5364 Week Four Reading Review

The reading in the Pitler (2007) book focused on the use of cooperative learning to help students gain and construct new knowledge through working in groups. Some things to remember when placing students in groups is to avoid homogeneous grouping, keep the groups small and varied, and that group work should not be overused. When a teacher creates formal groups for a project, five important components should be included in the assignments.

Pitler, et. al. (2007) write,
1. Positive interdependence (sink or swim together)
2. Face-to-face, promotive interaction (Helping each other to learn, applauding efforts and success)
3. Individual and group accountability (each of us has to contribute to the group achieving its goal)
4. Interpersonal and small-group skills (communication, trust, leadership, decision-making, conflict resolution)
5. Group processing (reflecting on how well the team is functioning and how to function even better) (p. 140)

Cooperative learning requires detailed rubrics for students to follow for both the final product and the different roles students will play in the multimedia production. In addition, access to online sources greatly enhances the learning process (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski, 2007, p. 143).

In Chapter 7 of Rose and Meyer’s online UDL book, the authors state, “the precision and accuracy of an assessment tool is reliable only to the extent that extraneous factors are removed from the equation” (Barriers to Accurate Assessment, para. 4). Their research has shown that four factors greatly affect the value of student assessments. These are: individual learning differences, media differences, missing supports, and evaluations that are detached from the curriculum. To increase the accuracy of student testing, the UDL approach (Rose and Meyer, 2002) believe that “technology enables teachers to provide multiple representations of content in the context of ongoing assessment” (Increasing Assessment Accuracy, para. 2).

In the fifth chapter of Solomon and Schrum’s text, Web 2.0 Tools: New Tools, New Schools (2007), the authors discuss what effective technology focused professional development should entail. Many schools provide the four-hour session crammed with new information and do not provide the teacher the ability to utilize the newly gained knowledge in a monitored and supported environment. This approach leaves teachers to take what they have learned and venture out on their own to implement the ideas. (Solomon & Schrum, 2007, pp. 100-101)

The newest idea to support the integration of technology into the classroom is communities of practice. A learning community is where “there is a culture of learning in which everyone is involved in a collective effort of understanding” (Solomon & Schrum, 2007, p. 104). Four distinctive qualities of this learning community should be “diversity”, “shared objective”, “emphasis on learning how to learn”, and “mechanisms for sharing” (Solomon & Schrum, 2007, p. 104).

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Rose, D., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Retrieved February 28, 2011 from http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/

Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0: new tools, new schools. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

ISTE Standards: II.A., II.B., II.E., III.A., III.B., III.C., III.D., III.E., IV.A., V.B., V.C., V.D., VI.B., and VIII.A.
ELCC Standards: 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3
TExES: Competency 2, 5 and 6