Michael+Issler



Hello, my name is Michael Issler. I am a graduate student in the Curriculum and Instruction program at UC, in my second, and hopefully last, year. I am a licensed teacher for the state of Ohio in Secondary Social Studies Education; having graduated from UC in June 2010 with my Bachelor of Science in Education. I am originally from Cincinnati and have never left the area, except on trips. In my free time, which I have very little of lately, I enjoy traveling and seeing the rest of the world.

In addition to going to school I am a paraprofessional for Cincinnati Public Schools and continue to look for a full time teaching position. My first goal in getting my Master's degree is to become a high school social studies teacher; however a secondary goal is to become a history professor at some point so I am also looking at moving on to a PhD program once I have finished my Master's.

As far as websites that I like to use in the classroom, I have gone all over looking for material and have begged and borrowed a lot of material from other teachers. These sites include: discovery.com, history.com,civilwar.org,Economist magazine.

PS: I do not have a picture of myself since I cut my hair so it is not nearly as long as it is in the picture.

I am talented with understand technology, at least being able to figure it out. I also have the talent of being able to explain things in steps, which comes in handy when you are a teacher.

Reflective Blog Week 1

In his article comparing objectivism versus constructivism, David Jonassan, explains the differences between the two philosophical approaches, and questioning whether we need a philosophical shift for teaching. I found the chart on page 9, where he lays out the different assumptions made about the two philosophies very useful especially when it came to thinking about my teaching. In addition, the other article, written by Johannes Cronjé, took the two philosophies and talks about integration, which seems to be the path that education is taking today.

Basically, the difference between the two philosophies is that objectivism seeks to give knowledge to the student, in the words of David Jonassan knowledge can be "modeled". (Jonassan, pg. 9) In other words a teacher saying that something is true and giving that knowledge to students. However, constructivism is generally acquired by the student on their own, they are creating their own knowledge. Therefore, knowledge is gained through "experiences or interaction". (Jonassan, pg. 9) Johannes Cronje takes these two philosophies and creates a matrix to see how well different academic activities would score on it and the conclusion really stood out to me. Basically, he concluded that there is no reason that an activity can not be both constructed and objective. He concludes this when he states, "I therefore suggest that constructivists and objectivists are not in debate—they are simply at cross-purposes." (Cronje, pg. 412) Basically, he concludes that you must use a matrix to determine how constructive or objective an activity is; and more importantly, that both are serving different purposes so there is no reason to compare them, something that is constructive can also be objective if used in a different purpose.

I found these articles very interesting and while I was reading I saw a lot of my teaching in them. However, I tend to feel that I do a lot of constructivism in my classroom. I feel this way because I depend on discussion and using my students experiences when I am trying to teach. My biggest take away from these two articles is that these two philosophies, which I was taught are two different things, need to be integrated in the classroom in order to best serve my students. Obviously, it is important to use students experiences to relate with them and get your point across but part of my job is to give my students new knowledge and at some point I will be giving them new information objectivily. However, it is important that they use that knowledge as early as possible to construct their own understanding.

Overall, I feel that both articles make very good points and are from valid sources. Each author lays out the definitions and shows how that knowledge can be used in the classroom. I saw some of my teaching in both articles and it was very interesting and reassuring to see that it is important to use both philosophies and a variety of methods to make sure all my students are served effectively.

Two discussion questions:

What is constructivism? When is it most likely to be used?

What is objectivism? When is it most likely to be used?

Reflective Blog #2:

Chaika writes a very interesting web page about how to best use a one computer classroom. My student teaching classroom was a one computer classroom and I struggled with how to best use that resource in the classroom. For a while I just used it as the teacher computer and would pull up my power point presentations and type up papers to hand out to students. However, I felt like something was missing and I decided to do station work one day. One of the stations allowed one of the students in the group to use the internet for research while the rest of them used the books. I felt that this worked really well and I was able to use the computer and kept the room from backing up by using a schedule that the students had to stick to and assigning who used the computer before we broke up into groups. I used this strategy a few other times and would employ it again if I get the opportunity. This is one of the strategies he supports and I definately agree that it is an effective way to use a one computer classroom and still use technology.

Whit Anderson wrote another article about effective use of a one computer classroom and he once again advocates using stations, which was talked about above so I will focus on another aspect of his article, the printing of material. This is one way that students could be engaged because they would use the computer for a limited amount of time and then print the material out. In addition, he advocates using rolling carts. I have been in a school that used rolling carts for their computers. I felt this had advantages and disadvantages. There were enough computers for all the students so we were able to use them for a webquest and it worked out very well. However, the main disadvantage we ran into was the fact that some of the computers were broken or not working; therefore some students had to share which did open up the possibility of behavior issues, which inevitably occurred. I felt that these two ideas are interesting and do make it easier to use technology in the classroom with limited resources.

Discussion Questions:

1) What is the best way to avoid a bottleneck of students? Why is it important to make sure a bottleneck doesn't occur?

2) Are there any disadvantages to having students print out their material? If there is, what can you do to make it less of a disadvantage?

Reflective Blog #3:

Controversy is everywhere and in every profession, however controversy is a daily issue in a classroom, particularly in my history classrooms. I understand when my students tell me history is boring because if it is not taught in an interesting way it just becomes a memorization of facts and dates. The main way to get away from this thinking is to show students why history is important. To me history is important because it teaches students to question things and use their critical thinking skills to debate the best ways to use the lessons from the past to solve today's problems. To accomplish this goal I have to create controversy to encourage questioning and debate among my students. Therefore, while I was reading this article about copyright and intellectual property one quote stood out to me:

"Many teachers saw access to copyrighted expression for teaching as central to educating citizens. “A literate citizenship cannot be created if the people who control images don’t allow them to be used,” one explained. “We need to balance copyright ownership with other considerations, such as the democratic exchange of ideas and a healthy democracy.” (Hobbs, pg. 4)

I felt this quote was very important because it lays out my reason for teaching and it also notes the issues that we can run into when using copyrighted material. However, within the article they discuss some teachers that refuse to use copyrighted material. I have never felt this pressure I have always felt that as long as I gave credit to the people that made it and as long as I just use it in my classroom as a part of my lesson it was good to use. Therefore, as long as teachers have a good reason for using material and make sure to give credit to the owners it is necessary to use something that the students are familiar with and can relate to, in order to help them feel better connected and interested in the material and the debate.

I feel that this article is very interesting and gives good examples of what is allowed in the classroom and what is not. In addition, I feel that all teachers, particularly when they use controversy in their classroom, must be able to use copyrighted material and the article spells out exactly what is allowed in the classroom.

Discussion Questions:

1) How have you used copyrighted material in the classroom? Did you edit it at all to make sure it was acceptable?

2) What do you think of the fair use act? Is it actually fair and does it give teachers enough freedom?

Reflective Blog #4:

 The medium that we have chosen to use in this class to facilitate our online discussion is the blog. Obviously, I am writing in a blog and using it in the classroom; however the challenge has always been to use a blog for more than just individual reflection. This point was pointed was made in (Wang and Hsua) when they wrote, “Although many users have adopted blogs as an individual reflective tool, research that addresses how blogs can facilitate collaboration is scarce. Because blogging enables users to exchange ideas and to share experiences, blogs can be an ideal forum for social constructivist learning (Ferdig & Trammell, 2004).” The article goes on to explain the different methods that teachers try to use to facilitate online discussion. However, the main point was that blogs are a good way to get discussion between students and they compare them to other forms including discussion boards. Here they hit on an interesting issue that I have run into when I have tried allowing my students to just use a discussion board. I noticed that for the most part my students would forget about their writing and just use the text message lingo and ugly grammar that made their responses difficult to understand. However, in the article the authors make a good point that by having the blogs be open to the public students may be more careful with how they write.  Overall, this article makes the point that blogs can be used as an effective source of integration. While I feel that the advantage of having students publish their writing and being more careful is a very big advantage, I also feel that the biggest disadvantage is that all people can see a blog so you have to be very careful about the information that gets out onto the blog. In addition, the teacher would have to monitor the blog very closely to make sure the comments and talk is civil because it can be possible to comment on a blog anonymously sometimes and there is the temptation for students, and people in general, to attack each other instead of having civil discussions.  In addition to blogs, web 2.0 provides numerous ways for classroom discussion and collaboration that I feel are worth looking into because they keep the idea of possibly publishing information with the control of the teacher to control who may see the writing. This is especially true when it comes to wikis. There are five reasons that make wikis a good collaboration tool in the classroom, as listed by Rosen-Nelson: “ 1. “Ease of use” 2. “Spaces for students to create products individually, in small groups, and as a whole group” 3. “Ability to create a nonlinear document structure through hyperlinks” 4. “A built-in mechanism for reflection and metacognition” 5. “A means of tracking individual, small group, and whole group progress through an assignment” (pp. 20–21)”

 I agree with these three statements and have decided that I would use wikis if at all possible. Obviously, one of the challenges with using any of these technologies is the availability of the technology to my students. Currently, it would be a challenge to make sure all my students have access to the internet. I understand that the internet is available at the public library however, I also know that it would be unfair if I expected all my students to participate online if they do not have access to the internet at home.  Finally, the third article discussed using webquests to facilitate inquiry. This is the only technology that I have ever been able to use successfully in my own classrooms. Within the article the authors described exactly what a webquest can be used for when they said, “WebQuests (Dodge, 1997) can be used not only for content learning but also to conduct research in an authentic, problem-solving environment. WebQuests are designed to make effective use of learners’ time and to support their thinking and active involvement at the levels of analysis, synthesis, transformation of information, decision making, and evaluation (Ridgeway, Peters, &Tracy, 2002).” (Ikpeze-Boyd) This quote pointed out exactly how webquests can be used in a classroom, namely as a research tool for students to use to make the best use of their classroom time.  I have used webquests as an introduction to a topic when I had my students find out as much information as possible about the Spanish Armada. I assigned one group to find out information about the Spanish ships and the motivation of the Spanish, while the other group came together and discovered the motivations of the English and the tactics used to beat the Spanish Armada. I felt this was a successful activity because all my students had the opportunity to find out information for themselves and teach each other based on what they found out.  Overall, I feel that all three articles are well written and lay out their arguments in very interesting and convincing ways. All three describe the technology and give examples of how they can be used in a classroom setting. At the same time all three point out potential flaws; I feel this is very important in order to help teachers decide what technology is best for them to use based on what goals they want their students to achieve. Therefore, all three articles are full of good ideas of how to use technology effectively and provides guidelines to help teachers use the technology as effectively as possible to accomplish the best learning outcomes for students.

Discussion Questions:

1) Having learned about blogs and wikis, what are the advantages and disadvantages to using them in your classroom? Do these disadvantages keep you from wanting to use them? <span style="font-family: Times-Roman,serif; font-size: 12pt;">2) What is the best and most effective way to use webquests within your classroom? Explain.

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Reflective Blog #5:

The articles this week were very interesting to me because they detailed a new way of teaching that I feel would be very useful in the classroom as long as you could get the technology to allow video games to be used in the classroom. I know that all my students play video games and feel that it is important for students to relate to the curriculum and one way to do that and get students interested is to use technology that they use on their own time. However, I have always struggled with how to bring video games into the classroom and this week I looked over the NETS standards and found that one of the standards and the article agree.

The standard states: 2.Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments

Teachers design, develop, and evaluate authentic learning experiences and assessments incorporating contemporary tools and resources to maximize content learning in context and to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes identified in the NETS•S

Teachers:

a. design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity

To me I want to accomplish this goal with all of my lessons because I want my students to interact in my classroom; however, in particular I want my students to want to learn and video games could be a part of that equation. However, the most important part of the standard and the topic of the article, Assessing the Educational Value of Video Games, by J-C. Hong*, C-L. Cheng*, M-Y. Hwang**, C-K. Lee* & H-Y. Chang***, is that teachers must evaluate and plan when using technology to make sure their classrooms are full of the most effective learning outcomes. The quote that stood out most to me was, "The researchers believe, despite being described as sugar coating by some educators, that game-based learning can be a very efﬁcient tool if it is designed to reﬂect pedagogical and learning needs in a real educational setting." (Hong, pg. 431) Basically, this quote lays out the idea that teachers must plan out all activities and evaluate video games before using them in their classroom to make sure the technology is correct for their classroom. Obviously, this is very important and this article lays out criteria for evaluating the educational value of a video game and whether it should be used in the classroom.

This article was very interesting and I felt that it laid out all the valuable points of video games and how to evaluate them. In addition to the Hong article, which laid out criteria for evaluating video games, the article entitled Teacher Candidate Response to Digital Games, laid out my thinking of how to use video games. My main goal, as a future Social Studies teacher, is to have my students develop critical thinking skills and be informed about the world that they will enter into. One way to accomplish both these goals is ti to use video games. The article agrees with thei sentiment when it says, "Games that offer a look at current issues and/or provide opportunities for critical thinking are one potential avenue to prepare a technically skilled workforce that possesses the ability to think critically and innovatively." (Sardone) I feel that video games offer the unique ability to challenge students to work creatively and think critically, two goals that I want to foster in my students.

Overall, both the articles provide different valid points and should eb used by teachers to inspire them and provide courage to use video games, as well as the ability to evaluate whether the video game they pick is worth using in the classroom. However, the only problem I have with using video games is the lack of access to technology in the classroom, which can make it challenging to fully incorporate video games in the classroom.

Discussion Questions:

1) Would you use video games in the classroom? What criteria would you have for deciding what video game you would use?

2) Is it possible to use video games in a classroom with less than a computer per student? If so, how would you use a video game in your classroom?