Meaningful involvement of learners in my classroom.

Learners come into the classroom take out their books and the teacher starts to talk and the learners take down notes from the blackboard or slides. That is my perception on what is going on in today’s classrooms. There is no time for the learner to interact in the classroom as the teacher has little time to get his/her work done. Thus the teacher does not get to interact with the learners and get their feelings or opinions.

In my opinion this strategy is not a very good one I do believe that learners should have a voice in the classroom. Some of the concepts that I liked in the video was: teaches should be available and accessible. The learner should not feel  that he/she cannot go and talk to the teacher ,they should feel comfortable to do so. Empathy and understanding, if the teacher does not have these characteristics it would also make it difficult to open up to the teacher and there will be a lack of communication. Lastly positive home and school environment, the learner should feel positive in these two domains to bring out an effective learner.

To give the learners responsibility and a voice in the classroom makes them feel part of the classroom. Thus they will follow the rules of the classroom because they have set it themselves. In the blog Applying Mindfulness to Mundane Classroom Tasks it states that she asked the learners to write down their feelings. I thought this was a great idea to see what the learners where thinking and feeling. Therefore it is not mere her telling the learners what to do but getting their opinion to and making them feel important as they should be feeling. 

I do feel strongly that the learners in my classroom should have meaningful involvement in my classroom. The learners may give their opinion on certain matters in the classroom. For instance the class rules, I believe that the leaners should have a say in it. They could communicate if they feel that some rules are unfair and why it is so. Then we can work on it as a team, as I do see the classroom environment as a team working together. In giving them a voice I feel they will feel respected and valued and will adhere to the rules more easily as they helped to set up the rules.

Self directed distance learning

In the article I came across the part where Hamilton states that both teacher by definer roles, limited to be either bankers making knowledge deposits or empty bank vaults passively receiving those deposits. Thus teachers just giving information and the learners is just consuming the information, it sound almost like a robot in a way.

Fortunately, there is something called self directed distance learning. This learning approach involves various activities and resources such as self guided reading or participating in study groups. These tools promote critical thinking which is always a good concept in my mind.

Learners need to become more active in their learning, thus they would enjoy it more and they would be more interested in the subject. Self directed distance learning promotes the learners to be more active. The children can be more active in their subjects and develop ways for them to understand the subject. It is not just the teacher who gives the information the learner has the opertunity to engage with the material in such a way that they understand it, therefore making it easier for them to understand the work.

Teachers have a curriculum that they need to obey with. Most teachers follow the curriculum to the point but they do not consider that children learn in different ways. (some may say that there is not enough time to be creative with the work). Some children might struggle to understand the concepts but there is no other way for them to explore the concept because the teacher are following the curriculum and is only teaching it in one way, as the curriculum are stated.

Therefore I would say that the self directed distance learning would be an good concept because the learner can make the work more understandable for him or her.The learner can also interact with other learners to share ideas and to get ideas from each other.

Connect the classroom with the virtual world.

When people hear that learners is sitting with their phones in the classroom working on their devices the first thing that they would think is what is the learner learning in the classroom? As they state in the article the learners are busy on Facebook or Twitter. What is still unknown out there is that social media is connecting with the classroom. Social media has turned into a resource in the classroom. It is giving the shy introvert learner the chance to raise their voice and give their opinion. If they are shy and don’t want to engage in the classroom they can do so on social media. social media is seen as an  alternative way to communicate. In the articles I came across useful applications that I can use for my curriculum studies which is English and Life orientation.

One of the application they talked about in the article was Remind. I saw this app as an ideal tool to inform the learners about their homework or their prescribed readings that they have to do for English. 

This year I was introduced to  twitter I always  knew there was an app. Twitter but I did not know what it was used for or even how it worked until this year. It opened my eyes to see what I can do with it in my curriculum studies. With Twitter I can share some of the ideas that I get online directly onto twitter thus the learners can just follow the link to read up on a particular topic. The learners can engage with me with the work via twitter and ask questions using a hashtag therefore all of the students in the English class grade 9  for instance can see the questions and answers and it might help them as well.Twitter gives us a platform to interact with the work through the virtual world. 

Blog: One of my curriculum studies is Life Orientation and one of the outcomes is careers. The learners can use the blog to write about their experience as they do job shadowing or even if they have to do research about their career they can blog about it and people can give their input on the learners blog. The learners can connect their twitter account with the blog and interact with the virtual world. 

Therefore I would say it is a good concept to connect the classroom with the virtual world.