CEDO 525 Week 3 Strategies

Cooperative Learning
"...Cooperative learning focuses on having students interact with each other in groups in ways that enhance their learning. When students work in cooperative groups, they make sense of, or construct meaning for, new knowledge by interacting with others" (Pitler, 139). Whenever possible, I use this instructional strategy in my classes. It seems that most students enjoy learning in this manner. In regards to the section on "multimedia", I enjoyed the rubric - "Rubric for a Cooperative Multimedia Project" and also the "Group Roles in a Cooperative Multimedia Project". They are both good examples to use & modify to fit many of the projects I do in my classes. I also liked reading through the subsection titled "Collaborative Organizing" because I employ many of these applications already. When looking over 'shared calendars' I really liked the idea of having the student groups create a shared calendar & then share it with the teacher to allow the teacher to monitor progress. I use Google calendars (embed on our class wiki with all of the due dates for assignments, tests, projects, etc) with all of my classes but haven't thought of using them like suggested above. Also under the same subsection is 'shared bookmarking.' Currently I only use social bookmarking personally; I collect all of the amazing resources I get from my PLN on Twitter & use Delicious & Diigo to keep them organized online. In my Web Tools class my students created a Diigo account where they will keep track of the resources they use for a group project. The last topic under this subsection is 'course management.' My school has had several conversations about getting Moodle up and running but that conversation hasn't gone anywhere yet (although Moodle is "free" it is really expensive to get up & running with the hardware & Internet costs).

Reinforcing Effort
"...reinforcing effort enhances students' understanding of the relationship between effort and achievement by addressing their attributes and beliefs about learning" (Pitler, 155). I do believe this in an important instructional strategy but am having some trouble accepting the suggestions illustrated in this chapter. Many of the suggestions include public recognition of students who are demonstrating effort; one example in the text talks about having a bulletin board in the main office displaying stories of "students putting forth a strong effort to achieve" (Pitler, 162). Does this type of public recognition need to take place? What about writing positive comments on the student's paper, a sticker saying "keep it up", or have a conversation one-on-one with the student expressing & reinforcing the effort put forth?