Things that drive me crazy!
Ed Tech Encyclopedia
1) Discovery Learning - This practice is very useful for a wide range of students. By forcing students to be creative and discover the answers on their own, this practice leads to a higher level of thinking. I can see myself use this practice is trying to stretch those higher learners who need the extra push. In my school, there are students whose parents think their child should be in the gifted and talented program. These parents are always asking for ways for their child to be pushed and I really feel like this practice, Discovery Learning, is a great way to do that. This type of learning could also be useful for those students who don't always push themselves but are capable of more. This would help them to discover that they can do more.
2) Music and Learning - This is a practice I started using when I began teaching. I would play classical music during writer's workshop and free writing time. I wasn't sure of it's effectiveness and have moved away from it the past few years. I've tried Jazz music with writing as well but have found that students get too riled up from the music and want to dance (which is never a bad thing!). However, I've never considered playing the music during math centers or other academic areas. I think that I will start to try and play music during free writing again and try and work music into my math center schedule. I'll be curious as to the results.
3) Memory Model - I found this theory to be very interesting. They discussed using acronyms to help remember things and I was instantly reminded of using phrases such as "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally" for remembering the Order of operations and "Does Mcdonalds Serve Burgers" for the order of doing long division. Each of these acronyms work wonderfully with my students. Another technique discussed was creating a visual picture. This made me think of one of the homophones that is in our core spelling list for fourth grade, captial/capitol. I always tell the kids that most capitol buildings have a dOme and the word capitOl has an O. This seems to help with memory.
4) Multimedia and the Learning Process - This was a practice that seemed pretty straightforward. However, I was surprised to see that using text can be effective. I always thought that multimedia was best but this practice seemed to imply that a combination of multimedia and text is the best way to learn. I can myself using this practice in my development of Interactive Whiteboard lessons. These lessons combine the use of text as well as tactile learning and can include multimedia pieces such as video and sound.
5) Whole Brain Learning - This style of learning could be very effective. It's hard to identify what types of learning every child prefers. Therefor, a whole brain approach suits the needs of every student. I can see myself using this to try and stimulate every part of the students brain. However, I also think that this style of teaching can be very difficult. In an age where everything is program driven and a lot of curriculum is scripted, it leaves the teacher with little wiggle room to bring in all aspects of learning. However, I'd like to try and be more aware of the different quadrants I am activating in my style of teaching.
Ed Tech Encyclopedia Part 2 (10/11/11)
1) Storytelling Instruction
- Stories form a framework for connecting events and concepts
- Stories can go further and provide depth to a concept going beyond a fact, a definition, or an outline of textbook material
- Stories place information in a context that makes the information meaningful and memorable
- Stories have an emotional component which helps ensure that people pay attention and remembering the point
- Stories illustrate content and draw people, thus enabling them to "experience" the material in an engaging, visual, and imaginative way that will be remembered
- I use storytelling in many of my content area instruction. I find that short story books help students remember and relate to the content easier
- Storytelling allows students to understand concepts that are challenging when presented in a lecture type structure
- Storytelling is a very powerful tool which can be used to instruct students in many different ways.
- Chunking is used mainly in reading passages and paper writing
- Use it to break down long sections of text into short sections that the reader can easily remember
- Create chunking in a paper through the use of sub-titles
- Chunking can also be used in decoding a word and sounding out the parts of a word in order to understand it better.
- PowerPoint conversation relates back to our original discussion of poor and excellent presentations
- Students often use every little special effect they can find, thus limiting the effectiveness of their presentations
- Students get caught up in all the glitz and pizazz and ignore the amount or effect of their content in their presentation
- Animation the big issue - students love to use crazy ways to have text appear, slows down flow of presentation
- Font is a common enemy of student presentations
- I constantly have to have students change the font when they are typing final pieces that will be "published"
- Students like to use crazy fonts that are illegible to most people, including myself!
- I have students stick to Times New Roman or something very close to that when typing a final piece of writing
Summative Evaluation Strategies
- Need to give a pre-test to gain baseline data for different groups of students for assessment
- Break students up by CMT band or other group data
- Use Pre-Test to set baseline to use at end of lesson or unit to see how different groups performed
- Students in lower bands will be given extra support. Can see how that extra support worked or didn't work
- Analyze how effective a SmartBoard lesson was by giving a brief quiz at the end to see if the students understood the information presented. If not do well then need to reassess effectiveness of presentation.
- Can use TurningPoint clickers to get quick assessment to see how effective parts of the presentations were
