Revision of Digital Blog Post B

Revision of Digital Blog Post B: 

Addition of two concepts

Upon reviewing chapter three once more, I stumbled upon two additional concepts that also intrigued me. These concepts include active learning and learning groups. In my opinion both of these tie into my first post on cooperative learning.

To begin, one must first understand the concept of active learning as defined by the text. Active learning means that students are able to physically and mentally or cognitively get involved in the learning process. There are many ways in which a student could ensure that students are able to actively learn. For instance, getting students involved physically in an activity. For example, say that after reading a work of literature the teacher asks the students to compare and contrast the difference in characters from the current book and previously read work. Instead of just going over explanations of the similarities and differences the students would personally do something to compare and contrast ideas and information as opposed to listening about the subject by lecturing, watching videos or even reading about the topic. The class could make a large t-chart and each student could write on large pieces of paper, some differences, they could then go and hang those ideas on the giant t-chart. Getting students physically involved is a great way to keep them entertained with the class and subject while ensuring that they are learning what they need to out of the lesson.

Secondly, the use of learning groups can be extremely positive in the classroom environment for a multitude of different reasons. The term learning groups is in reference to students working out problems together amongst their peers in a specific way that helps elicit high quality explanations and performances. The number of people in a group can vary. By having students participate in learning groups they are able to gain analytical ability in numerous ways as opposed to those submitted to them in a teacher's lecture. Instead of having just themselves as an outlet to bounce ideas off of, they now have multiple other peers that will be able to modify and edit each others ideas to aid in the process of presenting these higher quality answers and concepts to turn in. There are so many ways that this could be used in a classroom but just to submit an example; a learning group could have to read and analyze an article which they would then have to share the concepts and ideas related to the article with the class in an oral presentation. By having the students work in learning groups as opposed to individually, many more concepts and ideas are going to be revealed because multiple minds are working towards a common goal instead of just one. This could also directly relate to cooperative learning if done correctly as well.

Overall, active learning, learning groups, and cooperative learning, are all strategies that would do wonderful things for student learning if formatted correctly in a classroom.

Works Cited:

Maloy W. Robert, Et. Al. (2007). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. Pearson