Mapping Student Minds

I was impressed by the complexity of the assignment these students were completing. I can see how this project addressed the various intelligences of students. I love that the lesson included an actual trips to the creek, although only two, I felt it brought more reality and importance to the assignment. I am sure it made it real for the students. I was happy to see how the teacher decided to explain the graphic organizer with an example that allowed her students to not focus on the topic but rather on the structure. What I mean by this is that students know what steps they must take and which to avoid in order to receive a good grade in science. They were able to give out numerous answers and focus on how the teacher was structuring the organizer. I love group/partner work therefore, appreciated the fact that students could work with partners. In this sense, like the article discussed, students could discuss different/similar perspectives and at the same time help each other out in order to complete the organizer. The students who are visual learners must have definitely benefited from this project. They were able to see in 3-D how their observations and data connected to why the creek is the way it is, how animals survive there, etc..

The presentations are great! It gives the students an opportunity to practice speaking in front of a group, defend their points of view and learn to accept other's points of view. I like the idea of having the students who were not presenting be the city council. With the activity students are not only learning the content matter but also technology, and other skills like group work, acceptance, and presentation methods.

Blog #3

I enjoyed reading the article. The best part was being able to read about the different ways computers were being used in classrooms. One point the article made and that I think is extremely important for teachers to realize is that we, like our students, are learners as well. What better way to teach than to break the barriers of "I know it all and I will give you the correct way" and implement "Lets learn together." I think that as teachers we forget that sometimes. We are learning as we go. We learn the different ways our students grasp concepts and we find way to make challenge them as well as allow them to explore and learn on their own. Another great point made was the fact that implementing computers will allow for smaller groups. I believe that that is the best way to teach, using centers (small groups). You can reach so many more students and give them the individual attention they all need and deserve but at the same time give them some independent time where they find their own methods of learning, where they explore and learn through that.

The tool I enjoyed most learning about this week was the Mac. I was working on my newsletter in the mac (in the lab at school) and I was exploring on my own quite a bit. I learned about the differences between the Mac and PC, regarding word. It was fun discovering the different features and being able to halfway finish the newsletter in the lab.

Tools and Reading

Hello to all,
I hope everyone is doing well and catching up, finishing and getting used to the vast use of technology in the class, especially the Mac. I am sure that everything being on webct and the use of the Mac is different to most of us. Well, I have to say that out of all the tools we learned about last week, the two I most like are blogs and listserves. Just browsing in class on the groups in listserves, I was able to find a few groups that would be useful to have a connection with in the future. With participating on the blogs everyweek, I am able to think of ways I can implement blogs in the high school level.

"Teaching for Understanding" presented a number of ways teachers can benefit from using technology in their classroom. One of the ways was assessment. As a teacher we want to know where are students are so that we can best help them. It is often difficult to find the correct assessment tools. The article we read talked about the way technology eases the assessment process. I currently work with a high school math teacher. He is one of the few who implements the use of technology on a daily basis in his classroom. The second semester just started and he is using an assessment tool to find out where his students are. The article mentioned that it is important that students see the knowledge they come with and the improvment they show as the year progresses. It also talks about technology helping change lessons in the moment based on where students are. This reminded me of my history class I am taking. The professor is teaching a large class of about 90 students and he uses a clicker system at the beginning of class for assessment. He poses review questions and levels of understanding. Students respond by chosing their answer and he immediately sees the responses on the overhead. It is amazing how technology can ease assessment so that student's individual needs can better be addressed.