Sticking with It: Meeting the Challenges of Online Learning Enrollment in online courses and programs continues to increase. A recent study published by The Sloan Consortium found that over 6 million higher education students were enrolled in at least one online course in the fall semester of 2010. The numbers reported in this annual survey have continuously increased over recent years and the prediction is for ongoing growth. Student retention is a primary concern of all involved in online education programs – not only important to students, but also to instructors and the institutions providing the programs. Institution administrators and faculty members are engaged in research related to student retention and making efforts to support online students through initiatives such as: Persistence is a valuable trait for all students, especially those learning in online environments, moving them to continue their studies even when the going gets tough. Before You Enroll A little preparation can go a long way. Weigh your options. As an Active Student
Blooming Orange: Bloom's Taxonomy Helpful Verbs Poster Here’s another poster to help get you thinking about how you can apply Bloom’s higher-order thinking skills with your children. This poster shows the segments of an orange with each segment relating to a thinking skill and some helpful verbs to serve as prompts. While there are many more verbs that we could have added, we felt that including just seven in each segment would make them easier to remember (For more information, see Miller’s paper “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.” We thought it would be interesting to depict the verbs in a circular form as opposed to a hierarchical list, given that these skills don’t often occur in isolation and are interconnected. For those of you who prefer it, we’ve also created a grayscale version of the poster. Let us know what you think – you know we’re always listening! Download the pdf’s here:
Learning Styles by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director What are Learning Styles? | Caution! | Why Are They So Popular? | Now What? What are Learning Styles? The term learning styles is widely used to describe how learners gather, sift through, interpret, organize, come to conclusions about, and “store” information for further use. There are well over 70 different learning styles schemes (Coffield, 2004), most of which are supported by “a thriving industry devoted to publishing learning-styles tests and guidebooks” and “professional development workshops for teachers and educators” (Pashler, et al., 2009, p. 105). Despite the variation in categories, the fundamental idea behind learning styles is the same: that each of us has a specific learning style (sometimes called a “preference”), and we learn best when information is presented to us in this style. Caution! Why Are They So Popular? There may be another reason why this approach to learning styles is so widely accepted. Now What? References
8 Wonderful Blooms Taxonomy Posters for Teachers Today's selection features some of the most popular Blooms Taxonomy visuals I have shared this year. None of these visuals is my own creation so make sure you contact their own owners for re-use. Enjoy 1- Bloom's Revised Taxonomy of Learning from Anethicalisland 2- This one is from iLearntechnology 4- Another Bloom's Taxonomy wheel but this time from Electric Educator 5- This one here is from iLearntechnology 6- Another beautiful visual from iLearntechnology 7- Another one from iLearntechnology Characteristics of Online Learners | Technology Solutions for Teaching and Research According to the Sloan Consortium [14] They are older, continuing education, adult learners who want to learn at their own pace outside of the classroom.They are students with families who have to balance their education with their responsibilities to spouses and/or children.They are students with learning or physical disabilities who find greater access with online learning.They are students with greater concerns for earnings and who are furthering their education in hopes of immediate payback.They are students who are employed and have limited time to study and need the flexibility of online learning.They are students who have not had success in face-to-face learning environments. To support this, of the almost 4000 respondents to the 2006 National Survey of Student Engagement [15] who identified themselves as distance learners: This is in contrast to the more homogenous groups of students that you will find in a campus classroom. Student Perspective Why do students take online courses?
249 Bloom's Taxonomy Verbs For Critical Thinking 100+ Bloom’s Taxonomy Verbs For Critical Thinking by TeachThought Staff Ed note: This post was first published in 2013 and updated in December of 2019 Bloom’s Taxonomy’s verbs–also know as power verbs or thinking verbs–are extraordinarily powerful instructional planning tools. In fact, in addition to concepts like backward-design and power standards, they are one of the most useful tools a teacher-as-learning-designer has access to. Why? They can be used for curriculum mapping, assessment design, lesson planning, personalizing and differentiating learning, and almost any other ‘thing’ a teacher–or student–has to do. For example, if a standard asks students to infer and demonstrate an author’s position using evidence from the text, there’s a lot built into that kind of task. Though the chart below reads left to right, it’s ideal to imagine it as a kind of incline, with Knowledge at the bottom, and Create at the top. 100+ Bloom’s Taxonomy Verbs For Critical Thinking
Learning Styles - Learning skills from MindTools Understanding Learning Preferences Identifying your preferred style of learning can make gaining new knowledge and skills easier. Have you ever tried to learn something fairly simple, yet failed to grasp the key ideas? Or tried to teach people and found that some were overwhelmed or confused by something quite basic? If so, you may have experienced a clash of learning styles: your learning preferences and those of your instructor or audience may not have been aligned. When this occurs, not only is it frustrating for everyone, the communication process breaks down and learning fails. Once you know your own natural learning preference, you can work on expanding the way you learn, so that you can learn in other ways, not just in your preferred style. And, by understanding learning styles, you can learn to create an environment in which everyone can learn from you, not just those who use your preferred style. The Index of Learning Styles™ You can see these in figure 1, below. Balance is key. Tip:
What Is Bloom's Taxonomy? A Definition For Teachers - by TeachThought Staff In one sentence, Bloom’s Taxonomy is a hierarchical ordering of cognitive skills that can, among countless other uses, help teachers teach and students learn. For example, Bloom’s Taxonomy can be used to: create assessments plan lessons (see 249 Bloom’s Taxonomy Verbs For Critical Thinking) evaluate the complexity of assignments design curriculum maps develop online courses plan project-based learning self-assessment more See How To Teach With Bloom’s Taxonomy for more reading. A Brief History Of Bloom’s Taxonomy Revisions Bloom’s Taxonomy was created by Benjamin Bloom in 1956, published as a kind of classification of learning outcomes and objectives that have, in the more than half-century since, been used for everything from framing digital tasks and evaluating apps to writing questions and assessments. The original sequence of cognitive skills was Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. How Bloom’s Taxonomy Is Useful For Teachers 1. 2. 3.
The Other 21st Century Skills: Educator Self-Assessment Chartkamp–I think I understand what you are saying, but in any scenario, someone, or something will spur the impetus for learning to occur. We could have a toddler go about and learn the world from scratch, but I don’t think anyone would say that is as efficient and as effective as a “parent” facilitating, or at least providing for a safe environment. And the better the parent, the more effective the toddler will be at contributing to the learning within the community as he/she progresses. Can you describe what you mean by informal learning? A Very Good Checklist for Assessing 21st Century Learning Skills January 29, 2015 Here is another great resource from Dr. Jackie Gerstein, one of our favourite EdTech bloggers. Jackie designed this beautiful chart featuring 12 attributes and skills that teachers should tend to in their instruction. You can use it as a self-assessment checklist to help you evaluate your teaching practice. What I like the most about this chart is the fact that it emphasizes the social and affective component in learning, something which is often overlooked in today’s digitally-focused learning paradigms. Jackie's set of attributes featured in this chart chime in with Giroux's view of education as a way of producing citizens who are 'critical, self-reflective, knowledgeable and willing to make moral judgements and act in a socially responsible way.' Check out Jackie's original post to access more resources and links accompanied with this chart.
SAMR is not a ladder, a word of warning Published on May 26th, 2015 | by Mark Anderson I’m as guilty as the next person for singing the praises of Puentedura’s SAMR model. I’ve blogged about it many many times, it’s included in my book ‘Perfect ICT Every Lesson’ too. The problem for me is, like any tool, technology is only as good as the person using it. The trick is, technology use is at its best when it is purposeful. App smashing is a great way to help young people hit redefinition in the work that they create. I’m not the only one who is saying this. Miguel Guhlin compiles a number of these ‘anti-SAMR’ posts together in his post, “Tearing Down False gods: SAMR Pushback Begins” and it is a good read. I do think that SAMR has its place. Tags: #iPad, #samr, #teaching, blooms, learning, sharing, taxonomy, vygotsky About the Author