Week 3 May 26

The past few weeks I have been spending a lot of my time reading the reflections of first year teachers regarding their first year of teaching. So this week as I try to define learning I am gearing more of my definition to the reflective part of learning that comes after you have completed a task and are then looking back upon it and determining what it was you learned, what that task taught you, and now that you have achieved it what are you going to differently, if anything next time you need to accomplish a similar task. So much of our everyday learning happens this way, but we fail to learn from it by reflecting in this manner.
I have learned so much about the new teachers in my district by reading their reflections and I think this type of learning can be effectuated by having new teachers in the future read some of these papers before their first year begins, or even having some of them come back to the first new teacher training and have them hear first hand from second year teachers what was really important to them as they look back at their first year.
So in a nutshell, learning can be more profound and have an influence if we, as the learner, can look back on an experience and really analyze what it was we are walking away from the experience with and what we are going to do with that new found knowledge.

Week 1 May 11

I did post last week, but I posted as a comment under my getting started post. I am still pretty new at this, but this is a repeat of what I posted there.

Learning to me is to gain knowledge about something or of a skill through study, experience or being taught. This learning can be put into force by a teacher/trainer in a variety of ways depending upon the choice of delivery. If a teacher is keeping the following 5 things in mind, I believe that learning will take place.
1. Engage all learners
2. Be Professional
3. Evaluate and Assess formatively
4. Create a positive environment
5. Plan curriculum that will benefit all students.
Let me know what you think about these 5 areas.

Week 2 May 18

My thoughts this week about learning have grown based on reading for this class and readings from our other classes. This week my mind seems to be moving toward a more simple approach to defining learning. In the book "Disrupting Class" (2008) the authors discuss in the introduction about all the different possible reasons why U.S. public schools are not improving at a quicker rate. Who is to blame???? So this week I am thinking about learning more in regards to multiple intelligences. We all have different ways of learning. For example myself, I am more Interpersonal and Bodily kinesthetic. So I think that I tend to teach to those two intelligences more than others. To help effectuate this research I think that I need to focus next year on incorporating the other intelligences in my curriculum to get more students involved.
So in a nutshell Learning to me is individual specific!!!!!

Getting Started

This blog will focus on two questions, which are; "What is learning?" and How can learning be best effectuated by a teacher/trainer?"
I am excited for this blog and hope you feel like you can add to the information gathered here.