Thursday, November 5, 2009

Concept Attainment

My Quiz is designed to just introduce the students into thinking about culture. I have simple true and false question for the students to answer and think about.





Monday, October 12, 2009

Rubric For llife in someones shoes

Here is my Rubric for Life in someones shoes. I think its a pretty clear Rubric that can be use and easy to follow. there is room for the teacher to comment and its easy for the students to read so that they can see how they did. Teacher can pass the rubric back out to the student so they can know where they stand during each section of the project.

Life in someones shoes Rubric

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Life in someone's shoes

In this blog i describes my Lesson plan for Life in someone's shoes . This lesson plan is just a draft and it is also not finish yet. I am just getting started on it.


Please give feedback on how i can make this project better for students.

Advantages and disadvantages of structuring the students use of time carefully

When it comes to a teacher having to structure the student’s use of time can have these advantages:
- Students stay on task to meet deadlines
- They get the job done
- Helps them understand how projects need to be done in the future
- Keeps all the students in the class on the same pace, so you the teacher don’t have to worry about the students who work faster than others.

Some disadvantages that could come from structuring students
- Some students move slower and it not enough time for them to grasp on the concepts
- Students will only try to do what is due because of deadlines, and that stop them from thinking outside the box.

The advantages accruing to students who have appropriate IT-at home and good homework habits, are that the students can think outside the box in their projects to make it more interesting, when other students who don’t have appropriate IT at home and good homework habits just do what is asked of them. These students also do not have to have a helping hand all the time when working. The more projects you do the more creative students are while learning.

Monday, September 14, 2009

"Web 2.0 Tool Video- Xtranormal "

All teachers have strategies that they use in the classroom. But you never really see teachers using tools that are on the internet. What I have found is a strategy that a teacher uses in his/ her classroom and applied a video tool with the strategy.

A teaching strategy that I thought would fit with tool video, was called R.A.F.T (Role, Audience, Format& Topic) . The meaning of R.A.F.T is
- R: Role of Writer – Who are you?
- A: Audience – to whom s this written to?
- F: Format – what form will take place?
- T: Topic- What important topic have I chosen?


The video tool that I see fits this strategy is called Xtranormal. Within this tool students will be able create a movie with cartoons or short movies. They have to write a script (which is also good for students in English class), make the actors move, change the angles of the camera, put music in the background and so forth.
I would use this tool with maybe an English class. We all know reading a book and testing over it can be boring, but what if you let your students make their own version movie of what they read. This is where the RAFT strategy comes into play to make the movie and stay on topic of the book. Creating a short movie can take time as well, but to really get your student working give them about a week to put together their creations. They will reference back to the book and translate what they know to their peers. This will give everyone a chance to teach other something and it also shows that they had to read the book and understand what was happing in the novel.

How will we use RAFT exactly?
Raft can be use by having the students starting of with an information page about what they want to do their movie over. This information page will have the Role of the writer, who the audience is, the format, make the student explain what kind of language they are going to use. For example if the book is in a poem format the movie should be in a poem format as well. And for topic have the students chose what part of the book/ novel they want to cover so they don’t jump all over the place and their movie has no purpose.

Howard Gardner 8 Areas of Intelligence

In Project based learning project World Connections Howard Gardner point of view can be use to improve students intelligences by getting a group of student to work on one project and find out different thing about the culture. Within this group of about 5 student their can be student who know more about Bodily kinesthetic, Interpersonal, intrapersonal, linguistic, logical- mathematical, musical, naturalistic or spatial intelligence. Each student can ask question form what intelligence that they more about and the other people in the group learn from what is being asked from the other members in their group. With Gardner point of view student can will be able to learn something about the culture they didn’t know and plus learning something outside their intelligence. Just to make sure that students did learn from the project they when presenting they have to teach the class something outside of their intelligence. This will give the student the chance to teach and or coach their team members in something different and the make the member want to teach what they learned from their groups.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Inquiry: What the mind wants to know

What is inquiry based learning?Inquiry based learning is where students learn or build on their knowledge by asking question. The more questions that the students ask the more they seem to learn about the subject. But the teacher does not answer these questions for the students, the student finds the answers, the teacher is the helping hand to student.
How does it differ from the traditional approach? Inquiry- based learning is about giving the student the chance to learn something and gain knowledge. If you want a student to learn what is inside of a frog, they could learn more by cutting the frog themselves rather than you the teacher telling and show them what it looks like from a book. The traditional way is showing them the book and teaches them what you know and other people know.
Learning information on your own is better and students remember more for fact that they saw it with their own eyes. Students change from time to time and do not learn the same. The traditional approach seems to be the way that most schools are teaching students but I believe that needs to change.
What does it have to do with my classroom?
If teachers were to use this in their classroom, student would be able to turn all and any information into knowledge. And when that happens your classroom is turned into a learning center for student. This also gives you the teacher the chance to be a helper in your classroom rather than the person just instructing. Student can come in your classroom with a different mindset.
What are the benefits of inquiry – based learning?
The benefits of inquiry based learning
- Students are able to take on problems and or projects
- Student are able to collect, observer information
- Students are able to develop useful problem – solving skills
These skills are very helpful to students when they get to college and when they enter the real world.
How has inquiry- based learning developed since it first became popular?
IBL has developed because there are more tools, strategies and research is now out that can be used on students to meet the needs of modern society.
What are some critical perspectives?
Everyone has their own opinion on inquiry –based learning, some people think it’s a waste of time and those students don’t learn enough information for the kind of test that students have to take at the end of high school. On the other hand some people think that it’s great and that student can learn more than they think and be better off at the end of high school.
As for me I think it’s great and it covers all learning levels of students. They can ask the question that they want to know and still learn the same thing that is required of them to learn.
How can I use inquiry- based learning in conjunction with other education techniques?
I like the constructivism theory; because it lets students construct their own understanding and knowledge. I can see inquiry based learning fitting in or working with constructivism because inquiry based learning is seeking information by questioning. The student is learning on their own, with guidance from the teacher. The students are developing information processing and problem solving skills.