Digital Blog Post C

One of the important concepts that I found in Chap. 3 was "Instructional Methods to Engage Students" (Maloy, et al, 2013, p. 52). There are four different ways to get the student involved and are used by many teachers: one-on-one tutoring, Learning groups, Inquiry learning, and Metacognitive thinking. One-on-one tutoring is a special way to engage the student because once the student and teacher are sitting together, the teacher adapts to the students' learning style and explains things more deeply rather than teaching to the majority. It also give students the chance to ask questions that they would be scared to ask out loud because of their peers. Learning groups gets students involved by having them work in groups. Students tend to like this method for a couple of reasons; 1) They get to talk to others for the assignment, 2) they can use their creativity to express their meaning, and 3) they feel comfortable around their peers. Inquiry learning gets students out and about to learn more than what the teacher taught which could sometimes be wrong, boring, or incomplete. Metacognitive thinking gets students to think about how they learn best to help them understand why they learn the best that way.

Another concept that is very important in Chap. 3 is "The Role of Feedback" (Maloy, et al, 2013, p. 54). Feedback is extremely important for the fact that it tells the student(s) what they did right, what they did wrong, and what they can do for next time. As students love rewards, feedback is the next best thing so they know how to improve their score next time and know what they are doing correctly. At first, when students get feedback it seems like a slap in the face. Then, thinking comes in and the student checks over his/her work. At that moment, the student realizes "Oh, I didn't do that" or "how did I not notice that". I had an experience once when my class received our papers and it had feedback on it. I was use to seeing feedback, but my classmate was excited because the class she had before never received feedback from her teacher and she absolutely hated it. The only "feedback" they received was "Good Job" even if they failed. Here is a little video outlining how to give effective feedback.

The third concept I found intriguing was in chapter 8 about "Electronic Communication between Teachers and Students" (Maloy, et al, 2013, p. 187). When it comes down to the wire, there are more ways to communicate with the teacher other than email or text. Email and texting is a way, but there is also Teacher/Classroom websites, blogs or microblogs, online discussions, and wikis. Email and texting are more personal ways to communicate between the two people for it is directly to private inboxes. This way is quicker than most, but only helps the individual and the teacher. Teacher/classroom websites are more open, but mainly accessible to those who were told about it. Blogs and microblogs are written by individuals to be publicly seen. Blogs have no number of characters that can be used, but microblogs do (i.e. twitter). Online discussions are composed on blogs and other websites to talk about the topic freely and give feedback. Wikis are created by the teacher and students, and can only be edited by those in the group. Wikis are a much slower way to communicate but will be visible and editable until it is shut down. Here is a little slideshow to explain the different options to choose from.


From what I read in these couple of chapters, it is important and mainly revolved on the teacher head to help close the gap between their student-teacher relationship.

Resources:

 GPiOnline. (2011, November 30). How can managers give effective feedback? Retrieved May 28, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHyelDJvsCI

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.


 Roberson, M. (2016, May 28). Electronic Communication between Teachers and Students. Retrieved May 28, 2016, from https://prezi.com/1tx4hgwrceic/electronic-communication-between-teachers-and-students/