Baggio - The Visual Connection
My biggest take-away from the Baggio text is the idea presented in chapter 11 that your learner must always come first; even before your own desires, ideas and even content; the learner is the priority. As teachers we often think that the goal of our profession is to impart understanding of our particular content area. We worked for countless years to attain a level of mastery in our field so when we get into the classroom it is natural for us to believe we are the most important delivery system for information. Baggio argues, understanding the needs of the learner and putting those needs before our own is the only way for learning to take place. Knowing our audience and following the visual guidelines, like CRAP, that are outlined in The visual Connection helps to reduce the cognitive load that our students are suffering and facilitate the processing of information through working memory, into long term memory. It is paramount for instructors to build an idea of our students needs, truly viewing them as the end user for any instruction material that we create, so that we can effectively structure their learning experience to aid in long term memory transfer. Clark - How to teach processes The Clark chapter that is most relevant to my DQ and, in general, where I am in my instructional practice is chapter 6. This chapter explains that process is a more meaningful application of procedure and when learners understand procedure and the systems under which that procedure operates, they can access process. Clark also explains “remember” and “application” levels of learning in this chapter. My DQ is concerned with reducing a students cognitive load by increasing the preparation they receive before coming to class, using a blended learning model. I noticed that many of my students were not able to access process or application level learning because they were not able to move information past working memory. I believe this is because they were not practicing enough with the content and procedure I was teaching via homework. In class, their cognitive processing ability was too low because they were still struggling to understand procedure. By using a blended learning model I am hoping that I can engage students with tutorials and instruction that focuses on procedure, at home, so that they are more able to build process understanding in the classroom through direct instruction, focused note taking and repetition. The SITE model and how it applies to me and my students The SITE model is a framework for determining how appropriate something is for the audience that it is intended for. In every step of the design process of my DQ and instructional elements related to my DQ I must always consider the end user and their needs. My students must benefit from any instructional tool I create so I have to constantly weigh the effectiveness of my tools based on its ability to be used by my students with ease. As a masters candidate my research will add to the existing body of knowledge for cognitive processing, math anxiety and the use of a blended classroom model. Eventually my peers in academia may use my research to springboard from and the SITE model provides an organizational framework that ensures effective communication of information.
4 Comments
Jona Sandau
3/30/2019 01:45:24 pm
Brandon, your thoughts are always so helpful to me in looking at the bigger picture. As someone who often gets lost in fine details, I really appreciate your "zoomed out" perspective. Your comments about Baggio especially were inspiring. I love that your take away is that regardless of how we feel about anything, the learner's perspective is paramount if our goal is for them to receive the information. Your work will most definitely benefit not only your students, but any who follow you!
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Caitlin Mitchell
3/31/2019 09:38:11 am
Having the end user in mind is very important. What is hard about it for me is that there are so many end users to keep in mind. Different things motivate them, they have different interests, they have different strengths...I guess I am finding it challenging to encompass all of my learners wants and needs with one technique.
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Monica Knecht
3/31/2019 10:37:00 pm
Yes!!! There are so many needs and no two students are the same. I have been experimenting with some forced choice forms for 3-5th graders. I wonder if it could be used for 1st? I read them to my kiddos anyways to connect with them. I was thinking about taking it and putting it into a Google Form to give it to all students and see how they fair. Let's chat about it when we do our book talk meet.
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Monica Knecht
3/31/2019 10:41:05 pm
Brandon, I couldn't agree more about how important it is to know your audience. What I love most about teaching is figuring out the connection with the student, their motivation and what makes their working memory store to long term memory. I have figured out thus far that talking doesn't teach...experiences teach. Experiences are the memories that make lasting impressions to long term memories. All of my most valuable memories come from my senses and feelings of emotion. How do I get them to do that within the walls of a classroom?
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