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In what ways do you envision discovery learning as part of your teaching and curriculum?

I envision discovery learning to be a great learning tool in my classroom because it will allow students more freedom in their learning and to explore and find what is interesting to them. I would like to use discovery learning in my teaching to have students work through projects and activities collaboratively and therefore building a sense of community within the classroom. However, I do believe that this cannot be the only method used because not all students will work well using this teaching strategy. As a teacher we need to be able to identify what methods work well for each of our students and then find which teaching methods would work best in our classroom. Along with this students may not feel comfortable at the beginning of the year, doing discovery learning with their new classmates, so we as teachers need to be senstive to this matter. One tip, might be to in the beginning to allow students to choose their groups until you have built a safe community in your classroom.

I do believe that discovery learning would be a great teaching method for social studies when learning about countries or for science when learning about new topics. These are just a few of the basic ideas, but there are many other applications that discovery learning can be used for.

Beliefs and Technology

“What are your beliefs about teaching and learning with technology? Describe how technology has supported learning in classrooms you have observed?”

My belief about using technology in the classroom has changed over the last couple of months. I now am more aware the the many using that the Internet has, as well as the many uses within programs on basic computers. I believe that in order to make our students well-rounded individuals we need to teach them the technology skills that will be pertinent to their life's and their future careers. I also believe that we need to make students aware of the different programs and their uses in and out of the classroom, so they grow up to feel comfortable using these programs in their life's.
Technology has supported learning in the classrooms that I have observed in many different ways. One way that I have seen it used in the classroom is through the use of PowerPoint's when giving presentations. I have also seen it used for researching various topics within the classroom. I believe that as classroom teachers we need to find new and exciting ways for using technology in the classroom.