Week 8 PLE

I watched the following science challenge voicethreads:

http://rkalilimoku.blogspot.com/

http://rkfergipt287.blogspot.com/

http://sarahannepeterson.blogspot.com/

From these, I learned a great deal about incorporating different technologies into the science curriculum. Since I didn't have a chance to try every program or tool, it was great to see some other tools and ways of incorporating both the same science objective I used or different ones. It was interesting to see the different activities that people came up with to teach science. I definitely think that all of these are very valuable tools because they can really make science more hands on and fun for the students. I also liked that some of the tools are very easy for the teacher to use and don't require a ton of prep time. I hope that I will be able to use some of these different technologies in my teaching!

Science Challenge Voicethread

My technology enhanced science activity will be about the phases of the moon. My students will do a whole unit on the moon and will observe and draw the moon each night from a new moon to a full moon. We will have a class discussion about the different shapes of the moon and why the moon is different shapes. The class will learn about the relative position of the earth, moon, and sun for a new moon, full moon, half moon, and three quarter moon.

i. The content I will be focusing on with my science activity is 6th grade standard 1, objective 2, part c which is modeling the different positions of the earth, sun, and moon.

ii. The pedagogy that this will focus on is constructing. This is a hands on learning activity where the students will construct the different positions and relationships of the sun, the moon, and the earth for each of the shapes of the moon.

iii. The content I will be using is Kidsperation. This is a great fit with the content because it has built in templates for concept mapping of a variety of different science concepts including the phases of the moon. It also fits well with the pedagogy because it allows the students to model, on the computer, the different positions of the sun, moon, and earth.

Oh also... As my optional article, I read the "Just Leave it Alone" under the media section.

Week 14 PLE

I was one who thought we only had to read one article for the Internet Safety so I went back and corrected that.

I completed 2-4, the course evaluation, survey, and checked my grades.

Here are the links to my three lesson plans.

Literacy lesson

Science lesson

Math lesson

Week 13 PLE: TPACK Report

IPT 301 Week 9

I thought that the module on moral development was very interesting. I was eager to learn about the different stages of moral development because being a member of the church, I have always wondered about moral issues when considering people's moral and immoral actions. I was especially interested in the section about advancing moral development because I have always attributed my moral beliefs and behaviors to my religious beliefs but recently I have been thinking a lot about my friend who seems to follow the same basic moral code but does not have the guidelines set forth by the church. I learned that a lot of moral development is advanced in the family context. This was both reassuring to me because there are multiple ways that people can learn moral conduct but also scary as there are many families that don't seem to instill moral behaviors in their children in the home. I also deeply hope that I will be able to instill appropriate moral reasoning and behavior in my students as a teacher and make a difference in the student's lives who may not be getting practice on these moral issues in the home.

Week 14: Internet Safety Assignment

I chose to read the article Provident Living Guidelines for Internet Safety.

I watched the real life stories videos on Netsmartz, the FauxPaw video, and some PBS documentaries on cyberbullying.

One of my most important take-aways from the videos was how easy it is to find out a person’s personal information even when they are very careful not to give this information out on the internet. We need to be very careful about posting any information on any internet website. I was also glad to see that my family follows most of the guidelines listed in the Provident living article. I was very surprised at how big of a problem cyber bullying is and feel that it is important to teach students the huge impact that internet communication can have on people.

Reflection: I interviewed a thirteen year old boy who spends a lot of time on the internet mostly playing video games. He already knew most of the things that I researched regarding internet safety. He could tell me that you should have your computer in a place where other people could always see it and that you should always have permission to get on the internet when no one is home to supervise you. He was also able to describe to me the family blocker that was installed on his home computer to avoid any pop ups or other websites deemed inappropriate for a variety of reasons. He also knew that you should not share any information including your age or your school over the web. I also asked him about cyber bullying and he agreed that you should not say anything to anyone over the internet that you would not say to their face. However, he did mention that he thought it was dumb that anyone would kill themselves over something that was said over the internet. I talked to him a little about having proper internet etiquette and being very careful about what you say to anyone including your friends because some people can be very sensitive. He then agreed that he wouldn’t be mean to anyone over the internet. It seems that this boy already knows a lot about internet safety but I do believe that he will take a few things away from what I said and hopefully be even more careful in the future.

Weel 10 PLE

The most important thing that I have learned by watching these videos is that it is entirely possible to use technology even with very young students. I realized that there are many ways to incorporate technology and some of the programs that children already like to play around with, such as Kidpix, can be a valuable learning tool. I also have come to realize that even younger children can use the internet for communication and research purposes if someone is there to monitor. The Spider video showed the class communicating with another class in another state and I think that this would not only be a great learning experience for the students but they would also be excited about sharing what they are learning and see what another class is discovering. I can also see in these videos that it is possible for students to learn to use a lot of the different technologies on their own such as the cameras and different computer programs. Two of the videos showed the classes sharing their products with their parents and families. I think that this is an important use of technology because it is a great way to try and get the parents involved in what the students are studying. I can see that there are many different uses for technology even with very young students.

Week 9 PLE

Week 9 PLE

My initial thoughts were that it would be nice to have more technology available to my teacher. On the other hand, I didn’t see a whole ton of technology being used by the lower grade teachers in my hallway so I don’t know if they would really use the additional resources if they had them. The school has enough technology to share as long as teachers who wish to use these items plan ahead and sign up for the things that they need. One thing that I would have liked to use more and I wish was more readily available would be a projector for powerpoints and other things I would like to show the students from the computer. The school does have enough technology to use for a variety of different lessons. I also talked to a 5^th grade teacher who really liked using the Elmo for many of her lessons and so she was permitted to keep one of the school Elmos in her classroom so it seems that if you actually use the technology, you will have access to it.

I completed the survey and the informed consent.

IPT 301 Week 9

1. I think that the students in my cohort classroom are more extrinsically motivated. Some evidence of this is that they want to show the teacher their work as soon as they are done and be praised for it. They also read with the intent of earning minutes towards a free pizza or kids meal at Applebees and they turn in their homework folders to get a piece of candy. I am sure that there are some lessons where they are intrinsically motivated but I think right now, they are usually externally motivated.
2. Intrinsic motivation is decreased by rewards and praise because then those students who were otherwise motivated by a desire to learn and discover will start to attribute their efforts to gaining said reward rather than just learning and discovering. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation will be increased by rewards and praise because those people who expect rewards for their efforts and perform merely to receive those rewards will continue to perform just to get those rewards and will not learn to be intrinsically motivated until said rewards are removed.
3. Expectancies and values influence student motivation because students lose any motivation to try a task if they have the expectancy that they will fail. They also lose motivation if they do not think that there is a real value in the task they are completing. On the other hand, students will have more motivation if they believe they will succeed and will be especially more intrinsically motivated if they believe that what they are doing is of real worth and something that they will need or want to know in the future. Expectancy and value also effects students’ motivation because they will think about what the cost of a certain task is and if it is worth them taking time away from other things in order to complete.
4. I noticed that my mentor teacher did not praise the students for things that she already expected them to know how to do. This made her praise more real because then if she praised the students it was more likely that they actually deserved if for their efforts. She also kept high expectations for all of the students and put a big emphasis on their own responsibility to learn. I think that this view helped increase their motivation because it focused on the effort that the students put forth and put success on controllable causes. She wouldn’t help the students with things she knew they could do themselves which also helps increase motivation and increases their expectancy.
5. I agree with the behavioral theory because it makes sense that some people are motivated to learn by the outward rewards, the need to please others, or the desire to learn. I have seen all of these things at some point in my life and could agree that these explanations are accurate. On the other hand, I also think that the self-worth theory has a very convincing argument because I can also see instances where people may have been fearing failure or accepting failure and these are the things that affected their performance.

IPT 301 Teaching Reflection

We tried to incorporate the same principles of teaching and learning that we were discussing into our lesson. This included constructivism: both individual and social, disequilibrium, and methods adaptation. We hope that by using a lot of class participation, the ideas would be more likely to be processed into long term memory.

One main focus of our presentation was constructivism and comparing and contrasting individual and social constructivism. In order to incorporate this principle into our presentation we divided the class in half and game them a math problem. We had half of the class try to figure out the problem in groups so that they were participating in social constructivism and the other half had to work independently to solve the problem to demonstrate individual constructivism. We then had the class talk about the advantages and disadvantages that they came across while working in groups or independently.

We also implemented disequilibrium into our lesson by asking the class a couple of questions that are commonly answered incorrectly. Sure enough, the class answered these based on the common misconceptions and we then told them that they were incorrect which made them want to learn what the answers really were. By making the class think they were correct about something and then telling them otherwise, they were driven to discover the real information. This demonstrated to everyone that they could use this same principle with their elementary students.

Adaptation was also implemented into our lesson as we gave the class the animal sorting task. We were then able to discuss the methods the class used to sort the animals and find out who used assimilation, accommodation, or avoidance. Seeing this in a real life situation made it easier to see how these would look in a child.

I think that one of our strong points in our teaching was that we used a lot of class participation. By asking the class to participate and truly experience some of the principles we were teaching, they were able to get involved and understand. We also spent a lot of time preparing and had planned what we were going to talk about.

We had a weakness in the area of time management. We obviously spent too much time in the earlier parts of our lesson because we were already running out of time before we got to the assessment. Another area where we were weak is we could have discovered more about schemes and operations because we were still a little shaky in these areas. Next time we could definitely be better managers of time and be better prepared to answer any questions that the class may have.

IPT 301 week 8

From my experience I support the view that constructivism is a better way to learn new things than through lectures. I definitely have noticed that when I personally get to explore and experiment with something, it is easier for me to understand. Also, the things that I have done and seen in action are far easier for me to internalize and keep in my long term memory than the things that I have merely heard or seen someone else show me.

I definitely think that there is a place for both individual and social constructivism in education. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages but with both you can have a balanced education. I have seen kids work together and share their knowledge to create a joint project where every member of the group benefited and learned. I have also seen groups where they divided up the work or one person did everything. This is where individual constructivism might be a good alternative. In this method, the student is forced to learn all parts of the task and gather enough knowledge to finish on their own. However, this also limits the amount of knowledge they can gain because they don’t have others to share with them.

I also can see why we would want to bring our students cognition into disequilibrium. When I am sure I am right about something and someone tells me I am wrong, I hurry to go research the topic and learn what the correct answer is. If I was indeed wrong, I now have the correct information I need and will probably never forget it. By sending our students into disequilibrium, they too will want to find the knowledge they need to get back into equilibrium and this will cause them to go find new information and learn.

I also think that the zone of proximal development is a very important concept for teachers to know about. We want our students to be able to complete tasks that push and stretch them but that they are also able to complete within reason. We need to be able to scaffold learning for our students so that it is at just the right level for them to learn and progress.

IPT 301 Week 7

1. I can’t remember that much about cooperative learning in elementary school, although I am sure we did it. I have seen cooperative learning in schools I have worked at schools that have used a lot of this type of learning in their centers. In college, I have experienced a great deal of cooperative learning. I have many classes where a lot of our projects are based on these methods; we often have to make presentations or lessons as a group.

2. I think that cooperative learning has a place in the classroom just like any other method. For certain subjects, such as science, where an experiment needs to be done and discussed as a group, cooperative learning would promote learning because the students could all input their strengths and they could get a variety of input in the discussion.

3. Reciprocal questioning: method of reinforcing new concepts, information, or procedures that students have learned in class, encourages structured conversations among students.

Instructional Conversation: assumes that teaching involves conversation, the students have something important to say and their input is valued, is between the teacher and students.

4. Ability grouping is good for math and reading because it is much easier to taylor instruction to the heterogeneous group. This type of grouping is also better for the higher achieving students to give them some enrichment rather than having them work on things that they have already mastered.

Mixed grouping would be appropriate for activities where you want groups of different ability levels. This way, you can get different input from people with different interests and levels. The lower kids will benefit from having the help of the higher levels and the higher kids can help teach the lower kids.

Week 6 PLE

These are the google earth tours that I watched:

Rebecca Ferguson's

Sarah Peterson's

Keri Wooten's

I think that all of these would be really great learning activities for students. However, I also recognize the amount of time that it took me to make my google earth tour and I just don't know how practical it would be for me to make very many of these for my class. Maybe it would be easier once you have done it a few times and really have the hang of all the tools available. Also, I sometimes had a hard time viewing all the parts of the tours and knowing everything I needed to access to get the full effect of the tour and so we would probably have to walk younger children through a lot of the tour. I do however agree that these are all great instructional activities that the kids could really be engaged in and learn from.

Google Earth Tour

Here is a tour of Egypt.

IPT 301 Week 6

1. In school: Our teacher would hold up a big yellow hand and tell us to be quiet. After a little while, the hand automatically elicited the response of silence. Outside of school: We would set the table before it was time for dinner but dinner always followed shortly thereafter. Dinner always brought everyone into the kitchen but we all learned to associate the set table with dinner and we would all head to the kitchen.
2. As an elementary school child, I was very shy and feared punishment. Therefore, I was a very cooperative child and avoiding punishment was reinforcement enough for my good behavior. However, things at home were a little different and I needed more reinforcements. I used to get a piece of candy every time I practiced the piano for a half an hour. This usually worked and I wanted to practice the piano so I could get a piece of candy but if there was no reward, I had no desire whatsoever to practice.
3. I could use reinforcement schedules in the classroom for almost any behavior. For example, if I want students to learn the behavior of not talking during the lesson, I would positively reinforce the students who were being quiet at random intervals by giving positive praise to the students who were. I could also do something like a marble jar where I added a marble each time the class was being quiet and when the jar was full they would get a party.
4. Behaviorism could be considered to contradict the gospel perspective of agency because it is conditioning the students to do what you want them to do and what you feel is the right thing to do regardless of what the students actually want to do. However, I also think that behaviorism can include elements of agency. When children are misbehaving, give them choices: say you have a child that doesn’t want to complete their work in class, let them choose if they want to complete their work right now or if they want to complete it on the bench at recess time. I don’t think that behaviorism completely removes some ones agency, they are simply choosing their behavior based on the consequences they would rather experience which is basically what we are doing in the gospel. We want to gain the Celestial Kingdom, be blessed, and feel good so we choose to do what is right.

Location	Activity Description	Google Earth Content
1. Rosetta, Egypt	Hieroglyphics activity: students will learn about hieroglyphics and use a chart to figure out how to write their names
2. Valley of the Kings	Pharaohs: Choose one Pharaoh from http://www.kingtutone.com/pharaohs/ and read about it and prepare to share something about this Pharaoh with the class	Tour of the Valley of the Kings
Sphinx, Egypt The Great Sphinx of Giza	Pyramids: the students will learn about the ancient pyramids and then read about a write a description of a parallel structure of another civilization	Layer: 3-D Buildings
Damietta, Egypt Suez Canal Egypt	The River Nile	Layer: Borders and Labels

My tour goes with the UEN standards for 6th grade Social Studies standard 1. This standard includes learning about ancient civilizations.

I chose to do a virtual tour on this topic because I find it very interesting myself. I have always wanted to visit Egypt and I think that the kids would really like it too. There are so many interesting things to see and learn about there! A virtual tour would be great compared to other instructional approaches because the students would get excited about pretending that they were there and getting to see the real life images of Egypt. Another idea I could add to this section would be an Egypt day where the students would be able to dress up as Egyptians and share something they had learned with the class. We did this in my 6th grade class and I still remember how exciting it was.

IPT 301 Week 5

1. Plan for attention: This stated that it is necessary to plan lessons with the students’ developmental levels in mind. We need to use a variety of teaching strategies and engage the students’ curiosity. This will be useful to me in my teaching because I will be more aware of the things that will gain the attention of my class and I will use techniques that will help initially attain and hold the attention of the class.

Relevance: Some teachers present facts and formulas without giving sufficient attention to teaching the students when that information is useful and relevant. This is useful to me in teaching because I will be sure to tell my students why the information they are learning is relevant and when they can use it in their lives. When students know that information is useful or can see it in a real world situation, they are more likely to pay attention and remember the information.

2. Low-road transfer: Spontaneous, automatic transfer of highly practiced skills with little need for reflective thinking. One example of this would be running, this is a skill that we can do automatically and can do while completing other tasks such as dribbling a basketball or talking to a friend. Another example would be typing on the computer, we can use this skill to take notes while we read a textbook or are dictated something to write.

High-road transfer: an individual purposely and consciously applies information learned in one situation to a different situation. An example of this could be that someone gets lost driving and knows that they need to go north and the mountains are to the north so they drive that direction knowing that they are going towards their destination. Another example would be if someone fixed an electronic and then they used the skills they remembered from fixing that to fix their television later.

3. I use low-road transfer everyday in that I can use my listening, reading, and writing skills all at the same time while listening to a lecture, reading slides, and taking notes. However, I also use a lot of high-road transfer as we learn theories and I have to consciously apply them to different instructional strategies we discuss.

4. I have used a lot of algorithms in math classes to solve problems. In algebra, we always had a certain algorithm we would follow to get the answer we were looking for. Also, in physics, we had many formulas and we would find the one that we needed for the problem we needed to solve and simply plug our data into this algorithm,

I have used heuristics often in classes like science where I solved a problem and then had to describe the answer based on analyzing the data we had found.

Week 4 PLE

Tuck Everlasting
http://rkfergipt287.blogspot.com/

Rosa Parks
http://sarahannepeterson.blogspot.com/

All Bees Can
http://rkalilimoku.blogspot.com/

Egypt Movie
keriwootenchalk.blogspot.com/

Corbin and the Etch-A-Sketch
http://juliechatfield.blogspot.com/

Let Me Out of the Classroom
http://alliatbyu.blogspot.com/

As far as implementing a digital storytelling project in my own classroom, I definitely think the most difficult aspects will depend on what grade level I am teaching. If I have older grades, then the technology part will probably be the hardest because if they are old enough to do this themselves, it will still take a lot of instruction to get them going. It took me a while to figure out everything that I needed to do for this assignment but I really liked how simple the photostory software was to use and I do think that older students even in Elementary school would be able to use that program. For younger children, I think that the storyboarding may be hard just because some of the children may be just learning how to write. However, after doing the voicethread for this week, I realized that this project could be easily simplified to fit any grade level. Also, this project could easily be spread out throughout a whole unit in the curriculum so that time was spent just a little here and there until the project was complete.

Digital Storytelling Project

IPT 301 Week 4

Reading Questions

1. In order to promote intelligence within my classroom, I would make sure that I helped my students develop the skills of good positive communication. This would include helping them practice statements such as “I feel frustrated when…” so that we could develop emotional understanding in our classroom. Another thing I would do would be to model ways to be caring and considerate of other peoples’ feelings. I would be a positive example of how we can recognize and respond to other and hopefully my class would try this themselves and positively encourage and support each other. A third thing I would do is provide training in conflict resolution and problem solving. It is important for kids to learn skills of coping with difficult situations so that when they arise, the kids will be able to respond in an emotionally healthy way. Lastly, I would always encourage students to keep trying their best. I would always believe in my students and teach them to believe in themselves.

2. As a teacher, I see Gardner’s theory as more applicable. It has more to do with the different kinds of intelligences that could influence my students’ success in all areas of the school curriculum. It would also explain my some students excel in math but have trouble in reading and various other combinations of strengths and weaknesses in different areas. This theory will also be more useful in reflecting upon the intelligences of individual students if necessary and use different strategies of teaching. On the other hand, I also see that Sternberg’s theory could be useful to me as a teacher because it defines success as meeting personal goals and in the elementary classroom, a child’s goals would be related to succeeding in school, learning to read, and learning the curriculum because that is the cultural context that would define their success.

3. I don’t think that IQ testing would be very useful in the classroom. It can predict certain types of intelligence but I don’t think it is the best predictor of students’ achievement or future academic achievement. Also, because IQ doesn’t predict very much of success in the workplace, why should it predict success in school. There are many different aspects of intelligence depending on culture and other factors that an IQ test cannot measure.

Week 3 PLE

TPACK

This week we learned about TPACK. This includes technological, pedagogical, content knowledge. TPACK is all encompassing of what we know about a certain subject area, what we know about technology, and how we can teach. It is very important for us to have TPACK because it can really help us make efficient, interactive lesson plans that the students will love. Some examples we learned about like using a GPS system to learn about geography or biology sounded so fun. These lessons can help the students get right down to the learning because they have the technology to make discoveries, the ability to use it, and the teacher has great ideas for using it to teach the students about certain topics. Lesson plans like this get the kids involved and are very useful to a positive and rich learning environment.

IPT 301 Week 3

Formative assessments are used to improve learning while it is still in progress and can include homework assignments, group activities, and quizzes. Summative assessments evaluate the progress and instructional methods at the end of a unit. These can include a written test with short answer questions and an essay. I suppose that you could use elements of your formative assessment such as quiz questions as part of your summative assessment later.

Standardized aptitude tests test future potential and capacity to learn and are often used for admission to particular classes or courses. Standardized achievement tests assess current knowledge and can give information about strengths and weaknesses of students. Some tests provide results that are both criterion-referenced and nor-referenced. However, the norm-referenced would probably be more suitable for an aptitude test because when considering placements you would want to compare the students to each other. On the other hand, for achievement tests, you would probably use criterion-referenced because you want to see what they know in specific domains rather than comparing the students.

I do think that it is important to help the students do their best and perform to their top potential. However, I do not think that Alexandria needs to panic and focus so much on preparing for the tests. These tests should be based on what the students learn in their everyday classroom instruction and cannot really be prepared for in any other way than effective classroom teaching. Also, the test scored didn’t drop by a considerable amount and with such a diverse group of students, I don’t think radical changes need to be made at this point.

As a teacher, these modules can definitely help me learn about how I can use assessment properly to make decisions in my instruction. It reiterates the fact that assessment is very important in effective teaching and needs to be used to make changes in curriculum and to know what your students are getting and what they need additional instruction on. Also, I need to understand the different types of assessments that may be given to my students and what their purposes are. As a parent, it would be good to know this information to see how my child may be tested and the different things the test scores may be used for.

Week 2 PLE

This week's assignment was pretty challenging for me but I do feel good about learning all of the tools that I did. I think it was very useful to learn about some of the different resources for creating a free website. I also may have never learned how to embed different videos, google docs, and other links if I wasn't required to for this assignment. I definitely think that creating the website and making the concept page made me think more about how I could use a website for educational purposes in my classroom. I never really thought of posting videos, readings, pictures, or assignments for the kids to access at home but I do think this is a good idea. One thing I am still wondering though is what about the kids who don't have any internet access at home?

asynchronous facebook video message synchronous video g-chat

IPT 301 Week 2 reading questions

1. Bloom’s taxonomy answers the question about what students should be able to do with their knowledge and specifies six ways students can demonstrate their knowledge. These areas are remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create.
2. Validity is the degree to which a test measures what it was intended to measure and reliability is the consistency of the test results. Both are characteristics of high quality tests because a test should focus on the information covered in the unit that is being tested. Also, we need a test that could be given on two different days with no different instruction and the results would be the same. These are necessary for the test to be effective in helping change curriculum or teaching.
3. Product performance assessment: a science lab with a finished chemical experiment and a write up at the end

Process performance assessment: playing the flute for the teacher

4. Checklist: quick an easy way to assess based on a list of criteria that are present or not

Rating scale: assign scores of quality for a various list of elements of a process or product

Rubric: can assess the quality of multiple criteria, can evaluate complex tasks

5. Assessment bias can make an elementary school teacher not realize the true needs of their students. They may think just because a student is gifted, they perform well academically or because they like a student, they give a student higher grades. Teachers may also give all students marks that are too high or too low. Teachers should be concerned with this because they want to know the true performance of their students in order to provide the best instruction possible.

Technology Background & Experience

I have some experience working with technology but not a ton. I use the internet and word processor on a daily basis. I also have made powerpoints for presentations quite a few times. In high school we were also required to make videos for class projects. I have also used networking sites such as facebook and NING. That is about the extent of my technology background and experience.