final paper

This course has been a learning experience for me. I have always tried hard to be a high achiever in my classes, however, I cannot fight technical problems and I ran into some material I did not understand. After hiring a tutor and UAB finally repaired the technical problems, so eventually, we were moving forward.
I am not really a fan of this type of class. I am a much better student with face-to-face discussions with people and it was difficult for me to adapt to on-line, delayed response type back and forth. I am not convinced that the discussion based program helped me learn. I am not opposed to other students critiquing my work, however, I am not in favor of changing my lesson plans just because someone else says to. All classrooms are different, and my subject matter is different from any other.
I learned much about technology, however. I learned much about Microsoft Publisher and am convinced I will find it a valuable tool for my classroom. I can see application for the newsletter formats for communicating with parents, clubs, rubrics, new assignments, fun activities, and starting a new grading period with announcements. I loved learning about moving things around, changing backgrounds, making things move and using vivid colors for adding interest.
I learned much about using WebQuest type assignments. I love this format. I have already digitized my cookbook for my classroom using this program and have wanted to do this for years. This application of Microsoft Publisher showed me how to make this a reality. My students and their parents are always after me for recipes, and this will be integrated onto the school’s website and distributed to my students on cd’s. I am so excited that I finally found a way to do this because printing has become so expensive for my school.
I also see applications for WebQuests in my classroom curricula for concepts which involve research, can be formulated into a brochure, newsletter, powerpoint presentation or other student product. I think this will enliven my curricula immensely and help my students see the real-world applications of what we learn here. This will include nutrition, consumer education, parenting, and fashion design. I will work hard to set these up so they are ready when we get to that stage of the syllabus.
I also learned that my class is ideally done through the Social Constructivist method of teaching. My students love to explore foods, parenting, fashion design and consumer economics on their own and without spending days in the textbooks. I am working on developing the student centered, teacher enabling type of classroom and learned much about how the research indicates this is best accomplished. My education department at the State level has been promoting project-based learning for many years, and this course has made that real for me, and has given me the tools I need to make that happen.
I learned that behaviorist and cognitivist type classrooms are the types of classrooms we have had for years, are ineffective in the long term, and do not encourage students to stay in school. The state of the art in education is social constructivist classrooms where the students are exploring and taking responsibility for their own learning, and working effectively and cooperatively within their groups. This is the model that is being used in the major companies such as Boeing, Intergraph and Nasa. Our students need to learn to do this well to strive in today’s workplace.

Constructivism

I have learned so much from this segment of this course. I learned that I strive for the constructivist style of teaching in my classroom - one where the student is searching for knowledge and in charge of learning, and the teacher is the facilitator. I learned about making newsletters in Microsoft Publisher - I love this program - and these newsletters will come in so handy for so many facets of running a high school classroom. I learned about making a webpage and have already begun creating a webpage which is my classroom cookbook. I have been promising for semesters that I would find a way to digitize my cookbook and this is it!! I have explored some ways of leading (or pushing) students through otherwise dry material in my classroom in a more exciting and energizing way. I think they are going to love exploring these new assignments, webquests, newsletters and rubrics. I think they will begin to think of my classroom classwork as fun and not just a way to fill time between cooking labs!!