Blog Post #13

Paul Anderson has been a high school teacher for 19 years, so he has had plenty of years to come up with great teaching strategies. The style he is passionate about is blended learning. The way it's blended is it uses three ways of learning and blends them together. The resources he uses are the internet, mobile, and the classroom. I like that he uses acronyms to help himself and his students remember things. That is one the things I use myself when learning new things. But, in explaining the cycle he uses in blended learning, he called it the 5 E's: Engage, explore, explain, expand, and then evaluate. This makes it very clear and easy to understand this concept.

I love that this allows children to learn how to learn on their own. Many people just don't know  how to do this. I believe that this day in age teaching is going to the next level! Mr. Anderson explained the six parts of his cycles and it included, asking good questions, the investigation, video lessons, elaboration, review, and summaries. After they go through the cycle they have a regular paper and pencil test. I like how he makes it so important to make sure every child understands the material before going on. The students are not even allowed to go on to their quizzes until teacher approves. He also makes sure he asks his students many questions to get an idea of what they know and if they are ready to move forward. These are awesome teaching tips! Too many times are made to fend for themselves if they are left not understanding. Mr. Anderson is such a great role model to future teachers.



Brian Crosby is a fourth grade teacher, and has been teaching for over 30 years. He values community service, he believe it is a powerful positive influence on students. He is a believer that having creativity will spark children's desire to learn. I like that he uses he blogs as a way to assess what the children know. After their science experiments they are required to answer in depth questions about the project then have a quiz. I like that he makes sure they have a understanding in the topic before hand.

I hope one day to have a project like High Hopes, that goes global! How exciting that must be for the students. That is something they will never forget, and to just think of how many people he helped.  This video also showed how amazing technology is by allowing a sick child to still be included with her classmates. Even five years ago that may have been impossible! It's moving so fast, and for the good.The most stand out thing he referenced in this video was talking about how the basics can  be addressed more effectively, and skills can be developed when learning is made in a meaningful way. That statement will be with me for a long time.