Final Reflection

My perspective on technology instruction within the classroom has partially changed. If there was one thing I did take from the class it was how technology should not just be wedged in a lesson to have it, but it should be in to replace or amplify something else and make student understanding better from the use of it. I think learning how to use the the smart board in class, and blogs we did throughout were technologies that stood out to me during the semester because they seem like very easy uses of technology in class. I am most eager to use google apps in my classroom. These apps allow such a variety of students to communicate, and create things for class. They are also connected to the worldwide web, which is such a large resource for students to use. I would use google sheets or docs when students are working on lab reports or projects together. I would also use google translate for students who lack the English language skills. I think, like I said, implementing these within my classroom is possible, even for my placement next semester. I am hesitant to say it would have worked this semester, unless it was solely done at school because not all my students have access to internet outside of school this semester due to their low socioeconomic statuses. 

Technology Integrated Lesson Plan

My TILP was created for a  10th grade chemistry classroom. The topic we are covering in the lesson is acids, bases, and the pH scale. An intro activity will be a formative assessment that will allow the teacher to determine the students background knowledge of acids and bases. This activity will be the teacher giving a demonstration that enables to students to observe real life examples of acids and bases such as a lemon and soap. To do a quick assessment the teacher will use plickers, the student will have to vote on what each object is. Plickers being an online assessment tool in which students can use their smart devices to participate in.
The students will continue to explore acids, bases, and the pH scale in multiple labs, one seeing the properties of acids and bases and the other seeing how acids and bases compose the pH scale. A research activity looking up the terms of neutral solution, acid, base and pH scale, will be done using nooks, and a poster will be the product showing the groups work. Each student in the group will have a certain term to investigate in which they must share their findings and collaborate with the group. Before the summative assessment of a quiz, the students will review the unit by playing Kahoot on the nooks (they love Kahoot!).

gifted students exist!

What is gifted ? 

Learning about giftedness,  has been a very new learning experience for me personally this semester. Honestly out of all my classes in the college of ed., my Universal Learning Design class has taught me the most because of all the new information provided in it, gifted students and social emotional students were topics covered after disabilities in it. So, by watching these videos it enabled me to build on my universal/inclusive classroom thinking. I was surprised with the characteristics provided in video 1. I knew anxiety was a characteristic but had never heard of asynchronous development. After learning what it was, and having a gifted student I could see that development described which is interesting. I did not have any myths or prior beliefs on gifted students, because I did not ever really put much thought into them until being in the education program. Therefor no new realities were established, only brand new ideas/schemas on gifted-ness and social emotional-ness.

                After watching these videos I learned some helpful tips for the classroom. One it is okay for students who are gifted to work alone if they wish. This is because of their perfectionism trait, and by working alone it eases their anxiety of achieving perfection. When their parents are concerned about their lack of friends, I would also be able to inform them that their child having a small group of friends is okay and they should not worry. Because I will be teaching at the 6-12 level, I really need to be aware of gifted students or discover them because like noted in the video they if not accounted for may crash by middle school. So by seeking them out early, they will be able to have a better chance at succeeding. Social emotional and gifted are also both accommodated for under IDEA and 504 which is another thing I need to have in my toolbox while teaching. Technology would be able to help these students by providing them with internet to connect to other students, so less stress of an actual social setting, and enabling the students with means to be able to do higher level tasks or assessments that meet their higher IQ levels. 

so basically, seek out your gifted students who often go under the radar and challenge their thriving young brains!!! :) , 

Vlog

Fair Use

• ·         What is Fair Use? Fair Use is described as (in US copyright law) the doctrine that brief excerpts of copyright material may, under certain circumstances, be quoted verbatim for purposes such as criticism, news reporting, teaching, and research, without the need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder.
• ·         Fair use is in place because it enables everyone to be able to use existing materials and ideas without having to get the permission of the person who created it, other known as the copyright owner. This allows us, especially as students, and teachers to have access to information and ideas without being afraid of using these sources. It defends our right to use these materials.
• ·         Check out this FairUse info-graphic to see more!
• ·         Statistic on Fair Use: Industries reliant on fair use contributed $2.4 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2008-2009, or approximately 17 percent of the US GDP. : 
• ·         There are many teaching resources that are available because of Fair Use. Some of these include CPALMS and NSTA. As a future teacher I can pull lesson plan ideas from these sources and many others because of Fair Use. 
• 

sources: 

• http://www.arl.org/focus-areas/statistics-assessment/3537#.WAQs4-ArLIU
• http://www.cpalms.org/Public/PreviewResourceLesson/Preview/19549
• http://www.nsta.org/publications/freebies.aspx
• http://www.ibpa-online.org/article/fair-use-and-other-aspects-of-coping-with-copyright-law/

Do certain people learn better certain ways?

In this educational mythbuster we will be examining the myth of "Do certain people learn better certain ways?". Over the years within the classroom you would hear students or fellow classmates saying, I learn best *this way*..., but is that really the case? In this post we will investigate if this is a true or false statement. I know I have the belief that I do learn best by verbal and visual instruction, but is that really true? 

The answer is no according to the Association for Psychological Science. Some students will learn better when material is presented visually and that others will learn better when the material is presented verbally, or even in some other way is a myth (Learning Styles Debunked: There is No Evidence Supporting Auditory and Visual Learning, Psychologists Say. Retrieved October 02, 2016, from http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/learning-styles-debunked-there-is-no-evidence-supporting-auditory-and-visual-learning-psychologists-say.html). In the Psychological Science in the Public Interest a new major report was released saying that “auditory learners” and “visual learners” are not a valid type of learning description. In the cases where past studies have supported those ideas, they did not use the type of randomized research designs to make it valid (Hall, E. (2016). The tenacity of learning styles: a response to Lodge, Hansen, and Cottrell. Learning: Research and Practice, 2(1), 18-26.).

The claim that we have to adapt our design to accommodate different learning styles has been repeatedly debunked by research (Finley, T. (2015). Are Learning Styles Real - and Useful? Retrieved October 02, 2016, from http://www.edutopia.org/article/learning-styles-real-and-useful-todd-finley). Learning styles were just something that were a popularized idea. Teachers should recognize not all students learn the same but also there are no set categories to place different types of learning in. Just like in any concept of school and teaching, all students should not be shoved into a generic “cookie cutter”, but rather all treated as individuals.

Although this myth is busted a suggestion to counter these old ideas, is to support active learning. This is the idea that students must take control of their learning, regardless of the way the material is presented to them, “People must learn to recognize when they understand and when they need more information” (Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (2000). How people learn.). As a teacher we all want our students to be proactive, so the next question we would need to answer is how to do this, how do we get our students to not peg themselves as a specific type of learner but rather become a constant learner. 

Blogs for the Classroom

Blogs are an interesting way to use technology in the classroom. I feel as if they are more or less a professional social media. For my future classroom I could use a blog to have students research a related science topic to the lesson and have them publish a blog post about what they learned. Some examples could be jobs in that area, a specific cycle studied or part of a cell. In some I could require finding a video or cool images that help explain the topic more. Like this class, I could have the students interact with each other through commenting on each others blog posts. I think the students would like that because most students these days like the use of technology. Blogs create an area for creativity and growth that the students would be able to use and push their knowledge and interactions, while a google doc just gives a place to type. In biology many topics need to be covered, so a restraint with the blogs would be that I may not have space/time in a unit to include them. Check this cool science vid : cells are cool!