Chapters 8 and 9 - How People Learn

1. In chapter 8, we learn that teachers should try to make their learning environment as enriched as possible and to constantly reevaluate their lessons. It is very important that teachers constantly stay in tune to what is new, and to not only learn new ideas from other teachers, but also to learn from their students. Find out what students want to know and what students are interested in; this will make learning more appealing to everyone. This chapter leads to Chapter 9, which discusses technology. Technology is ever-changing, and it is most important for teachers to stay on top of those changes and to incorporate technology instruments into their learning environments, not only to use, but also to have students use so they can be prepared to be lifelong learners as well. Chapter 9 had many different technology ideas and software programs which could be incorporated into a curriculum that would enable cognitive thinking skills. Technology involves many of the cognitive skills we learned in previous chapters, where there is hands-on, real-life learning experiences and top-down/bottom-up processing skills. Reading and writing are both utilized, while working memory and long-term memory are improved.

2. Something I really am not familiar with in Chapter 9 are some of the new programs that were discussed. It makes me want to find out more about Face Book, Twitter, and some of the other interesting software programs and websites available.

3. Something I would like to do to utilize this information with my classroom is to take them to the computer lab and have them do research on any new technology and web learning devices that they could teach me and the rest of the class so that we can all be up-to-date on new information and resources. This would create a collaborative working environment where we can all learn from each other.