blog post #9

What Can Teachers and Students Teach Us About Project Based Learning?

Project based learning is working over an extended period of time answering a driving question. There are seven essentials for project based learning:
1. Need to know- Students tend to be more interested in things that they feel like relates to the world around them. Many students are uninterested in school work because they feel like they dont need to know the information.
2. A driving question- This is a necessity for all project based learning assignments so students know the project's purpose.
3. Student voice and choice- The more input that the students have, the more effective the project is. The more voice and choice the students have, the better.
4. 21st century skills- Students learn collaboration, communication, critical thinking skills, and use of technology.
5. inquiry and Innovation- The project begins with the students' own questions.
6. Feedback and Revision- This is self-explanatory. Feedback is a great way to improve. Students can give feedback and revise their peers projects.
7. A publicly presented product- The more people in the audience, the better. it is important that students present their work to more people than just their teacher and classmates.
Project based learning allows students to take charge of their learning. Albert Einstein said, "I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn." This is essentially what project based learning is. It's the process of questioning, investigating, sharing, and reflecting. <br />
Four aspects of project based learning are excitement, need to know, relevancy, and engagement. All of these things are necessary to make sure that students are retaining information and not just memorizing it for the next test. The emergence of project based learning is sure to change the art of teaching and improve the quality of thinkers in the world.

Smartboard Instruction

Project #9 Video Book Conversation

Project #14

I created a project planner for a 1st grade science project entitled "Get Your Head in the Clouds"

Calendar

Rubric

C4Ta

Steven Anderson blogs about edchats on Twitter, The Web 2.0 connected classroom. He outlines 5 reasons why Twitter is important: meeting new people, hearing new ideas, opposing viewpoints, finding new resources, and creating action. He participates in edchats weekly where educators all over the world can share ideas about lesson plans and many other teaching techniques. My response to this blog was, "I just recently got introduced to the idea of educators getting ideas and sharing ideas with each other on Twitter. I love how technology has improved so many aspects of education. As much as I'm on my phone, I know I will have no problem participating in the edchats. I look forward to joining you." Silvia Tolisano's blog post "And You Thought It Could Not Be Done: Blogging in Math" talks about how math teachers can use blogging as a way to teach and give students other resources for learning. This was one of my favorite blog post that I have read so far. My response was, "I'm so glad you posted this blog. Math is my subject of interest and I have been trying to figure out how to incorporate blogging with math! Math is one of the hardest subjects to make fun because so many people hate it! But I think if people would relate math to the real world more often, then more people would learn it. Most people are so close-minded about math because they feel like most of it can never be related to the real world. Also, having other people give other resources for learning is very beneficial when it comes to math. There are so many ways of learning and teaching math and what works for some will not work for all. Love this post! Thank you for this." Sharon Davison's blog post "Reflections Inside and Outside of Kindergarten" reflects on her teaching experience and her students' and parents' learning experience this year in her kindergarten class. She talks about how her students learned toe successfully use iPads and learned how to use technology to answer questions so that they could become self learners. She also mentioned how parents' began to use technology more as well. Some of her parents used Google Hangouts to share their perspectives about how social networks and other synchronous tools have made learning meaningful and fun. My response to her post was, "It was really interesting hearing about how technologically literate your students are! It’s amazing to me how 5-year-olds can understand more about technology than I did at 15! Seeing children now navigating through tablets and cell phones is amazing to me and let’s me know that there is no way to engage our students without incorporating technology in our curriculum. I cannot wait to begin my journey as an elementary school teacher and I hope to share experiences similar to yours. You seem to really enjoy what you do."

J.F Hadley writes about the "Almost Boring" mode that the classroom transforms to at the end of the school year. The teacher has successfully taught their students what they need to know for the year and the students are ready for the summer, so at that point the teacher goes to the back and the students lead. Mr. Hadley did such a good job instructing his students during the year that they were able to successfully lead the class without his help. My response to Mr. Hadley was "I am also in EDU 310 at The University of South Alabama and your post was so refreshing to me. This is one of the reasons why I hope to teach 4th, 5th, or 6th grade because the feeling you get at the end of the year when you have basically taught them and guided them all year and then they are ready to be out on their own is so rewarding. This “boredom” is almost impossible to enjoy with younger students. The fact that they are able to successfully research and finish projects and assignments with little help from you is proof that you have done your job. I wish more educators would follow suit with this end of the year relaxation. Students enjoy it more than teachers do!I am also in EDU 310 at The University of South Alabama and your post was so refreshing to me. This is one of the reasons why I hope to teach 4th, 5th, or 6th grade because the feeling you get at the end of the year when you have basically taught them and guided them all year and then they are ready to be out on their own is so rewarding. This “boredom” is almost impossible to enjoy with younger students. The fact that they are able to successfully research and finish projects and assignments with little help from you is proof that you have done your job. I wish more educators would follow suit with this end of the year relaxation. Students enjoy it more than teachers do!"

c4T

"The Gift of Failure" by Shelley Wright talks about children being able to learn, unlearn, and relearn. "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cant read and write, but those who cant learn, unlearn, and relearn." -Alvin Toffler. I think this is a post every educator should read. Our school system is failing because we have failed to change it despite the world around us changing. Schools are more focused on having exemplary test scores than they are on making sure their students have the skills necessary to succeed in life. I really couldn’t tell you anything I learned in grade school that helped me get through life. College either for that matter. Most of the things I know about life and success were self- taught, through trial and error. I think more educators should concentrate on teaching their students how to make their students’ dreams come true which would require them to teach them how to learn. Great post!

The Langwitches blog post that I commented on this week was about teaching students to be curators of information. It talks about how a blog should be a way to convey information and teach new things. My response was, "I am an EDM 310 student at The University of South Alabama and I can definitely say my professor, Dr. Strange, guides us into being curators of information through blogging. I have even learned things from my own blog and I think that is very important. It's great to be able to help others with the information you share, but it is even better to be able to help yourself."

I commented on the post "The Possibilities of Student Blogging" which discusses the learning experiences that blogging offers. Things like connecting to the world, global awareness, and communication skills were discussed. My response was, "I love finally hearing about how students feel about blogging from their point of view! I always read and hear about how good blogging is for students from educators. It really makes me an advocate to know that the students are doing something they enjoy while also learning and interacting with the world."

Project #13

This lesson plan addresses Common Core Standard 3 for Science. It is designed for a 1st grade classroom and will to last a week. This is group Miami's Project Based Learning Lesson Plan

This is the calendar associated with the lesson plan.

Project Checklist

Blog Post #7

21st Century Learning and Communication Tools

There are many ways to incorporate technology with education. Technology can be partnered with any subject and in any grade. The subject I'm most interested in is math. Teachers seem to find it much harder in incorporate technology with math than any other subject, so I try to find ways to accomplish that.

The AIMS Puzzle Corner provides more than 100 math-related puzzles appropriate for students in upper elementary grades and middle school. Most include printable worksheets. It also provides science-related puzzles. This site will definitely be one of my go-to resources.

You can also incorporate technology with history. One way to make history fun, since most children seem to think it's not,is to visit This Day in History. It tells you what happened in history on the exact day that you visit the site.It's a great way to make things interesting and it's something that can be done everyday or whatever day you decide to give a history lesson.

Have the students practice their reading comprehension skills with Fluency Through Fables. Designed for students of English as a second language, the activity is appropriate for English-speaking students in elementary and middle school as well. The lesson includes a brief fable and four categories of related activities; vocabulary matching exercises, vocabulary completion exercises, multiple choice comprehension exercises, and written discussion exercises.

Project #15 Search Engines

Wolfram Alpha is a major software engineering development to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone. It is developed with Mathematica and Wolfram Workbench, computed with gridMathematica, and deployed with webMathematica—in fact, Mathematica technologies have uniquely made Wolfram|Alpha possible. Computational knowledge and intelligence, highly scalable grid computing, built in computable data, and smart method selection are just some of the things that make this possible.

About.com, a top 20 U.S. website, helps users discover, be inspired, and learn about topics ranging from parenting and healthcare to cooking and travel. The site is also one of the largest producers of original content on the Web.

Yahoo was founded in 1994 by Stanford Ph.D. students David Filo and Jerry Yang. It has since evolved into a major internet brand with search, content verticals, and other web services. Yahoo can be used to search almost anything. It is very helpful for people of all ages, therefore it can easily be useful in the elementary classroom.

Bing is a web search engine from Microsoft. It can be used for conversions, math computations, dictionary, and spell check, as well as other things. Another plus for Bing is that it has partnered with Apple and is their main search engine which would be helpful since many schools are using Apple products.

iSeek is a great search engine for students, teachers and administrators. Simply ask a question or enter search topics or tools and iSEEK will pull from scholastic sources to find exactly what you are looking for. The search engine is safe, intelligent and time–saving—and it draws from trusted resources from universities, government and established non–commercial sites.

Infomine is a librarian–built virtual library of internet resources relevant to faculty, students and research staff at the collegiate level. This site narrows searches to a comprehensive academic virtual library filled with websites, databases, electronic journals, electronic books and directories of researchers. Librarians from the University of California, Wake Forest University, California State University, the University of Detroit – Mercy, and other universities and colleges have contributed to building Infomine.

Populated by the U.S. Department of Education, the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) is a great tool for academic research with more than 1.3 million bibliographic records of articles and online materials. ERIC provides access to an extensive body of education–related literature including journal articles, books, research syntheses, conference papers, technical reports, policy papers and more.

Scirus is a leading search engine for science students on the web. This search engine has a comprehensive database of more than 350 million scientific–related pages including: academic journals, websites, scientists' homepages, pre–print server material, patents and institutional repository. Moreover, the site allows users to locate technical and medical data, find current reports, search through peer–reviewed articles and examine patents through a selective search engine.

Blog Post #3

How Can You Provide Meaningful Feedback To Your Peers?

I found both of the videos to be very helpful to me, especially the video "Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes". Even though this video was made by elementary aged kids, it touched on all of the mistakes that adults make as well. I have specifically run into Defensive Dave and Speedy Sally, and they are the worst kind of people to run into when peer editing in my opinion. Speedy Sally is someone who speeds through their critique, but gives no explanations or ways to improve the mistakes they point out which basically defeats the purpose of having someone else edit your work.

Defensive Dave is someone who gets defensive about everything you say that is not praising their work. Defensive Dave's are the exact reason I do not like critiquing other people's work. They make you feel so bad about everything you say when you're just trying to help. I'm glad that these mistakes were highlighted.