it can also teach graphing, data collection, and recording. In addition, later in their schooling collecting data or creating a survey will be important in their education. Introducing them to the technology of how to create and send out a survey in 5th grade will only help them next year in 6th grade and on to high school.
These first two strategies correlate to behaviorism by trying to get the students to perform in a specific way. The specific skill that these strategies are striving for are success. Of course all teachers want their students to succeed, so why not use the behaviorist theory to try to get them there? I think that by using these strategies you would be pushing the students to see that effort relates to their scores, that the harder they try, the better they get.
In the chapter “Homework and Practice” the information that stuck out to me most was the list of recommended websites for homework. I think this will be very helpful because when we send homework home, we really don’t know who is doing the work. We can only rely on work that was done in the classroom under our supervision. For this reason, when we get work back we provide feedback but cannot use it as an actual grade. “McREL’s research on homework [does] support [that] parent involvement […] should be kept to a minimum” (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn & Malenoski, 2007). Another strategy in this chapter I found useful was the Research tool in Microsoft Word. I knew that it existed but have never really found a need for it. I can see, however, how it would be better for elementary, and even older, students to not have to get on the internet and find information. For students to be able to search for information that they know will be reliable right from their word processing document will make the process much easier. I know that students do need to know how to do research but for smaller projects it may be easier for students to just use the research feature instead of trying to sift through all of the World Wide Web’s information available. I believe that this feature relates to behaviorism by trying to help guide the students to correct information. If we only allow them to use one source, and encyclopedia, then we are only allowing them to use that one site. That way we are causing students’ research to go one way, the way we want it. This may not be our first purpose but this is one way in how this strategy relates to behaviorism.
In conclusion, you can find behaviorism in many teaching strategies and many of these strategies are beneficial for students and teachers. I believe that many of the strategies in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works will be helpful in my teaching career. I find them to be particularly applicable with my grade level of 5th graders.
References
Pitler, H.,
Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom
instruction that works. Alexandria,
VA: ASCD.
For more information see:
- Behaviorism
- The Behaviorism Orientation
- Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works by Howard Pitler, Elizabeth R. Hubbell, Matt Kuhn & Kim Malenoski
Ali,
ReplyDeleteI was excited as I read both of our assigned chapters too. I have used bar graphs for students to use as a way to track how well they did on Spelling tests and in Math to track the number of problems they got correct on timed tests. The students loved seeing the bars grow as they did better. Spreadsheets are a great technological tool that can be used to keep track of progress. I want to try to use these in my fourth grade class. I also found the list of websites helpful in the homework chapter. I already use several of the sites that were listed, but it's good to have more resources.
Thanks Chris,
ReplyDeleteI like the idea for spelling tests! I think that my students could really benefit from charting their progress as support that they are doing a good job and that their hard work is paying off (or on the other hand, their laziness is not paying off). I'm glad I've found someone in my grade range! I teach 5th grade. Where do you teach?
-Ali