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Module Response: Cognitivism

Question: How could software applications and/or other technologies help you provide opportunities for your students to access their prior knowledge and better organize new information? That is, describe a lesson for which you might use technology to help with organization and describe the technology(ies) you might use.

Response: According to the cognitive views of learning, the learners learn best when new information is linked to prior knowledge and put into an organized storage in the long-term memory for future revival. In social studies, there is a lot of information that seems abstract to students because its difficult for young people to truly imagine life, situations, decisions, debates, reasonings and circumstances outside of their own world - heck, I don't even think they fully understand even that! For example, its hard for the students to imagine why colonial women would wear uncomfortable corsets and burdensome wigs as symbols of wealth - no matter how many times I explained that it was a sign of beauty and indication of socio-economic class, they respond with: "... but that's just ugly and its so stupid to put yourself in so much pain!" Fortunately, history is filled with predicable patterns and themes! Therefore, its easy to find present day scenarios that are already in the students' prior knowledge and make the connection to historical concepts - thus providing a better system of organization for future retrieval of information.

Technology can definitely help learners organize new information by tapping into familiar prior knowledge. Referring back to the colonial gentry wardrobe example - a software can be designed to ask modern & age-specific questions that would trigger a natural response... like "what clothings are uncomfortable?" - this question is easy for students of all ages to answer. The follow-up question on the next screen could be "why do people wear them?" - which should also be easily answered. These two trigger questions will help the students understand the seemingly unreasonable choice of clothing for colonial women would be less foreign. Where does technology come in? Well, students would probably respond well to games - so if a software program organize information thematically into parallel flow charts and invite students to try the modern scenario first (high heels --> uncomfortable --> but it looks good) and right under this chart students can organize the new information in familiar flow chart (corset --> uncomfortable --> but it shows off wealth). This flow chart can link so many repeated themes throughout so many different time periods in history - matching cause and effect, action and reaction, long-term cause and short term cause/effects, conflict and resolution, etc. History often seems daunting to young people because they think it has nothing to do with them today... but software programs can teach them how to learn and organize historical information in the same format as their understanding of their own world.

Module Response: Constructivism

QUESTION: Constructivist learning environments focus on giving students authentic, real-world, ill-structured problems to solve. What methods (based on your readings) could you as a teacher use (with or without technology to support you) to facilitate this process? That is, how would you provide scaffolding for students in a given environment (you might want to use a specific lesson/learning environment as a way to discuss scaffolds).

RESPONSE: In order to create a constructivist learning environment, students must have the prior knowledge to be able to approach an ill-structured problem. For instance, a broad 7th grade American History topic would be the American Revolution. If the students are expected to study the contribution of Revolutionary heroes, the ill-structured question would probably be - "Which Revolutionary figure do you think is the most under appreciated in American history?" Students in the class must first study the basic storyline of the American Revolution in order to scaffold their knowledge base. Perhaps a biographical research project would introduce the concept of different types of contribution of individuals to a specific cause such as independence. For example, Thomas Jefferson's eloquent composition skills used in the writing of the Declaration of Independence or Nathan Hale's risky spying on the British that resulted in the lose of his life, etc. From studying the renown historical characters, students will learn to identify various forms of contribution and its significance in the context of a historical event. In addition, to further scaffold students' prior knowledge, they can pick the top contributors into an imaginary Revolutionary Hall of Fame - this activity would give the students practice in evaluating different actions of historic figures and ranking their importance. Hopefully, these basic skills would provide enough building block and scaffolding when students approach the problem of finding an under-appreciated hero or heroine of the American Revolution. Lastly, it would be intrinsically motivated because in order to pick the best candidate, students will want to get as much information as possible on different characters in order to make a clever choice.

Global Community - The Show Me Campaign

John Legend is one of my favorite musicians - he's a talented pianist, songwriter, singer and so much more. John Legend, having been inpsired by Jeffrey D. Sach's book The End of Poverty, is launching the Show Me Campaign to "fight economic and spiritual poverty" around the world.

In a way, we all have been desensitized to the sufferings all around us - living in such the global community, somehow we have become extremely selfish and have chosen to turn our eyes and pretend that poverty doesn't exist. I appreciated John Legend's speech in the video clip below - many celebrities are using their fame to ignite awareness, which is the first step in bringing solution to global concerns. I respect John Legend and others like him who are committed to embark on this difficult but honorable journey - to make the world a better place.

Cynically Confused Constructivist

At the hearing of the word "constructivism", I cringed and began having nightmare flashbacks of educational theory classes back in graduate school. I have never been a fan of educational theory because every theory sounds too perfect – with captivating phrases like “authentic exploration”, “intrinsically motivating”, “dynamic collaboration” or “meaningful reflection”… what on earth does it all mean, realistically? And if it's so great, why didn't we make a nation wide announcement and get started on changing the system?

Ultimately, I became so confused from trying to remember which theory was based on exploration and which concept explored reflection and which model reflected on collaboration! So to be perfectly honest, I am mildly allergic to the scholarly-sounding lingo used by educational theorists and secretly looked for something that is both academic and realistic – a theory that takes into consideration the limited resources available in my classroom, the strengths and weaknesses of my students, the struggle for time to finish the curriculum, and the dreadful need to prepare students for standardized tests, etc.

However… putting aside all cynicism, I do recognize the need for educational theories (theorists). If we educators only focused on the problems we face from day to day in our classrooms, we will drown in despair and be consumed by the frog-in-the-well syndrome… no forward progress will ever be possible.

I’m not sure how I feel about the definition that knowledge is constructed and learning is created from experience from the overview reading. As much as we resist the concept, many things are black and white in school – the earth is slightly oval in shape, 2 + 2 = 4, George Washington was the first president of the United States, and libro means book in Spanish! These are the basic objective knowledge that a student would need in order for any sort of construction to begin – without the building blocks, how can there be any constructivism?

As I read on, I was very encouraged to see evidence to confirm my suspicion that "constructivism" is not the magic pill for learning - it cannot be used everywhere, every time. Being a 7th grade Social Studies teacher, I suddenly realized why I am having so much trouble accepting the whole concept of an ill-structured & open ended problem... "[Constructivist environment] is typically not very useful when learning introductory knowlege (facts, concepts) of a discipline. It is also not very useful in environments where learners are novices" - there lies my problem, my darling 7th graders are relatively clueless when it comes to basic facts and very few of them can be thrown into an ill-structured problem without sinking. This was a personal breakthrough, it shattered my incorrect assumption that constructivists expects me to teach every lesson with an open-ended question and let my students "construct" the answer for themselves regardless of its accuracy.

Last but not least, I enjoyed listening to Roger Shank's introduction to his book Engines for Education. In this short but energetic audio clip introduction, Roger Shank called for an Education Revolution - immediately my eyes rolled back and thought to myself... here we go again - another hot shot trying to "revolutionize" education by bringing back something that didn't work 30 years ago with a new package wrapper or a different slogan. Once again, I fought hard against the cynic in me and allowed myself to imagine a school system that dares to break the lock step curriculum, in which every child is doing the same thing on the same page in the same day - the possibility was surprisingly refreshing and would inspire even the most jaded educator amongst us.

Shank is right, it would be wonderful to create a fun and exciting learning environment in which students couldn't wait to go to school and learn for the sake of learning. On the other hand, all my previous mentors are right too... "not every day can be a song and a dance - sometimes the kids need to use the textbook and answer the questions on a worksheet" - can there be a balance between the two?

Grouchy GNN

The world of journalism is tough...

Crashing Classroom 2.0

Trying out another Web 2.0 tool at Classroom 2.0 - I was told that this is an educator-networking, blog-posting, world-wide-reaching, technologically-collaborating website... and yes, you'll need to create another account - but if you're in T.E.A.M. - just pick one of the many usernames & passwords that you've been using for the other zillion accounts we've opened since day one! I'm also attempting to "embed" a code for the first time... if it works and you see a button above, come and be my friend on Classroom 2.0!

Making iMovies

Having enough trouble operating a DVD drive on a regular basis, I would have never imagined that I would ever attempt at making a movie on my computer.... but today, the impossibility became a reality! At the butt crack of dawn, we met Christina & David at the C.W. Post Library for the MovieMaker / iMovie workshop. I was definitely relieved to hear that the workshop was designed for beginners. The instructors gave a great introduction to equipment pieces (camera, tripod, firewire, etc.), different shots and angles - nice, simple, to-the-point and most importantly, understandable!

Then we were informed that the session was to be split between pc users and mac users (bummer!), but I guess it will allow easier instruction. We first formed groups and went out to get video footage around campus - our group found some nice flowers, climbed a tree, stalked a father playing football with his son on the lawn... overall, good times!

Christina was the mac instructor and she was wonderful! Being a pc user herself, having spent very little time with a mac, and learning everything via the apple tutorial... Christina was an amazing instructor! Today I saw real collaboration at work. Although the "instructor" was not an expert on the iMovie software, she facilitated an atmosphere in which all the participants were learning from each other. We soon realize that there were several versions of iMovie in the room and it was simply impossible to give a traditional how-to lecture... instead, we experimented and was successful doing so.

Personally, I'm pretty bummed about having the iMovie '08 because it actually has less special effects built into the program when compared with the '06 version of the software - which we all thought was a bit strange. Granted the layout and workspace of the two versions were different, the '08 was clearly missing many of the editing features... unless it's strategically hidden somewhere just to piss us off! So, if you have any idea where to find the special effects on the iMovie '08, please let me know!

Anchor Addiction

I can't explain it... but somehow I find intellectual news anchors to be extremely attractive - go figure!

My first and foremost obsession is with CNN's 360 anchor Anderson Cooper - his witty humor and intellectual charm makes watching news a mesmerizing experience. Even before his renown coverage of hurricane Katrina, I was in love with Anderson Cooper's overall persona. Anderson Cooper's stories always conveyed an indescribable sincerity amidst every mind-boggling controversy or heart-breaking circumstance. As lame as it sounds, I feel like a better person whenever I watch Anderson Cooper anchor his nightly show, or read his news blog online - he seem to have a genuine zeal in pursuing justice in the world and his passion is contagious! Believe it or not, I've emailed him and invited him to speak to my students about journalism because the story of how he got started in the field is really inspirational - unfortunately for me, his busy schedule would not allow him to hang out with middle schoolers for a day... sigh, I guess I will continue to admire from afar!


As of late, I've been awestruck by another brilliant man in the news - Brian Williams, the anchor of NBC's Nightly News. Perhaps its the soothing sound of his voice or the deeply thoughtful and warm expression of his face... I find Brian Williams to be extremely attractive. In May, I was honored to attend a luncheon hosted by the Foreign Policy Association in Manhattan with a distinguished panel of journalists - Brian Williams, Andrea Mitchell and David Gregory. Although I probably did not grasp everything that was said about the world situation by the panelists, I felt smarter just simply being in their presence! Recently, there's also an interesting Brian Williams pop quiz interview article posted on George Lucus Educational Foundation website in which he commented on his view of education.



Maybe this is just a mid life infatuation, a passing obsession... whatever it may be, the combination of intellectuality and wit is amazingly addicting!

International Day of Peace

Every year on Sept. 21st, nations around the world observe the International Day of Peace, established by the United Nations as a day of non-violence and a cessation of hostilities in order to promote peaceful conflict resolution. This year, through the help and contacts of my T.E.A.M. mentors, I was able to arrange for 115 of my 7th grade students from Herricks Middle School to participate in the UN's 10th annual student observance of the International Day of Peace at the organization's headquarter in Manhattan.

Following inspirational speeches by celebrity Messengers of Peace, such as Michael Douglas, Jane Goodall, Elie Weisel, and Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein of Jordan, we saw a live Q & A webcast interaction between youths of the United States at the UN headquarter, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Lebanon. This was a unique opportunity to hear directly from young people living in the midst of terrible conflicts and to exchange views on war, peace, and most importantly, hope.

At noon, the entire United Nations building observed a minute of silence to reflect on the meaning of world peace and the sacrifices, successes, and failures of efforts made towards achieving this ultimate goal. The assembly concluded with moving testimonies from a panel of youths who have stepped up to the challenges of a conflict-filled society and took action in hope to make a difference through publications, organizations, rallies, clubs, etc. Perhaps the most touching story was told by Anna, who was a teenager of only 15. Anna was originally adopted from Peru and upon a return visit to several orphanages in Peru, she was inspired to start start a non-profit organization called Peruvian Hearts to help bring help to meet the needs of the orphans. Anna's story was not only heart-warming but it stands as evidence that young people have the potential to make tremendous differences in the world.

I feel extremely thankful and honored to participate in such a fascinating experience and all the adults present shared my excitement and enthusiasm. Unfortunately, I realized that my students were too young and a bit immature to truly appreciate the program. I often forget that it is hard to engage/entertain teenagers! It is difficult for 11 year-old kids from Long Island suburbia to conceptualize the hardships in Lebanon, hunger in the Republic of the Congo or fear and terror in Sudan. In addition, most of the students at the assembly were either high schoolers or college students and their questions/comments were on a deeper intellectual level - a couple of steps above that of my students.

To make things more difficult for my students at the event, we were seated in the balcony due to our tardiness and it was impossible to hear what was going on down on the floor of the auditorium (especially when it comes to speakers with heavy accents). Eventually the kids stopped trying to listen and simply tuned out. I have to admit that it was extremely discouraging and disheartening to witness such inattentiveness among my students amidst such an extraordinary program... not to mention the fact that I worked so hard to get them reservations for this field trip and jumped through numerous administrative hoops to get them all there! I guess like everything else in the field of education, I cannot take it personally and simply hope that this experience planted a seed in the kids and will eventually blossom in time.

Inspired... I think?

What do I hope to learn from this T.E.A.M. program? Well, honestly I don't know anymore - before last week, I've simply wanted to be better at using the computer and learn some new tricks to keep my students entertained from time to time. After checking out one website after another, one blog site after another, one wiki after another, one video after another... I realized that my simple website through the Herricks School District is only a tiny step into the tremendous possibilities of technology usage in the world of education.

I am easily inspired and I am gifted with an uncontrollable imagination that gives me an instant picture of me doing the cool things I see others doing. So after watching the short video of Weblogs in Education from Will Richardson - I immediately pictured my students blogging about so many different assignments I give throughout the year... Native American cultures, European exploration, colonial America, Congressional debates, etc.

Then I quickly stopped myself - how on earth could this be done? I started to think about me - I have over 100 students in four different classes and I can hardly find the time to grade their homework on paper - how will I ever design something so involved and keep track of it all? I will be blind by the time I finish reading 100 blogs and my fingers will be numb before I finish commenting on them all.

Then I thought of my darling students... I can hardly get them to answer questions from the right pages in the textbook; I can hardly get them to follow direction to color a map correctly... it will take me years to explain wikis and blogs (of which I don't even have a full understanding myself)! I can only imagine the excuses they will think of if I replace assignments with blogging - "my Internet is down", "my computer has a virus", "my dad wouldn't let me use the computer last night", etc.

Then I thought of the parents... "my son is spending so much time online", "I don't want my daughter to stare at the screen for so long", "my child stayed up all night on the computer doing your assignment - there's too much bad things out there", etc. I can almost smell a lawsuit in the works!

After shaking myself of this crazy bundle of random thoughts (some more realistic than others) - I figured I should check out one more video - Telling the New Story from the classroom of Kathy Cassidy. After watching, I thought... if first graders can do it... why not my 7th graders?

I can definitely see the amazing possibilities of blogging as an educational tool - now I just need someone to hold my hand (not literally) and guide me through all my worries, my doubts, my fears. I need someone to be just as thoughtful about my concerns as I am and be the logical/practical voice of encouragement as I experiment. I do NOT need someone to tell me - "Just do it, its so easy!" Even Ms. Cassidy said, it's not easy - but being inspired... I can't wait to learn the ropes and give this my best shot and hopefully by the end of the school year my students will be blogging and learning - the right way, somehow!

Blog Birth

Today is the birth of my blog! I've never kept a journal online, always believing that personal thoughts are the few things in life we can truly keep to ourselves if we chose to. In this age of self display and free expression, a little mystery kept to yourself can be a refuge. In this digital world surrounded by computers, a hand written diary of your raw emotions, warped with teardrops, and hidden under your pillow is still something very precious....

With that said, I've finally been suckered into the system and now made a blogger! I do it for the sake of keeping up with the progression of mankind and getting a passing grade from my technology professors/mentors! I guess there's no harm in trying new things in life and in the words of the famous lotto slogan... "hey, you never know!"