Distance Learning

Virtual Schools

Michigan Virtual school

Lisa Magnusson

Identify and briefly discuss 5 advantages of distance education.

1) Offered for a trimester, semester, and/or summer sessions. Not all schools run on trimester or semesters. Having this feature of allowing it to match up with school they may already have will help them plan better and treat the course like any other one.

2) It goes along with the state standards learning target. Making sure that the class will count towards what you are needing credit wise is very important.

3) This web site also helps with career development and what steps you can take after high school. There is an entire project the students can do to help plan what they should do after they graduate. This can be a very confusing time for some, and having a little bit of input of the type of person they are may help steer them in the right direction.

4) It helps for students to be able to make up classes. I have heard of many cases where students have gotten mono or there is some kind of emergency that has them miss a lot of class. Distance learning allows for you to make up these credits while continuing school.

5) This allows for any type of student to take these classes, it is open to all. There are no restrictions on who can do distance learning!

Identify and briefly discuss 5 disadvantages of distance education.

1) There is no face to face interaction. I believe building a professional relationship with your professor or teacher is crucial because some teachers have a lot to teach you and that may not all be able to be taught through the internet.

2) As we have all experienced, sometimes web sites are very stubborn and just stop working. If an important paper is due by a certain time and the site is down students may become very frustrated that they are unable to post it.

3) I think we have started to take internet access for granted. Sometimes we assume everyone has internet when that is definitely not the case. As a distance teacher, you would need to be aware that not everyone has internet within their households.

4) Because this is done independently, it is extremely easy for students to get behind. They do not have a teacher reminding them everyday in class to complete their homework by the end of the week.

5) Students may not be able to get answers right away. Like our class discussion, some students went for weeks without hearing from their distance learning teacher. If students are confused they need answers quickly so they do not keep performing the task incorrect.

How you would determine the readiness of students to participate in distance education?

There are a couple qualities that the school of Michigan has identified as being a good candidate for distance learning. If student is: a self starter, independent, responsible, discipline and drive, ability to critically analyze and discuss issues through writing, superior writing skills.

What would you need to do to be ready to teach in an online environment?

There is one face to face meeting followed by four weeks of online training. This way the soon to be teachers can decide what teaching methods do and do not work over the internet. (Teachers need to be certified in the state of Michigan prior to applying)

Engaging Students with Concept Mapping Software

Concept mapping is a great technique in all subject areas of school. There are times when I would be sitting in school and taking notes, listening to the teacher talk. I would be understanding what the teacher was saying but not grasping the full concept. When I drew it out visually, for example in a concept map, it helped me learn processes of certain overall functions better. As new teachers going into the field we need to remember that many of our kids may be visual learners and we need to give them a learning tool that helps strengthen their understanding of topics that are taught.

Concept mapping might not be as prevalent in health and fitness, but there are definitely ways my students may use them. In the fitness portion of class we could have a fitness week. The students can make a goal that they want to reach by the end of the week and each bubble can represent what they will need to accomplish every day in order to reach that goal. They can also use it as a way to remember what lifts they need to do for the day. They can write the day of the week in the middle and then have what muscles they want to work on for that day in the bubbles.

I personally believe that concept mapping will be used more often when we are in the health portion of our class. Learning about the human body is extremely interesting, but it can be daunting on the amount of information that is required to memorize. A great concept map that I found on the website was a map about the skeletal system. They had the human skeleton in the middle, and then branches off of it were types of bones, organization of bones, and functions of bones. I believe this would be a great way for my students to learn about the body. I could also have them put a single organ in the middle of the web and list its functions and purposes in the bubbles. Another topic that concept mapping would be useful for is drugs and alcohol. I could assign each student a substance/drug and have them do some research on the effects that it has or consequences of taking it on the body. Once they found the information I could have them complete the web and turn it in, or even have them write a mini report using their webs.

Concept mapping is a great tool for students to organize information easily and visually see the information gathered. It also works for all ages of students in every classroom. I believe that concept mapping should be taught in the elementary school as a basic organization tool that they will be using throughout their school years.

Concept mapping will be great for my students to learn systems. There are many systems in the body, muscular, digestive, hormones, and many more. By using concept mapping for this the students will be able to look at each piece individually and see how they function. Then when put into the concept map see how systems work together for the end task of what the body needs to perform.

In order for my students to use a concept map, I would want to make sure that there are many elements that tie together and have something in common. I will decide whether the maps are necessary. I do not want to make them use the concept map if it only uses time and doesn't help them grasp a concept I am teaching. I also may have them do it when they begin a research project for a health topic. That way the students will decide which areas they want to focus on for their presentation.

Teacher Web Reflection

#1) There are many ways that a teacher web could support my teaching. One example is when I am covering a certain topic in health, lets say smokings cigarettes and the risks it has along with it. I can stand in front of my class and tell them how bad it is for them, but if they go onto teacher web and take a look at the web resources that have to do with smoking they will be able to see statistics and images that they have not seen in class. When I become a teacher I want to be able to be accessible to my students. I want them to be able to communicate with me effectively. By having a teacher web they can check where I am during the day (my schedule) and find out when I am available to help them with their school work.

#2) Not only is teacher web beneficial to me as a teacher, but also to the students. I know not all students take advantage of practice quizzes, but I am going to strongly encourage my students to. It will help prepare them for my tests by seeing the lay out and the type of questions I will be asking. This may allow for some test anxiety to diminish. Another way teacher web may help them is with the interactive sites on web 2.0. These sites allow for feedback of information they put on the computer. A particular one on my web page deals with self esteem, which is a big issue among some high school students. This allows them to do a type of analysis on themselves and helps them look at areas they can work on in order to feel more confident with who they are.

Blogs and Wikis in Education

1.) Before doing this search on blogs and wikis I was unaware of how popular they are in education today. There were many web pages and articles about the wikis and blogs that peaked my interest. One fifth grade classroom was using it as a way to keep up with current events. The teacher assigned them to find a current news story and summarize and cite it. After they were posted, they were able to look at their peers articles, so they automatically had a handful of about twenty five current events. Another great idea I found was schools from different areas or even states collaberating on one wiki to communicate about their school life. It would be neat for students to do it with a school from a different country eve,n just to see how everyday life differs from here the in states during a typical school day. Lastly, a teacher that was teaching students where english was their second language had them use the wiki or the blog as a way to practice technology in english. This way the teacher could go through and let them know how they were doing and make responses.

2) After learning a little more about RSS and aggregators I came to found that they could be useful in the classroom. For example, if the students were doing a project on current events (like the conflict in Iraq) they would be able to use the RSS to get notifications about updates on any news pages they marked. The students would need to pick pages accordingly because they would not want 100 new notifications a day; that could be overwhelming.

3) Although, I have just become familiar with wikis this school year, I have quickly discovered there are some good things and bad things about them. A problem that may arise is someone going in and deleting everything that is written by the student. Also, being on the internet anyone has access to it. As a teacher, you need to find a way to protect your students work on their wikis or blogs. A good thing about them is that it is a convienient way for teachers to access student work. They are able to ask their students to post any of their work and allows for teachers to not have to carry home loads of paper work. Lastly, it can help students connect to one another. A student can post something and have their peers proof read and give feed back.

Multiple Intelligence In The Classroom

1) After taking the multiple intelligence quiz the results showed my strongest points are in the musical area, the naturalist, and a kinesthetic learner. I must say that I am these things, but I would not say that they are all my strongest ones. A musical learner has strengths with sounds and patterning. A natualist tends to catagorize things as well as classify them. Lastly, the kinesthetic approach is interaction with the environment that surrounds me. A couple other ones that I had a strong connection with is the inter and intrapersonal approach, which I believe fits me better than the naturalist. I have chosen my career goal on the sheer fact that I enjoy human interaction, and being a teacher will allow me to get that on a daily basis.

2) I have found that learners that are musical and a naturalist like patterns, sounds, and catagorizing. Coming from a personal experience, it helps me organize and store information more efficiently. An example of this is that I have a binder for each class I am taking. I would be lost and cluttered if I kept all my papers in one big binder. Also, being a kinesthetic learner, I like being outside. I have always enjoyed sports and my physical education classes were always my favorite.

3) Taking the time to read through all these different questionnaires about what type of learner I am, it helps me see that others are also very different from me. Obviously, my strong point will be being able to teach the students that have the same learning strengths as me but I must always keep in mind that it might not make any sense to another student. I will probably try and help my students to be organized as possible because with less clutter, there is less to think about.

4) I think that a technology that correlates with my learning abilities is excel. It keeps things organized in a very organized pattern as well as catagorized if need be. I am sure that there are many other technologies that would work well with this learning style, but being a health and fitness major I have been more focused on the anatomy of the body, not so much the technology aspect to fitness.

5) To encorporate all learning types of students I will have to constantly be on my toes and be ready to explain topics or activities in a different way. I will have to look at assignments and projects from many different angles to make sure I can explain it to each individual student to make sure they understand what I am expecting of them. It would not be a bad idea for me to even give them a mini assignment to have them see what kind of learner they are. I know that the quizzes are not exact, but it could at least give me a general idea of what kind of learners I am working with.

Learning Styles Results

To gain more knowledge about my personal learning style I took a quiz formulated by NC State University at the web page of www.engr.ncsu.edu. This particular quiz allows you to understand yourself better in the areas of whether you are an active or relfective learner, sensing or intuitive learner, sequential or global learner, and whether I am more of a visual or verbal learner.

After taking this questionnaire I discovered that I am definately an active, sensing, visual, and sequential learner. I believe this to be right on! I am more of a hands on person when it comes to learning new concepts and techniques. I have always been an active person because if I sit for too long, I find it easier for me to become distracted. Being a sensing learner I like to know solid facts, I don't really like open ended questions. I am more of the right answer or wrong answer, or this is the wrong way and this is the right way kind of girl. Visual learning is by far my strongest learning style. I understand concepts much better if it is drawn out in a diagram so I can see how the information ties together to create one general point. Math has never been a strong point in my schooling career, but I have found when I take things step by step to try and solve the problem I have a better chance of getting it right; instead of starting from the solution and breaking it down. This explains why I am more of sequential learner.

After taking this quiz, it further encourages me that I am on the correct career path for me. I am a health and fitness major and I am interested in teaching high school health and fitness, and also hoping to do some coaching on the side. My typical day I will be on my feet, doing hands on activities, showing examples of techniques, and interacting with all types of people. This quiz didn't just benefit knowledge of myself, but it also helped me look a little closer at other types of learners. For example, if I am teaching my students how to shoot a free throw shot; some kids will get it just from me saying how to do it, others from me showing them, and others who must try it themselves to get the hang of it. I will have to be open minded to all of the types of learning styles that are present on this quiz because all the students I have will be different.