Andrea+H.

APRIL 14, 2011

TEACHING TREMENDOUSLY

I was not as prepared for my science lesson as I should have been, and I had just changed this lesson but had not finalized it, so I was not excited to teach this lesson. Next time, I would definitely be more prepared and make sure I had practiced enough for the lesson to flow more smoothly and be more cohesive. I think I was able to engage pretty well by having a writing prompt and beginning with a question, but the follow-up was not delivered very well. I was really lacking confidence in my lesson and in my teaching abilities which was evident through my delivery. I mostly told my class what we would do if I was actually teaching the lesson instead of actually teaching it. My peers liked the multiple representations of content which helps every learning style, and I think this would be very helpful in a classroom of twenty or more students because everyone would have the opportunity to be engaged and to excel.

In my math lesson, I was able to deliver my lesson as a teacher would because I had more confidence and felt more comfortable in this setting. I loved the lesson that I planned, and I feel like it would be really fun to do with fourth graders. My peers seemed to be engaged in the lesson and really enjoyed learning about Shackleton's Voyage of Endurance. It was a math heavy lesson, so I would need to explain the math part better, but there was not time for that when teaching my peers. My worksheet also did not work as well as I had planned. I realized that it was quite unclear in parts and I should have had someone else read it and complete it before using it in my lesson. However, my peers liked my idea of having students find their own daily calorie goals and relating it to their life. They also liked the elaborate section which had students pick out foods and add them up to get the amount of calories they need per day. I think students would really enjoy this activity because it is so relevant to their lives and something they could do at home. I feel like the second round of teaching was so much easier, so I feel like the more practice I have, the easier teaching will be!

MARCH 28, 2011

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT What did you learn from reading the Stiggins article (on Sakai - under assessment)?

Students success depends on their perceptions of their performance on assessments. They can either feel like they have done really well and be motivated to continue to try in school and enjoy learning or can feel like they have failed and decide to stop trying. A great solution to this problem is to include students in the assessment process using formative assessment in the way of "assessing for learning," meaning that the students partner with their teacher to set goals for their learning, manage their progress, and work to close the gap of where they are and where they need to be according to standards. It is important that students see their "journey to success." This method of assessing also should include many forms of assessments and evaluations to help students succeed (which aligns with the Universal Design for Learning). Formative assessment should ultimately promote success for all students by helping teachers individualize instruction and see which students are struggling with which specific content areas or procedures. Where summative assessments, such as end of the year standardized tests, assess many areas at once, formative assessments allow teachers to see the effects of their day-by-day or week-by-week lessons. This allows for important reflection and alterations if necessary furthering student-based teaching and assessing for learning.

Identify 3 ways that you might create a formative assessment for your unit (either this lesson, or the lesson you created for Science, or even another lesson you plan to do). Identify several sources for formative assessment ideas - including your texts from your current methods courses.

-After my first lesson in my unit plan, students are to write a journal entry in their science notebooks answering a prompt that forces them to identify the outcomes on which my lesson focused. Responding to a prompt could be used as formal assessment in any lesson because the teacher can cater it to the specific outcomes. -Polling or voting is an idea in our social studies book that can quickly show how many people understand a topic or agree/disagree with something. This could be done using Poll Everywhere, hand held voting devices, or just on a piece of paper. -Seat check is another one that was discussed in the social studies book (and one that Dr. C often talks about) in which the teacher goes around and looks at what the students are working on while they are working. From there, she knows any misconceptions or things with which she needs to help the class or individual students.

Sources: Visualizing Elementary Social Studies Methods (Chapter 13) Teaching Science as Inquiry (Chapter 6) Learning Mathematics in Elementary and Middle Schools: A Learning-Centered Approach (Chapter 4 and throughout) Scribd--lots of formative assessment ideas STEM Teacher Resources--has a list of 21 ideas at the bottom

How will you document the information you receive from collecting information on your students' understanding? What will you do with that information? How can it inform your future instructional decisions? Can you identify ways to use a SmartPhone to collect data?

I will have a file for each student with checklists and charts to be filled in after each form of assessment that I do with each child. This information will be collected, analyzed, and compared to other students' progress and individual progress. Any appropriate sharing of the data or other actions will follow based on the analysis. The data will also reflect which areas each student is struggling with and which areas the whole class is struggling with so that I can base my instruction on that and provide individual instruction and scaffolding for those who need it in certain areas. The data might also show areas that I need to reteach in a different way so that my students can better understand it. A smart phone/iPad could be used to if you had a chart or checklist on the phone and could check things off during informal assessment of the class or one-on-one time with the students.

MARCH 24th, 2011  There is a new solar farm in Taylorsville, NC (see: []). How would you plan a field trip to this this solar farm? Explain how you could connect the field trip to the content areas. Can you think of ways in which math would naturally fit into this field trip?

 To begin planning the field trip, I would contact the solar farm and figure out what activities they do for school groups on a regular basis. I would also do research on solar energy in order to prepare myself for the field trip. This blog is a great place to start--it is all about solar energy and its advantages. From there, I would plan the rest of the day in more detail. However, at some point in the day, I would hope that someone from the solar farm would explain the differences between solar energy and other types of energy and explain how their solar farm works. Then, I would have a Venn Diagram for students to fill out after hearing about these differences to show the comparison between the two types. Then, they could take a tour of the farm to better understand how solar energy works. In order to incorporate math, we would figure out how many solar farms would be needed to power all of the state and then we could do bigger areas as well, such as the country and the world. Literacy could be incorporated by reading books about energy/renewable energy/solar energy (which can be found by searching them on google) and by having students write about what life would be like only using solar power, not having any power, etc. Social studies would also be incorporated into the math lesson when looking at how many solar farms it would take to provide energy for different areas of the world.

 Outcomes: The students will be able to identify different sources of energy. The students will be able to compare solar energy to other forms of energy giving advantages and disadvantages of each. This fits perfectly with fourth grade Competency Goal 3 in science, which is "the learner will make observations and conduct investigations to build an understanding of magnetism and electricity."

This is a great site that has lesson plans for elementary classrooms relating to renewable energy. They might be helpful to use before going on the field trip for students to get an idea of what renewable energy is and why it is important.

Here is a list of green apps for an ipad that could definitely be incorporated in this lesson! One even makes your ipad into a solar cell--how cool is that?!

FEBRUARY 24th, 2011 "Connecting Music and Math"

How can music help you teach math? CONTENT: Music can be helpful in teaching math because both are based on patterns. A musical pattern is a rhythm while a mathematical pattern is a number sequence. Math also uses fractions when looking at different measures. Music and math both use the same brain hemisphere, which allows students to make the connection between the two very easily. I found a [|lesson] that uses music to explain math patterns and number sequences. Furthermore, music can be a great memory device for mathematical concepts. This is a link to a long list of songs to aid in learning early mathematical skills such as counting, shapes, money, and time. I think this is mostly how I would be able to use music to help with math because I am not very familiar with the mathematical concepts within musical notes and measurements.

PEDAGOGY: Students would enjoy using songs to remember math or any other subject matter. Music engages kids and helps them focus while also serving as a great memory tool. Also, using music helps auditory learners to understand the patterns in math. Also, in the lesson linked above, the students listen to the pattern and then clap it out, which also appeals to the kinesthetic learners. Simply writing the pattern on the board helps the visual learners. Thus, all learning styles are catered to by using music. Furthermore, these types of lessons allow students to be innovative and develop their own way of looking at math concepts. This is a form of active learning, which could also lead to discussions and discoveries in other areas such as science (perhaps with a lesson on sound).

TECHNOLOGY: There are so many apps that can be used to enhance musical sense, such as Moozart, which allows kids to produce their own music and allows them to experiment in order to discover how different notes make different sounds. Also, computer games, Smart Boards, and iPods/CD players could help. Computer games, like the apps, could enhance musical sense as well as create fun ways to complete math problems with musical integration. IPods and CD players would provide music in the classroom during activities. Computer games and activities as well as the apps could be used as an assessment tool as well. Getting kids to use their musical aid to complete math problems would also be a way to evaluate students' abilities.

SUSTAINABILITY? This discussion of math and music could be carried over into science with a discussion of sound and noise pollution. Students might not know what noise pollution is but with scaffolding questions, students of all ages could understand this concept and the harmful effects for many animals and some people.

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JANUARY 27th, 2011 "Counting on Estimating..."

My group's question was "How long does it take to get to from Tribble A11 to the baseball field?" We first estimated the distance by comparing it to another distance that seemed about as far. It takes about around 7 minutes to get from my room in Kitchin to class in Tribble, and we thought the baseball field was only a little bit further than that distance. We estimated that it would take 8 minutes, and it took 8 minutes and 30 seconds.

In my lesson, I would start with the question, "How do you estimate?" This question would be explored through many different ways of estimating like we did in class.

CONTENT: This lesson obviously relates to math, but could be used in several ways. First, you could look at the different types of math that are used when estimating different things. For example, my group used time and distance while other groups used counting/addition and more. Furthermore, this lesson could be integrated into social studies by looking at the trends of different people on a college campus and the culture of the campus itself. Also, sports are a huge tradition and hobby in this country, and the trip to the baseball field could be used to examine a number of different sports and hobbies. In lower grades, the question of how many cars pass by during a certain amount of time could lead to a lesson on transportation and the different forms of transportation available. I think it would be applicable to use the outdoors to relate the lesson to science. With the question about the number of leaves on a tree, the class could discuss different trees in different seasons, why there are no leaves on the trees now, and different kinds of leaves/trees. Literature would compliment the science portion by reading books about different trees or different seasons, especially trees in autumn.

PEDAGOGY: This assignment was another active learning active that got us out of our seats and exploring campus while also exploring the topic of estimation. It was also structured so that each group was assigned a different topic that dealt with a different kind of estimation. Some groups had to estimate a number of people, some had to estimate a number of cars that go by in a certain amount of time, and some had to estimate the number of leaves on a tree. If we had not run out of time, I am sure we would have discussed the different problems and each group's problem solving technique. This is an engaging way of teaching because it gets kids out of their seats, and it has several different examples of the same concept.

TECHNOLOGY: We used the stopwatch feature of a cellphone to determine the exact amount of time from when we left Tribble A11 and got to the baseball field. We could also use an online navigation program like Google Maps or MapQuest to try and measure the exact distance in miles from different points on campus and then estimate how many minutes it takes to walk that distance. There are also online games (and games and activities not online) that could be used before or after this lesson to help introduce or follow up. This link has games, worksheets, and assessments to help reinforce the concept of estimation with different types of math concepts.

SUSTAINABILITY: One way to engage students in sustainability during this lesson would be when looking at the number of cars that pass at a certain amount of time. Kids could discuss the problems with cars in the environment and then offer solutions of ways to help reduce the pollution emitted from cars and the oil and gas problem. While you could talk about public transportation, older kids would also be able to discuss the creative solutions to this idea (some of which are being talked about today, such as solar energy and electric cars). You could also have kids pick up trash while doing their outdoor estimations and could bring the trash back to sort into different types of recyclables and waste, which would be another way to connect the lesson to math.

Identify (One each): Assessment, Mobile Apps, Other Media One way to assess students knowledge of estimation would be to have them tell you their estimation from the group activity and why they chose that estimation along with what the actual number ended up being. Also, you could have them tell ways they estimate in real life or have a few word problems about estimation on the board that each student must complete in their journal.

This video is a real life application of estimation when shopping. It would be a good introduction or a good example of estimation for the older elementary grades.

This iPad app is called MathBoard, and is an interactive app for kids to practice math and to make it fun!

JANUARY 20th, 2011 "Less than, More than, Scarcity, Abundance" What do we have too much of on our campus? What do we have too little of on our campus?

CONTENT (Math, Science, Literacy, Social Studies): As my group went around campus, we asked different people the questions, "What do we have too much of on campus?" and "What do we have too little of on our campus?" Not surprisingly, we had many people say we had too many freshmen and not enough parking spaces. These answers could be used to form several lessons. First of all, you could compare numbers of students in different classrooms at your school looking at less than, greater than, and equal to or take the numbers from different classrooms and the other grade levels and play with addition and subtraction. You could also (it's a stretch) look at population and overpopulation. You could show a video like Dr. Bennett showed on the first day of class, and could follow with looking at other countries. You could cater a lesson to any specific region or country of the world. I would probably choose to look at countries that have completely different cultures than the U.S. such as a country in Africa or somewhere like China or Japan. I think kids would be interested to learn about those parts of the world. There are many books you can connect with these areas of the world, such as //Africa is Not a Country// by Margy Burns Knight, which is a children's book that shows pictures and facts about the countries that make up the continent of Africa. I found this page where someone posted good children's books about Africa with descriptions and prices--if anyone's interested! Furthermore, an element of science can be added when looking at the different countries. You could compare their climates and differences in their economy, which has helped or hurt the population growth.

Looking at the parking problem, you could look at different modes of transportation and use those for sorting, counting, etc. I like Lauren's idea of looking at pollution when looking at transportation and the parking problem.

PEDAGOGY: The way this lesson was taught would definitely be engaging for elementary students because of its different elements. First, we worked in groups and got to go outside to ask people questions about our school. Then, we had an individual assignment to write about it on Wiki. I like this active style of learning because it makes students explore to find their answers instead of just being lectured off of a powerpoint or finding answers in a textbook. Students will be much more motivated when they get to do something interesting and out of their seats.

TECHNOLOGY: We used smartphones to record data and video people's responses to our questions. Other technology you can use is the internet to find exact numbers as well as videos and other media.

SUSTAINABILITY: You could add a sustainability component to this lesson by looking at saving energy and other ways to come to school (public transportation, bikes, etc). Also, you could talk about sustainability when talking about population growth. You could discuss ways to help conserve our resource,s such as recycling and using water sparingly. Here's a [|link] to a precious book on sustainability called //What Does it Mean to be Green?// by Rana DiOrio

Identify (One each): Assessment, Mobile Apps, Other Media You could have students complete a less than/greater than worksheet to assess their understanding of that concept. Other mathematical concepts in this lesson could be tested this way as well.

Addition & Subtraction Flash Action is an iPad app that kids could use to practice math facts.

This is a YouTube video on recycling that could be used with the sustainability lesson--it's really cute!

This is an excellent start for your continued discussion and exploration! KRB