Technology Wk 5

From that list of Web Resources for the Classroom, I would use the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives and the Math Forum.

The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives contains a huge number of puzzles, problems and games that help improve students understanding through fun activities. I personally enjoyed looking through all of the tools available. There is also great organization to the page so I would be able to choose the subject and the level of the manipulatives which is more useful that having to go to multiple websites for different subjects and grades (Utah State University 2010). As a teacher, I would assign this as an in-class assignment in the computer lab. I would have the students complete a set number of them during the class period to supplement what they have learned in class.

The Math Forum, created by Drexel University, is also something I would consider using in my classroom, both as a tool for me and a tool for my students. I would suggest that the students go on this website to take advantage of the math help available, through Dr. Math or through the math library which includes tons of mathematical books and resources (Drexel University, 2011). Another aspect of the Math Forum that would be useful is the puzzles and problems section. This includes archived and current problems of the week that students can complete in different math subjects, like geometry, algebra and fundamental math. There are also things on this website that I would use for my own teaching. The resources section has a "teacher exchange" where teachers can share activities and lesson plans which can help give me some fresh ideas for my class.




Drexel University. (2011). The Math Forum. Retrieved from The Math Forum


Utah State University. (2010). National library of virtual manipulatives. Retrieved from National Library of Virtual Manipulatives

Wk 5 T2P

Today's class was a conclusion of gathering information on learning theories. The two main categories of theories we looked at were motivational or emotional and psychological.

Theories
Even though this is the last time the class would be together in a cohesive fashion, I feel that it is very important to include these theories about emotions, motivation and psychological occurrences in the brain. I know that I am not very strong in science so I was not aware of a lot of the neurological background to children's brains and how they develop over time. I think it is necessary in a program and a class such as this to make sure that the pre-service teachers are gaining theoretical knowledge from a wide spectrum of disciplines. This gives us the maximum amount of information on which to draw, not only our T2P statements from, but also our teaching and classroom management.

There are many different ways to consider using the information presented about brain development when working in a classroom. One example would be:
T2P: To make sure that students are aiming at or reaching their whole-person optimal learning, the level of development of their brains needs to be considered. As a teenager, there are so many changes occurring in the brain as far as pruning and expanding goes that a teacher really needs to take these changing attributes, attitudes and functioning levels into consideration.


As far as creating and losing neural connections, what I think is one of the better ways to try and get students to retain information (create connections) would be to increase their emotional attachment to the subject. The Kolencik reading and video on Daniel Pink on the motivation and emotion really inspired me. I am glad to see the research being done to show how strong emotions can increase motivation, whether intrinsically or extrinsically, which will lead to increased learning and exploration.

T2P: If a teacher really wants their students to succeed and utilizes a variety of teaching methods and styles, subjects and examples that will engage and interest students, then they can work to increase motivation because the students will develop more emotional engagement in the subject material and want to expand their knowledge. Sometimes the best way to improve motivation is on a one-on-one basis, so that the student knows that the teacher does have expectations for them to succeed and does not want them to simply fall through the cracks. Other times, it may be better to have a student-centered learning scenario so that students can look at what they know and what they want to know more about. I agree with Pink that learning to gain a deeper personal understanding of material that has an emotional importance to you through intrinsic motivation will often be more effective than the carrot and stick extrinsic motivators often presented in schools.



Class Reflection
The class felt as though it had less structure than previous weeks, however this was based on the attitudes or vibes that all of the students were giving off. Being one of the last weeks of the semester, most of the students are feeling tired and stressed and having the teacher recognize that adding on a lot of new information would not be useful time spent was refreshing. What this did was allow the students in the class to control what learning would be taking place and how it would be taking place which ultimately led to improved mood and engagement in the psychological material.

A Good Teacher

A good teacher...
is a person who can effectively teach and guide the students to a greater understanding of the curriculum. The word guide is important because a good teacher should not always pour information into the students' minds. Sometimes they need to discover their learning on their own.
A good teacher...
is a person who wants her students to succeed in the class, in school and in life, meaning that the curriculum is not the only thing that the students leave the class knowing.

A good teacher...

will make a curriculum that takes the students into consideration and will also make the students active participants in creating lessons, to an extent. 
A good teacher...
is one who provides a consistent moral and ethical model for her class. Whether implicitly or explicitly, the teacher should be a good role model for her students.
A good teacher...
should encourage interactions among students so that everyone can help each other grow through mutual enhancement. 
A good teacher...
should value the students ideas and opinions as a valuable part of the learning process. Each student should be given opportunities to explain, examine and expand on what they think about the subject material. 
A good teacher...
should encourage the students to present these ideas to her and to their classmates in order to build up their confidence in their own voice. This can increase the students interest and want them to further their education in the subject and in other fields if they feel confident in their own abilities.


Revised T2P
If a student is to succeed in the classroom, then they will need to be need to be encouraged to express their ideas and opinions externally. This way, the student is able to get feedback from peers and the teacher about how to improve and also, the student's ideas could help others improve their own learning. If the environment of the classroom is created in an open fashion, the students will not be forced to participate, but they will begin to feel more comfortable contributing once they receive positive reinforcement. 


If a class or a student is to reach their whole-person optimal learning, then it falls to the teacher to help the students believe that their voice is valuable and can be used to influence the learning environment because if students can use their voice critically in school, then they will be able to take this out into the world and have the confidence to speak up when needed or desired. Having the students engaged in the learning environment will also allow them to think about what they are interested in and develop stronger ideas as they explore these interests more. Being able to affect change  in the lessons will increase their overall confidence in themselves to have their needs and interests met throughout their lives. 

Technology- Week 4

In the world today, there are tons of different types of technology available to help students with various disabilities succeed in the classroom. 

The first example would be a student who has a hearing impairment. As a way to help this student navigate the classroom, I would try and provide them with an e-Reader for the class textbooks so that they could listen to the lessons through headphones (Wikipedia, 2010). Also, I would try and get the speech recognition software for speech-to-text so that I could record some of my lectures and then provide the student with the textual information (Wikipedia, 2011).

Second would be a student who has problems with their vision. One tool that can be used for this is again the e-Reader. There are many different gray scales and sizes for the text so the student would be able to make the words very large and not struggle to see as much (Wikipedia, 2010). Another tool would be using technology created by DAISY. Talking books transfers words into speech so that students who cannot see the words can now hear them (Wikipedia, 2009).

If a student has a broken arm, especially their dominant arm, they will certainly have a more difficult time writing and completing tests and work in class. To help them, a speech-to-text software could be utilized to transcribe what either the student or the teacher is saying. This way, the student would still be able to take notes in class by recording the teacher's lecture. This tool could be included in a speech recognition software that would also control the computer just with the student's voice so they could complete web searches (Wikipedia, 2011).

And finally, there is technology available that would benefit a student who has a non-communicative form of autism. From what I could understand, this form of autism means that a child would have difficulties expressing themselves through speech or writing. So a tool that I would try and suggest for this student would be a speech recognition software that could take down what they are saying without having to worry yet about how the writing is coming out grammatically and spelling-wise. Perhaps with less pressure on how they are writing, they may be able to take a step towards expression.

Wikipedia. (2009). Assistive Technology in Education/DAISY. Retrieved from DAISY Wikipedia
Wikipedia. (2010). Assistive Technology in Education/eBook. Retrieved from eBook Wikipedia
Wikipedia. (2011). Assistive Technology in Education/Speech Recognition Software. Retrieved from
Speech Recognition Software Wikipedia

Learning Theories Wk4 T2P

If/Then/Because      

Evidence      Pedagogical Terminology       Theory       Instructional Event      

Moral/Ethical Values

First T2P of the day

If the classroom environment is creating in such a way that the students can feel comfortable in and encourages social engagement then it is more likely that the students will learn and be active in the class because they feel are able to be a part of the learning process. Students that are secure in the classroom will participate in discussions and provide and receive relevant insights from their classmates. Vygotsky's theory would agree that a social environment is the most effective to improve learning because humans are social by nature and having the ability to discuss and create together can be beneficial for all. Also important in a social, engaging environment is making the student feel that what they are saying is important, they are more likely to stay interested in the content and participate more.  I believe that students should be able to discuss and enhance their ideas with the teacher and with each other in order to build up their self-confidence in those ideas and knowledge base. 


T2P for Vicki Davis and self-determination theory
If a teacher provides students with opportunities to demonstrate autonomy, competence and chances to relate to classmates, then the students will remain more engaged and more focused on the tasks at hand because they are more in charge of their personal learning and they have solid backing in their class to help them reach their optimal level of learning. Vicki Davis presents her students with numerous opportunities to present and teach their own work to classmates and to Davis, making them gain confidence in their abilities through application and practice. Because of this responsibility to learn and teach information, the students need to be engaged in the class in order to fulfill their role adequately. In her classroom, Davis also had created smaller groups within each class that were focusing on specific topics depending on their personal interests, making them more knowledgeable and competent in certain areas. From there, these groups can then help the rest of the class become 'experts' on that topic. There is also a lot of interaction with a global network of students that can provide students with a broader, more cultural knowledge of the topic they are blogging or posting about on wikis. This is a direct example of self-determination theory created by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, which stipulates that these three qualities (autonomy, competence and relatedness) are necessary to improve the performance and creativity among the students, ultimately leading to increased self-determination. 


Final T2P of the day
If a student is to reach their optimal learning level, then a teacher will need to present their material in such a way that the students are able to relate to and apply the information to their daily lives because having a background base of experiences and knowledge will allow students to better understand and retain new material by adding it to what they already know. This idea goes along somewhat with Piaget's idea of accommodation. By presenting information that students will have a 'schema' for already, there will be a pre-existing location in their minds in which to store the information, making it easier to recall. Another theoretical ideal that goes along with this definition of learning is the ideas of Jean Lave. She believes that applied, relevant learning is the only way to learn. If the students already have some societal or cultural knowledge of the information, they can further explore what they are learning and be confident in what they say and know. I believe that ways of making this work in a classroom are numerous. Studying current events, making applications of problems more known to the students as well using hands-on examples of the problems. As a math teacher, I know that having students build and create simple objects they see every day using geometry or trigonometry will help solidify the information in the heads because they are physically building on something that they know. In my opinion, I believe that this is an important aspect of creating connections between new and old information. 




Learning Theories Spreadsheet

Technology- Week 3- Reading Response

There were many examples in the reading of authentic collaborative projects.
One that I would use in my math classroom would be creating a wikispace page for our class (Schrum, 2009). Not only would I have the important class documents, like the syllabus or project descriptions, on the site, but I would also complete a project in which the students will need to post their work on the site. A specific example I could use would be to create a group project in which the students would need to to create a set of problems and answers to complete for review for a final test. Each group would need to upload their review problems onto the wiki and then open the review problems from two other groups and complete those problems. Also, I know that today, students have their own email addresses, so we could create a contacts page with a list of the emails so that students would be able to communicate with me and each other if they need help with problems.

A spin on looking at a wiki about the class would be having the students create a wiki-page that will include all of the important information for the course. I would separate the class into groups and have each focus on one chapter from the year or one section from a unit. That group would need to go through their notes, tests, and textbooks and create an outline with pertinent formulas and theorems for their section and then post it on the wiki-page. This page could be used as a unit or final review tool.

Another specific example I would use would be a "Virtual Math Manipulative" like the ones found on:
http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/category_g_4_t_3.html
This type of problem was described in Chapter 4 of "Leading 21st Century Schools."
I found the interactive activities on this site to be particularly useful. If there was a way of knowing that every student would have access to a computer, I would assign them to a few activities to work on at home. However, if this isn't the case, using a computer lab in the school for a period would also be an effective tool for practice and review.


Schrum, L., & Levin, B.B. (2009). Leading 21st Century Schools, 45-77

WK3 T2P

Teacher-Student interaction
     Since this was a day of many small and large group activities, it was essential that the teacher move throughout the class and interact with each triad or group of students. With so much commotion, it is difficult to gauge how well a group is working together or if there is a lot of confusion about the assignment. To keep the groups from becoming too chaotic, roles were to be delegated out within each group so that there were certain people working and others checking information and watching the clock. This is a very useful tool in my opinion. Since a teacher cannot be everywhere at once, they need a system in place that will make sure the students are on task.

     The beginning of the class, as explained to the students by the professor, is a time to make all the students feel present and alert. By engaging them socially, the class can be brought together in a cohesive discussion, from which the day's lesson can begin. If a teacher jumps right into a lecture, the students may become bored and frustrated very quickly.

Successful Assessments
     One assessment today that I really enjoyed was the RQS2C2 that was completed at the beginning of the day. This reminded me of Bloom's taxonomy and the progression towards more complex questions. The benefit of completing the questions in this order is that each one asks you to think only a little more than the previous one. This way students do not feel overwhelmed by critical thinking questions the second they walk in the room.

Although we have worked in triads of jigsaw groups in previous classes, I do believe that this is a good form of assessment. A jigsaw is not really for the teacher to know how well a student has grasped material, but it is for the students to know how well they understood and can explain it. Also, the added tension of needing to know the material in order to present it can improve the amount of work a student will put into the research or reading.


Applications
There are many aspects of today's class that I would want to incorporate into my own classroom in the future.

To start off most basically, all of the theories and theorists we studied today can in some ways be considered in my thought processes for creating a successful classroom. For example, although I do not take Piaget's theory as a complete truth, it is a good stepping stone for understanding the cognitive capabilities of my students. Also, I would agree with Vygotsky that learning cannot take place successfully without a social aspect. Today's class perfectly demonstrated this because the entire day, the students were working in pairs, groups, or trios in order to gather as much information as humanely possible.

I also really like the social engagement that the professor creates in each class session. I would want to create a similar environment that will allow for learning and social interaction to occur simultaneously. The professor maintains her authority in the classroom by giving critique when needed, but at the same time the students feel comfortable talking to her and asking her questions about her personal teaching style. I also feel that even though this is a program for pre-service teachers, that the professor would still actively include her students in her thought process and decision making about how activities are or should run. This is something else I would like to strive for. If I can make the students not feel like they are so far beneath me that they have no power to change what is happening in the classroom, then I would be pleased.