What are your "take aways" from the instructional strategies learned in the stations today. From what you learned, what would you like to develop for your unit? Respond to 2 Fellows.
The best take away(s) I received from each group was… And ways to use this knowledge in my unit!
Keith: How to use inquiry based learning with math! I loved that the cylindrical cans were this shape for no apparent reason yet we all assumed otherwise and applied math concepts to determine why they were this way.
Barb: Loved seeing the different ways in which to use Twitter in the classroom but question if this will be possible as some students/ schools may not have the technological resources to incorporate this type of activity. I really enjoyed the wordle. I look forward to creating my own wordle document and generating a poster of it from the teaching resource room here on campus!!! Wordle would be great to incorporate in my unit.
Dave: I enjoyed seeing how given items from nature the students could implement their own learning and experimentation to learn. This would be great to do with the seedlings Rob and I spoke about in the last blog so that the students can create their own experiments!
Jacque: Community, Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction… I also liked learning about the differentiation strategies and look forward to incorporating this into my final assignment/unit.
From Jacque’s station, I enjoyed learning different activities for my classroom, especially the Tic-Tac-Toe, because it allows the students to always fall back on an activity. I will definitely be using this in my classroom. I also liked the think dots activity, because it allows for each partnered pair to do something in the activity and each person reports on what each student did. I would to be able to incorporate these two activities into my unit.
From Keith’s station, I liked the way we were able to collaborate on google docs. I like how he was able to make a math problem out of the soda can. I would like to use google docs to have the students do some think of collaboration.
From Barb’s station, I liked all the different ways the students can get involved with technology and websites to use for school. Wordle is good to make a collage for new science words that they will be using for the unit and can be put on a poster on the wall so the students will be to see the word, know it, and use it. Some the sites the students need to be careful what words to put in when searching, some inappropriate stuff may come up. I would like to see the students use Wordle for new vocabulary for my unit.
From Dave’s station, I enjoyed the activity and how involved it was. I liked that Dave just stood back and let us have it and if any questions came up he was there to answer them and guide us in the right direction. We were pretty much on our own. I would like to be able to have the students come in to class, have an activity for them and then have them do it on their own.
Keith: I really enjoyed Keith’s station because it was relevant to his learners. Many of his students have seen soda before and probably never thought of why they were round vs. square. I also think that he did a good job of making sure that the students had a chance to make an inference at the beginning of the activity and the end of the activity. This follows a similar set up to the schema activity, main activity and then reflection that Dr. Coffey has tried to get us to stick to. It was just a really fun activity and could see how well it would work in a classroom. I also liked that he did incorporate important math concepts but that it didn’t feel forced or boring. Learning is fun!
Barb: I loved seeing the diversity of ways that Twitter can be used in the classroom. I really liked the Word concept maps where you could put a whole text into a program that would pick out the words that are repeated the most. I also liked the time line program where you could put events in a chronological order. I felt like that would be a really good tool because it is on the internet so anyone can access it and I could see using it so that students know the most important targets for each lesson plan. The concern I have with Twitter is that some students might not have the ability to access it.
Dave: The nature experiment was awesome. I liked that there were 6 questions but the rest was unguided and the students were able to make their own inferences without the influence of the teachers. I also liked the last part of the activity where we were able to make our own structures out of papers and other tools. I really liked that the activity required many students to independently work together and think critically about a topic.
Jacque- I really enjoyed learning about differentiated instruction. I liked the tic tac toe board with all the different activities so that the students could pick three. I think that would involve a lot of work in the beginning of the course but once the activities are developed, the students will have more than enough work to chose from. I also liked the idea of grouping people together based on their progress level. I think it is also important to have many activities that are targeted at those students who do not need extra help and that as a teacher you don’t let them off the hook.
Ana- I didn't read your whole post until I finished writing mine but I think we have a lot of the same take-aways. For instance, I really liked how Dave took a step back and just let us experiment with the task at hand. I also liked the paired group in the differentiated instruction time. I also liked your cautiousness about Wordle and how students might be exposed to the wrong type of information.
Christina- I would really like to see what you come up with. I also liked Wordle. I sometimes use the same words over and over again and I think Wordle would be a good thing for me to use as well. I would be able to see the words that I use over and be able to change them. I also liked how you commented on how David left us alone. In any case, I am glad that you enjoyed the class as well.
Great comments by everyone, so I will spread the praise around. There are a lot of similarities that everyone picked out; it's great to see what we thought the strengths were in each lesson. Ana and Elyssa, you both mentioned Dave Cramer's activity and how you enjoyed that he sat back and let us do the work.
I have never had a teacher sit back quite as far in terms of support, and I also thought it was great. The questions did the guidance for us and directed or thoughts to where the lesson was intending. I really liked this type of lesson and it was short enough that it flowed well in the time provided. Would you change anything about the activity? Or any of the others, for that matter?
I so enjoyed all the stations. Loved the one that Dave ran, it was hands on and we got to test our theories about everything!! Will definitely try to incorporate hands on stations like this...along with labs that have to be performed and reported on!! Keith...very cool, liked the concepts, and it was also something that was very familiar (coke cans) that most of us could picture in our hands!! Also very cool to show that the ratios of the cans are similiar, even though the actual dimensions are different. I thought instictively that the "square" can took more material, but one thing I hadn't thought about was the exterior damage to the cans (only thought about what went on inside the can) Barb, I alwasy love anything that involes technology!!! I so lok forward to your part of the class (not that I don't look forward to the whole class, but I am a techy geek!!). Love seeing all the things that we can do both on the laptop and on the IPad!!! Jacquie...I can so see how differentiated instruction could be so useful in a class!! I really like the concept that in a way it seems like everyone can work up to their own speed, and the instructor still has the ability direct everyone's learning!!! I would really look forward to being able to work in a district who had this policy!!
Wow, I don't really have anything different to say that all of you haven't already said. All of the stations were interesting, different, and all have ideas that can be taken away from it and used in the classroom. And importantly, all of them can be engaging. In Jacque's segment, I really liked the tools she offered that allow students to choose topics to work on that work best with their style of learning or to be able to pick three in a row that utilize two or 3 different styles of learning. I also like the idea that these can be used as 2 or 3 week projects that can keep students busy doing something important while others are getting extra help in lessons that they are not grasping. I also like the idea that these tools can allow students to work at different levels, individually, as pairs, or as a group. I hope I will be able to put some of these to use at some point.
My favorite hands-on activity was Dave's station. As Elyssa mentioned, this correllated a process in David Coffey's class. What do we know, what do we want to know, and what did we learn? We used existing schema to make predictions, experimented and approximated (made mistakes), and assimilated accommodated the new knowledge, and transformed what we were learning with application. The questions were set up to facilitate an inquiry process similar to the scientific method. It was engaging and the hook was using something real in nature where function dictates form (in this case for dispersal) inferred by dropping the samaras and watching how they fall to.
Keith's station was similar and also interesting. We hypothesized why the shape of a can is round. This is also a real life example to use for learning that kids can relate to. I also liked that we combined the use of iPads for internet searches for can dimensions and formulas for surface area and volume, used google docs together as a group, and found that square vs. round ratios were the same. We really thought there would be a cost effective reason, and even though there wasn't, it was fun, creative, and somewhat interdisciplinary.
Barb had a lot of new sites to offer us for tech ideas. I really liked the Wordle; how it looks artsy and fun, how it makes the words used most larger than the rest, and how kids can use this to see what words they use a lot when writing. I also liked the idea of the time line. I think this would be a good program for a timeline of evolutionary processes or events in biology and geology. However, I think this one would take a lot of time to use, but it could be worked on as a group together. I also liked the sticky note board idea where students can post notes to the teacher. I tend to lean towards the sticky note idea rather than Twitter for uninterrupted communication.
All of these methods could be used in units throughout a school year.
I never had a teacher in school stand back and let us inquire and learn on our own either. It was interesting to find that my hypothesis that the double sided samara would stay in the air longer, thus disperse farther was wrong. But I still maintained that perhaps with wind it would be different. And Dave would not answer that question even at the end of the experiment. So my curiosity will have to be satisfied by digging deeper (online) to find the answer--which I will because I want to know. :) I have found it a little frustrating a few times now (also with experiments in the beginning with Ambrose) where they don't give the definite answer at the end. This is something I am not accustomed to. But, this can be a good thing because it makes us want to know even more, thus maybe establishing the knowledge more in our memory due to really wanting to get that answer.
Virginia said, "Jacquie...I can so see how differentiated instruction could be so useful in a class!! I really like the concept that in a way it seems like everyone can work up to their own speed, and the instructor still has the ability direct everyone's learning!!! I would really look forward to being able to work in a district who had this policy!!"
Virginia, I agree. I really like the idea of working at their own speed (what they are capable of at the time) while others can work at an elevated level. Too often the more advanced students are held back to accommodate the rest of the class which hinders them. I cannot express how important I think it is to recognize and work with the different levels of learning. I see three basic groups in which all deserve the support and ability to grow. I think that some of the tools Jacque offered can be very helpful with this. I would like to see how we can use different assessments (to a degree) for different groups of learners that would apply to their own learning/achievements. Would that be fair?
Keith: I liked seeing how you could use Google forms to do pre-assessment, drafting, and post-assessment. I think the docs are still clunky sometimes, but the potential is definitely there.
Barb: I loved Wordle. I think I would have my students draft a quick 3-sentences about the unit as a pre-assessment, email/post them before a unit, run them through Wordle, and discuss the types of words that came up. Then I would run it through afterward and have a comparison.
Dave: From talking to Dave about the way various groups took on the challenge and the types of questions they asked it was apparent to me that the type of inquiry lesson he had prepared can lend itself both to talking about the biological concept you’re working on and experimental design. It would be pretty easy to get a class discussion going about both after having that much fun.
Jacque: I like the idea of supplying a tic-tac-toe board that can give students the opportunities to run with new projects if they are ahead of the game. This goes hand in hand with the triarchic intelligences concept.
Tammy- I had similar thoughts about looking at evolutionary processes over time. I had two thoughts along those lines. 1) having students research a significant development (e.g. multicellular organisms appear) and add them to the timeline each week, then go over it during the evolutionary unit and 2) assigning students to investigate 1 important scientist each week and place him/her on the timeline to go over at the end of the year.
KEITH: I enjoyed the inquiry aspect of his activity. I like discerning why something is a certain way. Just because 'that's the way it is,' doesn't do it for me. This was a great short project to explore some ideas with calculations; then have those ideas shot down with a story that had nothing to do with our pre-conceived possibilities. Great activity. I would still like to see cube cans in production though.
JACQUE: Always a wealth of useful knowledge. Again, a lesson filled with practical ideas (and as Ana and a few mentioned there were some great choices for differentiated learning activities). The guide to Bloom's Taxonomy was also a good pocket tool to get. I liked being able to ask some more in-depth questions regarding 'choice' and 'tiered assignment' approaches to lesson plans.
DAVE: As mentioned, this was a different kind of lesson for most of us: one with no answer and many hypotheses. I liked pretending that I didn't know what those things were on the table, and 'guessing' how they behave. Of course there was some bias in the knowledge, but also some new learning (which size flew best, under which conditions). It was largely autonomous, and the mode of experimentation was up to the group.
BARB: Always diverse. Again, Barb exposed us to many things we wouldn't know to search on our own, and some we might not remember to search again. The word clouds were the 'it' item for me as well and I enjoyed exploring the timelines website. Twitter is a recurring theme in many of our classes and we will probably all be pecking by the end of this semester (or is it called twittering?).
Anyhow, a big thanks across the board to each of the presenters involved in the lesson.
Dave: I really enjoyed experimenting with the 'helicopter' seeds. It's not everyday that I get to play around with aerodynamics! I liked how it was such an open-ended project that allowed us to determine what we wanted to learn about the different types of seeds. By the looks of it, different groups came up with different experiments, which I think is incredibly valuable. I know we ran out of time, but I would've liked a little more explanation and 'teaching' at the end of the experiment to really cement what we had learned.
Keith: This also was incredibly cool for me. I really like thinking about structural efficiency and how something is designed. I think Keith did a very good job of leading us through the problem and helping us determine what we would need to know. What an awesome way to incorporate geometry, ratios, and the real world!
Jacque: I really liked the whole idea of differentiated instruction. When you had us do it in class a few weeks ago, I thought it was a wonderful idea. Being able to choose between creative, practical, or analytic was fantastic for me. I like seeing what all can be done with this idea. Giving students a choice of what they can do seems like a great idea to me. I can't wait to learn more about it.
Barb: There are so many great tools to use! If only we had enough time to really get to know them all... Obviously there are many things you can do with all of what Barb showed us, but I like the idea of using Wordle to edit your own writing. I know I often tend to repeat my phrases or ideas in writing, and it would be very useful to have something that would catch that for me.
Vlad, I like what you had to say about Keith's station. Questioning the way things are is something that high school kids are very good at! Incorporating that curiosity into real life problems could be really great for helping students learn and stay interested. I would love to do more things like that in my classroom.
Along the same (time-)lines as Tammy and Rob: this could be a real cool "Global perspective" tool. There are some of these evolutionary timelines already made and certainly some geology 'frames' to put things in perspective.
Then, including scientists and other events on this framework would be a terrific classroom idea as students find topics (invention of the microscope, discovery of bacteria, Darwin's first publication, discovery of America, invention of Hip-Hop) or whatever they find relevant and add them. At the end of each unit it would be great to reflect on where all these things fit in on 'the grand scale.'
Rob, I'm glad you were able to talk to Dave about his inquiry project after we were done. I also really like how that type of project can incorporate a science and designing experiments. I would really like to have a class discussion on something like that as well. I think that there would be a wide variety of thoughts and ideas that would come from it. This has the potential to be multi-disciplinary as well. As mentioned, you can talk about experiments and biology as well as aerodynamics, physics, math (lift to weight ratio), probability and statistics, and especially design. I want to go play with helicopters now!
Tammy, I have to agree with you about using the sticky note post its, instead of twitter. I like that idea where it can be anonymous or signed. I am not able to keep up with twitter. Good idea.
I learned a whole from the work stations and most especially I could see a way to incorporate what I learned into the classroom.
DAVE: I enjoyed the hands-on experimentation that we did. First, I was very curious about what we were about doing and my curiosity engaged my interest to find what results we will get from the whole experiment.
BARB: Barb gave us a huge insight into how to maximize the use of twitter for effective classroom engagement. I liked the concept of Wordle; I do see myself using it within my classroom.
JACQUE: Wow! Jacque did an outstanding job of showing us different methods of differentiation and also showed us how to create effective assessment methods to track the progress of our students.
KEITH: Keith also did a great job of showing us how to maximize the use Google to teach effectively in the classroom. We used Math examples specifically for the session and it was awesome to see how Google can convert metrics instantly and accurately.
Re: Virginia I do agree with you about the concept of differentiation which enables students to work at their own speed. I do believe that differentiation methods empowers students to learn effectively in the classroom.
I like what you said about twitter; I asked Barb same question last week. I had same sentiment like you, I felt that allowing students to twit questions during class sessions would be very distracting and there is no way to guarantee that students won't use that opportunity to follow other people while in the classroom.
I liked Keith's station the most. I have had a few opportunities to see him teach and talk with him and I think the rest of you got the short end of the stick. Haha.
That is how real learning is done. How often do you see or hear something and then google it to get a better understanding or any understanding at all. What is the size of the can? What formulas do I need? What other possible shapes could work? What concessions do I have to make these calculations comparable easy? In my opinion, it demonstrated how things should get done. Some stuff you have to know, and some stuff you look up.
When ever Barb talks to the class I just want to see more depth with usable technology. She says here are 20 things you could use, and I just sit there and say yes to almost all of them. Now I just have to get use to using them.
Jacque always does a great job of showing us different ways to do do things and it is going to come down to practice and preparation to make sure that I can use different methods in my classroom.
I liked Dave's experiment because it got everyone moving around. I need to find ways to do that in math class.
Ana you reminded me that all of Keith's class was online. My vision for my classroom is to have every resource I have accessible to students online. Using Google docs and Live Binder I would even like to put the video of my teaching on line also.
Some of the students at Godfrey Lee have a hard time making it to class in the morning. That could be a good way to help them on days they don't make it.
You got me thinking. One issue with high school LEARNERS, I am working on that, is they don't know what jobs are out there. Lets say one of your learners is interested in art and they don't want to pay attention in your math class because they are going to be an artist. A large company like Coke would have someone design the cans and someone design the logo. But maybe a smaller company like Founders needs a design for the label of there new beer and they want it to incorporate a novelty bottle that no other company uses. In order for an artist to win that contract they would have to be able to understand math concepts.
It would be fun assignment to design a bottle that is structural significant and functional with a design that went along with the label.
This might be a bad example, but take it make it better and let me know what you came up with.
Thanks! I really liked your idea of using Wordle to create an image of new science vocabulary words. You also make a good point about being careful about what information from the web that comes up to incorporate into a Wordle document as there may be inappropriate words. Good Job! I too, look forward to seeing what you come up with.
Our group also discussed creating a time line of evolution and how each student would be able to pick any space on the timeline starting from the beginning of creation to now providing that particular evolutionary moment has not already been taken. If you have 20-30 students times 6 or 7 class periods and expand it over several semesters/years the timeline would be amazing and full of information. I think the students would have a lot of fun with this and enjoy looking back over the years to see how their work has grown and been added to by other students. Great Job!
Keith: Project based learning at its finest! I loved how the project incorporated real world application, gave opportunity to split up work based on different strengths/intelligences, integrated technology use, and fostered learning the whole time. When I write an lesson this awesome I will feel like I have a seat at the big teachers’ table! My take away…what an awesome lesson looks like!
Barb: Wordle rocks. Nuf said. Seriously though, I loved learning about great educational applications from an expert in their use. Time very well spent.
Dave: Students are amazing problem solvers. They can learn exactly what they need to know far better than you could ever teach it to them if you give them the right problem to solve and get out of their way!
Jacque: Differentiated instruction must still lead to the same learning target. I found it really easy to wander onto different targets for different intelligences when writing my hook. I feel that this is ok and maybe even a virtue in a hook exercise if it can be shared within the class. However, differentiation must stay locked on one target for daily learning.
For my unit, I would like to develop an inquiry exercise that leads students to their own learning as well as Dave and Keith's projects did. I don't think I have the experience to do this effectively just yet, so I'd like to do some more "begging, borrowing, and stealing" to find something that fits nicely. I have a couple of works in progress (Ninsect activity, my drama hook, etc.) but none of strike me as being as potent of an exercise as I saw in class. I suppose being able to differentiate that is growth at least!
Anne, I'm fascinated by your response to Dave's exercise. Your feeling of dissatisfaction and not getting it were so different from my own feelings. This seems to exactly parallel the different feelings we had about Dave and Steve's class. I'm curious how present-day students respond to an exercise like this. Will they have different reactions like you and I do? Will they be consistently like you or like me. I'm fascinated!
Christina, I'd like to add on to your reply to Tammy regarding the evolution timeline. I suspect this is related to my learning style, but I LOVE timelines. A visual model of chronology really makes events stick in my head. Developing my own (as Tammy and I both did in our Evolutionary Biology course) does even more so. I think I would have the class develop their own without reference to previous years timelines, then have them compare theirs to earlier ones. There shouldn't be much difference in most years other than the quality of research or sources used. It might be pretty interesting learning opportunity after a year with a paradigm-shifting fossil discovery or new mitochondrial DNA research though!
Ana, I really like your concept of using Wordle to get the students to see daily the words that they will have to learn, without necessarily "shoving" it down their throats....That is so neat, I hadn't thought of using it that way....great idea!!!
Christina and Steve J. I like the timeline concept too, only used in regards to major discoveries in Chemistry. This would definitely be a concept that could be almost open-ended...and used in multiple classes. As long as it was finished by a certain date (whether that is the end of the year, semester or trimester...it would be semi-open-ended) Nate, You could not only use the concepts of available jobs, but also real world issues that they might encounter. Something like, putting together a swing set or one of those play wood castles...lets say from scratch instead of paying for one that is pre-constructed (and you still need some math to construct that too I think.) I think if you can involve them is that, that they might think that the math you are teaching could be useful (also concepts like statistics of polls, etc. would help them understand real world situations).
In general, I would say that the most important thing I took away form the stations was how to apply the instructional techniques and activities within my classroom. Jacque gave great examples of how to apply more choice into math activities. The differentiated instruction discussion had great ways to make the class more interesting for the students. I would have still struggled with coming up with ideas for activities in math, had Jacque not created her examples as math ones. After reading through those, I realized that being creatively a math classroom might not be so difficult. Keith's activity applied directly to my field, and I feel that I could definitely use that method in the classroom frequently. Barb's talk about technology definitely enlightened me on the different applications of technology in the math classroom. I really enjoy the material and websites she covers and feel that I could very easily use those tools to make class more interesting, as well as for my own personal interest. Dave's station I felt better applied to the science people, but was definitely an example of how being involved actively and having students create their own questions can cause more diversity and more engagement in the material. I felt that all of the stations were interesting and I really enjoyed that class.
Christina, I think you summarized our experiences very well. I like that you pointed out again how silly it was that we all assumed there was a reason for the soda cans to be the shape they are, worked to prove that, and then it ended up that there was no real reasoning behind it. =) I also completely agree about how awesome the idea of Wordle is. I plan to use that (or another similar website) both in the classroom and for personal use. And it's great to know that we can get posters made on campus for that!!
Virginia, I agree that Dave's station was really fun, not only because it was hands on, but because we got to come up with and test our own hypothesis. It was great to hear that even in our small class groups were coming up with completely different ideas and testing different things. I thought it was neat that we were "on our own". Just like you, I get super excited hearing what new tools Barb has for me to use. I'm really excited to have a couple of weeks off of class to simply familiarize myself with all of the different thing she has exposed us to. Also, I feel like Jacque's talk on differentiated instruction was probably the most useful in everyday life in the classroom. I feel like if nothing else, I could be a more effective teacher by using one of the techniques she talked about, on a regular basis, as that could very easily apply to any discipline and any topic.
Also, I love how excited you sound with all of your exclamation points all over your post.
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ReplyDeleteThe best take away(s) I received from each group was… And ways to use this knowledge in my unit!
ReplyDeleteKeith: How to use inquiry based learning with math! I loved that the cylindrical cans were this shape for no apparent reason yet we all assumed otherwise and applied math concepts to determine why they were this way.
Barb: Loved seeing the different ways in which to use Twitter in the classroom but question if this will be possible as some students/ schools may not have the technological resources to incorporate this type of activity. I really enjoyed the wordle. I look forward to creating my own wordle document and generating a poster of it from the teaching resource room here on campus!!! Wordle would be great to incorporate in my unit.
Dave: I enjoyed seeing how given items from nature the students could implement their own learning and experimentation to learn. This would be great to do with the seedlings Rob and I spoke about in the last blog so that the students can create their own experiments!
Jacque: Community, Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction… I also liked learning about the differentiation strategies and look forward to incorporating this into my final assignment/unit.
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ReplyDeleteFrom Jacque’s station, I enjoyed learning different activities for my classroom, especially the Tic-Tac-Toe, because it allows the students to always fall back on an activity. I will definitely be using this in my classroom. I also liked the think dots activity, because it allows for each partnered pair to do something in the activity and each person reports on what each student did. I would to be able to incorporate these two activities into my unit.
ReplyDeleteFrom Keith’s station, I liked the way we were able to collaborate on google docs. I like how he was able to make a math problem out of the soda can. I would like to use google docs to have the students do some think of collaboration.
From Barb’s station, I liked all the different ways the students can get involved with technology and websites to use for school. Wordle is good to make a collage for new science words that they will be using for the unit and can be put on a poster on the wall so the students will be to see the word, know it, and use it. Some the sites the students need to be careful what words to put in when searching, some inappropriate stuff may come up. I would like to see the students use Wordle for new vocabulary for my unit.
From Dave’s station, I enjoyed the activity and how involved it was. I liked that Dave just stood back and let us have it and if any questions came up he was there to answer them and guide us in the right direction. We were pretty much on our own. I would like to be able to have the students come in to class, have an activity for them and then have them do it on their own.
Christina,
ReplyDeleteI like your ideas on how to incorporate the activities with your unit. Can't wait to see what you come up with.
My take aways are as follows:
ReplyDeleteKeith: I really enjoyed Keith’s station because it was relevant to his learners. Many of his students have seen soda before and probably never thought of why they were round vs. square. I also think that he did a good job of making sure that the students had a chance to make an inference at the beginning of the activity and the end of the activity. This follows a similar set up to the schema activity, main activity and then reflection that Dr. Coffey has tried to get us to stick to. It was just a really fun activity and could see how well it would work in a classroom. I also liked that he did incorporate important math concepts but that it didn’t feel forced or boring. Learning is fun!
Barb: I loved seeing the diversity of ways that Twitter can be used in the classroom. I really liked the Word concept maps where you could put a whole text into a program that would pick out the words that are repeated the most. I also liked the time line program where you could put events in a chronological order. I felt like that would be a really good tool because it is on the internet so anyone can access it and I could see using it so that students know the most important targets for each lesson plan. The concern I have with Twitter is that some students might not have the ability to access it.
Dave: The nature experiment was awesome. I liked that there were 6 questions but the rest was unguided and the students were able to make their own inferences without the influence of the teachers. I also liked the last part of the activity where we were able to make our own structures out of papers and other tools. I really liked that the activity required many students to independently work together and think critically about a topic.
Jacque- I really enjoyed learning about differentiated instruction. I liked the tic tac toe board with all the different activities so that the students could pick three. I think that would involve a lot of work in the beginning of the course but once the activities are developed, the students will have more than enough work to chose from. I also liked the idea of grouping people together based on their progress level. I think it is also important to have many activities that are targeted at those students who do not need extra help and that as a teacher you don’t let them off the hook.
It was a fantastic day!
Ana- I didn't read your whole post until I finished writing mine but I think we have a lot of the same take-aways. For instance, I really liked how Dave took a step back and just let us experiment with the task at hand. I also liked the paired group in the differentiated instruction time. I also liked your cautiousness about Wordle and how students might be exposed to the wrong type of information.
ReplyDeleteChristina- I would really like to see what you come up with. I also liked Wordle. I sometimes use the same words over and over again and I think Wordle would be a good thing for me to use as well. I would be able to see the words that I use over and be able to change them. I also liked how you commented on how David left us alone. In any case, I am glad that you enjoyed the class as well.
ReplyDeleteGreat comments by everyone, so I will spread the praise around. There are a lot of similarities that everyone picked out; it's great to see what we thought the strengths were in each lesson. Ana and Elyssa, you both mentioned Dave Cramer's activity and how you enjoyed that he sat back and let us do the work.
ReplyDeleteI have never had a teacher sit back quite as far in terms of support, and I also thought it was great. The questions did the guidance for us and directed or thoughts to where the lesson was intending. I really liked this type of lesson and it was short enough that it flowed well in the time provided. Would you change anything about the activity? Or any of the others, for that matter?
I so enjoyed all the stations. Loved the one that Dave ran, it was hands on and we got to test our theories about everything!! Will definitely try to incorporate hands on stations like this...along with labs that have to be performed and reported on!!
ReplyDeleteKeith...very cool, liked the concepts, and it was also something that was very familiar (coke cans) that most of us could picture in our hands!! Also very cool to show that the ratios of the cans are similiar, even though the actual dimensions are different. I thought instictively that the "square" can took more material, but one thing I hadn't thought about was the exterior damage to the cans (only thought about what went on inside the can)
Barb, I alwasy love anything that involes technology!!! I so lok forward to your part of the class (not that I don't look forward to the whole class, but I am a techy geek!!). Love seeing all the things that we can do both on the laptop and on the IPad!!!
Jacquie...I can so see how differentiated instruction could be so useful in a class!! I really like the concept that in a way it seems like everyone can work up to their own speed, and the instructor still has the ability direct everyone's learning!!! I would really look forward to being able to work in a district who had this policy!!
Thank you to everyone it was a great day!!!
Wow, I don't really have anything different to say that all of you haven't already said. All of the stations were interesting, different, and all have ideas that can be taken away from it and used in the classroom. And importantly, all of them can be engaging. In Jacque's segment, I really liked the tools she offered that allow students to choose topics to work on that work best with their style of learning or to be able to pick three in a row that utilize two or 3 different styles of learning. I also like the idea that these can be used as 2 or 3 week projects that can keep students busy doing something important while others are getting extra help in lessons that they are not grasping. I also like the idea that these tools can allow students to work at different levels, individually, as pairs, or as a group. I hope I will be able to put some of these to use at some point.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite hands-on activity was Dave's station. As Elyssa mentioned, this correllated a process in David Coffey's class. What do we know, what do we want to know, and what did we learn? We used existing schema to make predictions, experimented and approximated (made mistakes), and assimilated accommodated the new knowledge, and transformed what we were learning with application. The questions were set up to facilitate an inquiry process similar to the scientific method. It was engaging and the hook was using something real in nature where function dictates form (in this case for dispersal) inferred by dropping the samaras and watching how they fall to.
Keith's station was similar and also interesting. We hypothesized why the shape of a can is round. This is also a real life example to use for learning that kids can relate to. I also liked that we combined the use of iPads for internet searches for can dimensions and formulas for surface area and volume, used google docs together as a group, and found that square vs. round ratios were the same. We really thought there would be a cost effective reason, and even though there wasn't, it was fun, creative, and somewhat interdisciplinary.
Barb had a lot of new sites to offer us for tech ideas. I really liked the Wordle; how it looks artsy and fun, how it makes the words used most larger than the rest, and how kids can use this to see what words they use a lot when writing. I also liked the idea of the time line. I think this would be a good program for a timeline of evolutionary processes or events in biology and geology. However, I think this one would take a lot of time to use, but it could be worked on as a group together. I also liked the sticky note board idea where students can post notes to the teacher. I tend to lean towards the sticky note idea rather than Twitter for uninterrupted communication.
All of these methods could be used in units throughout a school year.
Vlad,
ReplyDeleteI never had a teacher in school stand back and let us inquire and learn on our own either. It was interesting to find that my hypothesis that the double sided samara would stay in the air longer, thus disperse farther was wrong. But I still maintained that perhaps with wind it would be different. And Dave would not answer that question even at the end of the experiment. So my curiosity will have to be satisfied by digging deeper (online) to find the answer--which I will because I want to know. :) I have found it a little frustrating a few times now (also with experiments in the beginning with Ambrose) where they don't give the definite answer at the end. This is something I am not accustomed to. But, this can be a good thing because it makes us want to know even more, thus maybe establishing the knowledge more in our memory due to really wanting to get that answer.
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ReplyDeleteVirginia said, "Jacquie...I can so see how differentiated instruction could be so useful in a class!! I really like the concept that in a way it seems like everyone can work up to their own speed, and the instructor still has the ability direct everyone's learning!!! I would really look forward to being able to work in a district who had this policy!!"
ReplyDeleteVirginia, I agree. I really like the idea of working at their own speed (what they are capable of at the time) while others can work at an elevated level. Too often the more advanced students are held back to accommodate the rest of the class which hinders them. I cannot express how important I think it is to recognize and work with the different levels of learning. I see three basic groups in which all deserve the support and ability to grow. I think that some of the tools Jacque offered can be very helpful with this. I would like to see how we can use different assessments (to a degree) for different groups of learners that would apply to their own learning/achievements. Would that be fair?
Keith: I liked seeing how you could use Google forms to do pre-assessment, drafting, and post-assessment. I think the docs are still clunky sometimes, but the potential is definitely there.
ReplyDeleteBarb: I loved Wordle. I think I would have my students draft a quick 3-sentences about the unit as a pre-assessment, email/post them before a unit, run them through Wordle, and discuss the types of words that came up. Then I would run it through afterward and have a comparison.
Dave: From talking to Dave about the way various groups took on the challenge and the types of questions they asked it was apparent to me that the type of inquiry lesson he had prepared can lend itself both to talking about the biological concept you’re working on and experimental design. It would be pretty easy to get a class discussion going about both after having that much fun.
Jacque: I like the idea of supplying a tic-tac-toe board that can give students the opportunities to run with new projects if they are ahead of the game. This goes hand in hand with the triarchic intelligences concept.
Ana- I love the idea of using Wordle for vocab building, that hadn't crossed my mind yet. You could easily pick-out misconceptions that way too.
ReplyDeleteTammy- I had similar thoughts about looking at evolutionary processes over time. I had two thoughts along those lines. 1) having students research a significant development (e.g. multicellular organisms appear) and add them to the timeline each week, then go over it during the evolutionary unit and 2) assigning students to investigate 1 important scientist each week and place him/her on the timeline to go over at the end of the year.
ReplyDeleteStations:
ReplyDeleteKEITH: I enjoyed the inquiry aspect of his activity. I like discerning why something is a certain way. Just because 'that's the way it is,' doesn't do it for me. This was a great short project to explore some ideas with calculations; then have those ideas shot down with a story that had nothing to do with our pre-conceived possibilities. Great activity. I would still like to see cube cans in production though.
JACQUE: Always a wealth of useful knowledge. Again, a lesson filled with practical ideas (and as Ana and a few mentioned there were some great choices for differentiated learning activities). The guide to Bloom's Taxonomy was also a good pocket tool to get. I liked being able to ask some more in-depth questions regarding 'choice' and 'tiered assignment' approaches to lesson plans.
DAVE: As mentioned, this was a different kind of lesson for most of us: one with no answer and many hypotheses. I liked pretending that I didn't know what those things were on the table, and 'guessing' how they behave. Of course there was some bias in the knowledge, but also some new learning (which size flew best, under which conditions). It was largely autonomous, and the mode of experimentation was up to the group.
BARB: Always diverse. Again, Barb exposed us to many things we wouldn't know to search on our own, and some we might not remember to search again. The word clouds were the 'it' item for me as well and I enjoyed exploring the timelines website. Twitter is a recurring theme in many of our classes and we will probably all be pecking by the end of this semester (or is it called twittering?).
Anyhow, a big thanks across the board to each of the presenters involved in the lesson.
Dave: I really enjoyed experimenting with the 'helicopter' seeds. It's not everyday that I get to play around with aerodynamics! I liked how it was such an open-ended project that allowed us to determine what we wanted to learn about the different types of seeds. By the looks of it, different groups came up with different experiments, which I think is incredibly valuable. I know we ran out of time, but I would've liked a little more explanation and 'teaching' at the end of the experiment to really cement what we had learned.
ReplyDeleteKeith: This also was incredibly cool for me. I really like thinking about structural efficiency and how something is designed. I think Keith did a very good job of leading us through the problem and helping us determine what we would need to know. What an awesome way to incorporate geometry, ratios, and the real world!
Jacque: I really liked the whole idea of differentiated instruction. When you had us do it in class a few weeks ago, I thought it was a wonderful idea. Being able to choose between creative, practical, or analytic was fantastic for me. I like seeing what all can be done with this idea. Giving students a choice of what they can do seems like a great idea to me. I can't wait to learn more about it.
Barb: There are so many great tools to use! If only we had enough time to really get to know them all... Obviously there are many things you can do with all of what Barb showed us, but I like the idea of using Wordle to edit your own writing. I know I often tend to repeat my phrases or ideas in writing, and it would be very useful to have something that would catch that for me.
Vlad, I like what you had to say about Keith's station. Questioning the way things are is something that high school kids are very good at! Incorporating that curiosity into real life problems could be really great for helping students learn and stay interested. I would love to do more things like that in my classroom.
ReplyDeleteAlong the same (time-)lines as Tammy and Rob: this could be a real cool "Global perspective" tool. There are some of these evolutionary timelines already made and certainly some geology 'frames' to put things in perspective.
ReplyDeleteThen, including scientists and other events on this framework would be a terrific classroom idea as students find topics (invention of the microscope, discovery of bacteria, Darwin's first publication, discovery of America, invention of Hip-Hop) or whatever they find relevant and add them. At the end of each unit it would be great to reflect on where all these things fit in on 'the grand scale.'
Rob, I'm glad you were able to talk to Dave about his inquiry project after we were done. I also really like how that type of project can incorporate a science and designing experiments. I would really like to have a class discussion on something like that as well. I think that there would be a wide variety of thoughts and ideas that would come from it. This has the potential to be multi-disciplinary as well. As mentioned, you can talk about experiments and biology as well as aerodynamics, physics, math (lift to weight ratio), probability and statistics, and especially design. I want to go play with helicopters now!
ReplyDeleteTammy,
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you about using the sticky note post its, instead of twitter. I like that idea where it can be anonymous or signed. I am not able to keep up with twitter. Good idea.
I learned a whole from the work stations and most especially I could see a way to incorporate what I learned into the classroom.
ReplyDeleteDAVE: I enjoyed the hands-on experimentation that we did. First, I was very curious about what we were about doing and my curiosity engaged my interest to find what results we will get from the whole experiment.
BARB: Barb gave us a huge insight into how to maximize the use of twitter for effective classroom engagement. I liked the concept of Wordle; I do see myself using it within my classroom.
JACQUE: Wow! Jacque did an outstanding job of showing us different methods of differentiation and also showed us how to create effective assessment methods to track the progress of our students.
KEITH: Keith also did a great job of showing us how to maximize the use Google to teach effectively in the classroom. We used Math examples specifically for the session and it was awesome to see how Google can convert metrics instantly and accurately.
Re: Virginia
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you about the concept of differentiation which enables students to work at their own speed. I do believe that differentiation methods empowers students to learn effectively in the classroom.
Re: Tammy
ReplyDeleteI like what you said about twitter; I asked Barb same question last week. I had same sentiment like you, I felt that allowing students to twit questions during class sessions would be very distracting and there is no way to guarantee that students won't use that opportunity to follow other people while in the classroom.
I am not sure Tammy but I think it is called a tweet? "I felt that allowing students to tweet questions ..."
ReplyDeleteI liked Keith's station the most. I have had a few opportunities to see him teach and talk with him and I think the rest of you got the short end of the stick. Haha.
ReplyDeleteThat is how real learning is done. How often do you see or hear something and then google it to get a better understanding or any understanding at all. What is the size of the can? What formulas do I need? What other possible shapes could work? What concessions do I have to make these calculations comparable easy? In my opinion, it demonstrated how things should get done. Some stuff you have to know, and some stuff you look up.
When ever Barb talks to the class I just want to see more depth with usable technology. She says here are 20 things you could use, and I just sit there and say yes to almost all of them. Now I just have to get use to using them.
Jacque always does a great job of showing us different ways to do do things and it is going to come down to practice and preparation to make sure that I can use different methods in my classroom.
I liked Dave's experiment because it got everyone moving around. I need to find ways to do that in math class.
Ana you reminded me that all of Keith's class was online. My vision for my classroom is to have every resource I have accessible to students online. Using Google docs and Live Binder I would even like to put the video of my teaching on line also.
ReplyDeleteSome of the students at Godfrey Lee have a hard time making it to class in the morning. That could be a good way to help them on days they don't make it.
Either Steve or Steve I am not sure which one?
ReplyDeleteYou got me thinking. One issue with high school LEARNERS, I am working on that, is they don't know what jobs are out there. Lets say one of your learners is interested in art and they don't want to pay attention in your math class because they are going to be an artist. A large company like Coke would have someone design the cans and someone design the logo. But maybe a smaller company like Founders needs a design for the label of there new beer and they want it to incorporate a novelty bottle that no other company uses. In order for an artist to win that contract they would have to be able to understand math concepts.
It would be fun assignment to design a bottle that is structural significant and functional with a design that went along with the label.
This might be a bad example, but take it make it better and let me know what you came up with.
Ana,
ReplyDeleteThanks! I really liked your idea of using Wordle to create an image of new science vocabulary words. You also make a good point about being careful about what information from the web that comes up to incorporate into a Wordle document as there may be inappropriate words. Good Job! I too, look forward to seeing what you come up with.
Tammy,
ReplyDeleteOur group also discussed creating a time line of evolution and how each student would be able to pick any space on the timeline starting from the beginning of creation to now providing that particular evolutionary moment has not already been taken. If you have 20-30 students times 6 or 7 class periods and expand it over several semesters/years the timeline would be amazing and full of information. I think the students would have a lot of fun with this and enjoy looking back over the years to see how their work has grown and been added to by other students. Great Job!
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ReplyDeleteKeith: Project based learning at its finest! I loved how the project incorporated real world application, gave opportunity to split up work based on different strengths/intelligences, integrated technology use, and fostered learning the whole time. When I write an lesson this awesome I will feel like I have a seat at the big teachers’ table! My take away…what an awesome lesson looks like!
ReplyDeleteBarb: Wordle rocks. Nuf said. Seriously though, I loved learning about great educational applications from an expert in their use. Time very well spent.
Dave: Students are amazing problem solvers. They can learn exactly what they need to know far better than you could ever teach it to them if you give them the right problem to solve and get out of their way!
Jacque: Differentiated instruction must still lead to the same learning target. I found it really easy to wander onto different targets for different intelligences when writing my hook. I feel that this is ok and maybe even a virtue in a hook exercise if it can be shared within the class. However, differentiation must stay locked on one target for daily learning.
For my unit, I would like to develop an inquiry exercise that leads students to their own learning as well as Dave and Keith's projects did. I don't think I have the experience to do this effectively just yet, so I'd like to do some more "begging, borrowing, and stealing" to find something that fits nicely. I have a couple of works in progress (Ninsect activity, my drama hook, etc.) but none of strike me as being as potent of an exercise as I saw in class. I suppose being able to differentiate that is growth at least!
Anne, I'm fascinated by your response to Dave's exercise. Your feeling of dissatisfaction and not getting it were so different from my own feelings. This seems to exactly parallel the different feelings we had about Dave and Steve's class. I'm curious how present-day students respond to an exercise like this. Will they have different reactions like you and I do? Will they be consistently like you or like me. I'm fascinated!
ReplyDeleteChristina, I'd like to add on to your reply to Tammy regarding the evolution timeline. I suspect this is related to my learning style, but I LOVE timelines. A visual model of chronology really makes events stick in my head. Developing my own (as Tammy and I both did in our Evolutionary Biology course) does even more so. I think I would have the class develop their own without reference to previous years timelines, then have them compare theirs to earlier ones. There shouldn't be much difference in most years other than the quality of research or sources used. It might be pretty interesting learning opportunity after a year with a paradigm-shifting fossil discovery or new mitochondrial DNA research though!
ReplyDeleteAna,
ReplyDeleteI really like your concept of using Wordle to get the students to see daily the words that they will have to learn, without necessarily "shoving" it down their throats....That is so neat, I hadn't thought of using it that way....great idea!!!
Christina and Steve J.
ReplyDeleteI like the timeline concept too, only used in regards to major discoveries in Chemistry. This would definitely be a concept that could be almost open-ended...and used in multiple classes. As long as it was finished by a certain date (whether that is the end of the year, semester or trimester...it would be semi-open-ended)
Nate,
You could not only use the concepts of available jobs, but also real world issues that they might encounter. Something like, putting together a swing set or one of those play wood castles...lets say from scratch instead of paying for one that is pre-constructed (and you still need some math to construct that too I think.) I think if you can involve them is that, that they might think that the math you are teaching could be useful (also concepts like statistics of polls, etc. would help them understand real world situations).
In general, I would say that the most important thing I took away form the stations was how to apply the instructional techniques and activities within my classroom. Jacque gave great examples of how to apply more choice into math activities. The differentiated instruction discussion had great ways to make the class more interesting for the students. I would have still struggled with coming up with ideas for activities in math, had Jacque not created her examples as math ones. After reading through those, I realized that being creatively a math classroom might not be so difficult. Keith's activity applied directly to my field, and I feel that I could definitely use that method in the classroom frequently. Barb's talk about technology definitely enlightened me on the different applications of technology in the math classroom. I really enjoy the material and websites she covers and feel that I could very easily use those tools to make class more interesting, as well as for my own personal interest. Dave's station I felt better applied to the science people, but was definitely an example of how being involved actively and having students create their own questions can cause more diversity and more engagement in the material. I felt that all of the stations were interesting and I really enjoyed that class.
ReplyDeleteChristina,
ReplyDeleteI think you summarized our experiences very well. I like that you pointed out again how silly it was that we all assumed there was a reason for the soda cans to be the shape they are, worked to prove that, and then it ended up that there was no real reasoning behind it. =) I also completely agree about how awesome the idea of Wordle is. I plan to use that (or another similar website) both in the classroom and for personal use. And it's great to know that we can get posters made on campus for that!!
Virginia,
ReplyDeleteI agree that Dave's station was really fun, not only because it was hands on, but because we got to come up with and test our own hypothesis. It was great to hear that even in our small class groups were coming up with completely different ideas and testing different things. I thought it was neat that we were "on our own". Just like you, I get super excited hearing what new tools Barb has for me to use. I'm really excited to have a couple of weeks off of class to simply familiarize myself with all of the different thing she has exposed us to. Also, I feel like Jacque's talk on differentiated instruction was probably the most useful in everyday life in the classroom. I feel like if nothing else, I could be a more effective teacher by using one of the techniques she talked about, on a regular basis, as that could very easily apply to any discipline and any topic.
Also, I love how excited you sound with all of your exclamation points all over your post.