Visual literacy and the internet promote learning

How can visual literacy and the use of the Internet impact the teaching and learning process in the classroom? What are some visual-thinking strategies you would like to use in your classroom? What role do you want the Internet play in your classroom?

Visual literacy….adding images…adding color…adding understanding.

Through the exploration of images and their impact on learning, it brought to the fore front of my teaching students need more visual connections to the content I teach.  One picture is worth a thousand words (Barnard, 1921) was brought about perhaps through an old Chinese proverb.  In the end, it means that something hard to describe may be best represented through a picture.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words.html

 With the use of the internet teachers are able to pull a variety of resources, filter through them, and create more content rich lessons than ever before. These past two weeks in particular emphasized moving from a traditional lecture formatted classroom environment to that of a collaborative nature. 

Collaboration by itself, however, is not the master key that unlocks knowledge, but the skillful planning of the teach using the correct technology tool at the right time.  For instance, I researched WebQuests lessons for the secondary mathematics classroom relating to quadratics. This link will take you there:  http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=66698.

I was drawn to it by the initial picture because I found out people can take rides at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, MO when my daughter moved back to Michigan to go to school.  There is an informative video about the arch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX2KpYDhnP0 

By making connections to content students become more engaged to learn and recall important facts.  As I develop my next unit on quadratics I want to employ similar learning experiences for my students from my experiences here.  In our readings this week reference was also made to word clouds.  Word clouds would be a perfect supplement to graphic collages on the topic of quadratics. One would provide visual images gathered by students and the other would be a verbal model of the same information.  

Math can come across as a foreign language to some students because there are so many new terms they have limited prior knowledge of.  Using the internet to help them decode information and reach independent conclusions about would be valuable. 

Student engagement is achieved through student centered activities.  With technology slowly becoming more available at my school, I look forward to guiding my students on how to use the internet as a tool to succeed now and n their future! 

Watching a computer generate a parabola will also help visual learners such as the GeoGebra has available online: http://tube.geogebra.org/m/189498

 Interactive parabola

Last year as a cumulative project, I had my classes build mini-catapults, take measurements and derive a quadratic equation.  I am now considering how to ue technology with the project. 

From the Front of the Classroom

From the Front of the Classroom

As I began my journey into teaching, I quickly discovered it wasn’t just about standing in front of the classroom and giving directions, which every student would willingly comply with.  Instead, teaching is multi-facetted employing a variety of theories and strategies to help each and every student learn.  In college I contemplated these theories from Ivan Pavlov’s behaviorist theory to Jean Piaget’s cognitive stages of development to name a few. In the end, entering the hall of education with a newly bestowed teaching certificate I found additional hurdles to overcome.  Although I am now considered an experienced teacher, education has been evolving where students are becoming more active participants through models of student-centered instruction verses teacher-centered instruction.  

Our conversation this week have been very reflective; challenging what we consider to be the better methodology of dealing with 21^st century learners and how that correlates to the implementation of learning theories. One person in the cohort, Mark, posted about using lecture because that is all he knew.  When do teachers decided to go down a different path?  Is there one moment, a buildup of moments, or just the desire to make a change?   Myself, I was taught in parochial schools; lecture mode was all I knew.  Yet, when I entered the classroom for student teaching I was on the other end of the spectrum.  How did I get there?  In the background I can still hear my sponsoring teacher saying there was no time for hands-on activities or projects if the standards were all going to be covered.  But cover the standards I did and my student scores rapidly increased.  Moreover, student engagement increased and my classroom filled with chatter.  Students were excited to come to class.  Yes, even for math.

Mount Everest

Instead of using one theorist to drive my teaching, I adapted my teaching to the needs of my students.  It did help me, however, that I began as an instructional aide for special needs students. They taught me the norm could be redefined.  As I stand in front of my classroom I see students who need to see the lesson, hear the lesson, and become the lesson.  Adapting lessons in today’s classroom is enhanced through technology applications. For instance, learning about transformation of functions, college algebra took a virtual field trip to the Himalayans where they saw a first-hand account of trekkers going up Mount Everest. They discussed delays due to weather conditions and the backtracking needed to acclimate to the ever increasing altitude changes.  We graphed time and altitude changes in our graphing calculators and even changed the scale to show compressions along with vertical and horizontal shifts.  Technology enhanced their experienced by providing a concrete real-world example on function transformations.

Being proactive in bringing technology to the classroom is important to me because of my students.  I must engage them.  I want them to enjoy learning and see how content fits into the world around them.  I cannot accomplish this on my own.  I need technology.  They need technology. Using modern tools such as cell phones, laptops, and document cameras can easily be combined with all learning theories to move forward from a traditional classroom where students sat in single rows facing the board to copy notes to engaging in debates through collaborative investigation where the world is just a mouse click away. 

Video: Climbing Mount Everest   NBC News Dateline: Audio & Video Mount Everest

Here it is the first week of class and we are off and learning about Technology Pedagogy Content Knowledge (TPCK) and how to integrate technology into the classroom to enhance lessons.