The two ideas the really struck me in Ellis’s lecture this week were ideas about constructivism and student independence. The first idea, that “things and objects and so on should be studied before abstract rules are studied” (Ellis, slide 9) made me think of the constructivist view that our schools are pushing towards now. We encourage students to build their knowledge from discovery activities and we use inquiry strategies to help the students discover knowledge on their own. We use inquiry activities a lot in my biology classroom. We had the students complete an activity in the beginning of the year where they classified different household objects, such as toothpicks, rubberbands, pieces of cloth, and metal pins. This idea was to get them familiar with the idea of classifying different objects so that they would be comfortable when we started classifying organisms. This led to the second idea that struck me in the reading, “that students should be more dependant upon their own investigations than upon authority” (Ellis, slide 11). This idea is also just becoming widely used in the classroom, getting students to take responsibility for their learning. We want the students to discover their knowledge, rather than just having us tell them what concepts they need to understand. In my biology class, my students inspected plant and animal cells to discover the differences between them, rather than just telling them what the differences were. I think both of these ideas are very important to American education today, and it is very interesting that they come from Europe.
Tag Archive: Activities
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.
Small group work is great for teaching between students. Students can explain concepts to each other and often the students who did not understand to begin with get a different perspective and the content mzakes more sense to them. The students who understood the content before the group work can internalize the material by teaching it to other students. However, there is always the danger of a couple students doing all the work, while the others just slide through without learning anything, or doing any work. Without self evaluation, there is no sure way to tell which students are actually learning and working, especially when the project contains work outside of class. I think small group work is valuable because the students can learn how to work with different types of students, which will be valuable to their futures
I completed a project for EDU 6613 that required an assessment, teaching to help students master the material, then another assessment on the same material. I learned a lot from this experience, and I am looking forward to using this strategy in my future teaching, especially because I can have students share their strategies for solving prolems with other students, because I find that studentss with a system tend to perform better on exams. My completed project can be accessed through the link below.
In my biology classes, we have been studying the history of DNA, its structure and how it replicates. In order to help the students learn the material, we had them build models out of pasta and pipe cleaners. In pairs, they followed the instructions to make a model of one DNA molecule, and answered written questions about what they did. After they finished, I asked each pair questions about their molecule, asking them to show mastery of their knowledge of the structure of DNA. The students had to answer every question correctly in order to be checked off. If they did not, they were sent back to study, and they had to sign up again. The quiz was out of 5 points, and the students lost one point for every time they were sent back to their desks. We did a similar activity for DNA replication, having them model it, and then answer a second set of oral questions, with them same rules. As much as the students complained when they were not checked off the first time, I had several students tell me that the activity really helped them learn the material. We took the bigger written quiz (which included DNA history, as well as structure and replication) on thursday/friday (depending on the period) and some students have done much better on this written test than they have done on other tests.
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.
I feel that I have made a good start on meeting this standard this quarter. I try to make all of my lessons content driven. When in class, students must solve problems in order to succeed in science and understand given curriculum standards, which may range from understanding concepts by explaining them in a different way to applying their knowledge to answer a question.
Students in my classes use different methods to learn the given material. They listen to lectures and take notes, they complete practice problems, and they ask questions when they do not understand, which happens in most classrooms, such as in my mentors’ classrooms. I have added some components to help students show their understanding in different ways. Three particular assignments have stuck out this quarter in my classes. In chemistry, I came up with a poster activity, with the help of my mentor and a few other faculty members, to help the students with orbital notation and the periodic table. Students were assigned an element, and need to figure out how to represent the valence electrons in an illustration, and how to complete the orbital notation for their element, with only one explanation of how it worked the previous day. This activity is aligned with the physical science content standard 9-11 PS2A and helps students meet the standard. I think this poster helped them practice orbital notation without doing the usual lecture and worksheet. I think these kinds of activities help the students want to learn the material rather than having it forced down their throats.
In biology, I came up with an activity where students composed a poem, song or story about what happens when salt is poured on a slug, using specific vocabulary words we learned in class. Students showed their understanding of osmosis by composing a creative piece, which is different than normal assignments. This helped them internalize what osmosis is and how it works by asking them to relate it to their lives. This activity is aligned with the life science content standard 9-11 LS1D and helps them meet it. The writing in this assignment helped the students improve their writing, as well as allowing them to incorporate their interests into the stories (see the students work included in the above link).The students were also able to show their creativity in what kind of story they told. The final assignment was an established lab within the biology curriculum, Investigating Cell Variety, where the students needed to figure out what distinguishes a plant cell from an animal cell by looking at different cells and identifying similarities and differences between them. I think this activity helped the students tremendously in understanding plant and animal cell structure, much more so than any lecture might. This activity is aligned with the life science content standard 9-11 LS1C and helps the students meet this standard. This lab required students to use their reading and writing skills to understand the lab manual directions, and answer those questions presented in their lab manuals.
These are all things I have done in the classroom. Through my educational technology class, I found a few other ways to meet this standard. One of the ideas I have gotten through my studies is incorporation of computer games that help students improve their critical thinking and problem solving skills into the curriculum. Another idea is to create a lab that asks students to collaborate with another classroom across the globe. The students would each complete a similar comparative investigative lab that applies to each country’s environment. The students would post their findings in an organized fashion on a collaborative site, such as a blog, and then compare with those findings of the other classroom. They could learn the content they are supposed to, incorporate reading, writing and technology, and introduce students to a new culture.
I have learned a lot this past quarter about this standard and how to fulfill it in the classroom. I feel that I understand this standard much better than I did over the summer. It not only encompasses the concepts you must teach the students, but how you teach students these concepts, including relating the concepts to the students’ lives, and the other subjects they are learning. It also includes how you relate the content to their future lives and the skills they need to succeed once they graduate from high school. This standard means that you teach the students not only the concepts in the state standards, but also WHY they need to learn those concepts, and HOW to apply them to their daily and future lives. I feel that I am learning how to effectively accomplish all of these things in my classroom by watching how my mentors do it, and trying out different techniques and activities that I came up with. These are only the most prominent ways that I have fulfilled this standard in my classroom, and I hope to continue to learn more as I go through the rest of the year. I think that I can add much to my experience as the year goes on.
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.
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.
Lesson Plan: Measuring Primary Productivity in Grass Plants
a. Instructional Strategy-Referenced Reflection
In this lesson, two instructional strategies were implemented in different parts of the lesson. Students are formulating their own problem statements and hypothesizing to answer those questions. They must think critically to come up with a problem that they can examine in their lab and guess what might happen if they manipulate a specific variable (generating and testing hypotheses).
Students are given a “clean-up” stamp if they show sufficient effort when cleaning up their lab stations at the end of each period. Students really care about getting the stamp, even if it is not graded. The stamp helps reinforce student effort, because they want to do a good job so that they can receive that stamp (reinforcing effort and providing recognition).
b. Standard S Criterion-References Reflection
In this lesson, the criteria students were expected to learn were presented clearly in the lab procedure. They knew what expectations they needed to follow in order to get good results for their lab. The students were given examples, and then limited by only allowing two sets of students to work on each manipulation the students came up with. For example, many students wanted to test how making the water more acidic would affect plant growth. Only two groups were allowed to work on this, whereas everyone else had to come up with different manipulations. In addition, the students were asked to develop a procedure for testing their hypothesis. I think they benefitted greatly from this exercise because they needed to figure out the best way to test their hypothesis.
In order to receive a clean-up stamp, students were asked to clean their lab stations so that it was as clean, or cleaner than it as before. There were certain stipulations, such as the soil needing to be completely cleared up, including having none in the sink. The students need to fulfill these requirements before they get a stamp. If they get a stamp, they know that they have done a good job of cleaning their station. If they do not, they must try to clean up their station again, to the satisfaction of the instructor. Once they have cleaned their stations, they will receive a stamp. This tactic helped them understand what they needed to do to get a stamp and they receive positive reinforcement for acceptable student effort.
c. Standard T Criterion-Referenced Reflection
In this lab, students needed to manipulate a variable to test primary productivity of grass. They used this lab to as an example of primary productivity and how to calculate it. I think this lab was essential in the students’ learning in how to apply their knowledge of primary productivity. No other activity would have helped them understand how primary productivity affects populations better than this lab. To help each student do their best, the students were paired so that the struggling students were put with a student who is not struggling, so that they could get the help they need to succeed from their partner.
Students could use the fact that they received a stamp or did not if they are doing a good job in cleaning up. If they received one, they know that they are doing a good job cleaning up and will continue to keep up their good work. If they do not get a stamp they can evaluate what they need to do in order to receive one and remember for the next lab day what extra things they must do to receive a stamp.
