Week 8

This chapter was very interesting to me. I really liked the comparison between Piaget and Vygotsky's theories. I think, for myself, I tend to blend both of them together. I think of the stages of development of Piaget and combine it with the zone of proximal development of Vygotsky. Both theories have good aspects, but I believe in a combination.

I wonder why the zone of proximal development (ZPD) has become so popular. The ZPD states that students will be able to do the activity with the help of an adult without getting frustrated or bored (because it was too easy). It makes sense to do instructional activities this way to yield great results. This reminds me of what Brother Osguthorpe said in his power of teaching lecture. He said that it is our responsibility to teach students to do somethings that they don't want to (for reasons of difficulty), because we know that it would be good for them.

Both Piaget and Vygotsky feel that pretend play is very important for child development. What kind of confused me for a minute was why Vygotsky said that individual pretend play is also a social interaction. How can doing an activity by yourself be a social interaction? Then, I though of imaginary friends. Children who have imaginary friends treat them as if they were real, breathing human beings. Thus, they are socially interacting with their imaginary friend and gaining social skills.

I really could see the valid application of these theories in some aspects. "[Linking] new concepts to students' prior knowledge" just seems like common sense to me. This reminds me of when we talked about transfer in class. According to the different theories, people will associate new experiences with what they already know. For example, a student may see a whale and call it a fish. They do this because they already know what a fish is (a sea creature with fins and swims) and apply the same characteristics or knowledge about a fish to a whale. Later on, they may reconstruct meaning. I feel that this is important for us to know to be able to teach so that students will understand and remember new material.

I viewed the following voice threads and commented on them using voicethread:
1. Janet
2. Beth Yates
3. Laila

To hear my comments just watch those voice threads. :)

I feel that there are many advantages and disadvantages to using the science activity we chose. One of the biggest advantages is that it is cost efficient. It also allows students to have time to draw the microorganisms using the pictures. I also like that it is interactive and that students can compare all of the organisms visually at the same time. A disadvantage is that they aren't learning skills about how to use a microscope. Also, you need to have a computer for every student to have this be a more personally meaningful activity. Some of the links have quite a bit of information that students may not know how to synthesize or identify what is truly important for them to know.

Virtual Pond Dip Voice Thread

I worked with Teressa on the assignment. It was a lot of fun!

Week 7

1. I have experienced P.E. activities in both elementary and college. Dance teams in college required a lot of cooperative learning. In elementary school and in college, I was asked to solve problems as a group. In college, writing a research paper as a group is another example of a collaborative activity.

2. I personally feel that cooperative learning promotes learning because it allows students to develop necessary skills for the workplace and home. It also enables students to recognize that there are various perspectives to look at things. For students who struggle a little, it allows them to develop confidence in the learning process and realize that they aren't the only one who is learning.

3. Both reciprocal questioning and instructional conversations involve asking questions. Some of them are very deep and require higher level thinking skills. Discussions are also a huge part of both of these strategies. Both try to build on previous experience. Reciprocal questioning relies on background knowledge, while instructional conversations rely on the conversation building on each other.

4. You would want to use ability grouping when working on reading. Guided reading groups are a great example of ability grouping. It enables the students to achieve and stay motivated. Mixed-grouping would be more appropriate with some skills tasks like P.E. You would want a mixed-grouping with say a softball game to keep the competition level down and to allow students struggling with certain skills (for example, swinging the bat) to learn from those who excel.

Science Challenge Plan

Teressa and I are working on the project together. We will be teaching the 6th grade standard around microorganisms focusing on microorganisms found in a pond (Standard 5, objective 1, a). To do this, we will use the virtual pond dip program to allow the students to explore the different microorganisms. The teacher will show the students a jar of pond water to help them recognize that the microorganisms are enlarged to help them see them. The teacher will explain about single and multicellular organisms and lead out a prediction discussion about the microorganisms' functions. The teacher will explain about virtual pond dip. Then, students will look at each microorganism (before clicking on them), predict if they are single or multicellular organisms, click on the microorganism, read the text about them, and take notes in their science journal. They will check if they predicted right or not. Students will draw a sketch of each microorganism next to the notes that they took about them. After they have done this, students will decide which microorganism they would like to be and explain why. This will allow the students an opportunity to be creative and apply what they have learned. The teacher will be observing and monitoring throughout the whole process.

1. Content: Microorganisms
Examine and illustrate size, shape, and structure of organisms found in an environment such as pond water.

2. Pedagogy
The pedagogy we will be using is observing, classifying, and predicting. These fit well with the content because those strategies really allow the students to "examine." Many of these pedagogical strategies we do naturally when we examine something. We will have students read text, view images, predict, discuss, classify, draw images, and write. These activities will give the students an opportunity to have many learning experiences in the content. Also, drawing images is specifically stated in the objective.

3.Technology
We will have the students use the virtual pond dip. This works great for the content because it allows students to see the organisms without having to worry about trying to keep them still under a microscope, so they can draw them. Also, it allows a great visual and information for the students.

4. Representation
The representation in this technology is definitely textual and visual. Since there is a combination of two representations one could say that it is multimodal. The representation really allows students to visualize the microorganisms and develop deeper understanding about them. It allows them to interact a little and focus on different organisms that they like, too (since they can easily revisit information about them by clicking on them). It helps students visually compare and contrast the different organisms. This type of interaction is more meaningful than looking up the information in a textbook.

Watching the virtual tours

I watched the virtual tours of Teressa, Nancy, and Krysta. I really enjoyed all of them. Two of them were about land formations and one was about art history.

There are many advantages and disadvantages for doing a virtual tour in the classroom. The ability to see the distance between locations is one of my favorite features of the tour. It gives the students the feeling of actually traveling to those various locations. I feel that this is a huge advantage to helping students visual various ideas. Another advantage is the ability to link so many different types of representations together to create a learning situation that would reach out to many different types of learners.

Some disadvantages of a virtual tour comes through the actual use of the technology. With some of the tours, it was unclear or difficult to be able to use the features of google earth to do the assignment (for example, using the ruler function to measure the 3D buildings). Also, the links to videos and other materials sometimes don't function properly. Another disadvantage is the amount of computers available. As with all of these technologically based resources, the availability of resources can be either an advantage or a disadvantage. Students may not have access to a computer at home or there may not be enough computers in class for each student to do the tour.

Week 6 Behaviorism

1. Contiguity learning is learning involving association. Outside of class, I learned to associate different jingles with different ideas or companies. Many jingles that stopped playing years ago are still in my head. In the school setting, I have come to associate apples with teachers, especially the apples on Mac Computers.
2. Some very effective reinforcements that I observed in elementary school involved rewards. In the upper grades, we had the opportunity to earn money for good behavior, completed assignments, etc. We could then take the money we earned and buy things like pop, candy, and small toys. It was a lot of fun. This is an example of a token economy. Another really good reinforcement was positive praise. This worked for me, because I tend to respond better with positivity as opposed to negativity or neglect.
3. There are several different kinds of reinforcement schedules. These include continuous and intermittent schedules. Under intermittent schedules there are ratio, interval, fixed, and variable schedules. All of these have different purposes, advantages, and disadvantages. I would want to start off with continuous reinforcement schedule, especially when students are learning a new behavior and new concepts. The reinforcement is needed to help them see what is appropriate and what is not. As students get used to the behavior and exhibit it properly, you can use intermittent schedules. I think that I would really use the variable schedule in my classroom. The variable schedules allow more flexibility and are really effective because students have no idea when the reinforcement is going to come. It's kind of like being in a stadium and waiting to catch a fly ball. You never know when one is going to come so you will always be paying attention to the game. The idea is that the students have no idea when the reinforcements will come and so they will tend to be on their best behavior more.
4.One thing that with behaviorism that I think kind of contradicts the gospel is that it is so dependent on the environment and how it acts upon us. So many of our learned and natural behaviors are explained by how our environment acts on us. In a sense, our agency is limited or taken away because of our environment and the different factors that act upon us. In 2 Nephi 2:26 it says, "And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given." This clearly states that we have the power to act and not let anything, including our environment, act upon us. We can choose how we will react and change those responses that seem so natural. There are many times when people continue to live the gospel even when it is hard and there aren't any immediate rewards. According to behaviorsim, these individuals would have given up living the gospel awhile ago, because there wasn't any positive reinforcement. We have the agency to choose how we will react.

Virtual Tour Challenge

My tour is about how ancient civilizations have influenced modern civilizations addressing the 6th grade social studies curriculum standard. We focus on architecture of Ancient Greece and Rome and the United States. Start with the Parthenon. Then, go to the Lincoln Memorial, the Colosseum, and Heinz Field in that order. Enjoy!

I love updating! I updated my lesson plan more and made it a little more specific. Enjoy!

I updated my virtual tour lesson plan. Check it out!

Jenna and I discussed the IP&T 301 reading. Check out her blog to see what we talked about.

In-Class Teaching Reflection

The class presentation was a lot of fun to do. There were many things that Nichole and I did well, and there were many things that we could improve as well. We really tried to incorporate different strategies throughout the lesson to reach to our classmates learn and remember the content.

To help our classmates remember the material, we came up with some pictures representing the different theories of intelligence. These pictures acted like pneumonic devices to help them recall the theories. Secondly, we really tried to create some meaningful and authentic tasks. With the scenarios, we tried to help them think how knowing Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences will impact their instruction in the classroom. Then, we had them share their teaching ideas and strategies with one another. This allows those ideas to cement into their memory better as they are telling someone and hearing their own strategy. Also, it is a great way for others in the class to receive ideas that they may not have thought about. Having the content be meaningful is a very important part of effective teaching and learning. Multiple perspectives are critical to learning and coming up with your own viewpoint. We tried to clearly teach all of the theories towards intelligence, so our classmates could decide how they choose to view intelligence.

There were many strengths and weaknesses in our presentation. One of the strengths in our presentation was that there was balance in the presentation. Balance in the sense that both of us talked and shared the stage. It wasn’t as if I gave the whole presentation verbally or Nichole did. Another strength was class involvement. We really tried to give students opportunities to participate and learn from one another. I feel that tying the subject into a scripture was also a strength, allowing classmates to really see the eternal value of the content we were teaching.

One of the weaknesses was that we taught our bias. Both of us are partial to Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory. There were three main theories discussed in the book, but we spent most of our time on Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory. Thus, Spearman’s and Sternberg’s theories didn’t get covered as well as Gardner’s theory. We should have been more balanced in our approach to all of the theories of intelligence. Another weakness involved one of the activities we did. I wasn’t clear with explaining the inventory of Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences. If I could do it over, I would have looked at the inventory before handing it out. Also, I would have been clearer with the directions. During the explanation of the activity, I told them to mark if they felt the statement applied to them and to put post-it notes on the wall under the different intelligences written on the board of their highest and second highest scores. All of these directions were explained at once, which caused confusion. Halfway into the activity, I ended up having to re-explain directions several times as a result of the confusion. When giving directions, it is important that they are clear, concise, and not packed with too much information. I definitely gave too many directions at once. I would have let them work on the checklist, monitor their progress, and then told them what to do with the post-it notes when most were finishing up. Also, I could have written an example or directions on the board to help them understand and remember how the post-it notes were to be used.

Overall, I felt very good about the presentation. However, there are always ways to improve. I’m glad that I had the opportunity to present and analyze some of my teaching tendencies to know what I need to improve.