Meta-Reflection on Standard T: Knowledge of Teaching

I have seen many lessons built into our biology curriculum that are informed by standards based assessment, intentionally planned and influenced by multiple strategies. Our lessons in biology and chemistry start with a warm up, which is either a formative assessment to gauge what students know about a specific concept before we teach, or see how well they learned the material from the day before. We intentionally organize our lessons in a sequence that makes sense, and make small changes to accommodate all of our students and their needs. We use many strategies, including individual, pair and group work, written and oral work, and using sentences and pictures to convey a concept. The biggest change this year however, has been the amount I’ve learned about how to implement technology into the classroom from my educational technology class.

In our classrooms as Skyline, I have access to smart boards, document cameras, and computers, all of which we (my mentors and I) use in our lessons on a daily basis. Students are given the opportunity to see these technologies in use, as well as use them individually for presentations. We also have access to ActiVotes (multiple choice remotes to check student understanding using multiple choice questions). I love to use the ActiVotes in class, and so do the students. Through the ActiVotes, I am asking the same questions as I would in an oral question or on a worksheet. However, the students have the novelty of using technology, and each student has the opportunity to test themselves and receive immediate feedback. They do not have to be afraid of being singled out for having the wrong answer because the ActiVotes can be made anonymous, which is how I have used them. The number of voters that have answered can be tracked, so you know if everyone answers, and the results come up automatically once the voting session is over, as a bar graph. During our meiosis unit, we studied karyotypes. After discussing how different karyotypes are complied and what they are used for, I asked them to identify the chromosomal issue in different karyotypes. From the results (1, 2, 3, 4), it was obvious that the students understood how karyotypes were supposed to look and how to find the diseases in them. A few weeks later I quizzed them on karyotypes. Many students did really well, which tells me that this activity helped them understand how karyotypes are meant to look and how problems can be recognized (1, 2, 3).

In biology, we have a DNA unit, in which the students learn the structure of DNA, and how each molecule is replicated. This subject matter is aligned with standard 9-11 LS1E, and part of the district scope and sequence. After I gave a lecture on DNA structure, on which the students took notes on their note-blanks. Then, the students completed a worksheet to help reinforce the different parts of DNA structure. The next day, the students worked on a modeling activity, where they worked in pairs to build a model of a DNA molecule with two types of pasta, four different colors of pipe cleaners and string. After the students built their model and answered the questions within the assignment sheet (see modeling activity above), they came up to me for an oral quiz on DNA structure, in which I asked each student specific questions. They got points depending how many times it took them to answer every single question correctly. Once I named a student, their partner could not help them. Many students did not answer all the questions correctly the first time, and they were sent back to their desks to study again. This activity gave partners a chance to help each other understand the material and teach each other when their partner needed help understand an idea. By testing each other, the students learned the material much better than if they just had to fill out a worksheet. I had students telling me that the activity was much more helpful to their learning than another kind of activity. When the students took the exam about a week and a half later, many of them did very well (1, 2, 3), showing that they retained the material they learned in the activity.

In science, an important aspect of learning is the ability to formulate lab reports. In Biology, I gave a lesson on formulating a formal lab report, so that students could understand the ideas behind what I was asking them to do. We have a detailed grading rubric that we use to grade ALL lab reports in the department, and it is very similar to the rubric used by IB Biology. We do a couple practice lab reports in which students receive extensive feedback on how to improve their reports so they can turn in quality lab reports (1a, 1b, 1c, 2a, 2b, 2c). Students benefit from this feedback and usually do not need a second reminder to fix issues they had in the first lab report.

In order to present the material in a way that the students can understand most easily, I like to use power points with images, video clips, cartoons, anything to grab student attention and get them interested in the subject. I provide note-blanks, to make note-taking easier for the students and provide them with example problems for them to solve. I have even used different computer games to help reinforce the current material.

During the genetics unit in biology, I covered complete dominance, incomplete dominance and co-dominance. Blood type in humans is a great example of both complete dominance and co-dominance. We discussed blood typing, inheritance of blood type and how to determine which types of blood different people can receive. After taking notes, the students completed a worksheet to reinforce the material. The next day, I had the students complete a worksheet based off of the Nobel Prize website. The students answered five questions on reading material on the site, and then had to complete the game while answering questions about the steps they took to save each patient. The students had to identify what blood type the patient had by mixing the blood with different antibodies and looking for clotting, then choose which blood in the blood bank to give the patient. My students were very engaged in the activity, which really reinforced the ideas involved in blood typing. I had the students write I learned statements, which showed how effective the computer game was (1, 2, 3). They all seemed to learn a lot, and the game reinforced many ideas we discussed in class.

When learning about limiting reactants in chemistry, I used a computer simulation to help the students understand the idea of limiting reactants. The simulation has three sections: making sandwiches, real reactions, and the game, which contains many real reactions and has the students determine the amount of reactants given certain products.  The simulation helped them get the general idea when we discussed how the idea of only having one piece of cheese limits the amount of sandwiches you can make, no matter how many pieces of bread or meat you have.

Usually, a unit starts with introductory notes, such as the linked power point above. We talk briefly about a topic, such as types of chemical reactions. I give a lecture, and the students take notes on their provided note-blanks. We will usually complete an introductory activity to see how much information the students retained. During the chemical reactions unit (see power point and note-blank above), I gave a mini quiz, which assessed how well the students could recognize the different types of reactions and balanced equations. We did this using a power point, and students wrote their answers on binder paper. This is the same idea as a quiz, but the novelty makes the assessment seem more interesting and less like a quiz. We then graded the quiz in class so that the students could see what the correct answers were and we could discuss why those answers were correct. From this activity, I could see what misconceptions the students had from what questions they answered incorrectly, paying special attention to which incorrect multiple choice answer they chose. For example, student C did very well on the quiz; only missed two problems. This student made the same mistake on both problems, and many students had the same issue as her. We discussed how this question showed that coefficients in chemical reactions must be whole numbers. After more practice problems, we took a second quiz, on which student C did much better, along with the rest of her classmates.

I find that once students have a good introduction to material, they work well in groups completing practice problems, explaining the concepts to each other, and helping each other with problems they do not understand. When I talked about Le Chatelier’s principle (lesson plan), we discussed how a system in equilibrium is affected by changes in concentration, pressure and temperature. We talked about how a giant see-saw with several people walking around on it is a system in equilibrium. I had students visualize the system, and then draw a picture of what they visualized (1, 2, 3). Finally, I asked what might happen if we added more people to one side; how the system would shift to reach equilibrium again. Students had to think about the new concept and how it might affect the picture in their head. The lesson continued with a lecture on the particulars of each stressor (concentration, pressure, temperature) and how each affects a system in equilibrium. Then, the students got into groups of two or three and completed a worksheet to test their knowledge of the effect of any given stressor.

Once I give a quiz in a unit, I can gauge how much material I need to review with the students, and possibly how quickly I can move on to new material. My first quiz in the stoichiometry unit covered conversions between moles and other units, such as liters, grams, molecules, formula units, atoms and ions. The students performed well, with only a few concept issues (1, 2). I had my students participate in a jigsaw of solving different problems in my stoichiometry unit. There were eight groups of four students; each group solved one problem set (two problems). Once the students figured out how to solve their problem set, I switched up the groups so each group had one student who knew how to complete each of the four sets of problems. The students taught each other so that each student had learned how to complete four different sets of problems (1a, 1b, 2a, 2b). After this activity, I gave a quiz on how convert from amounts of reactants in a chemical reaction. From the results (1, 2), I could tell that most of the students understood the idea, and the math. We spent the rest of the day practicing different kinds of stoichiometry problems in partners. Students received stamps for every two problems they completed correctly. They were expected to receive three stamps, meaning that they completed every problem correctly (1a, 1b, 2a, 2b). About one week later I gave the unit exam. My students did extremely well, even students who normally perform well below normal (1a, 1b, 1c, 2a, 2b, 2c). I had more A’s on this exam than I have had on any other exam.

This year has been a huge learning experience. I have figured out a few different ways to engage the students in the current material, and make sure they understand the concepts that they are supposed to be learning. I find that a mix of group work, lecture and individual work help the students get different perspectives on the material, and give them a chance to figure out the material on their own and with their peers. I also find that different activities, including computer games or simulations, worksheets, group practice problems, competitions doing problems, and lecture with many visual aids and think time for students, are all beneficial to learning, especially when combined in different ways. The students need to be challenged because it causes them to think. The more thinking they have to do, the more connections are being made in their brains and the more learning is happening. I feel that I have learned many effective strategies this year and I am excited to learn more as my teaching career takes off.

ActivVotes

I have started using ActivVotes in both my chemistry and biology classes and I absolutely love them! They are a great tool to get students to participate in class practice problems. They can be made anonymous or linked to a specific person, so students do not have to be afraid of being singled out with the incorrect answer. You can save the results of the quiz directly into your flipchart (ActivStudio or ActivInspire technology, which is linked with a SmartBoard) or power point so that you can keep the results, as a bar graph, for yourself or as a motivator for your students. I think the students really like to use them, even though they are completing the same types of problems that they would be if I had them complete the practice problems on paper. In addition, you can export the flipchart with the saved results to a jpg or pdf or a word doc. They show up as pictures, so it is necessary to adjust you formatting if you want to see the original question beneath your saved results graph. Below I linked some examples of questions I asked (and the students’ responses):

Biology: 5, 6, 7, 8

Why I teach…

Today was one of those days that I live to teach for (5th period anyway). I came in a little upset because of previous classes and a couple of my students noticed. I was smiling within 5 mintues of just chatting with my students. Right now we are in the middle of cell reproduction. We have just finished mitosis, and are working on learning about karyotypes as an introduction to meiosis.

Yesterday, we started off with a short multiple choice question review on chromosome structure using the active voters (small remotes that have multiple choice answers so students can answer questions from their desks and feedback can be immediate). It was the first time we had used them, and the students were very excited. I was able to see immediately the the class remembered everything about chromosome structure. We then discussed the different types of chromosomes (autosomes and sex chromosomes) and the different types of cells (somatic cells (all cells in your body except sex cells) and sex cells (eggs and sperm)). The students were asking lots of great questions and we did not get through very much material because they were asking such great questions. At the end of the period, I had them write a “clear/ unclear” statement, which was also a first for this class. I have had them write summaries before, and answer specific questions, but I have never asked them to write about what confused them. This was extremely beneficial because I could see exactly what I needed to re-address, or what I needed to go over. I also had some students ask great questions in addition to explaining what they didn’t understand, most of which will be answered once we start meiosis on monday . Examples of students responses will be posted soon.

Today, I used the warm up to start a conversation about the concepts covered the day before. I included a visualization activity in which the students were asked to close their eyes and think about the chromosomes in different parts of their body, so they would get an idea about how many chromosomes they have in their entire bodies. It was great because I got a lot of students saying “ooh!” because they get what they did not understand the day before. Then, we talked about karyotypes, both what they are, how they are put together, and what they are supposed to look like. Again, the students asked great questions and starting great discussions. Finally, we talked about chromosomal disorders, issues with the number of chromosomes people can have, using karyotypes of specific disorders. The students were so interested in the different disorders that as soon as I put up a picture of a new karyotype, they immediately wanted to know the symptoms, and would barely let me describe the chromosomes before berating me with questions about the symptoms, even though I was about to list them. The questions the students were asking were so great. As we were talking about disorders, I breifly introduced meiosis, just to get the students thinking about how you inherit each chromosome. One student had a great “aha!” moment. She asked “so is that why pregnancy takes 9 months? Because the baby starts out as one cell, then divides exponentially? Like it starts out as one cell, then becomes two, then becomes four, then becomes eight and so on?” I said yep, and she exclaimed, “ooh! that is so cool!” Then the girl behind her says, “This stuff is so interesting! No offense, but I wasn’t so interested in previous units, but this unit is so cool. Well last unit (mitosis and DNA) was cool too, but this is really interesting!” The last thing we did was use the active voters to see of the students understood how the karyotypes showed disorders. From the few slides we got through, it was very obvious that the students really grasped the concepts. Today was one of those days that I live for. My students all were super interested in the material, and they made me feel like I was really doing a great job teaching them to love biology.

Meta-Reflection: Standard T: Knowledge of Teaching

Over the summer, I felt prepared to fulfill this standard in my classes. In my SPU classes, we talked a lot about each of the pieces of the standard. We even came up with our own lesson plans for different ways to fulfill this standard. I developed two different lesson plans over the summer that both fulfilled this standard.

One was a lesson on the characteristics of life, involving a debate on whether Lord Voldemort should be considered alive. I used written and oral communication and individual, paired and group work. I paired the students as best I could with similar ability levels, so that each student could feel that they had a chance to win the debate. Each of formative, summative and self-assessment was used, as students needed use the characteristics of life as evidence of their learning, which means they can check themselves to see if they remember them, the teacher can tell how much students have learned by listening to individual discussions and debates and then at the end of the class, the teacher can see how much the class has learned in the final discussion where the class has to come to a collective decision. I felt like this debate helped the students internalize how we view the characteristics of life and how we apply them to organism today. I think this lesson would also be fun for high school age kids because Harry Potter is very popular in that age group. I feel like this lesson would be one of those that students have a lot of fun, and do not really realize that they are applying their knowledge. Problems I foresee would be students getting off topic, and not using the characteristics of life, but I feel like this could be taken care of with careful direction.

The second was a lesson in which the students needed to discover why we classify living organisms in a specific way by creating their own classification system of one shoe from each class member. This lesson mostly uses self and formative assessments, because it is an introductory activity. The one piece of assessment that could be considered summative would be applying their knowledge from note-taking on each category of the Linnaeus classification system to their own shoe-classification scheme (see the lesson plan). I think this lesson would be accessible to all students, because it is dealing with shoes, which they wear every day. This lesson seemed very easy for the female students, as they probably think about the different aspects of shoes when getting dressed in the morning. I tried to use many instructional strategies, including individual, group and full class work. Because we were classifying shoes, I think every ability level and cultural background could understand this activity. Students with language barriers would be put in a group with at least one other student that they are familiar with to help them understand everything going on. When I entered the classroom this quarter, I found there was a similar activity, classifying household items, already built in to the curriculum which accomplished the same thing.

This quarter, I have seen many lessons built into our biology curriculum that are informed by standards based assessment, intentionally planned and influenced by multiple strategies. Our lessons in biology and chemistry start with a warm up, which is either a formative assessment to gauge what students know about a specific concept before we teach, or see how well they learned the material from the day before. We intentionally organize our lessons in a sequence that makes sense, and make small changes to accommodate all of our students and their needs. We use many strategies, including individual, pair and group work, written and oral work, and using sentences and pictures to convey a concept. The biggest change this quarter however, has been the amount I’ve learned about how to implement technology into the classroom from my educational technology class.

In our classrooms as Skyline, I have access to smart boards, document cameras, and computers, all of which we (my mentors and I) use in our lessons on a daily basis. Students are given the opportunity to see these technologies in use, as well as use them individually for presentations. We also have access to active voters (multiple choice remotes to check student understanding using multiple choice questions) but have not had the chance to use them yet. Through this class, I was able to see many other forms of technology in the classroom, including how to use blogging in the classroom, ideas for projects that collaborate with other classrooms, and how to incorporate technologies that students may need to know how to use in the later careers. I came up with some other ideas for helping students really internalize the skills and concepts they learn in the classroom, such as using computer games and podcasts to give students the means to apply their knowledge to see how well they understand the concepts and skill they have been taught. These new technologies may require use at home, which cannot always assume that students have access to these technologies. We can get around this by creating in class activities that teach students how to use these technologies, which we have done in my classrooms this quarter. Even giving students an option to use technology could help inform all students about technology, as the presentation would show students how the technology can be used. I had two projects, Organelle Commercial and Salting a Slug, that did this, and in both cases, only one group chose to use technology in their project.

Finally, in my technology class we needed to develop a website to help other teachers incorporate technology into their secondary math and science classrooms. We put up several ideas of tools to use in the classroom and example lessons using those tools for each for each component of Tech EALR 1: Integration: Students use technology within all content areas to collaborate, communicate, generate innovative ideas, investigate and solve problems. We also developed a digital narrative that discussed our view of technology incorporation in to the classroom. We had to develop a script and use technology to put pictures together that made sense with our script. I feel like I understand this standard a little better than over summer, especially in the technology component. I am constantly learning more ways to fulfill this standard from my mentors. I know that I will learn more as I go through the year and I hope to keep adding to my experience long after I graduate from this program.

Welcome to the Future… In Educational Technology

When making my digital narrative, I felt that what I was discussing was a good summary of everything I had learned over the quarter in this class. I had a lot of fun taking pictures of my students actually using technology in the classroom, but I noticed some interesting things. I saw that students were very familiar with using some aspects of technology in the classroom, while other technologies are not so wide spread. For example, most high school students are fluent in most Microsoft office programs, including Word, Power Point and Excel. Students can surf the internet with ease, though have trouble with determining whether a site is reliable or not. I also did not see a wide use of blogging in the classroom. Although students are familiar with social networking with facebook, myspace and twitter, they do not really use blogging. Blogging can be used for student collaboration; students can teach each other by explaining a concept in their own words. As blogs are public, the students’ work is being published. Students will work much harder if they know their work is being read and scrutinized by their peers, and the rest of the online community (November, 2006). If I were to have students begin a blog for the creative stories we write about science concepts, they may work harder to make sure it is their best work, and we could even talk about other ways of publishing their stories. Incorporating these kind of projects for students fulfills EALR 1 component 1.1 and EALR 2, component 2.4 of The Educational Technology Learning Standards.

I feel that are doing a pretty good job of preparing our students for their future careers, but we can do more. I think introducing them to technologies such as wikispaces, videoconferencing, or even website building would benefit their preparation immensely. Technology classes in schools may do this, but I think all students should be given sufficient practice with these programs. I think if we keep working to incorporate problem solving and creativity, such as incorporating computer games (http://medmyst.rice.edu/) or real life simulations (http://www.youdagames.com/online-simulation-games/) into our teaching, we will have prepared our students very well for their future careers. This incorporation will fulfill EALR 1, component 1.3 and EALR 2, component 2.4 of The Educational Technology Learning Standards.

I think we do a good job of talking about multiculturalism in the classroom, but the only way our students learn first-hand is if a student in our class has traveled, or if a student has moved to the US from another country. Using services like global-leap.org, we could connect our classrooms across the globe. Students could work with students from another country to compare ecosystems surrounding their schools. For example, my mentor just did a lab with her IB Environmental Systems and Societies class where they studied the numbers of three types of trees in the environment surrounding Skyline High School, as well as looking at what other organisms and biotic factors are present. We could connect with a classroom in other country (for example, somewhere in England or Australia) and run the same experiment, comparing the ecosystems and making conclusions about why the ecosystems are similar or different. This project could be used to fulfill all components of EALR 1 of The Educational Technology Learning Standards.

Students are excited about using all the modern technologies available today, but they do not necessarily know the safest practices for using them. Our students need to know how to protect themselves and their identities against predators, especially those online because it may not be apparent that they are present. We can use interactive means, such as the PBS Official Web License. We can also help counteract cyber bullying by reminding students to report any name calling or mean commenting they encounter. These interactive means fulfill EALR 2, components 2.1 and 2.2 of The Educational Technology Learning Standards.

Often times, students respond more strongly to their peers than they do to authority figures, even if both are relaying the same message. If students can discuss legal, ethical and moral issues associated with modern technologies with each other, their thoughts may have a greater impact on each other than my own thoughts. This is probably one of the reasons the commercials countering pirated music now star children and teens. If we can have a serious class discussion about what students consider appropriate actions when it comes to using modern technology, such as creative content posted online, the students may consider looking at creative content differently than they have in the past. We want to see a change in their behavior and perceptions towards content posted online (Microsoft, 2008). These discussions would fulfill EALR 2, components 2.1 and 2.2 of The Educational Technology Learning Standards.

References:

Freedman, Terry. (2006). Coming of age: An introduction to the new world wide web. Great Britain: Terry Freedman Ltd.

Global Leap. (2006). Videoconferencing in the Classroom. Retrieved from: http://www.global-leap.org/about/.

Microsoft. (2008). Digital citizenship and creative content curriculum. Retrieved from: http://www.digitalcitizenshiped.com/Curriculum.aspx.

Public Broadcasting Company. (2007). Get your official web license. Retrieved from: http://pbskids.org/license/result.html?a1=n&a2=n&a3=n&a4=n&a5=n&a6=n&a7=n&a8=n&a9=n&a0=n&name=Kirstin&x=125&y=36.

Educational Technology Creed

For this narrative, I had a lot of fun taking pictures of my students actually using technology in the classroom. They got extremely excited when I was taking pictures of them working, and they kept trying to pose. This made it difficult not to get too much of their faces in the pictures. What I thought was interesting, was that as I was taking pictures, I saw that students were very familiar with using some aspects of technology in the classroom, while other technologies are not so wide spread. For example, most high school students are fluent in most Microsoft office programs, including Word, Power Point and Excel. Students can surf the internet with ease, though have trouble with determining whether a site is reliable or not.

I also noticed that students can be very excited by technology use in the classroom. even though we are doing the same demonstrations in class, students are much more excited when we watch the same demonstration on youtube.com. This is a neat technique to be aware of because there are many videos and simulations online that can be used to engage student interest.

I really enjoyed using Audacity and Windows Movie Maker to create this narrative. I was not familiar with either program, but both were very easy to use. I was even able to add in some music, something I was not sure was going to be possible because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to figure out how to use the programs. I love the animations for transitioning between pictures. It makes the movie much more interesting. I am glad that I needed to use programs I wasn’t familiar with because it reminded me how easy it can be to learn how to use really neat programs. I will remember this experience when I am looking for new things to do in the classroom, or need my students to make a cool documentary.

My script!

Innovation in the classroom

In the readings of this week, there was much information concerning introduction of new technologies into the classroom. There are many different ways to use innovative ideas and technologies in our classrooms. Many of them were very simple ideas while incorporating different technologies. I especially liked the project, scenario E, described on the NETS Implementation website. For this project, students are required to simulate an election, creating a campaign complete with pamphlets, stickers/buttons and flyers to handout, a speech containing a slogan, as well as a commercial made, in this case, with Photo Story 3. For this class, the project was a big success. Fortunately, each student had a laptop for their own use for the entire school year. This resource is not available to every school. Skyline High School, for example, does not have this kind of technology available to their students. I had students create a commercial for a specific organelle (small structure within the cell). I gave the students the option of using technology. Only one group (out of approximately 30 groups) chose to try to use technology, and then the commercial was messed up in editing, because all sound was lost. Although we have a very wealthy clientele at Skyline, we cannot assume that every student had access to all technology, especially specific software such as Microsoft Office, Photo Story 3, and Quark. Schools would need to have all technology that students would require for any project, and that is not always possible, especially in the current economy.

One thing we can do to incorporate technology that the school has access to in the classrooms is to give students class time to use the technologies required while brainstorming, collaborating and planning using free technologies at home, such as webinspiration and wridea. These technologies can allow students to do all their brainstorming and planning at home, while using their class time to actually work on the assignment, allowing more productive use of the time that students have with the technologies required for the assigned project. This would require students to have a computer and web access at home. At Skyline, this is not a problem. However, I could foresee issues with this at other schools.

It is very difficult to incorporate innovative technologies when schools have few resources. I think that there would need to be much in-class work planned in order to fulfill the technology standards. This would take much planning, especially to incorporate all subject material we must, according to the Washington state standards. This may be difficult, and I do not know whether it can be done, unless there are very few projects that incorporate technology. I would think that it is possible, but it would require a lot of planning, possibly including tutorials for each piece of software or technology we use. I think technology can be implemented if a teacher tries hard enough.

Resources:

Technology Operations and Concepts. (2009). Retrieved from ISTE Wikispace: http://nets-implementation.iste.wikispaces.net/Technology+Operations+and+Concepts.

Marzano Strategies: summarizing and note-taking, cues, questions and graphic organizers, and formative assessment

Lesson Plan: Ecology

a. Instructional Strategy-Referenced Reflection

In this lesson, three different strategies were implemented in different sections in of the lesson. First, students were asked to recall how to summarize something by summarizing what they learned when they took notes on the definition of ecology, the biosphere, ecosystems and abiotic/biotic things, the day before (summarizing and note-taking). The students then took notes on a power point presentation and lecture using a graphic organizer. Examples were given, stories were told and students were asked questions to help them think of examples in their own loves (cues, questions and graphic organizers). Finally, the students filled out a worksheet that asked them to determine whether something was biotic or abiotic, which shows if they learned what the words meant the day before (formative assessment).

I thought the lesson went fairly well. The students seemed to benefit from the teaching strategies used, and would not have made as many connections if the strategies used were less diverse.

b. Standard S Criterion-References Reflection

In this lesson, students needed to summarize their notes from the day before. To do this, they needed to read over their notes, understand what a summary was, and write out two to three sentences. They needed to know how to effectively complete each of these tasks in order to be successful in this lesson. I presented these outcomes to the students and gave them a time limit in which to finish the assignment.

During the lecture, the students can read the power point lecture and fill out the graphic organizer. In addition, they needed to listen to my examples and stories, and come up with their own to show that they could recognize and apply the concepts. I related the concepts to geography, by showing a map of different ecosystems throughout the world. I think technology helped out the lecture a great deal. We could show pictures, and put up the information in an interesting, colorful way. Simply talking about the material would inhibit the visual learners, and there would not be any visual stimulation to catch the students’ attention.

After the lecture, the students were given a worksheet to fill out to discover how much they had actually learned about biotic and abiotic things the day before. They were asked to determine different things as abiotic or biotic. The students had issues with the idea that “dead” things are considered biotic when this was first taught, but today they seemed to understand the difference between dead and non-living. They still had trouble with the idea that fossils and molecules were abiotic, because fossils were “once alive,” but talking about how fossils are made seemed to help their understanding. Talking about the different kinds of molecules that are possible helped them as well, because they could see how molecules could be abiotic.

c. Standard T Criterion-Referenced Reflection

After reading the students summaries, I found that my students are either lazy, or do not know how to write summaries. Many of the students simply restated a few different sentences from their notes, rather than actually writing two or three sentences about the big ideas. A few students got the idea, but most did not. The problem was that I assumed that all students would know how to write a summary, which my mentor said that they do, they were just being lazy. We will still be going over this another day, probably using an example, such as summarizing a current movie or book.

The lecture was definitely more interesting to the students with the power point than it would have been if I had just talked. We were able to show large color pictures of organisms, maps of the world with biomes labeled. During the lecture, I told stories about Cokany Salmon, the biome that Sammamish is in and about my mentor’s previous research. These examples gave the students a way to relate to the material in an interesting way that was easier for them to understand. Students were also able to fill out a graphic organizer to help them remember what we talked about. The organizer makes it much easier for students to take notes, and get down the main ideas of the lecture.

The worksheet at the end of the period was a self-assessment (see student work below) to see if the students understood what abiotic and biotic meant, and to see if they could classify examples of biotic and abiotic things. On the worksheet I gave them a range of things, including things I thought they would know to things I knew would be difficult. I wanted to challenge them, but not force them to fail. I think it worked well. Almost all of the students understood the ones I thought they would get, and some got the ones that I thought would be difficult. When we reviewed the examples in class, it was apparent that the students understood what biotic and abiotic meant and could identify things as either biotic or abiotic. They got things wrong when they were unsure of the composition, such as a fossil. Many students did not know how fossils were formed, so they did not understand how they could be abiotic. We had a great discussion about how fossils are formed, which helped them understand exactly why fossils are abiotic.

Student work: 1, 2, 3, 4

Changing times

Technological advances have changed our society a lot in the last few years. Especially since the creation of social networking sites, such as facebook.com, myspace.com, and twitter.com, interaction on the internet has increased. Many teachers, including those at Skyline now have websites that allow students to keep up with their homework, print off class notes, or reference the power point for the current unit. Some keep up an additional social networking site (usually facebook.com) to interact with their students outside of class, such as answering questions about material and/or homework.

These sites can also be used to allow students to work on and complete group homework assignments or projects when they cannot get together outside school. Many times, the students’ schedules prevent them from getting together outside of school. This new technology will allow students to work from wherever they can, and even allow for students needing to work at separate times (Johnson et al. 2009). I think this gives students much more freedom to collaborate on assignments with other students.

Asking students to work with technology to complete school work may help empower them to complete their assignments. They are surrounded by these technologies every day, and often times, students see these technologies as part of the real world, but school work is disconnected. If we can use technology to show that school and the real world are connected, maybe we can give them long term goals for connecting what they learn to what they want to do when they grow up.

Some advances we have seen may not help as much as we would like them to. The sixth sense technology described in the video, The Thrilling Potential of Sixth Sense Technology, shows how cool technology can be. We could give this technology to students to complete outside projects and assignments, and they could get very creative with what they record and describe. I could imagine students having much more freedom to create videos and spreadsheets that answer a scientific question. Students could be given an assignment to look for chemical bonding in their everyday lives. They could take pictures, then insert pictures of molecular models of those bonds they found and finally overlay shapes to show geometry of the bonds. I think projects like this are very beneficial because it connects students’ lives to the material they are learning in school.

However, I foresee many issues with this technology if it is widespread enough that students are using it consistently outside the classrooms. If students have access to this technology and can bring it in to the classroom, they would have access to their cell phone, the internet, and a camera extremely easily. With only their fingers as the interface, a student could take a picture of the first page of a test, send it to their friend, have their friend look up the answers and send the picture back. The picture could even be sent to the entire class. I think cheating in this fashion, or in similar fashions, could become rampant if this technology is allowed to spread. I think we would have an even larger issue with cell phones than we do now, because there is no way to separate the technologies, so students would always be able to access their phone. Technology can greatly benefit education, but there are always drawbacks to the best of intentions. I hope we can find ways to limit the inappropriate use of technology in the classroom so that we can use the upcoming technology to its fullest extent.

References:

1. Johnson, L., Levine, A., Smith, R., and Smythe, T. (2009). The 2009 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Podcasts: a new perspective on content

When we think about ways to use podcasts in our classrooms, many teachers immediately jump to the idea that students can still listen to lectures even if they are absent. Pair that with a power point, the students can easily make up missed classes. This is a beneficial technique, especially when teachers use power points as visuals rather than drawing on the white board (there would be no way for students to see that material first hand). However, there are other ways of using podcasts in the classroom.

I thought of a few other ways podcasts can be used, aside from recording our own lectures. The first idea I have is to have students listen to podcasts from other teachers. This way they can gain a new perspective on the material. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, students do not understand our way of explaining the concepts. If we have our students listen to a way someone else explains the concept, the students may understand more readily. New viewpoints can also give a fresh perspective, to help students apply the knowledge they understand to alternate situations. Podcasts are available at sites such as, http://www.learnoutloud.com/contents/LearnOutLoud.com-Podcasts/9/21, http://education.podcast.com/, and http://epnweb.org/index.php?openpod=18#18.

Another way to use podcasts in the classroom is to have students create their own for specific topics. Often, the most effective way to learn is to teach the material to someone else. Through podcasts, students can teach others about the material, and then refer back their recorded podcasts for revision. By the end of the year, there will be a full curriculum of podcasts, and they may be used to help give the following year of classes a new perspective. I think podcasts would be very beneficial when used in education because it gives students a new way to teach other students about a specific concept as well as giving them a different teaching strategy to learn through, rather than reading out of a textbook for a different perspective on the content.

Of course, the biggest issue with podcasts would be getting the students access to them. As the reading discussed, one easy way is to create a blog at wordpress.com and install PodPress plugin (Ovadia 2008). This will allow you to link podcasts to your blog, and allow students to subscribe to the blog so that they can receive notifications when a new podcast is added. I do not think that students will have a rough time with this as they live immersed in technology every day. The biggest problem would probably be gaining access to technology to record lectures. Either a teacher would have to re-do the lectures by the computer with a microphone or find some way of recording effectively in the classroom. Having students record podcasts may be difficult as well, because all students (or most students) would need to have access to a computer with a microphone.

References:

Ovadia, Micah. (2007-2008). PoducateMe. Retrieved from http://www.poducateme.com/.