The three instructional strategies we covered this week are Homework and Practice, Similarities and Differences, and Generating and Testing Hypotheses. All three of these strategies are important in teaching and help by reinforcing student learning.
Homework and Practice
Homework and practice is used to help reinforce student learning and allows students to apply what they have learned. Generally, practice is something done in the classroom. The students are taught material and the practice they are given is used to help them master that material. Practice helps students gain a better understanding of the material and gain feedback from the teacher on the material. Technology could be used as practice. If you are teaching students math facts they could sign on to the computer and play some math fact games. We use Mad Math at our school as well as Study Island. Homework is practice, but is generally done at home. When giving homework, I believe, you need to keep in mind the students lives outside of school. A lot of my students (6th graders) are involved in after school activities and don't have all night to complete homework. You also have to think about if they have access to computers at home. A few of my students don't have computer access and therefore I don't assign a lot of homework assignments that contain technology components.
Identifying Similarities and Differences
Identifying Similarities and Differences is a skill that should be used from Preschool to Seniors! It is a great way to help students understand a topic better and learn how to categorize the information they are learning. One way we identify similarities and differences in my reading class is through venn diagrams. I put a venn diagram up on my Smartboard and the students have to fill it in. Sometimes I will put up characteristics and the students will have to slide them into the correct circle for a certain character. Identifying similarities and differences is very effective in character analyzation as well as comparing and contrasting two books. Graphic organizers are wonderful tools to help you organize your similarities and differences.
Generating and Testing Hypotheses
Generating and Testing Hypotheses is something we all do without even realizing it! It is important to help students realize the process behind testing their hypotheses. By asking students to generate and test hypotheses they gain a better understanding of the material, apply what they already know, and become engaged in their own learning. Technology can be easily incorporated when testing your hypotheses. Students may want to poll other students using tools such as PollEverywhere, or in my classroom we use our Senteo system ( works with our Smartboard). Students can evaluate their date by using Excel or Google Spreadsheets. Overall, testing hypotheses is a great way to get kids to think critically and be in control of their own learning.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
CEDO 525 - Week 4
I ended up watching all of the Clay Shirky videos that were posted for the week. To be honest, he is not my type of presenter... I found the information a little boring and over analyzed, but there were a few take home points in all of the videos that I can relate to education.
First of all, in the video Institutions Vs. Collaboration
I found it interesting how he believes that due to collaboration on the web institutions are becoming more and more obsolete. This is true in education as well. There are becoming more collaborations that are forming on-line education that are making some schools and teachers obsolete. I don't fully believe that collaborations will ever take over institutions. There are sometimes that institutions will win out. I agree that web collaboration has changed how we can access information. His example of Flikr hit the nail on the head. We can now easily access pictures about a certain subject from numerous photographers due to Flikr's tag feature. People can also find numerous different types of information thanks to the existence of blogs and wikis.
The other video I watched was How Cognitive Surplus will Change the World.
One take home point from this video was if you want productivity or positive results to decline give them a consequence. I thought is example of parents picking up their children late from daycare was great! He said that parents were told they were going to be charged if they picked up their child 10 minutes late. The daycare providers thought it would encourage parents to be on time, but it ended up doing the opposite. Parents actually were late more often because they figured they would just pay the fee. I believe this is true in education. If I tell my students they will lose 10% if their assignment is late some of them will just say well then take 10% off ... I don't care. Or if I state, I need your assignment or it is a 0 they say give me a zero. On the other hand, if I tell them I expect your homework is done on time.... for the most part they cooperate. There were a lot of other good points in all of the videos, but this blog is getting a little lengthy as it is.
Cooperative Learning
To me the purpose of cooperative learning is for students to learn skills from each other as well as learn to work with people whom have different ideas and thought processes then they do. I use cooperative learning quite frequently in my reading class. We do book clubs a few times a year where the students read books together and then have discussions about the book. Overall, it has been a very successful project. The students like working with others and they like the independence book club gives them. This year I plan on using blogs to help enhance the students discussions! I am hoping they will be more open if they are sharing on the blog versus speaking in front of their group!!
Reinforcing Effort
Reinforcing effort is something I believe all teachers do without even knowing it!! We are constantly encouraging and giving them praise. I am hoping to use technology to reinforce my students. We have Smart Response (Senteos) that I can give them immediate feedback. I think it is easier to reinforce effort without technology... it is easy to write or say Great Job or I like how you did..... Overall, Reinforcing effort is key to students success in school and to me whether it is done using technology or not it is just as effective.
First of all, in the video Institutions Vs. Collaboration
I found it interesting how he believes that due to collaboration on the web institutions are becoming more and more obsolete. This is true in education as well. There are becoming more collaborations that are forming on-line education that are making some schools and teachers obsolete. I don't fully believe that collaborations will ever take over institutions. There are sometimes that institutions will win out. I agree that web collaboration has changed how we can access information. His example of Flikr hit the nail on the head. We can now easily access pictures about a certain subject from numerous photographers due to Flikr's tag feature. People can also find numerous different types of information thanks to the existence of blogs and wikis.
The other video I watched was How Cognitive Surplus will Change the World.
One take home point from this video was if you want productivity or positive results to decline give them a consequence. I thought is example of parents picking up their children late from daycare was great! He said that parents were told they were going to be charged if they picked up their child 10 minutes late. The daycare providers thought it would encourage parents to be on time, but it ended up doing the opposite. Parents actually were late more often because they figured they would just pay the fee. I believe this is true in education. If I tell my students they will lose 10% if their assignment is late some of them will just say well then take 10% off ... I don't care. Or if I state, I need your assignment or it is a 0 they say give me a zero. On the other hand, if I tell them I expect your homework is done on time.... for the most part they cooperate. There were a lot of other good points in all of the videos, but this blog is getting a little lengthy as it is.
Cooperative Learning
To me the purpose of cooperative learning is for students to learn skills from each other as well as learn to work with people whom have different ideas and thought processes then they do. I use cooperative learning quite frequently in my reading class. We do book clubs a few times a year where the students read books together and then have discussions about the book. Overall, it has been a very successful project. The students like working with others and they like the independence book club gives them. This year I plan on using blogs to help enhance the students discussions! I am hoping they will be more open if they are sharing on the blog versus speaking in front of their group!!
Reinforcing Effort
Reinforcing effort is something I believe all teachers do without even knowing it!! We are constantly encouraging and giving them praise. I am hoping to use technology to reinforce my students. We have Smart Response (Senteos) that I can give them immediate feedback. I think it is easier to reinforce effort without technology... it is easy to write or say Great Job or I like how you did..... Overall, Reinforcing effort is key to students success in school and to me whether it is done using technology or not it is just as effective.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Week 3 - Advanced Organizers
This week we took a look at advanced organizers. We read an article about the benefits of using advanced organizers when teaching a new topic and then we took a look at three different advanced organizers. I use advanced organizers quite frequently in my classes when introducing new topics. The main ones I have used are KWL Charts, character webs, Kidspiration and Inspiration. The new ones I explored were MindMeister, ExploraTree, and Education Oasis.
The first one I looked at was MindMeister. Some of the things I looked was that you could drag and drop images from your computer or the web into your map, you can add notes, links, and tabs to your map. The history view can be saved in order to show it as a presentation. You can use MindMeister to invite others to collaborate with you on your map which would be great if you were using it in a classroom with groups of students. Finally, a feature I liked was that it can be used on both I-phones and Android phones. MindMeister does require a monthly fee and you can choose your level of accessibility you want to pay for.
The second one was ExploraTree. ExploraTree is a free advanced organizer program with numerous options. You can add and change text, shapes, and images. It can be presented as a presentation and sent to groups to collaborate. There are numerous maps already ready for your use including maps used to solve problems and apply thinking skills. It didn't seem as user friendly, but is a good option if you don't want to pay a fee.
Finally, I took a look at Education Oasis. This website didn't seem to have the capabilities to customize your organizers, but provided you with 58 graphic organizers that are PDFs. you can download them and print them for your class. Some of them can be written on before they are printed.
The reading we had last week on Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers; Non linguistic Representation; Summarizing and Notetaking were really important in teaching. Cues, Questions, and Advanced Organizers are important to promote critical thinking and help students retain what they learned. I use KWL charts frequently to find out what kids have know and what they want to know in order to gear my lessons towards their interests. I also use Character webs to help students remember characters in books and help them to analyze each character in the story.
Non linguistic Representation is something I use frequently for our vocabulary words. I try to link pictures to the words so the students can better remember them. We also draw pictures of what we have read that day in order for them to visualize what they have read. I use Kidspiration and Inspiration to create picture maps of stories. We also use the Internet to find pictures that represent what we are reading.
Finally, Summarizing and Notetaking we use daily. It is important for students to summarize what they have learned each day. We summarize what we have read or what we have learned. It is important for students to pick out the key facts that we have learned throughout the lesson and be able to summarize what we have done. Some programs we use for notetaking and summarizing would be power point, smart notebook, and Kidspiration/Inspiration.
The first one I looked at was MindMeister. Some of the things I looked was that you could drag and drop images from your computer or the web into your map, you can add notes, links, and tabs to your map. The history view can be saved in order to show it as a presentation. You can use MindMeister to invite others to collaborate with you on your map which would be great if you were using it in a classroom with groups of students. Finally, a feature I liked was that it can be used on both I-phones and Android phones. MindMeister does require a monthly fee and you can choose your level of accessibility you want to pay for.
The second one was ExploraTree. ExploraTree is a free advanced organizer program with numerous options. You can add and change text, shapes, and images. It can be presented as a presentation and sent to groups to collaborate. There are numerous maps already ready for your use including maps used to solve problems and apply thinking skills. It didn't seem as user friendly, but is a good option if you don't want to pay a fee.
Finally, I took a look at Education Oasis. This website didn't seem to have the capabilities to customize your organizers, but provided you with 58 graphic organizers that are PDFs. you can download them and print them for your class. Some of them can be written on before they are printed.
The reading we had last week on Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers; Non linguistic Representation; Summarizing and Notetaking were really important in teaching. Cues, Questions, and Advanced Organizers are important to promote critical thinking and help students retain what they learned. I use KWL charts frequently to find out what kids have know and what they want to know in order to gear my lessons towards their interests. I also use Character webs to help students remember characters in books and help them to analyze each character in the story.
Non linguistic Representation is something I use frequently for our vocabulary words. I try to link pictures to the words so the students can better remember them. We also draw pictures of what we have read that day in order for them to visualize what they have read. I use Kidspiration and Inspiration to create picture maps of stories. We also use the Internet to find pictures that represent what we are reading.
Finally, Summarizing and Notetaking we use daily. It is important for students to summarize what they have learned each day. We summarize what we have read or what we have learned. It is important for students to pick out the key facts that we have learned throughout the lesson and be able to summarize what we have done. Some programs we use for notetaking and summarizing would be power point, smart notebook, and Kidspiration/Inspiration.
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