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.