Week One: Learning Styles

As part of an answer to a struggling class, I put together a plan that incorporates learning styles into our chapter (clothing). I feel like this could be a tool for them to use… and one that might help them find success. I put together the weekly plan, including worksheets. This plan is pretty open… meaning that it should fit with many/any different unit.

If you take a look at it and have some fantastic ideas for improvement, please let me know! If you take a look at it and can use it/modify it for your use, go for it!

Unit- Learning through Learning Styles

Much of this came out of the idea to give students support, empowerment, and a commitment to learning: all developmental assets that kids need to succeed. More inspiring information about this at The Search Institute.

Up next week? Learning through Multiple Intelligences

Making Moodle Work

This is a step-by-step document I created for a brief inservice.

It is definitely for absolute beginners… and is built off our Moodle layout/setup. (Your Moodle might be a smidge different… who knows?)

Take anything and change it so it works for you (if it works for you): Making Moodle Work

Animal School: A look at (special) education

Animal School

Today at an inservice about special education, we watched the video called “Animal School”.  Honestly, I think it is true for all students… not just special education kids. It is a powerful video from Raising Small Souls about our kids (both at home and in school). Click the link above and take the time to watch it. It is powerful.

This is why we teach.

Web Tools for all

Last year we really “dug in” in the upper-level German classes and watched the podcasts of the German news (“Tagesschau” from ARD) on a regular basis. We used various exercises to interact with the news: find key vocabulary, bell-ringer activities with the key vocabulary ahead of time, just watching the show (no audio), only audio, creating our own news interpretation as anchors in front of the video, and more. Watching the news was a multi-purpose activity. It is authentic and holistic learning as students can pick up all kinds of vocabulary and news information (differentiated in its very essence) all while they are learning about German (and world) culture and taking those important steps closer to becoming world citizens. It was a fantastic adventure, and we tried a few different news sources, but ended up sticking most with the Tagesschau.

It was a bright, sunny Thursday (read: hot and sweaty in a classroom with no air conditioning) and I was back from lunch, setting up the final things before the upper-level class and one of my students came up to me, PSP in hand.

“Frau? Were you able to get today’s news? I tried a couple times this morning  and couldn’t get it. I’ve got all of them from the past two weeks and I’ve been watching them <thrusting PSP closer to my face>, but I couldn’t get today’s. Could you?”

(Astounded and caught a little off guard) “Uh, no, actually… I couldn’t either. <smile> Wow. I’m so proud of you! Are you loving it?”

And the conversation went on…

Here’s what you need to  know. This student isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, the A+ student in the class (who you might assume would be the one to do this sort of thing), so this was really eye-opening (and exciting) for me.

It made me realize that the more opportunity you give kids to experience and work with (and find) web tools for learning, the more learning they will do on their own. My job, as a facilitator of learning, is to help equip them with the tools for lifelong learning… and for these students (digital natives or not), the tools that they often (not just want, but) need are embedded in technology (21st century workplace, here we come).

So what tools have you helped your students find and learn (perhaps unwittingly, like me) so they can be life-long learners?

A case for funny?

From Think Progress in “Colbert, Stewart viewers more well-informed than those watching O’Reilly,  Dobbs“:

 A new Pew Survey on News Consumption released yesterday reveals that viewers of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are more knowledgeable about current events than those who watch Bill O’Reilly, Lou Dobbs, Larry King, and the “average consumers of NBC, ABC, Fox News, CNN, C-SPAN and daily newspapers.” Thirty percent of Daily Show and 34 percent of Colbert viewers correctly identified Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the majority party in the U.S. House of Representatives, compared to the national average of just 18 percent.

What I’m seeing here is that the people who enjoy (heavy emphasis on the enjoy)  watching Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert actually retain more information than those who watch Bill O’Reilly, or just any random news show. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are (mostly) humorous and definitely engaging entertainment. We already know that stimulating emotion helps people remember, and that positive emotions are most closely tied with retention. So is the fact that The Daily Show and The Colbert Report viewers retain more information surprising to anyone? 

So let’s look at the application: How do you take advantage of this in your classroom?