ECE 7706 Module 1: Blog

Typical Science Lesson In My Classroom
      One of the Science lessons I taught this year was on the topic of animal adaptations. The students got extremely bored simply reading their textbook, so for this lesson I made a PowerPoint presentation using the information in the students' Science book along with a few other media resources. We would go through the PowerPoint as a class, but I would allow the students to read and manipulate the slides on the Interactive Whiteboard. After someone read the slide, we would have a class discussion/Q&A regarding the information that was just presented. For example, if the slide discussed a particular animal's adaptation such as "Animals may use camouflage to help protect themselves", and I may ask the students "What animals can you think of use camouflage as their adaptation?" or "Why would an animal use camouflage to survive?". Due to the amount of time we have for Science (30 minutes), usually going through the PowerPoint would take the entire time. As an assessment, I gave my students a note card where they had to write down two facts that they found most interesting, as well as describe the vocabulary word "adaptation" in their own words. This was something I collected as the students began to pack up to head to the buses.

Technology in Science Classrooms & How I might be Able to Incorporate Tech into My Lesson Above
     I believe, especially with out students now, that is is vital that we incorporate technology into our classrooms in order to keep our students engaged, motivated and interested in each lesson. However, as Efaw stated in his research, teachers need to feel completely comfortable with technology in order to be used effectively within a lesson. Guzey and Roehrig also discussed that teachers need to have a full and complete understanding of the science content, as well as the concepts of inquiry and how to properly transform a lesson to make it inquiry-based. 
     In my past experiences even though I am comfortable with technology, it is hard for me to successfully integrate it into my lessons because I feel as though I am not properly prepared. In my school, we have monthly technology meetings where we are taught a new form of technology that we could utilize in our classrooms, but due to the fact that I have never seen them in use, I never use them. 
      Looking back on my animal adaptations lesson, it would have been beneficial for my students if they had been able to all have a say at one time, such as through the use of the app called Socrative. This technology application allows each student to send in an answer to a discussion question or even start a discussion for that matter. With this app, students use their personal form of technology to type answers to a specific code which will then post their answer on the ActivBoard. 
      I believe that even though my PowerPoint was a form of technology, it needed to be pushed further in order to truly engage my students. It may have been more beneficial if my students could have gone through the PowerPoint at their own pace either through partner, small group or individual work time. If The students were able to go through the PowerPoint in something other than whole group then I could have made it more interactive by incorporating various other links to more information. 

ECE 7706 Module 1: Concept Map

Reflection Concept Map

      Concept mapping is something that I knew about but had never really taken part in until one of my classes in my undergrad. I think it is a good idea and assists with reflecting on the content, but getting started I would say is the hardest part. Obviously, there needs to be some sort of organization, and this is where the depth of your understanding begins to come into play. If you can organize the information then, to me, it means you have enough understanding to be able to categorize the information in an understandable and educational manner. I will say that I do sometimes have a hard time with concept maps because I tend to try to bite off more than I can chew and try to encompass a lot more information than necessary. However, after reading through the information, I realized that there is okay to make concept maps straight to the point without an over abundance of information. 

EDRD 7717 Module 5: PowerPoint Analysis

Teaching Phonics, High-Frequency Words and Fluency 

      

EDRD 7718 Module 6

PowerPoint Presentations

                I learned a lot of the stuff that was mentioned about PowerPoint presentations either through undergraduate classes or by trial and error. However, it is always helpful to hear the information again. One of the first slides needs to be an outline of the entire presentation so that the audience knows what will be covered throughout the presentation. The slides that contain any information need simply bullet point the main and most important parts of that section of the presentation. If your slides are too wordy then the audience will be too focused on reading the slide rather than listening to the details that you are trying to present. It should take from one to two minutes to discuss each slide.

                No- you don’t want the audience to be focusing a lot on the words in your PowerPoint, but you do want the audience to be able to read it. Therefore, it is important that the background is not overbearing; it needs to be simple and consistent throughout the presentation. The words also need to be big enough (but not too big) for the audience to read.

                One of the points made was that graphs do a great job of relaying data. This makes perfect sense but something I may not have thought of because I would have wanted to add information along with the graph. However, in actuality the graph can do the talking for the data. 

EDRD 7718 Module 5

      There were a lot of things from this module that really interested me. As a first year teacher, I have never actually seen or experienced effective literacy centers, therefore any little bit I learn about them is so helpful. With literacy centers it is important that the students are working on curriculum based activities and not busy work. Whether the students are working individually or with a partner, it is also important that after they are finished with their activity they have something to show for it such as a little assessment such as a ticket out the door to show where they may be in their level of understanding. However, it is not only to show their understanding, but also to keep the students accountable for their learning. The things I learned from these few videos show that I am on the right track, but there are still some things I need to work on with a balanced literacy program. I am actually in the process of getting help from my school's EIP teacher. She is going to start coming into my room and assisting me with the proper process when planning for literacy centers.
    The other topic that was discussed briefly was the classroom environment. I love seeing other people's classroom and getting new ideas on how to appropriately organize my room in order to meet my students needs. The book entitled Spaces and Places seems like a great book and actually one I may go out and purchase. She gave a brief overview of her book, but the chapter titles drew me in enough. She discussed how to plan the space in your classroom, arranging the furniture, using wall space and organizing the clutter in your classroom. The students need structure and the way the classroom is set up and organized as an effect on them.

EDRD 7718 Module 4

Instructional Methods and Strategies

      The majority of the information from this module were concerned with the RTI program/process, as well as the Common Core's effect on reading. The Response To Intervention (RTI) program/process is something we begin learning about in our undergrad and then experiencing within our schools. It is a program implemented by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) that ensures that all students needs are being met within the classroom. The original tiered program has three tiers, but Georgia's RTI model has four tiers: tier one ("standards- based classroom learning"), tier two ("needs based learning"), tier three ("SST driven learning") and tier four ("specially designed learning"). This program is intended to get help for struggling students before they are classified as "Special Education". 

      The sections about Common Core and Literacy were of utmost interest to me because it is something that has been a hot topic within grade level meetings. Our students were just given an interim assessment from the county to see where the students are assessing at this point in the semester and as a team we noticed that there was a whole bunch of content specific reading from areas such as Social Studies and Science. Instead of being full of simple narrative comprehension tests, the interim test had more content specific comprehension questions. As we noticed from our scores, the students did not do as well on the reading due to the amount of informational texts. We have begun to teach our students how to read and understand these informational passages because, as was discussed within a view of the articles, just because a child can read does not mean they can understand this specific sort of writing. 

EDRD 7718 Module 3

Encouraging Enthusiasm for Reading 

      I thought this was a very sweet video about children and reading. I loved the quote "Children are made readers on the laps of their parents" by Emilie Buchwald. I think that starting to read to children at a young age is a great way to instill the love of reading within them. Another way to encourage children to read is to read for pleasure yourself because children look up to their parents and if they see that you read they will also want to read. It is vital that parents model reading for their children.

SMART Table- Touch. Learn. Together. / HATCH Smart Table

      This was by far the coolest thing I have seen for a classroom. I have never heard of this but it is such a great, innovative piece of technology. I find myself limited when it comes to using either the SmartBoard or the Promethean board because only one person can use it at a time. This table would allow for the students to actually work together toward a common goal instead of working individually and taking turns in a group setting. This would work great with online manipulatives during math centers or even multiplayer educational games. The Smart Table could be used to create timelines, and match definitions in Social Studies, as well as manipulate passages in Reading.

Science and Math Integrating Literacy in Early Childhood/Expository Text Article 

      This was mentioned in the video but I also know from experience that students love learning about Science and it is something that has interested them for a long time because it is something they can see and understand. As discussed in the expository text article, I found out quickly that having my students read through textbooks on their own was not beneficial at all because they did not understand the way they were set up. The science textbooks can be difficult to read and understand without teacher scaffolding due to the elevated and content-specific vocabulary. Therefore, whenever I introduce new topics or when I am trying to clarify other topics I will find children's literacy that has to do with the topics because they are easier to understand. For example, we read through The Lorax when we were talking about pollution. When we were learning about Georgia Habitats, I rented habitat specific books that went into detail about the animals and landscape. These books told just as much information as the textbooks but were written in a more child-friendly way. Therefore, I have found that it is beneficial to read and discuss the text book, but then reinforce the information with other forms of literacy.

Development of Literacy Strategies

      While I was reading through this PowerPoint presentation, it reminded me of when we were finding our initial information regarding our action research project. We had to know exactly what type of information we were looking for, while also making sure that the information we were gathering was valid and relevant to our study.