{"id":107,"date":"2014-11-08T02:34:40","date_gmt":"2014-11-08T02:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/derekdoucet\/?p=107"},"modified":"2014-11-08T05:40:06","modified_gmt":"2014-11-08T05:40:06","slug":"the-importance-of-practice-in-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/derekdoucet\/2014\/11\/08\/the-importance-of-practice-in-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"The importance of practice in learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"growth-mindset\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It was a very inspiring first Face to Face in my new role at Cohort21\u00a0with\u00a0people\u00a0who have so many different skills, abilities and experiences. Reflecting on my first year, I remember the day being exhausting and mind-blowing all at once. It was a very similar take away, and so inspiring to be around people who are so motivated to be better… not for themselves, but for their students. These people are agents of change and have taken onto themselves to help change the educational landscape so students are better prepared for the world to which they will belong and contribute to. You could not have asked for a higher percentage of people with a growth mindset<\/a>\u00a0in one room. See how Celeste is applying the concepts of growth mindsets in her student learning conferences<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We as educators are in the business of teaching, but the definition has changed significantly over the last decade. The goal of optimizing and maximizing student achievement is pushing educators to do amazing things but at the heart of it all is the student’s prior knowledge and experience.<\/p>\n

As a facilitator, I had the opportunity to work with Cohort 21 Coach Brent Hurley<\/a> in facilitating the session on Diigo<\/a>\u00a0– “a multi-tool for knowledge management” as per its website,\u00a0that allows the user to share articles with others around a wide variety of topics.<\/p>\n

We offered the session 4 times with different groups\u00a0and based on the experience of the users we continually modified our approach. The sessions were a series of tightly packed 30 minutes of brain-busting learning. We started with an assessment of prior knowledge and use, and were pleased to find some who were using it. Explaining the “Why” behind the use of Diigo for personal growth and using it with students took valuable time but was important to show the value of this powerful tool.<\/p>\n

And then came the practice … with a wide range of abilities on the edtech front, Brent and I were running to show how to use the tool, and to have people practice using the tool with a resources they thought would benefit the group. At first, we thought it best to be open to any resource, but for the next session we added Edudemic<\/a> and Edutopia<\/a> so people could find a quick article related to 21st Century Learning to share via our Cohort21 Diigo group. By the 4th session, we felt that we’d hit our groove and that we’d ironed out the wrinkles that were obstacles to effective learning. But still something was missing…<\/p>\n

\"Practice<\/a><\/p>\n

The big takeaway on this day was a reinforcement that practice is so vital in the learning process. I had the chance to practice a presentation before arriving to the Face to Face, and 4 times after that. I am positive\u00a0that those in my first session got less from our first session than those in our\u00a04th. Having more practice time on the user end would have enriched the experience, and students could have been benefiting from Diigo in their courses already.<\/p>\n

It made me think about the vast curriculum that we are charged with exploring with students, and I wonder…\u00a0do we give students enough time to practice? With practice comes feedback, and not always in the form of a teacher’s comments. We receive feedback from our students in\u00a0real-time, or through\u00a0the use of an Exit Ticket, but are we listening?\u00a0Are we\u00a0making changes to to our approach as a result,\u00a0or are we trudging on with the course material? My hope is that we are.<\/p>\n

I know that for the most part, we did not achieve our goal of sharing a resource with the group. Had I used an Exit Ticket with the Diigo session, it could have informed my Google Hangout on Diigo coming up. It’s something I do daily with students, but in my\u00a0new role, feeling a little nervous in front of a group of educational rockstars, it’s funny what one can forget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a very inspiring first Face to Face in my new role at Cohort21\u00a0with\u00a0people\u00a0who have so many different skills, abilities and experiences. Reflecting on my first year, I remember Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1],"tags":[26,25,24,27],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collaborative-learning","category-uncategorized","tag-collaboration","tag-growth-mindset","tag-learning-cycle","tag-practice-and-learning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/derekdoucet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/derekdoucet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/derekdoucet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/derekdoucet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/derekdoucet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/derekdoucet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/derekdoucet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/derekdoucet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/derekdoucet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}