EDUC 6711 Reflection

I took some time this week to reflect on all I have learned throughout this course.

Modified Personal Learning Theory
The concluding sentence of my week one application: “My personal theory of learning is to incorporate the three learning modalities, while promoting my students’ individual intelligences into my daily instruction and use of educational technology.” After this course (and after a week of staff development with John Antonetti), I would modify “incorporate the three learning modalities” by saying applying THE LEARNING CUBE. The Learning Cube incorporates Marzano’s instructional strategies, Schlechty’s qualities of engaging work, and Bloom’s highest levels of cognition (Antonetti, 2005). If I begin to integrate these research based approaches into my classroom, the learning modalities will be addressed as well as multiple intelligences. It will be exciting to experiment with adding the technology component to the Learning Cube!

Immediate Adjustments
I want to emphasize providing feedback and incorporating more nonlinguistic representations. In the past I have provided feedback through the use of personal response devices (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007, p. 45). I would like to incorporate them more into my daily instruction, not just at the completion of a unit. Personal response devices will provide me with immediate feedback as to the understanding of my lesson. It will also provide students an opportunity to cement (connect) new learning. I currently use a variety of nonlinguistic representations (graphic organizers, kinesthetic activities, and physical models), but I would like to see them transform into more technology based artifacts including: concept maps and multimedia presentations (p. 93, 103).

Long-term Goals for Technology in my Instruction
REINFORCE EFFORT
In order to “enhance my students’ understanding of the relationship between effort and achievement” and “addressing their attitudes and beliefs about learning” I want to utilize spreadsheet software (p. 155, 156). It will be a powerful learning experience for my students “to chart the relationship between effort and achievement (p. 156). They will have a visual representation of their efforts and the result of those efforts. By creating an Effort Rubric and setup an effort/achievement spreadsheet, I will supply my students with the tools they need to witness amount of effort = amount of achievement. In time, “they will work harder and in specific ways” because of the effort rubric and the proven results of those efforts (p. 160).

COOPERATIVE LEARNING
Atonetti’s Learning Cube refers to cooperative learning as “learning with others”, and the explanation includes the word interdependently (Schlechty, 2002). Most of the time, cooperative learning is misused and misunderstood. Teachers plan/assign group work without the focus of learning from each other as well as working together. My goal would be to include Cooperative Learning in an effective way – students not just talking to each other, but also ¬listening and paraphrasing each other’s thoughts. This can be where real learning from each other can take place. I would like to use VoiceThreads as apart of integrating technology into cooperative learning. In the beginning, I would create VoiceThreads for students to see a model, as well as begin to practice commenting on videos. It will move into creating VoiceThreads with their small groups and groups commenting on threads. Eventually individual students will be able to create and comment on peers’ VoiceThreads as a way to learn from each other. Depending on the accessibility/privacy settings, family, friends, and strangers from around the world would be able to comment on students’ videos – creating an amazing example of extreme cooperative learning!

The past eight weeks have been an amazing experience! I have a greater understanding of Marzano’s strategies, as well as how technology can be used to incorporate those techniques into my classroom. I am looking forward to this upcoming year and future Walden courses.


Antonetti, J. (2005).

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Schlechty, P. (2002) Working on the Work. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.