Blog 13 - Assessments

This week in class we talked about and worked with the idea of assessments. There are two main types of assessments which we covered. The first is a formative assessment. A formative assessment is some assignment, quiz, activity, or other learning tool which is used to help students gain an understanding of content.  The other is a summative assessment. These are tests or quizzes which are usually assigned at the end of a unit or class which measures a students understanding of material and thus tracks their proficiency. These relationship between these two types of assessments is that the formative assessment is more of a tool to prepare students and help them learn the material that they will be accountable for during the summative assessment.  This relationship is the guidepost by which we understand how we might use these tools in the classroom. One or several formative assessments could (and should) be used throughout a single unit to help the student grow in understanding of the material. For example, a science instructor might include lab activities or take home worksheets for which students explore concepts and see how they play out practically. Then, at the end of a unit, a summative assessment, such as a test, is a good way to hold students accountable for the material, and to make sure they have reached a proficient level to be able to move deeper into the course. Instructional technologies are very beneficial when creating assessments. They provide many options for interactive activities which can be made into excellent formative assessments, as well as many platforms by which to form and administer a summative assessment. As a future teacher, I believe that this is one area where instructional technology will be of one of its most impactful benefits in the classroom.

Blog 12 - Professional Organizations

As the name suggests, a professional organization is simply an organization for individuals within a certain profession. There are numerous organizations available for teachers from local and state levels to international. The purpose of these is to aid professionals in their development within their career and provide them with resources (publications, conferences, connections, etc.) to do so.

As an aspiring high school science teacher and coach, there are many organizations which are available. For example, the American Educational Research Association (www.aera.net) is a national organization for educators. More specifically, there is the National Science Teachers Association (www.nsta.org) and the Nebraska Coaches Association (www.ncacoach.org). While these all require fees for membership, they all contain valuable resources within their specific realms. They all provide publications and yearly conferences for their members to grow professionally. Personally, should I end up in the teaching profession, I will seriously consider joining both the National Science Teachers Association and the Nebraska Coaches Association.

Blog 11 - Importance of Portfolios

Creating a personal portfolio is a vital endeavor for any aspiring future educator. There are two main reasons for this. First, it is important to use when applying for further schooling or a job. Having a portfolio - complete with resume, philosophy of teaching, etc. - will allow you to have all that you need to apply for positions in one place, and could even be submitted all together. The potentially will give applicants the edge when it comes to beginning a career. Secondly, it allows the student to practice and prepare for different aspects of education. They will be able to think about the kind of teacher they wish to be, and how they plan to go about achieving that. They will also be able to compile all of the resources and projects they undergo in one place, to be referred to later. These could prove extremely helpful, especially during teachers first few years. There are many benefits to creating an ePortfolio, but I feel that these two are the most impactful and noteworthy. I would highly encourage any student who is aspiring to be an educator to begin working on and updating a personal portfolio online.

Blog 10 - Lesson Plan and The Digital Divide

Link to my lesson plan: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XFrHT9I0Y7mCYpClLHnwAFADvEvyvOLHWKQjCXEZcGQ/edit

I see the digital as a real issue, which could be better addressed in schools. For example, at UNL, the primary mode of online content is through the "BlackBoard" system. While this does expose students to digital forms of learning, it is very limited. I didn't really notice this until the beginning of this Instructional Technology class. We've discussed a multitude of online resources for teaching and learning, most of which I have never used or possible even heard of. Before the class, I would have considered myself at least somewhat digitally literate, but the further we progress through the content, I realize that I was not. This is potentially the case with many college students, both present and future. This could be addressed by incorporating more of these resources into the other classrooms of UNL or even possibly including a orientation course for first year students on these resources as they will pertain to classes down the road.
My goal as a possible future educator would be to weaken this divide simply by including digital resources at least as an option for students, and orienting them on how to use these. However, not all classrooms will have the means to do so. In response, the lesson plan I created is tailored to meet those availabilities. It includes activities and assignments which can be done without digital aid, should that be the case. It also includes ideas for how any available technology could be used within the plan. The goal is to capitalize on any opportunities to expose students to digital forms of learning, while still providing outlets for if the technology is not available and sources of the invaluable face to face interaction with students. Hopefully this lesson plan can fully meet these goals in a way that will weaken the digital divide and help students to grow both in knowledge of the material and how to approach it in todays digital world.

Blog 9 - Bloom's Taxonomy and Mind Mapping

Above is the mind map I created, concerning a possible lesson structure on the systems of the human body. It is organized using the concepts of Bloom's Taxonomy, and contains applications of each concept to the central idea, that being the human body. I was able to instill the use of each to create a sort of building block model to the teaching of the systems of the human body. Bloom's Taxonomy was the basis by which I created the plan, and the mind map was simply the system I used to organize these ideas in a tangible way.
While I was creating this map and considering Bloom's Taxonomy, I realized that they have a lot of relation. It seems that creating a mind map such as I did was the create step in Bloom's Taxonomy. In terms of the human body, I have completed all the steps in learning, and now to take those ideas and put them in a plan for teaching it is a prime example of creating.
Another more noticeable relationship between the two is simply the fact that a mind map is a great way to organize the concepts which go into the idea of Bloom's Taxonomy and apply them to some subject area.

Blog #8 - Digital Citizenship

I chose to focus my Glogster on the ideas from the badges on the Mike Ribbles article. I did so because they seemed to be important guiding factors which direct the rest of his concepts concerning digital citizenship. I combined them into three main points: Ethics, Literacy, and Safety. These three sections seemed to encompass Ribbles' twelve badges fairly well and illustrate the main things that must be considering in terms of digital citizenship. Some ways that these can be presented in the classroom would be via a visual illustration similar to this one, and simply make these issues known to the kids. It would also be helpful to allow them to practice in some way. Furthermore, it would be beneficial to use sites such as the Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network examples to allow the kids to learn these concepts by actually using the technology. These resources could also be given to parents so they can help their kids learn as well.
One big issue that arises as a result the increasing digital citizenship is cyber bullying. This put simply is bullying which occurs via the interactive social websites. The main weapon to use against cyber bullying is knowledge and awareness. To do so, I would instruct the kids on the dangers, guide them to resources such as the Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network sites, and inform the parents on the issue. Also, I would not allow the use of those social network sites in the classroom, aside from instructional purposes. This will ensure that anytime they are on the site, they are using it for education and not personal, bullying purposes. I am hopeful that these strategies will be beneficial in preventing cyber bullying among my future students.

Blog #7 - Universal Design for Learning

http://bookbuilder.cast.org/view.php?op=view%20&book=57434&page=1
(If this link doesn't work, then you can go to www.bookbuilder.cast.org and search for the book "The Scientific Method." It should be under the publisher tag TEAC259, UNL.)

Above is the link to the book I created. I created a book that takes science students through the process by which an experiment is conducted. This will allow students to have guideposts as they conduct an experiment of their choice. This fits UDL, primarily because of its universality among different types of experiments and interests. It can be applied to any experiment the student wishes to conduct. Also, as I noted in my answers to the reaction questions, the principle of previous knowledge is an important factor of UDL's. This is because, without the prior knowledge which your instructional content is built upon, the students cannot succeed at grasping the material at a very high rate. So, I applied this to my book. To do so, I included a page which listed some important prerequisites that students should cover before going through the book and conducting an experiment. This way, they will get the most possible out of the project, and will not harm themselves or others by conducting an experiment in an unsafe manner. There are several other important principles to consider when working with Universal Design for Learning, but this is just one example which I chose to focus on, discuss, and apply.

Blog #6, Social Media

Social Media can be considered to be any website which allows collaboration and connectivity between users, having some objective or purpose. For example, Twitter allows people to connect to each other and share their thoughts in 'Tweets". "Social" implies that collaboration is facilitated, and "Media" implies the purpose behind it, being communication of some sort of media. There are many ways that social media can be used in the classroom. The diagram above illustrates the possible uses of several of the larger social media websites. For example, YouTube or iPadio could be used to share to any audio or video presentation that students do. Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Pintrest could all be used as the platform for a class-wide brainstorm forum. With the trend towards more and more reliance on technology for communication and production, using these tools is evolving from helpful to almost essential. Students must learn to collaborate using technology and using these sites in classroom in very helpful in reaching that goal. Using these could also increase student interest and effort, and humans are naturally built for collaboration and community. However, some of these social networks have a downside when used in the classroom. Websites like Facebook and Twitter which are often used outside of class, and have more strictly social uses could be a distraction to students which could hinder their focus. That being said, all social media sites include some degree of non-educational uses. So, a good guideline to follow when using social media in classrooms could be to use the sites which are less popular, and so fewer students would be prone to distraction. Not only that, students will then "learn to learn" how to use technology, which will help them be able to adapt as more and more ways of collaborating online are developed. 

Blog #5 - Educational Resources Online

This week we discussed online resources for education. We discussed what made a resource valid, and possible ways to apply these resources in the future classroom. A few good criteria for a valid online resource can be seen in the graphic attached above. This graphic compares the aspects of an online resource which can either confirm it as valid or red-flag it as a possibly unreliable source.  In summary, a few criterion for a reliable online resource include cited sources, good grammar, positive peer reviews, university or government websites, and information which is consistent with cross references. Some examples of valid sources which I found were journal cites such as "MERLOT" and "The Chronicles of Higher Education", as well as university websites which include articles and resources from established professors and experts.  In cases such as academic writing and teaching or researching, it is important that you know where the information you found originated from, in order to ensure validity and protect against plagiarism. In other instances, such as appeasing personal curiosity, it is not as important to ensure that your sources are 100% valid. 

Once you have learned to determine whether an online resource is valid, then you have opened the door for an unlimited array of teaching aids and strategies, which will help your students grow and learn in an increasingly technological world. 

Article Review - Feb 14, 2012

http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/eek-a-science/42112

The article which the above link leads to is called "Eek! A Science!" and is written by David Barash. It discusses the misconception that science is an academically-superior, creatively-inferior subject, especially in relation to the humanities. I found this interesting because it is a misconception which I have never considered nor challenged in my own intellectual career.  Science is not superior or inferior to any other subject by any terms, but is just different.  I have often seen science as completely structured, with no freedom or creativity, and as a result have gone about my science endorsement classes with that mentality. After reflecting on this article, I have realized that I often restrict myself as a result of keeping these misconceptions. That being said, I must realize that science can be creative. Experiments, connections between topics, and especially the discipline of teaching science can be very creative and unbounded. Granted, it is a different way of manifesting this creativity, which I must practice to learn. To do so, and to redeem my science classes from the restricted mindset of creativity-starvation will be the key to enjoying these classes, and to being a successful teacher of the topics.

Blog #4 - Technology and Collaborative Learning Classroom Ideas

This week in class we discussed several online resources which could be beneficial technologies to use in classroom instruction. These were Diigo.com, Google Sites, and Wikis. There are many ways that these can be utilized in the classroom, and the goal of this blog is to mention a few ideas which may be applicable.

One way that Wikis can be put to use as a teacher could be in the development of rubrics. As the instructor, I could post a skeleton rubric for a particular assignment, and then invite the class to edit that rubric and collaborate in its development. This could have been another innovative way to develop our rubric for the video projects as well.

Another idea could be to encourage students, or simply as the instructor, to create a Google Reader RSS site which would bring current events about the particular school subject to it. That way students would be encouraged to remain on top of the events surrounding the subject of the class, and would provide an easy way for me as an instructor to find current events which I could share with the class in order to promote an increased interest in said subject.

As related to the coaching field, Wikis could be very beneficial as well. Sites could be created for individual teams which could include collaborative records of stats, rosters, strategy, opponent film, and lists of student health records. This would bring all of those aspects of coaching into one common area, where all of the staff could collaborate, contribute, and discuss with increasing ease.

All of these ideas in mind, the resources we discussed in class today would be very beneficial in my possible future as an educator.

Blog #3 - Video Reflection

If I could start the group video project over, there are a few things that I would do differently.  The first was somewhat uncontrollable given the class layout. The groups were split by subject area that we plan to teach. We had a group of future science teachers and future math teachers. We decided to do a math video, simply because we had a great idea for one, and the majority of the group is math-focused. However, being a possible future science teacher, I would focus the new video on that subject area, so that it would be something that could be used down the line in a classroom setting. So i would choose some topic such as an experiment or a video on how to do scientific notation in a fun way.  Another change would have been to find a music track that was long enough to not have to repeat. It was hard to make it flow with a repeat in the music. However, this was another variable that, given the circumstances, we could not help.

Some ideas for another video, this time focused on science, could include a science experiment making ice cream, how to make a model volcano, or how to create a device which would protect an egg from a fall. Research needed for these videos would consist primarily of instructions of how to do these things in order to be complete and concise, and anything that is necessary to ensure that we do not violate any copyright laws. Resources would include supplies for the specific experiments, video filming and editing technology, and a quiet, clean environment in which to film.

Perhaps in the future, if I do myself in front of a science classroom, I could put these ideas to use and develop a video in order to create a more technologically diverse atmosphere in the classroom so that the students would be able to retain interest and investment in the class.

Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons

Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons are all terms which refer to the rights people have regarding their personal creative work. Copyright is the exclusive legal right the originator of some creative work has in the production of duplicates, and to determine whether or not to allow others to use it as well.  Fair Use is essentially the fact that people have the right to quote short excerpts of a person's original words in certain specific circumstances, such as in a news report or article. Creative Commons is an organization which encourages legally sharing creative works in the spirit of collaboration and promotion.

These concepts are important for us as we go about the development of our video projects because they shape the way we can go about gathering information and media for the video. We must be careful that we do not infringe on others' rights with regards to their creative work. We must ensure that we are legally obtaining music, logos, and ideas for the project. Steps that we took included careful discretion with images and care taken in the search for websites to gather music from.

Group Collaboration in the Classroom (Blog #1 - 1/16/2012)

In class on Tuesday we watched a video and read an article considering the ideas of collaboration and idea generation. I found their claims interesting and very valid. I have found in my educational past that the better ideas and higher quality projects have been a result of group collaboration. Bringing together several students with different talents and different ideas has proved very helpful, granted the group can work together with harmony and make the best of each member's talents. It coincides with the idea of synergy, which I learned about in a class last fall. The concept essentially is explained by the equation 1+1=3. The premise is that when two or more people collaborate to complete some task, then result is greater and more effective than the total if the same amount of individuals did the same task independently.  This is likely in part due to the concept of idea collaboration which Steven Johnson considered in his video, Where Good Ideas Come From (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NugRZGDbPFU).  He argues that a vital step in the development of good ideas is collaboration and bouncing smaller ideas off one another to combine and build them up.

It will be important in my future classroom to facilitate this type of group collaboration, not only to help students see the benefits and potential of it, but to help them to develop the interpersonal skills involved with teamwork in their future career fields. One way to help students see the benefits of collaboration is to ask thought questions in class, and have students independently attempt to answer the question. Then I will have them gather into small groups and discuss the question, and eventually share their ideas with the class. This will illustrate the evolution of "the idea" from individual, simple ideas, to the more complex, developed, thorough thoughts that arise from group discussion.  Other simple ideas would include combinations of group and individual projects and quizzes.