EDT 630 Reaction Paper

This course has taught me a lot about the differences in various kinds of lesson plans based on different approaches to education. In this class, we have done a lot of the work online, which tends to be difficult for me because Blackboard is so slow that I do not log on as often as I should, so I miss critiquing until everyone else has said the things that I would like to say. On the other hand, the anonymity associated with not knowing any of the people in the class makes it easier to be objective in critiquing their work. In many ways, it seems that this class is more difficult to accomplish online based on the varied methods of technology. All the participants did not create their work in the same programs and some things were at times incompatible. I think that online discussions can be an effective learning tool, but at times, the instructions in this class were difficult to understand, so that frustrated me as well. It seems that a good alternative to this is to post questions for students to discuss and leave them the option of discussing their own questions so that the points that the instructor finds important are discussed. These will probably strike students as the most interesting points as well. Students will then be more intrigued and interested to discuss things with one another. It seems that the discussions in this class are a bit forced and represent the result of graduate students who are motivated to finish all of their assignments. In a high school, I anticipate that students will not do the work they see as dull or boring and online discussions may be considered of that ilk if they are not presented properly. Additionally, I think that students need appropriately outlined requirements. Another class I took was not outlined properly and I had a hard time because I did not know what the expectations for the class were. Since I did not know the requirements, I became frustrated and probably did learn as much because I was frustrated. The focus of my concentration became trying to adhere to an undefined standard rather than learning the material. I will try not to do that to my students.

Overall, I enjoyed learning the theories of the various schools of thought and how they apply to my classroom and the construction of my lesson plans. I can see validity in all of them in various situations. It seems appropriate to have as many approaches available to me so that if one approach fails, I have at my disposal another one that may be more appropriate. In teaching foreign language, I think that I will be able to use some of the repetition that is taught in the behaviorist view and maybe some aspects of the cognitivist approach. In more advanced stages, I will also be able to use some of the student-guided aspects of the constructivist approach, but research has shown that I should always build on prior knowledge and make lessons relevant to my students.