Reading Notes 4

        I found this weeks reading really interesting. As an undergraduate I was always skeptical about moving around and meeting new people. The conversations always started off awkwardly and not everyone wanted to always talk. However, as I’m looking back, those activities always bring back a clear image of the topics discussed that day. Lang points out that one of the three main benefits of small groups is increasing retention. Students have a chance to clear their mind while forming into groups and also get some blood flowing back into their bodies. I also liked how Lang points out that students get to “construct knowledge together”. That seems to be more effective according to the Hierarchy of ways to learn. I think small groups would be an effective learning strategy but how do I know how much time to give them? I don’t want to take up the entire class period but at the same time I want everyone to have a chance to complete the task.

            I don’t like Formal groups (at least as a student I didn’t). I understand that students should have bigger projects that they need to work on outside of class, but the truth is it was always a pain to meet up with the other students as well as getting everyone to contribute evenly. It was way more of a struggle than a benefit in my mind. I think Lang has a couple of good ways to overcome this. Grading both as a group and individually would be helpful to promote motivation. Also allowing a class time where they can meet and work on their project is a good idea. I know that sometimes the professors wouldn’t have class that day but just gave students an opportunity to meet at the same scheduled time if groups needed that opportunity.

            The last interesting part of the reading came from Davis in Chapter 25 when she was talking about incorporating virtual worlds into the learning environment. In my composition class, we were required to set up a Second Life account and meet on the web for every class session. Overall I did not have a good experience with Second Life due to all of the technological difficulties, but not all of it was bad. One of the parts that I really did like about Second Life was the abilities to see 3-D replicas of stuff. For example, I could stand inside of a heart and see how it functions normally and then again whenever it is experiencing a heart attack. Another demonstrations was set up for you to walk through different rooms and see/hear what it felt like to be someone who suffers from schizophrenia. For me, I am not a huge media person so I guess I would want to learn more about How to balance the integration of new medias into the classroom while not having to spend hours setting up accounts and dealing with technical issues.