Digtial Blog Post J

Blog Post #J

Democratic schools and classrooms is the movement for democratic schools and classrooms to increase the involvement of students in educational decision-making and academic learning (Maloy et, al p.283). I feel as if this is a great way to engage the students into participating in decisions about the classroom activities, climate, and rules. As a student I feel like being involved is a way to spark up the interest of students. Critics of democratic classroom have dismissed the idea by suggesting that students will make silly, ill-informed, or self centered choices, if given the opportunity to do so (Maloy et, al p. 284). Giving students the opportunity to pick how they want to learn things is not exactly how critics suggest it will happen. A school might become a democratic school to infuse democratic values as well as use teacher practices to engage students by having them participate in everything that they are learning by selecting the little such as materials or reading topics.

Digital portfolios for students is a change from paper to digital form and also a change in how students exchange information about themselves and their learning. A digital portfolio contains the same thing as a paper portfolio but this increases the amount of people that are able to view your portfolio. For example, this blogpost is a like a digital portfolio of important concepts that I have came across reading every chapter. Although there are advantages and disadvantages to digital portfolios it is a new way to teaching in this technology era and being able to keep track of the most important work that we need to keep stored.

Reasons for teaching with clickers is something that was a new practice when I was graduating high school. I have gone back to school as an observant and I've had the chance to see teaching with clickers in use. Clickers are a way of active learning because all students get to give an answer without having to worry about others being right and you being wrong. This gives the teachers instant feedback to see what students need more help. The thing that I was most intrigued about was question centered instruction. In question centered instruction, students are given a challenging question and asked individually, in pairs, or in small groups to consider possible answers (Maloy et, al p.288).

Overall, this chapter has my mind full of ideas of what I can do in my own classroom. There are many challenges as a new teacher that make some students think about if they really want to go into the field but, this chapter is just proof that I have the right mindset I just have to overcome the challenges. Democratic schools and classrooms have the right idea in letting the students and teachers collaborate in certain things not all things. With digital portfolios we are preparing our student for the future of technology as it increases. Finally clickers are just the best way of active learning, student involvement, real feedback and question centered instruction which lets the teacher know how to get to every student.

Resources:

Maloy, R., O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.

Ruiz, J. (2016, November 5). Digital Portfolio Pros and Cons. Retrieved November 5, 2016, from https://magic.piktochart.com/output/17829613-digital-portfolio-pros-and-cons 

Ruiz, J. (2016, November 5). Democratic schools and class. Retrieved November 5, 2016, from https://www.powtoon.com/online-presentation/dFl1kovdBMJ/?mode=movie#/