PLE Week 12

My mentor teacher does a very good job at teaching content, but there are limited resources with technology. During Halloween, she used the television and VCR in her classroom to show a video about trick-or-treating safety. She also has a stereo with tapes that students use at a listening center. During reading centers, students can listen to a book on tape and illustrate what is read to them. This particular use of technology is fun and effective with her students. She uses a personal digital camera to take pictures of fun and momentous occasions in the classroom that really get the students excited. She also uses a computer for a lot of the tasks that she does. She makes a weekly newsletter to send home with the students to give to their parents. This has been a useful tool to foster communication between parents and the school. Also, she uses the computer to keep track of grades and do report cards. There are some times when more digital technology could be used in the classroom. For example, she could check out one of the four ELMOs in the school and use it to help teach a variety of subjects. She could have used this to help model what she wanted done with various activities (for example, the turkey assignment). The school has a computer projector that is available for check out. She could have used this to do a PowerPoint to make the segmenting activity a little different. However, there aren't too many of these available for use. Overall, I think that she does a great job at using the technology that is available to her to meet the needs of her students (and not try to make them focus longer than they can).

Week 9 Motivation

1. I think that most of the students in the classroom were intrinsically motivated. They seemed to love the subject and would ask a lot of questions to stimulate their own learning. The teacher would pose different unusual situations in which there really was no right answer and the kids loved talking about these problems and trying to solve them on their own. Some of the students were a more extrinsically motivated and desired attention and approval on their work from the teacher before they would complete or move on in the assignment.

2. Intrinsic movtivation can decrease when rewards and praise are used. If the praise is specific and seen as good feedback, intrinsic motivation is not negatively influenced. Extrinsic motivation tends to increase when the teacher uses rewards and praise. The students begin to strive for academic success solely to receive rewards and praise which can hinder real learning.

3. Expectancy involves a student's expectations for success. Value involves reasons for doing a task. If students don't expect a lot of success or see any valid reason for doing the activity, the student will have very little motivation to do the activity. However, if the student feels that they can have success and see that the activity is relevant, they will have greater motivation to complete the task.

4. To increase motivation at a student-level, the teacher really tried to create a safe environment in which mistakes were allowed. All students had an opportunity to be praised for their work and effort was praised (especially if the child increased their effort). To increase motivation at a classroom-level, she tried to avoid creating a competitive environment. To her, each student had the opportunity to receive specific postive feedback. There weren't many evaluative comments like, "You're smart." She also didn't expect perfection but praised for good effort and things done well. She also praised students for difficult tasks and didn't really praise with tasks that were very simple.

5. I don't know if I really agree with one theory absolutely over the rest. I see many good things in all of them. However, I tend to agree a bit more with the behavioral motivation theory. I think that I agree with it more, because I have seen first hand the principles that it talks about. It is very true that rewards and praise can help students be more motivated, but they must be administered in an appropriate manner, or they will be detrimental. The strategies that I used during practicum to teach seemed to be more in line with the behavioral approach. This theory seems to be a bit more natural to me.

TPACK PLANNING-Lesson Plans

Below are the links for the lessons for the TPACK planning assignment. I've tried to hyperlink the sites, but I've also have them written out just in case you run into some problems. I hope you enjoy them!

Link for my language arts lesson plan:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AY5M4mgVkY_vZGc1cHpyc3NfMmdnaGYyd2c3&hl=en

Link for my math lesson plan:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AY5M4mgVkY_vZGc1cHpyc3NfMTJuem1zY2Zy&hl=en

Link for my science lesson plan:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AY5M4mgVkY_vZGc1cHpyc3NfM2RqZzdxN2c1&hl=en

I watched Bookends of War at
http://etec.hawaii.edu/etecvideos/videos/bow/?page=ft_auto
and
Inside Kapunahala at
http://etec.hawaii.edu/etecvideos/videos/kap/?page=ft_auto

It was amazing to see how much the students were doing in the classroom with technology. It seemed like all of the students were involved and having a great time. In the “Bookends of War” video clip, one of the boys commented about how he liked making the class website. He liked it because it was something that him and his classmates made as opposed to just saw. Letting students make their own projects using technology is something that I really learned. As a teacher, it’s not enough for me to just show different projects that I have made using technology. I need to give my students the opportunity to try using the technology as well.
The students depicted in “Inside Kapunahala” were really excited to be involved with the project. I was amazed how involved everyone in the school was with this project, even the first graders were involved. I liked how the teacher pointed out that the technology activities they were doing helped meet other content standards. This really reminds me of TPACK and how we can teach using technology and content areas.
Overall, I think the greatest thing I noticed from the two videos was the attitudes of the teachers. Both of them had very positive attitudes and love towards technology. This love for technology definitely rubbed off on their students. I learned that I need to have a positive attitude towards technology so that my students will hopefully have a positive attitude towards technology, too.

Week 10

These videos were really interesting. I was amazed at the different technologies the teachers were having the students use. I think the most important thing that I learned from these videos is to not be afraid to use technology in the classroom. Sometimes I’m hesitant to use technology, because I’m afraid that students may not understand it. The second video really showed that even kindergartners can use computers to do meaningful projects that teach curriculum. I really liked how they used computers as a tool to help extend the lesson. For example, using a computer art program to draw illustrations for a storybook. The video about habitats was interesting, because it showed how you could have students use technology in the classroom. She was developmentally appropriate in the topic and way she approached technology instruction. I liked how she had them work in small groups. The students could help each other, leaving the teacher free to monitor and help other groups.
There were multiple clips where the teacher used technology as a way to get the parents and community involved. This generally comes through sharing the final project. I would never have thought of technology as a way to help get parents involved in the classroom and with the students work. I really liked that idea.

Week 9--Technology Observation

I was delighted to see that there was some technology in the classroom, but there wasn't quite as much as I was hoping. There is a TV with VCR/DVD combo. That is definitely something that was not in my own elementary classroom which I feel would have really enhanced the learning environment. There was a PC computer, but it is pretty much used solely by the teacher. I liked also that there was a boombox with headphones for a listening center. This area is a lot of fun for students as they can listen as a group to a book on tape. There is also an overhead. While completing the technology inventory, I was impressed with the schools pods which are in the hallways of the classrooms. Here, students can log in with an ID and use the computers for class projects and research. I only wish that there were more science instruments available to students.

The teacher really makes full use of the technology in her classroom and uses it in her teaching.

I completed parts 1 & 2 of the assignment.