5_Guiding+Questions

=1. To which century does our teaching/learning belong ? = Unless this is a trick question I have to say my teaching and learning belongs to the 21st Century. At least 10 years of it do anyway. However, I believe strongly that learning is something we do for our entire life. In line with Constructivist teaching methods, I also believe that learning builds upon knowledge a person already has. (Prior knowledge or schemas) The schema learning theory views organized knowledge as an elaborate network of abstract mental structures which represent one's understanding of the world. Many productive educational pedagogies were developed in the 20th Century so I have to say our teaching and learning belongs in the 21st Century, but much of how we do it began in earlier centuries and we build upon those knowledges as we go. =2. What does it mean to be fluent in the 21st Century? What are 21st Century skills and/or fluencies? See here!= =3. What are the characteristics of 21st century learning environments? Learners? Instructors?= Teachers have to keeping abreast of change which is constant in the 21st century, especially in the area of instructional and information technologies. We have to set aside preconceived notions of effective teaching and shift from being instructors of “stabilized, formal knowledge” on which institutionalized education is based - to being more “facilitators” and guides in the learners’ development of concept skills and deep understanding.

=4. Elements of constructivist learning environments:=  I didn’t see any reason to re-invent the wheel here.  Jonassen states that “Students learn domain content in order to solve the problem, rather than solving the problem as an application of learning”. In other words 21st Century CLE’s need to focus on the construction of knowledge, rather than acquiring it and teachers need to support that construction rather than trying to communicate knowledge via outdated traditional methodologies. The elements listed below need to be present for students to “construct” their own knowledge. = =



5. Instructional Model that describes learning as a process whereby learners engage in 21st Century Fluencies.
I chose Understanding by Design (UbD) because it provides a common language for educators who are interested in promoting student understanding rather than formulaic knowledge or recall learning. It also provides a framework and a toolkit of research-based best practices that have been proven effective in helping educators to promote understanding-based results for learning, expand the range of assessment tools and processes they use to monitor student achievement, and enhance their design of instructional activities to promote high levels of student achievement. This is a great article that discusses Teaching 21st Century Learners and touches a great deal of the same discussion points we had in class.  =6. Frameworks for analyzing and evaluating media: = I think Lasswsell's Model is an excellent starting point for the age level of students I work with. His key questions provide a useful template that can be applied to most media including magazines, websites, news, advertising, TV and other media. The key questions to consider are as follows: v Who says: identify sender of message v <span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial', 'sans-serif'; font-size: 13pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">What: content, message itself, the meaning <span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 13pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; msobidifontfamily: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings; msofareastfontfamily: Wingdings; msolist: Ignore;">v <span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial', 'sans-serif'; font-size: 13pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">To whom: intended/targeted audience, age, gender, class etc. <span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 13pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; msobidifontfamily: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings; msofareastfontfamily: Wingdings; msolist: Ignore;">v  <span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial', 'sans-serif'; font-size: 13pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msospacerun: yes;"> <span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial', 'sans-serif'; font-size: 13pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">In what way: style, language, image, sound, color, pacing etc. <span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 13pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; msobidifontfamily: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings; msofareastfontfamily: Wingdings; msolist: Ignore;">v <span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial', 'sans-serif'; font-size: 13pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">With what effect? outcome, impact, influence

// Sources: //[|//http://www.sil.org/lingualinks/literacy/ImplementALiteracyProgram/SchemaTheoryOfLearning.htm//] [|//http://ed538.wikispaces.com/file/view/IntroToWeb2.0.pdf//]