Thursday, February 13, 2014

Blog post #5

In the first two videos with Anthony Capp, I learned that project based learning allows students to create something while discovering knowledge. Teachers want to see that their students have achieved what they wanted them to achieve. Also, when a student is successful in a project based learning activity, he or she takes ownership and have a sense of pride. They are very proud of what they have achieved. For teachers, coming up with a project based learning activity is hard work and involves a lot of planning, but it is also a creative way to meet content standards in writing, social studies, reading, and many more subjects. When coming up with a project based activity, teachers should have an audience for the students, make it something that students are interested in, get the community involve, and make it content driven. These things will get the students excited about completing their activity and also inspire them to do their best. After the students have completed their activity, let them reflect on their work. Project based learning also teach students about collaboration skills. Collaborating with people is not always easy to do, but it is an important skill we must learn. Project based learning allows students to be creative with learning.
PBL

I learned that ICurio is a tool that allows students to safely search websites that have been pulled and filter for educational purposes. It is not restricted to text, but has a variety of educational videos and pictures. Students and teachers can use ICurio. ICurio has features such as storages and timelines. Students can save information that they have searched into a folder or file and continue to search for more information. It makes researching information easy for students. Students are also learning virtual organization skills by using the storages that ICurio provides. It also has a read-out-loud feature that reads the text to the students. This would come in handy if a teacher has a student with special needs such as, if they are blind or having difficulty in reading the material. Anthony believes any grade can use ICurio as long as their teacher is comfortable with them using it. ICurio is a great resource to have for students to search the internet. It is safe and it protects students from inappropriate things on the web.
Icurio

I learned that Discovery Education is a great resource for teachers to use to put a visual with text. It allows students to learn from someone other than their teacher. It allows experts to come into the classroom through videos. In the video, Dr. Strange mention that students are learning more from being “listener-watchers”, which means students learn better from listening and watching things. This would be a great resource to use to help enforce what is being taught to someone who learns more form listening and watching or for someone who is a visual learner. Anthony mentions that this website also enriches students’ research experience. Discovery Education is a great resource for both students and teachers.
discovery education


The Anthony-Strange List of Tips for Teachers Part 1 
Tips to help you become an effective teacher.
  1. Be a constant learner. 
  2. Teaching is hard work, be creative and make it fun.
  3. Be flexible and expect the unexpected.
  4. Always start with a good goal.
  5. Engage a 100% of your students all the time and in every project.
  6. Reflect and revise your work.


Technology should be used not taught. If teachers are just teaching technology and not letting their students use technology, they are getting no where. Technology comes natural to children and it is much easier for them to use. When letting kids use technology, you can start with something small and then build on as they continue to use it. Try doing the project yourself before you introduce it to your students so that you can be able to answer questions that might come up. If we introduce technology smartly to our students, it will become something that they absolutely love.

In the last video, Anthony talks about what an effective lesson plan consist of. He states that a lesson plan should have four layers: a yearly plan, a unit plan, a weekly plan, and a daily plan. The yearly plan should cover all the content you want to cover within that year. The unit plan should consist of ways to connect projects to what a student learn in that unit. A weekly plan should have work divided into days so that you can be sure that you can get all the work done. Lastly, a daily plan is how you deliver the content to your students and you should have something to measure what your students have learned.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Kastala! My name is Chea Driver and I am a student in Dr. Strange's EDM510 class. I was assigned to your blog this week.
    You have included a lot of valuable information in this post, and it looks like you are learning a lot about how to be an effective teacher. You even taught me a thing or two! I am not currently teaching so new technology developments are particularly interesting to me. I was most interested in icurio. As a classroom teacher, I was familiar with project based learning and Discovery Education. Those are both very useful tools in being an effective teacher. You also mentioned being able to assess what your students have learned. I found rubrics to be extremely beneficial in assessment, especially with project based learning. I wish you the best in your learning and teaching endeavors! Thank you for such an informative post!

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  2. " In the video, Dr. Strange mention that students…" mentions, not mention

    "Technology should be used not taught." You need a comma after used,

    "...to what a student learn in that unit." learns, not learn

    Thoughtful. Interesting.

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