Reading Reflection 7

1. Classroom discussions are important in order for the classroom to be productive in its learning. There are different levels of discussion in classrooms. The first is Teacher to Teacher. This level includes teachers working together and taking opportunities to collaborate with other teachers. This is a good way to plan ideas for the classroom by discussing with another teacher and brainstorm for the upcoming days. The next level is Student to Student which includes students talking about their different learning experiences. This promotes teamwork and good communication skills, which are important for students to learn. The last level of classroom discussions is Teacher to Student. Teacher to Student is when the teacher promotes whole group discussion with the students. It's important to stay away from the lecture format when dealing with Project Based Learning.

2. When a project is assigned, students will go different directions with the project, especially in PBL. So it is important to check in with students to see how the project is going. Parts of checking in include seeing if the student is staying on schedule and using good time management skills, team members getting along, checking for understanding, and finding out what students think of the project. Checking in is an essential part to project progress.

3. When optimizing the use of technology for a project, it may be a good idea to check with your students and see what technology they prefer to use. This will keep students interested in the project if they are using technology they know and love--which is a huge benefit for projects. The technology chosen should help students reach their learning goals, keep them organized, expand their horizons, and gain new insights for communication.

4. Managing conflict is essential for a project. Students should be able to manage their own team conflicts, and this skill will be important to know and use in their futures. A way to avoid conflict is for team members to agree on their responsibilities and consequences. This way students know what they are accountable for. To make sure conflict is being managed, the teacher should include a feedback rubric to score the other members of the team to make sure everyone is doing their part.

5. The content in this chapter is relatable to our project because it helps with avoiding conflict among students and checking their progress. It's important to see how a student is doing with a project before they turn in the final product, and this chapter gave instruction on how to check in with our students. It also helped with learning how to work collaboratively and discuss in different ways.

Lesson Plan 2 Topics

Sarah and Arika-

Just a reminder that I plan on having students record their different fitness activities throughout the week and putting them in a bar graph on Excel. 

Sarah Hughey's Reading Response #6

1. Discuss how technology tools can encourage students to be reflective and evaluate their own strengths.
2. Describe several ways in which you can get students’ minds ready for a project.
3. Discuss the elements of teaching fundamentals first.
4. Describe the important steps in preparing students for using technology in project.
5. Discuss ways to promote inquiry and deep learning.
6. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

1.When discussing how technology tools can encourage students to be reflective and evaluate their own strengths, it is better to discuss specific tools rather than just giving general descriptions on how technology can help with this.  Three examples of technology tools that can encourage students to be reflective and evaluating are blogs, ProfilerPRO, and online surveys such as Surveymonkey and Zoomerang.  Blogs encourage these traits by making students reflect throughout the project on what is being learned (like we are doing with our blogs in this class).  ProfilePRO surveys the students and shows them what their interests, strengths, weaknesses, and similar characteristics are.  This tool can be used to show students how their ProfilePRO results are changing over time as they go through their project and learn new things.  The online surveys can help the students track trends and compare their assessment to the group as a whole.

2. To prepare the students' minds for a project, teachers can introduce projects with a Know-Wonder-Learn (KWL) activity.  I have done such an activity in my other education classes, and this is how it was done: The professor put up a chart with three columns: one for "K", one for "W", and one for "L".  Then, as a class, we would have to write what we already knew about the topic and what we wanted to learn about the topic.  After the topic was done, we would write down what we learned under the "L" column.  However, the book suggests creating interest and excitement before introducing a task such as KWL.  This makes sense to me, as I can imagine the "W" column being completely empty if the students are disinterested in the topic and don't have the interest to come up with questions about it.  Teachers should invite students to think and discuss about the topic for quite some time (the book suggests several days) to create optimism and excitement.  Ideas to include in this preparatory stage include discrepant events that challenge taken-for-granted knowledge, role playing, and using technology such as Google Earth and Flickr to increase background knowledge and curiosity.

.3. Teaching fundamentals are critical to a successful PBL project.  If the students don't have the prerequisite background knowledge needed, then they may not tackle the project in the right direction and will struggle learning the skills and information needed for the project while trying to do the project at the same time.  And, in my opinion, having the students work on a PBL project before they have the skills needed for it is unlike the real world, where people are interviewed for a job to make sure they have the needed skills before being hired and working on projects.

4. To prepare students to use technology in a project, the teacher should first "set up a technology playground".  Have technology be available, and allow the students to explore them by and with each other before immediately jumping into a lesson on how to do it.  Offer help when needed and keep an eye out for when a specific lesson is needed, but trust that the students have the ability to explore it for themselves.  Next, teachers should "tap student expertise" - they should allow the tech-savvy students to teach the others.  Practice runs should be done with the student teachers along with making available teaching tools (ex. demonstrations/tutorials) if it seems like a tool that the majority of the students wouldn't be using.  Third, teachers should "introduce project management tools" such as logs or journals to make it easier for the students to keep track and reflect on the project and for the teacher to provide just-in-time assessment.  Fourth, the teachers should demonstrate if they are comfortable with the tools to be used, or they can allow a student or technology specialist to demonstrate, perhaps with a screencast.  The teacher should be willing to "rely on [any available] technology specialist[s]", and finally, the teacher needs to recognize that one size does NOT fit all, so not everyone has to master every tool or application if it is not something that will potentially be needed for lifelong learning.

5. A teacher has many ways to promote inquiry and deep learning.  A method the book gives is to guide students into skilled questioning - for example, leading students to use question starters such as "which one", "how", "what if", "should", and "why" can help students ask questions that will get them deeper into the topic rather than questions that just skims the surface of the information.  This leads students to collect information and make informed decisions, understand problems and various points of views in order to come up with solutions, create a hypothesis about the topic, debate morality or practicality, and understand cause and effect.  This thinking leads to information literacy: "less looking, more thinking".

6.  All of these concepts relate to our project, as we need to make sure to incorporate them into any PBL project we create.  We want to be able to have students that can reflect and evaluate their strengths and work, be able to prepare students for a project that everyone is going to have to exert much time and energy on, not have students be lost because they don't have the fundamentals, have students be ready to use technology in a project, and be lifelong learners who inquire and learn in depth.  If the students are achieving these, we know that our project was a success and that the time and resources were well used.

 

Reading Reflection #6

1.  Technology can be great for students while evaluating their own strengths. One student will have different strengths than another, but they can collaborate and use the tools that they both know best and help each other out. Technology can also help students stay organized and on tasks. It can also allow students to give and receive feedback not only from teachers, but also evaluations from other students.

2. First things first, it is important to get an understanding of the students' prior knowledge in order to get their minds ready for a project. It's also important to instill passion on whatever topic the project is on because if you are passionate about it, chances are your students will be too. Encouraging students to think about the project and giving them a few days to explore the topic is also a great idea to get students' minds ready for a project. This gives them time to brainstorm and think about how they want to pursue the project.

3. Teaching fundamentals first is all about teaching prerequisite knowledge and skills in order to succeed in the project. Once students understand the fundamentals, they will have their own independence to explore the project and come up with ideas on their own. If students have a basic understanding of the topic, they can then plan investigations for the project from their prior knowledge.

4. It is important for students to realize that technology is not the whole project, but simply a tool to help complete a project. Technology is for learning, however sometimes it requires additional planning. To prepare the students for technology with a project, it is your job as the teacher to identify exactly what technology will best benefit your students. Flexibility is also important when preparing for technology.

5. To promote deeper learning for your students, you must ask the right questions. With the right questions, students will have to think on a deeper level to understand the project and other related aspects of it. Teachers should design collaborative activities for students to help them with their research and findings. The book mentions guiding your students to think like scientists--encourage them to analyze the data they are finding.

6. This chapter, like the others, is relevant to our project because we can use all of these ideas while planning. This lesson talks a lot about the preparation for a good project and finding the right technology that will benefit our students--and that's exactly what we are doing in our project. We want to find technology that will help them complete their project and also find ways for them to analyze their data and promote a deeper learning.

Reading Response #6 Arika White

Technology tools can encourage students to be reflective and evaluate their own strengths.  This can be done by use of blogs to reflect what they are learning over the course of learning.  ProfilerPRO can be used to determine a student’s learning characteristics as well as identify their strengths and weaknesses.  Also, SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang are websites that use surveys to help students track trends and help individuals to compare their self-assessments with their whole group.  Before the project begins, the students will need to have their minds ready and a collection of their prior knowledge will need to be discovered.  Many teachers use a Know-Wonder-Learn activity to begin students with the project.  One important beginning step of introducing the project is to help students develop excitement, passion, imagination and begin to think about the project and develop ideas.  Teachers may help students develop excitement prior to beginning the project by posing questions a week or two before the project is introduced to get students engaged and excited about the topic.  It is important for teachers to teach the students fundamentals of the topic first, before launching the project.  This is important because students can then be introduced and taught the basics of the topic so they can distribute their time more efficiently.  Instead of using the project time to become familiar with the basics of the topic, they can manage their time more efficiently to study the topic deeper.  Preparation to use technology in the project requires advanced planning.  The use of technology is not the project, but instead, how the project will get done.  This preparation can be done by considering that you are a student, and which methods would be most effective to get the project done.  By creating an exposure to many, un-alike topics, teachers can promote inquiry and deep learning by asking the students to brainstorm ways that those topics can be connected.  As a project is launched in this manner, students will branch off with their own inquiries to develop a deeper understanding in those areas they are interested.  Concepts in this chapter relate to my group’s project especially the idea of reaching a deeper understanding.  By allowing the students to brainstorm and develop their own chosen plans for health and nutrition, they can take the knowledge to a deeper understanding by investigating, researching and studying a topic they are more interested in.  

Concept Map Version B

Reading Reflection #5

1. Before starting a project with students, it is important to consider your preparation. Projects require time management, organization, communication, and much more. Before starting a project, you will need to gather plenty of resources to support your project. You want your students to get the most out of the project and benefit greatly from it.

2. Teachers' project management needs include tools for communication, tools to present milestones, methods to get resources to students, systems for managing the project, structures to support productive learning, and many other tools. Students' project management needs include tools to help them manager their time, tools or systems to help manage materials and drafts, collaboration tools, methods to seek assistance, ways to get feedback, and ways to work interactively to see how parts add up to a whole.

3. There are many applications that can be used to assist in project management. One of my favorite ways to manage a project is through a blog. This allows viewers to see what is going on in the classroom and allows them to comment and give their input. Drupal and Textpattern include tools such as surveys and discussion forums that make it easier to collaborate.

4. This chapter relates to our project because we need to consider all of these concepts before launching the project. As a team, we have also been using a blog and practicing using applications to help us plan our projects.