CEDO525 Week 2

Strategies 1 - 3: Setting objectives for students has always been something I felt I could use more practice with. For many years, I think teachers used the teaching standards as objectives, many times not expanding on the standard...like the old saying goes "teaching to the standard". However, throughout the last year, during the training I've received with PBL, I've learned that if the objectives are clearly stated and also shared with the students during the introduction of the project, I have a greater success with the end product of the project. I also find that having clear objectives makes assessment an easier task.

Providing feedback and recognition is crucial in getting positive results from students. Especially important is providing timely feedback. It can kind of be compared to discipling your child as a parent...if you discipline your child now for him/her coming home late 2 weeks ago, it doesn't have the impact it would have if you had addressed the issue immediately when it occurred. Same thing with feedback, students need to know right away how they are proceeding through a project because the positive reinforcement will motivate them to continue to want to do well as they finish the project.

CEDO525 Week 4

Strategies – Chapters 7 thru 8: My first experience with collaborative learning was using a webquest with my 5^th grade class a few years ago. I didn’t create the webquest; I found it online, however, I can’t remember where/who created it. The primary task was to analyze 3 different brands of chocolate chip cookies and while working in teams, research the nutritional value of each cookie and create a powerpoint of their findings. This 5^th grade class had some very distinct personalities, so I asked the classroom teacher to assist me with placing the students into groups. While we placed students in groups of four, we did not assign students roles. It was their decision to determine who would be the “researchers” and who would be the “reporters”. Each student had to contribute one slide to the powerpoint. As I could only meet with the students weekly, it took about 7-8 weeks to complete the project. I have to admit, there were some conflicts in the beginning, but I was amazed at how the students were able to divide the tasks and how they helped each other. Some were stronger at the research skills, while others were more skilled on creating the powerpoint. They worked well as teams and were very successful at answering their questions within their groups before coming to me for assistance.

I reinforce reading effort with my students with an “I Caught You Reading” program. Each week I select one student from each elementary class who I “caught reading” in the library throughout the week. I interview these students as to why they feel reading is important and to name three books they would recommend to other students. I currently place their photo and interview on the library bulletin board for all students to see, but I can now see the advantage to posting it to our website as well. The only drawback to this would be that we have many parents who have chosen to not have their students’ photos or names placed on our website for online safety reasons.

CEdO525 Week 3

Strategies – Chapters 4 through 6: I have found using multimedia for graphic organizers and nonlinguistic representations to be very successful in the classroom. I tried it this year when introducing an epals unit on New Zealand to my 5^th grade students. Students would be corresponding with students in New Zealand and learning their culture, environment, etc. As we progressed through the details of the project, I showed them videos and other interactive websites portraying the history and culture of New Zealand. When students began corresponding, they had a mental picture of what their new friends talking about when describing where and how they lived. The strategy provided my students with a good knowledge base of the project and having that introductory knowledge led them to inquire deeper details from their epals. I just recently used the summarizing strategy with my 9^th grade students. Biology students are required to research short articles based on current events in science and then summarize the article into a short paragraph. I created a model that included a copy of an article where I had highlighted the important points and also the summary paragraph that I produced from the article. This assignment is always given at the beginning of the school year and this is the 3^rd year I have used the summary model. I’m amazed at how many past students still refer back to the model in assisting them with other assignments. It’s nice to see that they retained this summarizing strategy.

Compare/Contrast online graphic organizers: Bubble.Us is a free website. It has all the usual organizer features and can be shared with other people. One feature that separates this website from the others that I reviewed is that is it multilingual in some languages. I believe Webspiration is much better than Bubble.Us for many reasons. First, I like how it is categorized into professional, college, and educator levels. It provides many sample maps in these categories as well as tips, trick and FAQ’s are categorized into the three levels as well. It is a well designed website, easy to use, and is also free. One sample map that I will be researching further is the “virtual book club”. Mindmeister is the Cadillac of online organizers. It has many more features than Bubble.Us and Webspiration, however, the basic version is free. The premium versions that contain several more features have an annual fee. There are thousands of sample maps to use of get an idea on where to start your own map. The icon user interface is very easy to use and the website has a great online tutorial. Webspiration is my favorite online organizer, but Mindmeister takes first place overall.

CEdO 525 Week 1 (Research Study & Teaching Principles articles)

Student Outcome Research: This study was very confusing to me. It took a couple of readings for me to gain a better understanding of it. One point I found very interesting was the finding on the positive effects of small-group learning over individual learning. Considering this study was done 7 years ago, I find (in my district) that most teachers still do not use small group study very much. I don't know if it's because most of our teachers are nearing retirement and don't want to change up their curriculum, or if they just don't believe that students working in groups can be productive. Along that same thought, another point that was made in the study referenced that technology can help in changing a teacher's practice from teacher-centered to student-centered, where students work cooperatively, make choices and are more active in their learning. This made me think again of the teacher's I work with and how I run my own projects. I have to say that having students work in groups is something I've learned from the many tech integration workshops I've attended. I wonder though, why isn't group collaboration and technology integration taught at in education colleges? I attend UW-W in 2003, when this study was conducted, and these study techniques were never addressed. Nor were they prevalent in my student teaching experiences.

Teaching Principles: In reading over the theories and principles, I can totally relate to "effective teaching involves recognizing and overcoming our expert blind spot". This is my biggest struggle. I work with students from PreK - 12th grade. One hour I could be working with 1oth grade students on a biology research project, the next I'm working with 2nd graders teaching them fiction vs. non-fiction books in the library. Previous to this job, my experience had been with grade 6-12 students. I learned right away that when working with elementary kids, every step needs to be directed to them. Nothing can be assumed. I learned that I had to break my project tasks down to every detail in order for them to succeed at the project we were working on. It was very frustrating to me to introduce the steps were we going to take in a fun, new project - only to have blank stares on their little faces. They had no idea what I was talking about or how they were to complete the task I had asked of them because I did not specifically communicate each keystroke they needed to make on the computer. Several failed projects caused me to get ideas from the elementary teachers on how to teach the students at their level and now the fun and adventure has come back into my projects for the elementary students!

CEDO520 Class # 3 & 4

This has been an awesome class! I have learned so many new Web 2.0 tools that I can share with my staff this new school year. I'm amazed at the amount of information that I can use immediately. Many of these websites I will be linking to my district's LMC webpage. One of my main focuses this year will be teaching internet safety to students of all ages. The WebWise website provided great resources that I will be using in my instruction as well as sharing with staff and parents.

CEDO520 Class #2

This week I encountered many new websites that I will be sharing with my staff and students. NoodleTools is fabulous; the possibilities of this website are endless. There is virtually something for everyone on that site...from elementary to college level students. I'm also impressed with the success I've had with Google Alerts. I know it's been around for awhile, but I hadn't used it before this class and I'm so glad that I was introduced to it. What a great way to stay current on any type of topic. I'm looking forward to creating a website evaluation form as the one we have in our district is over 5 years old and it was on my to-do for this semester. The websites that discuss web eval are very good and I can see that they contain alot of info that will be useful on the new form that I create for my students.

CEDO520 Class #1

I can't believe the amount of information I have crammed into my brain over the last few months from these classes! I'm very excited about exploring even more educational technology websites from this class. Just the few links we've looked at for this first class have given me ideas for my students when they come back in a few weeks. The internet's "superhighway" really has turned into "information overload". It's no wonder our students feel lost when trying to search the internet...I feel that way myself...and I've spent years fine-tuning my researching skills. The trick is to pass those researching skills down to my students in a way that is relevant to them. Find something that is important to their lives and show them how the internet can help them locate information needed to succeed in their daily lives.