The summer time provides us teachers with a beautiful eight weeks of relaxation, rest, and hopefully for most, a little reflection. So far, I've gotten in a little bit of all of those-- sleeping in, exploring my hometown, and trying new recipes. I've also been working on spending some time reflecting on how my school year went (I had some very unique challenges with student behavior this past year), and how I can structure my resources and classroom to be more effective and efficient at motivating good behavior. One of the things I've been reflecting on this summer is the idea of using more educational technology to help reinforce good behaviors in class.
I read a couple chapters recently in a book called "Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works" (Pitler, Hubbell, & Kuhn, 2012), which I would highly recommend for any teacher looking for some fresh ideas for technology integration. The two chapters that caught my eye were about using technology to reinforce and motivate good behavior, and also about how to use technology as a way to provide practice opportunities to students.
One idea from "Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works" that I am excited to try is to post exemplary student work to a classroom website or blog for peer review and acclaim (Pitler et al., 2012). I can see this providing some very needed recognition for my students who work very hard but still may not achieve at the same standards as their peers. I also thought an idea the authors shared of using voiced messages to send to students as another way to provide instant recognition was very powerful. Both of these ideas would provide powerful reinforcement to students, which fits very well into behaviorist theory (Laureate Education Inc., 2011).
Another idea provided by this book was to use technology to provide practice and reinforcement of learned concepts (Pitler et al., 2012). I have been using this a little bit in my classroom to teach math facts, as provided by this amazing website called XtraMath (2013). It allows me to set up a classroom full of my students, and then tracks their progress on addition/subtraction/multiplication/division facts mastery. I assigned my students to do this practice (it takes about 5-8 minutes) at least three times a week, either at school during extra time or at home if they did not get enough time to finish at school. The website emailed me each time a student passed a group of facts (addition, for example), and then also emailed me a link to print off a certificate with each student's name on it, which I printed and displayed in the classroom. I was surprised at how motivated some of my students were to achieve these math facts so that they could see their certificate put up on the bulletin board.
It may be summer, but school is on its way-- after reading this book and learning about some more ideas for using technology to reinforce and motivate good behavior, I feel more ready than ever to tackle a great new school year. What about you-- what types of technology have you used to track/motivate/reinforce/provide practice?
References:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Program four: Behaviorist
learning theory [Video webcast]. Bridging
learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E. R., & Kuhn, M. (2012). Using technology with classroom instruction that works (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCDXtraMath. (2013). Xtramath. Retrieved from https://www.xtramath.org/
I agree that it is always a good idea to post the work of any student who follows the procedures well and demonstrates proficient work. Posting their work on the internet to allow review and feedback from an authentic audience is a great idea. I usually post the students work in the classroom and in the halls of the English department. I feel that this motivates all students to do well and allows for meaningful feedback from peers and other teachers. However, it would also be very meaningful to students to receive feedback from a potential world audience, especially when compared to receiving feedback from the instructor alone.
ReplyDeleteUsing audio or even video technology to provide students with feedback would be much more engaging for students than reading the feedback on their completed assignments. Pitler, Hubbell, & Kuhn (2012) have suggested that hearing the enthusiasm in the instructor’s voice in an audio recording can be an exciting and memorable experience for students. I also agree with you that technology is great for practicing skills and understandings.
I think that it is great that you are assigning homework to your students to frequently practice their math skills and understandings. Anderson, Newell, & Rosenbloom have asserted that when learning a new skill, “students need to practice upwards of nearly 24 times before they can reach 80 percent competencies” (as cited in Pitler, Hubbell, & Kuhn, 2012, p.168). It is much more engaging to practice skills on instructional interactive programs than it is to practice with paper and pencil. With instructional interactive programs there is often guided practice and immediate feedback. Additionally, Pitler, Hubbell, & Kuhn (2012) have found that instructional interactive programs allow students the opportunity to have fun when practicing new skills and understandings.
Aside from the everyday in class review, at the end of every unit my Thai students engage in instructional interactive programs. There are numerous activities on these programs such as word and picture games, karaoke, and movies that help students practice their reading, listening, speaking, and writing English language skills. It would be nice if my students could engage in these programs in a one-to-one situation. However, there are currently very few computers to use in the classroom. Therefore, I have the students participate in these programs through collaborative activities, using behavior management techniques to allow well behaved students to interact with the program when required.
Although the instructional interactive program is used in class as a review, the students very much enjoy engaging in the motivating and positively reinforcing activities. Other technologies that I use to provide students with language practice are audio recordings and movies. The students very much enjoy seeing or hearing themselves on a digital recording. I believe this also helps them to take note of their strengths and weaknesses when reviewing these recordings in class. We also use an interactive device called Mimio, which allows students to interact with computer programs on the whiteboard, in a similar fashion as a Smart board.
Technology is very motivating and meaningful for all students. It can be a very useful tool for tracking the progress of students, motivating students to learn, providing practice, and reinforcing their efforts. Regardless of the instructional strategy being employed, technology interfaces allow an ease of access to meet the leaning needs of all students, and help to engage students in building the essential skills and knowledge they will need to be successful throughout life.
References
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E. R., & Kuhn, M. (2012). Using technology with classroom instruction that works (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Hi Sarah
DeleteYou mentioned that you printed off a certificate with each student's name on it, and displayed in the classroom. You were surprised at how motivated some of your students were to achieve these math facts so that they could see their certificate put up on the bulletin board. I think that this is another great example of how powerful positive reinforcement can be. I have a similar math computer program I use that is game based learning; designed to help my students master their basic addition and subtraction facts. I wonder if my program provides the same type of recognition, so I can also provide this for my students. If not, then maybe it is time for me to consider another great math opportunity or website such as Xtramath.
Thank You for sharing,
Val
Hi Sarah
DeleteYou mentioned that you printed off a certificate with each student's name on it, and displayed in the classroom. You were surprised at how motivated some of your students were to achieve these math facts so that they could see their certificate put up on the bulletin board. I think that this is another great example of how powerful positive reinforcement can be. I have a similar math computer program I use that is game based learning; designed to help my students master their basic addition and subtraction facts. I wonder if my program provides the same type of recognition, so I can also provide this for my students. If not, then maybe it is time for me to consider another great math opportunity or website such as Xtramath.
Thank You for sharing,
Val
Sarah,
ReplyDeleteThis week I talked about using Evernote as a student portfolio. You may look into this for your idea of posting exemplary student work. I did a Google search for "evernote student portfolio" and there are a lot of results with tutorials on how to accomplish this. I also am interested in the math website you mentioned. The beautiful thing about technology is that it makes it so easy to track student progress which in turn makes it easy to reward and recognize them. All the work is practically done for us as teachers, when the program tracks the data for us, and even goes as far as to generate certificates like the one you mentioned. Thanks for sharing!
Sarah, I like your idea of using the math website Xtramath(2013)for additional practice. I feel I will need to look into this even for some of my high school students but have it be outside of class time practice because many high school students are forgetting how to add, subtract, multiple fractions or even multiply or add integers. I will have to check it out for sure. I also liked the fact that you are using concrete rewards as Pitler, Hubbell and Kuhn suggest (2012 )for students showing mastery by posting student certificates and giving meaning to the assignment. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete~Nicole Anglis
References
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E. R., & Kuhn, M. (2012). Using technology with classroom instruction that works (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
XtraMath. (2013). Xtramath. Retrieved from https://www.xtramath.org/