Sunday, May 4, 2014

Phase 3- Comprehensive Reflection

  • Standard 1: Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
  • Strand 1 items 1-3

    Throughout the class this semester I learned one way to facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity is to allow students more freedom when assigning activities. When they don’t have to follow strict guidelines and have a variety of options, the student is able to use their creativity and interests to shows their individual strengths. This makes it easier to get to know the student through their work when the creativity is shown since they will be more engaged in the material. One way I feel student learning and creativity was learned in my lessons were through the use of Kidspiration and Pixie. When teaching my first lesson in class, the students were to identify the 5 major elements of a story they watched on YouTube. First the students worked as a group for the first video to identify these elements (plot, conflict, characters, setting, and themes) this allowed them to understand and get a grasp on what they were doing and also. Then individually they were to do the same and document their thoughts and identify these in a kidspiration premade outline. This is a perfect example of how students would reflect using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify their conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes as well. My first lesson plan also allowed students also were able to exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources. They worked as a group to find the conflict of a story and had to map out their thoughts using a kidspiration program.



    Strand 1 item 4: model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments.

    This semester I never had encountered anything in my teaching that involved face to face interaction through virtual environments. But one way I would incorporate is by using Skype with students to interact with them when we were separated. Another great thing I learned about this semester is a website that allows virtually interaction between two classrooms around the world. I think this is a great way for students to share and compare ideas they have with students from different parts of the world to see how their ideas differ and relate to each other.

     Standard 2- Develop and Design Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments

    Items 1-3

    Students I taught this semester were given the opportunity to be creative and learn new things when I chose to use Kidspiration and inspiration programs. Both of these applications are amazing and very user friendly. They are very easy to figure and learn how to use; they allow the students the freedom to create individual work through various activities and diagrams. The students were also given the opportunity to address their curiosity and taking advantage of their individual learning in both lessons.

     Students were able to assess their own progress when they were completing these programs in my first lesson. They were allowed to assess their selves by filling out the premade diagrams. Another way student were able to assess their selves that I used in this class, was in my second lesson plan where students would take online quizzes that tested them on how accurate they were able to fill out a United States map that required them to fill in both the states names and their capitals. These quizzes gave them a completion progress tracker which gave them an idea of how well they are doing without giving them a score. I find this well be very helpful for students so they will have an understanding of how much time they have left in an assignment and also give them an estimate on how well they are doing on the assignment.

    For diverse learning styles, I allowed group work, hands-on activities, visual aids, audio support, and repetition so if there were any questions, and they could be addressed immediately. During the lesson, there were formative assessments which were in the form of me asking questions and checking each student’s progress on the activities.

    Item 4-provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching.

    One example of this would be in my second lesson I taught at the YMCA in Phoenix were I gave students two different forms of assessment. The first was an online visual quiz from the website sporcle where they would have fifteen minutes to fill in a blank map of the U.S. by typing in the names of the states and their capitals. The other way I tested their knowledge was by having a premade document that listed the fifty states and they would have to type in their capitals next to it. Most of the students told me they preferred the online quiz.

     

    Standard 3: Model Digital-Age Work and Learning Items 1-4
To demonstrate digital-age work and learning, I used Kidspiration and also interactive online websites such as sporcle. My lessons were for 3rd and 4th grade so these software programs worked perfectly for my students. Before I taught each lesson i made sure I became an expert in the technology and programs that I was using so it there were problems or questions that the students had I would be able to immediately know how to fix the issue or how to explain how to fix the problem to the student. I would also download the trail version of the software onto my laptop a week or so before the lesson and just play around with it every day.

For each lesson I had some form of collaboration. For my first lesson, at the start they worked as a group to fill out an outline after they watched a video. They had to identify the five major elements of a story. For the second lesson that I taught at the YMCA they worked in pairs on filling a map of the U.S.

For my first lesson, after each of the students were done creating their own outlines that showed the five elements of a story that they had watched, they would all share each other’s kidspiration documents and compare and contrast their ideas. They were also given lose guidelines on the activity so they could either show their ideas through pictures, words or both. This allowed students to choose the learning style they felt the most comfortable with on the assignment.

All of my lessons incorporated a variety of choices of digital interactive activities. One example is during my second lesson, I allowed students to practice learning the state capitals by choosing and switching through four different web activities that were listed for the assignment. This allowed students to find an activity that suited them    

Standard 4: Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility


Its important for a teacher to find a way to incorporate safe, legal,ethical use of digital information and technology in the classroom. Teachers need to provide a safe digital environment of their students. one of the ways a teacher can achieve this is by establishing rules and guidelines when using forms of technology in the classroom. By clearly teaching students what forms of legal issues are involved with these forms of technology, such as plagiarism, piracy, and using undesired website that are not age appropriate, these issues can easily be avoided. when students are using technology in the classroom its important for the students to be using the proper and safe websites. certain websites can serve as an excellent resource for gathering useful information, while others can serve as a distraction. Its important for teacher to make sure their students are properly engaged in the lesson plan and are not wondering off to prohibited websites.
It's just as important to treat people with courtesy and respect online as it is in real life. People sometimes forget that interacting with people online can have same effect as face to face conversations. When posting comments about either yourself or others, it’s important to clearly think about what you’re writing. Your online interactions might have unaware consequences. Cyber-bullying is an issue that comes up with digital etiquette. Writing hurtful things about someone online can be just as hurtful maybe even more so than in real life. A basic rule to follow whit online interactions is to treat others how you would want to be treated. The internet can be a powerful tool when it comes to circulating opinion or information. Because it can be spread very quickly and is easy to access, the impact it can make can increase the dramatic. Some people are pushing for using their real names as user id to place more responsibility on people when they leave these comments. For global awareness students could email or become pen pals with students from other countries to get a understanding of of world views of students from other countries.



Monday, April 21, 2014

Lesson Plan 2 Phase 2

Instructional Decisions/Teaching: 

My lesson plan worked out extremely well. Since I worked at the YMCA I was not sure how many people i would be having or what ages they would be i wasn't  certain how to lesson was going to go. I was surprised that I had 8 kids who were willing to be students in my lesson plan.  All of the kids seemed to enjoy the activities I had selected about learning the state location and their capitals. Their Favorite part of the lesson plan was the sporcle quizzes. One of the things that did not work out so well was that I was only able to use three computers since the others were being used to do homework for the after school program. I had the students work in pairs instead of individual on the online activities.

Mechanics: The technologies that I used were web activities and quizzes about the 50 state locations and the names of their capitals. For the timing of my lesson plan it was a more of a challenge then I had expected. Some of the kids left in the middle of the lesson because their parents picked them up early. Since the YMCA does not force the kids to arrive and leave at a certain time I had to adapt the lesson plan as I went along. But I was able to complete all the activities with 5 of the kids.









Lesson Plan 2 Materials

Materials and resources: http://www.sporcle.com/games/g/uscapitals, http://www.ilike2learn.com/ilike2learn/capitalunitedstates.html ,   http://www.yourchildlearns.com/mappuzzle/us-puzzle.html


Lesson Plan 2 Assessment

There is two ways the students will be assessed first is an online quiz they will take from the website sporacle. They will have to fill in a map of the United States with both the states location and the names of their capitals. For this quiz they will have a set time limit to complete it and will be given a score out of fifty for their accuracy. The link is listed here:  http://www.sporcle.com/games/g/states.

below is the second way they will be assessed.


Sunday, April 20, 2014

Lesson Plan 2 Implementation


Implementation:

Procedure: To start the lesson all the students will work as a group on an online activity that will help them remember their prior knowledge about the location of the states from the website http://www.yourchildlearns.com/mappuzzle/us-puzzle.html. After this they will individually practice and memorizes the state locations and their capitals from the websites that are listed in the material and resources section above.

Technology: This will be the websites listed above in the materials section. They will be using a variety of interactive games and quizzes for both practice and assessment.

For students with cognitive delay they will not be timed on the sporcle quiz at the end of the lesson that will be assessed. The timer on the quiz will not paused so they have the extra time they need to complete the quiz without have the pressure of being on a set time limit.

For gifted students, they will take the most difficult activities and quizzes from the websites. Each of the websites from the materials and resources section has a degree of difficulty for each of the activities. By having them complete the more difficult activities it will give the students more of a challenge.

For ELL they will have to option to use a translator the switch between languages so they can understand what they are doing.

Reflection

I used these instructional methods to make every student have the best chance at understanding to material and doing well on the assessment. All of the activities I choose are very engaging and entertaining. This allows the students to both have fun and also improve their skill level in learning the state locations and their capitals. The websites i used were a great way for students to use different ways of learning a subject and incorporating technology into their learning experience.

Lesson Plan 2

Hans Heusser


Lesson Title: YMCA after school program


Grade:3-8th


Subject: 4th and 5th grade social studies


Overview:Students will work on assessment activities that test the knowledge of the locations of each of the 50 states and also the names of the state capitals. First they will work as a group using an online activity that will help them remember their prior knowledge about the location of the states. Then each of the students will practice individually with various online games that will help them improve their understanding of the material. Finally they will complete an online activity that tests their skills.


Objectives: Using teacher provided website resources, students will practice the location of the 50 states and the names of their state capitals. They will demonstrate their knowledge of the material by taking a visual interactive quiz at the end of the lesson.


Procedure : they will first work as a group on the easier activities to refresh and improve their knowledge of the states locations and capitals. then they will work by themselves to complete a quiz on the website sporcle that test their understanding of the material.


Assessment: 1.  Observe students and see how well they use the provided tools and are able to practice and demonstrate their knowledge of the locations of the 50 states and their capitals. 2.Students will also take an online quiz at the link listed below.


Materials and resources: http://www.sporcle.com/games/g/uscapitals, http://www.ilike2learn.com/ilike2learn/capitalunitedstates.html ,   http://www.yourchildlearns.com/mappuzzle/us-puzzle.html
Reflections:

Prior Knowledge: Students will need to know the location of the 50 states and their state capitals. They will also need to know the spelling of each of the states and their capitals to be able to get full credit for the online assessment that counts spelling as part of the grade.

Students at the start of the lesson will work in groups on a practice assignment which will help both me and them to get an idea of what their skill level is at. Then they will be able to practice using the given web activities to boost their knowledge in the subject.

This subject is taught early in 4th grade because it is expanded on by similar lessons in 5th and 6th grade. learning the location of the states and their capitals is important for children to learn early on since it is something they will need to know in their lives. people should know as much as possible about the country they live in. The objectives of this lesson are the same as the standards. They will be required to learn the location of each of the 50 states and also the names of their capitals.



Sunday, March 23, 2014

lesson plan phase 2

1. Instructional decisions and teaching

During my lesson overall I had few issues and everything seemed to run smoothly. There were a few issues I had during my lesson. The first was the sound on my computer didn’t work. This was an issue for me because for my lesson all of the students were required to watch a Youtube video together and fill out a worksheet that had related to the video. This was not that big of an issue since I was able to use one of my peer’s computers instead. The final problem I encountered was one of my peers showed up halfway through the lesson and I rushed to help her catch up to where the others were at in the lesson. What worked well in my lesson was the worksheet; all of the people involved enjoyed it and found it very easy to use. The videos related to the assignment were also very fun and engaging which made it more enjoyable for the participants. The standards and objective of the lesson were all meet, each student was able to correctly identify all of the elements of the story. Everything worked out better than I had expected it to and it ran very smoothly. The only modifications I encountered were my computers sound not working and having to help the late arrival catch up.
                                 
2. Mechanics


The technologies that I used were YouTube videos and a premade inspiration program that I had created prior to the lesson. I had also created a survey to get instant feedback on how well my lesson went and get constructive input from my peers on how the lesson could be improved. The YouTube videos were used by the students the watch for the 5 major elements of a story and the inspiration assignment was used to check the understanding of the students’ knowledge of the topic. The lesson plan ran 2 minutes shorter than the allowed time frame. For this time I had all the peers compare their filled out assignments the check for similarities and differences. For the late arrival I had to skip the group part of the lesson plan for her, because I didn’t want to have the other students repeat the assignment and also there was not enough time left to do so.


3. Artifacts
All of my students completed the assignments perfectly. All of the objectives were meet within the lesson. All the students were able to correctly identify all of the major elements of a story. Only a few issues had occurred. All of the peer feedback surveys gave me nothing but praise.
A

Monday, March 3, 2014

Lesson plan materials.

link to videos used in lesson:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyjw0ZLyzpE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a6Pe1ovKHg

Inspiration outline:

In bblearn discussion board

https://bblearn.nau.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_group=courses&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Fcontent%2Ffile%3Fcmd%3Dview%26content_id%3D_2131549_1%26course_id%3D_56834_1%26framesetWrapped%3Dtrue


3rd lesson plan post

3RD post: Assessment

Each student will be assessed on their understanding of topic and being able to correctly identify the correct story elements in their assignment. They will be required to do this in the program inspiration, where they will outline these 5 elements in a pre-made worksheet, where they fill in the correct responses in each area.

Grading sheet for inspiration outline:

Correctly identifies the 5 story elements: Scale 1-5, one point will be given for each correct response.

Organization of outline: scale 1-5, the story outline well be graded on how well organized the outline is, and also each response is placed in the correct area.


Details: scale 1-5, 1 point well be given for in depth details and examples given in each area of the outline, a point well be taken away for no details in each area.

lesson plan 2nd post

2nd post: Implementation

·        Watch short story on youtube
·        Discuss the 5 main elements of a story(plot, setting, characters, themes, and conflict)
·        Identify these elements from the video as a group
·        Individually each student will watch another story
·        Using the program inspiration students will outline these 5 elements to test their understanding of the content and area
·        Teacher will review their outlines for accuracy to determine their understanding of the subject
·        Students will compare their outlines for similarities and differences
Technology integration:
Students will use the program inspiration to outline the elements of a story
Students will use youtube to view 2 different 5 minutes short stories that contain these 5 elements

Differentiated Instruction:
●            Cognitive delay
Depending upon the student’s level, a different video will be used that is easier to follow and a revised rubric will be applied to their created outlines
●            Gifted
Gifted learners will be tested with a more difficult video that requires the student to interpret the story at a more difficult level to identify these 5 main story elements.
●            ELL                                                                                                                                                   

  The video will have subtitles to allow them to follow the story with any language barriers.

Lesson plan 1st post

Elements of a Story
OVERVIEW
Grade Level: 4th-5th

Subject: Language Arts

Topic of Study: Elements of a story (Plot, characters, themes, setting, conflicts)

Time Allotment: 30 minutes long

Standards:
● Craft and structure (AZ 3rd grade reading standard http://www.azed.gov/azccrs/elastandards/3-5/)
●Integration of knowledge and ideas (AZ 3rd grade writing standard 5 http://www.azed.gov/azccrs/elastandards/3-5/)

Objectives: (What do you want the students to know or be able to do?, I will be looking carefully on how they align with your assessment)

●            The Student will create a web outline that relates to the story they watched. In this activity the student will be required to identify the theme, setting, plot, characters, and conflicts that are related to the story they viewed. They will use the program inspiration to create this outline.(5.rL.2) (4.rL.3)



Monday, February 10, 2014

Meeting diverse needs of learners through learner-centered strategies and equitable access

By using learner-centered strategies, teachers can meet the needs of a growing diverse student population. Each student will be able to grow and improve in their own ways through collaboration with other students. It is important for teachers to give them the necessary tools and support for students to discover things on their own. Students today are very independent and learn more on their own than ever before. Because of this we need to implement learner-centered strategies. After all, we are teaching them! It's not about the teachers, it's about the students. By working together and discovering new things on their own students gain self-confidence and become more proactive then before. It is important to give them that power. The important aspect to recognize is that technology can be used for a series of different learners, but it is whether or not the teacher is willing to go the extra mile and make sure the technology will be used to benefit the student. 

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Global awareness and digital-age communication

Every teacher should have an awareness and understanding of the current world we live in. today we live in the digital age where new technology is constantly changing the ways we live our lives. Technology is constantly being added into the classrooms. When I was a kid we had a few computers in the school and that was it for technology. Today kids are using iPad’s and research databases in their studies.  In the digital age of communication students are more tech-savvy than ever before.  Teachers need to be aware of how they can incorporate these technologies into the classroom. There are many forms of digital age communication. Examples are Skype, twitter, Facebook, text messaging and more. It’s important for teacher to show their students how to properly uses these devices and give them the respect they deserve. Digital communication can have the same responses as face to face interactions. A rule of thumb in digital communication is treat others how you would want to be treated. 


Monday, January 27, 2014

Digital etiquette and responsible social interactions

Digital etiquette or netiquette as it is sometimes called, is a basic set of rules you should follow in order to make the internet better for others, and better for yourself. It's just as important to treat people with courtesy and respect online as it is in real life. People sometimes forget that interacting with people online can have same effect as face to face conversations. When posting comments about either yourself or others, it’s important to clearly think about what you’re writing. Your online interactions might have unaware consequences. Cyber-bullying is an issue that comes up with digital etiquette. Writing hurtful things about someone online can be just as hurtful maybe even more so than in real life. A basic rule to follow whit online interactions is to treat others how you would want to be treated. The internet can be a powerful tool when it comes to circulating opinion or information. Because it can be spread very quickly and is easy to access, the impact it can make can increase the dramatic. Some people are pushing for using their real names as user id to place more responsibility on people when they leave these comments. 

Monday, January 20, 2014

Safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology

Its important for a teacher to find a way to incorporate safe, legal,ethical use of digital information and technology in the classroom. Teachers need to provide a safe digital environment of their students. one of the ways a teacher can achieve this is by establishing rules and guidelines when using forms of technology in the classroom. By clearly teaching students what forms of legal issues are involved with these forms of technology, such as plagiarism, piracy, and using undesired website that are not age appropriate, these issues can easily be avoided. when students are using technology in the classroom its important for the students to be using the proper and safe websites. certain websites can serve as an excellent resource for gathering useful information, while others can serve as a distraction. Its important for teacher to make sure their students are properly engaged in the lesson plan and are not wondering off to prohibited websites.  
Copyright infringement is a major issue in all levels of schooling. Many people are either unaware or don't care that they are violating certain copy right protection laws and using other peoples information as their own without properly sighting and give credit to the author of the information. when students are using other peoples in their own work,  teachers need to make sure that they understand how to properly cite another person's work. If the students do not follow these safe, legal, and ethical rules of technology, or they do not treat the technology with respect, they will lose their privileges of using theses technology device. Technology can serve as an amazing and useful tool in the classroom that can help schools evolve into much greater things, as long as we take precautions.