Active Learning

Link to Padlet

I am a firm believer in active learning and for it to be implemented in instruction.  The blog that I viewed was a great active learning experience for those kids who participated.  This was not a project of just reading about an event and writing it on paper.  These kids were allowed to get creative and imaginative throughout this project.  The PicCollages throughout the blog were very clever and seemed like a fun way to depict the people of that time.  The kids took pictures of themselves and placed it on a historical figures faces in their project.  Instead of just one student reading all of the summaries on Audioboom, the students took turns in recording one another.  This activity showed engagement and collaboration within the group which is one of the key components of active learning.  I think active learning is a great way for teachers to learn and teachers to incorporate different learning strategies in their classroom.  Not all students learn by reading a textbook or by looking through a powerpoint.  I, for one, was definitely not one of those students.  I learned best by hands on activities and projects that involved using active learning styles.  It allows students to learn how to work with one another, use different ideas, develop creativity and to think outside of the box.  These are all life skills that students will need once they grow older so why not start when they are young?  Sometimes showing a concept in a different way is all it takes for a student to understand that concept.  I learned this over the summer when I was nannying.  The girl was 8 years old and had down syndrome.  Her parents had a list of things they wanted me to try and teach her throughout the summer.  The biggest challenge to this was, figuring out her learning style and what works, what doesn't.  After using many different strategies, I learned that active learning and kinesthetic learning was what worked best to help her retain information.  One skill she needed practice in was addition.  I tried workbook pages, computer games, handwritten problems but it all seemed like information that was not sticking.  Finally, I went on Pinterest and looked up ways to help kids learn basic addition.  I let her look with me and pick out some activities she wanted to try.  I think this helped with her engagement because it was something she was interested in and WANTED to do, rather than feeling like she HAD to do it.  She picked the spiderweb activity because she LOVES Charlottes Web.  We went outside and I drew a spiderweb with chalk.  Long story short, this worked! She loved it and was starting to actually understand the concept of addition!