Today we shared our five 5E lesson plans with teachers who came to visit for the teacher panel. At first I was really nervous because I was initially excited about my lesson and didn’t want to receive any feedback that wasn’t constructive. Our lesson plan in evaluator was Mr. Broadway. He really liked our lesson idea and gave us a lot of good tips on how to improve it. He told us about an activity that would really engage the students in understanding that every part of an ecosystem is important and they’re all interrelated and connected. This would really start off the lesson well since we are investigating predator-prey interactions. We want the students to understand that predator prey interactions are important for the balance of the ecosystem. A significant increase in either predator or prey numbers can cause the other to significantly decrease in numbers. Once the population has increased to exceeding carrying capacity, the population can no longer sustain itself with enough available resources.
Besides being really excited about my lesson plan I also was able to use technology today in a constructive manner. I use the application Evernote during my observation of Mr. Broadway’s class. I got to take notes in the application and input pictures with the iPad camera to supplement the notes. The students were working on mastering their windmill blade design. Each group designed their own blades for a potential windmill. This required the groups to do previous research to determine which blade would generate the most voltage. The activity was inspiring and very student centered. The students seemed to really enjoy both the competition aspect and the explanation of the content. The class you could generate the most voltage with their windmill designs would be declared the winner. During my observation I observed my first inclusion class where students from special education, darts and other programs are integrated into a normal classroom environment. The inclusion class is normally low performing in certain areas and is considered below the academic level of pre-ap. However, the voltage generated from the inclusion class was higher than the voltage generated from the pre-AP class. I learned that inclusion students often do better with hands-on activities and pre-AP students learn better from reading and processing information. Today was one of my most productive days during the NOYCE camp 2012.
Reflection on Lesson plans and observations
Posted in Noyce
Comments Off on Reflection on Lesson plans and observations
Reflection on learning – panels 5/15
I really enjoy how we are going about this week in terms of professional input. Having the principals here last night was absolutely amazing. The mock interviews were really helpful and every principal was excited to contribute. I was nervous at first And unsure how each principal’s personal preference would both guide and limit my answers to their questions. The panels and one on one interactions are the most helpful so far in terms of professional development. The panel structure is productive and informative. I love how Melissa Gutierrez commented on how talking about concepts solidifies and clarifies certain concepts for students and any learner in general. I think this is exemplified in the panels since we are forced to ask questions, evaluate feedback and conduct personal conversations with fellow passionate educators.
Posted in Noyce
Comments Off on Reflection on learning – panels 5/15
Reflection on technology
I’m currently using dictation to write this blog. It’s seriously the best thing I’ve ever done. I feel that this’ll save me a lot of time since I’m not really good at typing on the iPad. I’m also experimenting with the dictation on the education apps. Although this is really great I feel like the iPad hindered my learning today. During finals week, I forgot to play with it as much as I should have. I found myself playing with the iPad constantly today and it was really hard to use it for educational purposes. Hopefully the more I learn about it, the better I will be at managing my time with it. I’m really excited to hear about all the apps people found when we present on Friday. I feel myself just accumulating applications instead of playing with them and using them. Like with the iPad, the more I play with the apps on this thing, the more familiar I will be with them and the more experienced I will be at using them for educational purposes. Hopefully Mr. Broadway will have a few things to show me about using it in the classroom.
I liked the panel a lot more than I thought I would. I thought I would be nervous and not have any questions to ask. The relaxed setting of the learning experience made things less intimidating. I’m honored that these teachers care so much about the program to come out and talk with us. I hope to make plenty of connections so when I want a bunch of teachers to come talk to my students I can have an impressive arsenal of brilliant minds. Wait, that’s what this is for!!
Posted in Noyce
Comments Off on Reflection on technology
EdTech Technology in My Classroom
I envision that technology will be a large part of my teaching career. I’m really excited about integrating technology with my classroom. The NSF has graciously funded me and other Noyce Scholars with the new ipad (3). I start training with it after graduation and hope it will enrich my lessons and make my classroom run more efficiently. There are several applications on the ipad such as pupil finder, which helps organize and keep track of students’ participation along with applications like Educreations which allows me to video record my use of a white board in real time and send it to the students. I’m expecting to use the ipad a lot in my class for personal use and find a way to have students creating with the ipad as well.
Technology is vital in a science classroom and without it many scientific discoveries would have never been made. I hope to have a lot of technologically advanced lab equipment in my classroom such as high grade microscopes for viewing life under the knife, Bunsen burners, digital scales, soil measuring kits etc. The equipment is absolutely necessary for data acquisition to occur accurately and timely. Also, lab equipment can mean the difference between students getting data that is in line with theory or getting inaccurate data with several outliers.
Digital equity is something I’m still coming to terms with as an educator. It’s difficult to think that there are so many going without technology when I see students glued to their high tech smart phones during the entirety of class time. While I will try to keep in mind how I assign homework according to digital equity, I’m an advocate for using it in the classroom. I recently engaged in a lesson about how to use QR codes to help students learn and study. I did not know what a QR code was but apparently they are everywhere, including groceries and buildings. This will hopefully bring technology into the classroom that can be applicable to the student’s lives.
Posted in Uncategorized
Comments Off on EdTech Technology in My Classroom
EdTech Reading Response 2
I was very interested to find out just how much responsibility is placed on educators to solve the problem of digital literacy. Not only must we get through pages and pages of TEKS directed content, we are also expected to make up for home life disparities. As a teacher, I cannot assume that all of my students have access to computers and therefore should be mindful of the type of work I assign. Hopefully we can reach a point in the educational system where take-home laptops are available for all students in the US rather than just a few programs in Maine.
The text explains the dilemma with technology deficit so that low SES schools have to spend more time teaching content for success on standardized tests and therefore have less time to teach computer competency. It’s therefore hard to get out of that rut of having less and receiving less. I really enjoyed the approach to solving the problem with low SES school deficits like the FRESA project. These types of students bring with them a background and family life that emphasizes hard work, maybe even to the extent that the children themselves are working. Instead of seeing this as a problem, educators should capitalize on this kind of attitude and make it relatable to their everyday lives. I see this at the college level with CAMP students and it’s a shame these kinds of programs aren’t seen earlier in the educational system. I hope to see more “pioneers” of this method and that their efforts are encouraged instead of limited.
The take-home laptop idea is a wonderful solution to the decrease in computer availability in low SES schools. To receive funding for the program, perhaps the district should use the model of the FRESA project and e-mail local political representatives to push legislation that will get funding to the program. The students can then research the take-home laptop program in the Maine district and talk to the students about how it has affected their learning. Finally, they can engage with the community and encourage them to vote for the law that provides them with the project funding.
Posted in EdTech
2 Comments
EdTech Reading 1 Reflection
Certain aspects of participatory culture are appropriate for classroom implementation. However, part of the appeal of participatory culture is the ability to choose whether or not to participate. In a school setting, once that participation is forced, it doesn’t matter if the students are blogging about an interesting topic or completing a programming sequence, the forced nature of the setting ruins the appeal of participatory culture. I encountered this problem a lot in my high school English classes. Once a teacher assigned a book to read over the summer or for a class discussion, it lost my general interest to take the book for its quality of meaning. I was so in tuned with dissecting the book for analytical reasons because it was assigned and therefore lost all enjoyment out of the read.
I appreciated the acknowledgement of disempowerment felt by much of the youth today. Young people are in the lowest voting bracket and have the least interest in political debate. However, many video games, especially war games, allow the player to choose which side it supports. In school settings, the information on war in text books is often constructed and “hand picked” to shed light on one side and demonize the other. The video game offers a sense of choice and political activism while avoiding criticism from curriculum norms.
I completely agree with the remarks made on the transparency problem in regards to using games in the classroom experience. While access to gaming systems and complex virtual competitions defines a gap between those who have technology use and those who don’t, the use of these tools in the classroom is hard to manage properly. The experience from Shrier, who noticed students taking the history game at face value, mirrored the problems faced at my middle school with the Oregon Trail game. While this game was a huge deal to us as students, the interactive nature of the game took away the learning experience. Halfway through the game students were more interested in who died the most interesting death then actually completing the game.
Posted in EdTech
4 Comments