Journal #7

This week in class we talked about talents.  I think that this will be an exciting subject to cover in my classrooms once I can get a grasp on what each talent is about.  Right now this is my interpretation of each talent and a possible good lesson to go along with it.  The productive thinking talent means someone can generate a variety of ideas and add details to something simple.  This is like the activity we did yesterday with the zigzag line.  We each had a variety of ideas as to what the line could be made into.  The decision making talent is being able to weigh and easily make final judgments.  A good project for this could be doing the pros and cons for deciding on one research project over another.  The planning talent is designing and implementing an idea effectively through outlining.  A good project for this could be having students design a survey for the entire school about what types of lunch room foods they prefer. The next step would be having them pitch it to the administration to implement it.  The forecasting talent is about making predictions about causes/ effects certain events may have.  A good project may be to have students contemplate weather patterns and have them decide how it would affect the rest of the day.  The communication talent is using and interpreting communication written and verbal.  A good project for this would be having students analyze poetry to determine the authors underlying meaning.  Together all these lessons can help our students better learn and understand how best to problem solve.  I believe as we further explore talents I will be able to get a firmer grasp on each concept so that I can convey them to my future students.

Discussion 4

One thing I believe I learned this week was that there are WAY more resources out there than any of us could ever have dreamed of.  Education is the perfect field for collaboration, because we are all here to help children learn.  By collaborating we can share our ideas and resources to help someone else better differentiate their instruction.  This becomes even truer when we are speaking about technology because now half the time technology either facilitates the collaboration or the learning.  Today our students are digital natives so by teaching them through technology we may be able to reach them faster.  This brings me to what I believe would be a good addition to our Sqworl.  I think that we should add TeacherTube.  This is a great resource for teachers to use to find educational and appropriate videos to show to their students.  This semester a tool that I would hopefully like to integrate into my teachings is the virtual field trips.  I have created a lesson plan using one of these sites before and I think that they are a wonderful tool to get to share with our students.  This is especially true for the special education students that I will be teaching someday.  Most of these children will have a hard time traveling to these places, so if I can virtually take them there it would be a treat!

Journal #6

This week our class was about differentiating instruction by using technology.  One of the quotes that really stuck out to me was, “If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow” –John Dewey.  To me this spoke about teachers not changing their ways to accommodate the changing times.  If we do not change with the times and the technology our students will never learn.  As teachers it is our responsibility to be up to date on the technology so that we can make our students 21^st century learners.  I think that this quote spoke volumes for what this unit is about.  Throughout the powerpoint we explored many different websites and technology tools.  I believe my favorite was Discovery Education.  On this website there are free lesson plans written by teachers for teachers.  These lesson plans help inspire students to learn in many different subjects.  Something else I found very interesting on this website was the “field trips”.  Teachers are able to go on month long trips to amazing destinations to teach their classes about the wonders of the world.  I did not know that this was possible.  I also love the way that Discovery has this site set up.

Journal #5

This week in class we started discussing our Concept-Based Curriculum Units.  My group has decided to theme our unit around the Solar System.  This unit will be geared towards the upper elementary grades (3^rd-5^th).  We have already started working on figuring out what we want our major and minor concepts to be for the unit.  We are now looking on to creating our essential and guiding questions.  I think it is interesting that we are now learning how to write these questions in SPE 382 because I am also learning about them in my CAT 250 class.  Just yesterday I had to write essential, unit, and content questions for the project I am putting together in that class.  I believe that my CAT 250 background of generating questions will help me enormously in SPE 382.  Again connections like this one, I just made, are the ones that we want to encourage our students to make throughout our unit.  This is a big reason why we have chosen major concepts that cover multiple areas of curriculum, rather than just one.  While executing lessons and projects, in the unit, we want our students to constantly be making connections and using their higher-order thinking skills.  If we as teachers are not expecting our students to do these things then we are limiting their ability to improve.

Discussion 3

Part 1:

Last week we had the Egyptian version of Cinderella.  It was a great story because it put a new twist and culture, on a classic fairy tale.  After reading the story I believe some great higher-order thinking questions to ask my students would be:

•  Can you distinguish between Rhodopis and the other slave girls?
• Who was it that gave Rhodopis the slippers? Why?
•  How would you have handled the other slave girls forcing their chores off onto you?
•  Which is true or false: the Pharaoh finds Rhodopis’s shoe in his garden while he is out picking flowers?
•  How could the story have changed if the Pharaoh had not found Rhodopis’s shoe?
•  How was this similar to the original Cinderella?

Part 2:

My group has decided to create a unit based on the solar system for the upper elementary grades (3^rd-5^th).  We really hope to focus on all four of these understandings in that they are the key to helping our students understand and reach their goals.  We hope to create factual knowledge through our smaller lessons within the unit.  In these lessons we will provide the students with resources and classifications, which will help them create concrete facts in their minds.  We hope to create procedural knowledge through our projects and activities.  Our students will perform tasks such as calculating the distance between the planets and documenting each phase of the moon’s cycle.  These tasks will help our students get a better grasp on what they are learning through working with the material.  We also hope to generate conceptual knowledge through incorporating the unit’s major concepts that cover more than one subject area.  If we can do this our students will be able to generate thoughts and connections between their different class subjects.  Our generalization/ essential understandings will hopefully give our students an overview of what we are going to be learning and help them to define the main ideas.  One essential understanding I have thought of for our unit is: Over time many different cycles take place within our solar system.

Journal #4

Yesterday in class we opened with a discussion on “How is questioning like an apple?”  Our class generated responses such as:
-An apple has seeds and when we ask questions it is like planting a seed.
-   An apple has a stem and many questions (as we came to learn) start with generic stems that help us communicate what we are trying to say.
-An apple is round just like most of our questions are rounded. We can keep them going around and around, jumping from one idea to the next.

This last one actually got me thinking how questioning is actually more like branches or raindrops.  My reasoning for this is because once you have the start of one (much like questions) it quickly leads to another and another and so on…  Once we got deeper into our lecture for class I started thinking about how I was going to most effectively use questioning in my future classroom.  Through questions I want to challenge my students to start using higher order thinking skills.  If my questions are open ended the students can expand and begin to make their own assumptions.  This can lead my students to problem solving.  A technique we discussed in class that I particularly found intriguing was to ask a question in a way that insinuates that you yourself (the teacher) also do not know the answer.  This challenges students to answer the question because they believe that just waiting for the teacher to give them the answer will not work this time.  I received many helpful hints like this one and many more from yesterday’s class.  I am really enjoying all the handouts we are given because I believe that even when I am a teacher in my own classroom I will be referring to them.

Journal #3

Differentiated instruction is like a new pair of shoes, because through it we are all ensured that we are ready to take the next step (Tomlinson, p. 10).  If we think back to when we were infants and our parents bought us new shoes each time we were getting ready for a new phase or step in our lives.  This is just like differentiated instruction.  With each new phase or step, the instruction changes to fit the learners needs.  When the learner has mastered a skill and is ready to move on to a higher strategy, the instruction is differentiated.  This is much like when a girl goes from being able to wear heeled dress shoes to actual pumps.  There is a certain trust instilled in the child/student as they are given the extra step.  This child's instruction has also just gotten slightly more challenging just like the pumps.  It takes more focus and determination to walk in pumps than in the dress shoes.  On the other hand if a child is having a tough time with the differentiation in place the teacher may implement a new instruction plan tailored to this child's specific needs.  This is much like if someone is walking in flip flops, but is having trouble with the shoes falling off and also causing discomfort.  In this situation this person may go to the store to buy sandals that have both straps and arch support.  The sandal and the instruction have both changed to fit the individuals personal needs so that they may move onto the next step in their lives.  Each new pair of shoes literally gets us off on the right foot for whatever our next step maybe.  Differentiated instruction helps prepare students for each new step they will take as they travel through their education.
Tomlinson, C. A. (n.d.). Advancing differentiation. Defining How Differentiation Looks in Today's Classroom, 08-12.

Discussion 2

     At this point in my education I would like to someday teach in a mild to moderate special education classroom setting.  The students I would primarily like to teach would be high school, but recently the elementary children have grabbed my attention.  In my future classroom I would like nothing more than to differentiate instruction so that my students receive the most valuable education their is.  The first way I would start to differentiate instruction would be to group my students according to better categories.  Instead of just putting two students together, I will place them based on their interests, their learning levels, or their individual talents.  Placing my students based on these aspects as compared to just placing two students together will enhance their relationships and the amount of information they learn from on another.  The second thing I would like to implement to differentiate instruction is to use learning centers.  In every classroom there should be a place for children to read and to use the computer.  Other centers that I believe would be beneficial would be those that change with each unit.  At these centers students can get emersed in art, history, and math puzzles.  Each of these centers needs to be uniquely different so as to keep the children interested in the material.  The third activity I would like to use to differentiate instruction is Extension Menus.  I really like these because they play to each students individual strengths so that know one will have a tough time applying themselves to the activities at hand.  I also like them because they give the children the option to chose their project.  I feel that we always enjoy something more if we are give a choice as to how we would like to perform it.
     The excerpts we read this we left me with some great food for thought.  One main idea that stuck with me was that differentiation is not a magic potion.  It will not solve all of our problems  (Tomlinson, p.9).  To me this means that we must not only provide differentiated instruction, but also social and emotional assistance.  Our jobs as teachers does not simply stop at providing instruction on curriculum.  We must always be mindful of our students and what their individual needs are.  Another idea that struck me was that differentiation is for all (Tomlinson, p.9).  I feel that many teachers over look this matter and believe that only those in special education require that teachers differentiate their instruction.  Differentiation focuses on students readiness, learning levels, and interests.  Some students may need more in depth material and others may need scaffolded material, but this does not mean that differentiation does not benefit all of these individual students.
     After this weeks lecture I feel that I still do not fully grasp compacting students.  If a student is compacted and is taking the math course a grade level above their own, would the student not always be a grade above their peers in math? I think once we discuss this in class a little further I will come to understand, but right now it seems that the child being compacted may always be one step ahead of their peers in certain subjects.
Tomlinson, C. A. (n.d.). Advancing differentiation. Defining How Differentiation Looks in Toda'ys Classroom, 08-12.