Chapter 10: Going Beyond the Classroom

By bringing in experts about a certain topic from the community, students can see successful people in the field that you are teaching.  The expert can be from any field and can have many talents that can be shared with many different classes.

Being a chemistry teacher, I know I will be asked "why do we need to know this?".  By bringing in chemists from around the area, I can show that chemistry is important in our world other than just a grade.  There are chemists who work for medical research, chemical engineering and crime labs all around the country.  There are a lot of really interesting professions out there for those who want to use chemistry.  This will hopefully show to my students that they can make something of the selves after conversing with a live professional.

Chapter 9: When Things Go Wrong

Students are able to sniff out any teacher who is nervous or fearful.  This causes the reaction for students to attack that teacher and cause them grief.  One of the best ways to prevent this is to remain confident in what you are doing and what you are saying.

One of the biggest problems that I worry about is whether the students will attempt to walk all over me.  i know that I will not simply lie their and allow that, but having some strategies to help me prevent this certainly doesn't hurt.  Remaining confident is one thing that I need to work in so that my students can feel immediately that teaching them chemistry is something that is comfortable me.  I know a lot about chemistry and I know how I need to explain it, so I need to show that I'm prepared and confident in my abilities as a teacher.

Chapter 8: Teaching Teenagers Who Are Still Learning English

Always asking kids if they understand is important because if students do not understand and they feel that a teacher is not concerned about checking whether or not the students understand, the students will rebel.

I have noticed that students who do not understand in my classes act out because they do not understand and they assume they'll never figure it out.  I have seen students go from the trouble making, sleeping and uncaring student to an attentive and well behaved student after a teacher has taken the time to ask whether a student is understanding and then helping them through the process of understanding.  I feel like it can be really important for teachers to understand why students act out in certain ways.  If I didn't understand something in my classes, I would have fought to figure it out or simply given up.

Chapter 7: Teaching Difficult Academic Material

Textbooks have become one of the primary sources for students supplementation on the material covered in class.  In the book, Fires in the Bathroom, students explain that teaching by the text book can be dry and may not present all of the information on the topic.  Sometimes the text books may even have incorrect material, or the authors/editors personnel opinions.

I have mixed feelings about this idea because I have had teachers who have ventured away from the book and had a great lesson and some who had a terrible lesson.  The students in the book gave good examples about sticking straight to the text book.  Some history books (and I'm sure this applies to any subject) have content inaccuracy and nearly all books have different views on the events or principles focused on.  I'm worried that I may end up following directly from the text book.  I will attempt to use as many different types of sources for the students with each lesson.

Chapter 6: Motivation and Boredom

Allowing students to choose their own reading can help students to become better readers.  Students have their own interests with reading, and by allowing those students to choose the stories that they want to read, you can help foster that wish to read.

This may be a difficult thing to add into my chemistry class, but I may be able to have the students pick a newspaper or magazine of their choice (as long as it applies) and have them search for new technologies in science.  These articles do not have to be about chemistry per say, but it would be good if the article was about science.  I can remember being allowed to read in some of my English classes and also in one of my history classes.  We had to find current events in a newspaper and bring them in to talk about.  By the end of the year I was searching for one of the most exclusive articles because I didn't want anyone to have the same one as I did.  By giving the students the freedom to read what they want it may create a positive environment for students to read and write.

Chapter 5: Teaching to the Individual, Working With the Group

What really stuck out to me was the fact that students do not like to be called out in class.  Allowing for students to answer for themselves at their own time is very important.  The author said that if a teacher sees a student raise his hand who is normally quite, the teacher should call him as soon as possible.

This is difficult because sometimes students do not want to be singled out, but if the teacher does not call on different students, only one or two students may raise their hand for the question.  So there has to be an in-between point for each class.  I understand that students do not like being called on because they may not quite understand the material and once they are called on, they feel ridiculed by the class.  Peer image is such an important quality for them that this type of embarrassment may completely turn the student away from the topic you are teaching.

Chapter 4: Creating a Culture of Success

Calling on all students and not just the ones that know the answers immediately was something that really jumped out to me.  By bringing everyone into the conversation, the teacher is communicating that it is alright if you don't the answer, but to try anyway.  This can be important for some students in order for them to attempt at giving the correct answer.

I can remember being the student who knew all of the answers and the one who wished that the teacher would never call on me.  When I knew the correct answer, I loved to be called on.  However, when I didn't know the answer and the teacher called on me for the answer, I would either guess or say I had no idea.  This forced me to pay attention in class and I also realized that I will not always understand what the answer is.

Chapter 3: Classroom Behavior

What really jumped out to me was the section on calling parents.  The section talked about the importance of when and how to call to a students parents.

This is an interesting section for me because I'm not sure how I'm going to do this.  How am I suppose to know whether I should get a parent involved if I think that student has a problem that is holding them back.  Should I simply talk to the student, or take it upon myself to talk with someone who should be a larger part of their life?  This helped a little in my perception of what I should do in certain circumstances.

My contributions to the WebQuest wikis

My contributions to the wiki included:

1. http://questgarden.com/106/35/9/100706223425/conclusion.htm.

  This is my nomination for the worst conclusion ever!  I picked this conclusion because it pretty much just says congratulations.  It asks students to do more work after the end of the web quest.  The conclusion did say something about the task, but it didn't make any clear link between the task and the real world. 

 

2. On the "refining webquest audiences" wikipage I added a page on how to use bloom's taxonomy.  There were a lot of good questions on there that could be used for  incorporating bloom's taxonomy.

3. On the task wikipage, I added a site that had a worksheet to help create a task.  This could be a really handy tool if you aren't able to create one on your own.

Maine Memory Network

This website can be very useful to me in my classroom because I can have my students look up important scientific breakthroughs in Maine.  There may not have been many in Maine, but there has definitely been many labs and scientists who have published findings.  I could also have them research what the people of Maine were doing and thinking during a certain time period.  Then the students could compare what they found with the emerging science at the time and see how the science had changed Mainers culture and society.  Science can change how people live and how schools are taught.  So hopefully my students can find the influences of emerging technologies and the way of life of students and inhabitants of Maine.

Copy Right and Fair Use

I found some very useful tips and guidelines for copyrighted material at http://archives.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/TL/2002/10/copyright_answers.php.  There were a lot of interesting new ideas that I had never heard of before, such as:

I never really realized when I could use things with and without permission.  I thought that I could just site things and that would be all that I needed.  So the question that said that I don't have to ask for permission, I just have site the place that I used for material that I do not post on the web.

I also thought that if you were to post things on the web that you would have to ask for permission, whether the website was protected or not.  So if the site that you are posting students work on, you are allowed to put copyrighted material on line.

The question about taping a show and using it to edit and place students into the movie caught me by surprise because I thought that you weren't allowed to take movies off line and edit them without permission.  Maybe you have to if you post those videos on the web afterward?

I never realized that I wasn't allowed to show a class full of students a movie unless it is one for the use of groups.  I always assumed that you could share the one that you buy for your house to any size group.  How do they enforce that, what size is too big?

There is a machine that you can use to unblock protected things on the web so that your students can use them.  I never realized that there was anything like out there.  Of course, it isn't meant for personal use but for educators in the classroom.

I figured that yearbooks would be allowed to use copyrighted items like it can be done in the classroom.  However, it makes since that yearbooks are not class work nor educational.

How to help someone use a computer

What really jumped out at me from the reading of "First you have to tell yourself something" was "you've forgotten what it's like to be a beginner".  In the past when I have tried to help others about using computers or programs on a computer, I forget that not everyone knows everything that I already know about a computer.  When this comes up, I try to step back and explain what I'm telling them to do.

By explaining to the individual, or group, about how to use a computer or piece of software, I get caught up in showing them how to do it; instead of leading them through it and letting them do it themselves.
In the second section, "having convinced yourself of these things, you are more likely to follow some important rules", I found that "Don't take the keyboard. Let them do all the typing, even if it's slower that way, and even if you have to point them to every key they need to type. That's the only way they're going to learn from the interaction." jumped out at me because it is something I use and something that I really need to work on.


I will be able to use this in my presentation by allowing students to get on line and look at our wiki about mp3 players, ipads, smart phones and cell phones and coach them through it without taking it from them to show them how to work our wiki.

Information provided by "How to help someone use a computer." by Phil Agre at http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/how-to-help.html.

Web 2.0 Educator

Larry Ferlazzo is an english teacher from the Sacramento area.  He writes a lot about political issues and things in the news.  English Language Learners seem to be a concern to him because he writes about different technologies that he's used in an attempt to help those students who are having trouble with english.  He mentioned Google Scribe which is a program that will guess what you are going to say next based on what you have already said.  Larry sounds like an educator who is willing to try as many different technologies as he can to help those students that are having trouble in his class.

Type I and Type II Technology

Type one uses technology is the use of technology to further education in the same ways before the technology in the same ways. One example of type one technology is a word processor that would help us write papers and other written work.  A presentation can be done on computers that definitely enhances most presentations.  Another type one technology would be making movies in the classroom.  Students can make projects and teachers can create lessons using a video camera and students.

Type two uses of technology is to further education in new ways.  These two uses of technology are important in their own way and both types are needed in the classroom.  An example of type two technology is a project I did in my German class where we had to go online and plan a "make believe" trip to anywhere in Germany.  This got our class out to the place where we were learning from the comfort of home.  This wouldn't happen without the technology.  A smart board is another example of a type two technology.  A smart board enables a teacher to write on the board and also bring up things from a computer.  It gives a lot more options to teachers who like to use as many different ways of learning as possible.  There's a program for physics that enable them to create rockets and launch them.  They learn the necessity for aerodynamics and propulsion.  Students aren't typically allowed to shoot rockets off, so this enables them to do just that.


Information from Internet Applications of Type II Uses of Technology in Education (2005) by Cleborne Maddux and D. Lamont Johnson, editors. NY: Haworth Press.

My MEL Experience

• Student/Teacher Relationship:  One of my favorite classes in high school was geometry.  The teacher was extremely enthusiastic and made the classroom a safe and enjoyable place.  Mr. J knew how to get the students involved and knew how to make it interesting.  He would put a math concepts into games like baseball.  It helped us to really get into the subject.

• Learning Styles:  My history teacher did an impressive job incorporating many different types of teaching and assessment.  We did posters, presentations, movies and of course normal tests.  It made for an interesting class where I learned a lot more than I would have thought possible.

• Helping Students Succeed:  Ms. Johnson was one who really pushed us to believe that we could do anything that we believed we could do.  She had high expectations for our class but she pushed us to learn more in the limited time that we had together.  The class was an advanced placement class so she expected us to write very well.  We rose up to the challenge and ended up doing better than I ever had in an English class.

• Autonomy:  One of the best English classes I ever had was my senior year.  We were allowed to decide when and what we were going to read.  Of course we had certain guidelines, but we were able to decide in what direction we were going to lead the class.  It created interest in the subject and helped us to enjoy the subject.

• Hands-on:  My physics class consisted of almost all hands-on learning.  We took the concepts that we talked about in class and experimented with it in the labs.  It made the concepts easier to comprehend.  I'm a visual person, so it helped me out a lot to see the things in a three dimensional world not just a two dimensional.

Chapter 2: Respect, Liking, Trust, and Fairness

Respect for the students is just as important as students respect for the teacher.  In order to prevent favoritism in the classroom, the author created a checklist that teachers can perform upon themselves in order to prevent favoritism.  It consists of questions that ask whether you are treating a student less than the others or are giving a few more attention than the others.

The checklist was interesting to see because I remember seeing teachers in my high school who did favor certain students.  It made everyone else in the class feel less than the others because they weren’t the favored ones.  Of course it can go the other way as well; some students felt uncomfortable because they were the favored students and didn’t like the extra attention.  This is an important thing for each teacher to prevent because all students should have the same opportunities.

Chapter 1: Knowing Students Well

What jumped out at me in the first chapter was the questionnaire that they proposed to send out at the beginning of the school year.  The author talked about knowing the kids in your class by handing out questionnaires and asking questions about their lives.  The questionnaires are supposed to help teachers tailor their classes for the students in their class.

The use of such a questionnaire had never even crossed my mind when I thought about teaching students with different abilities.  Some of the questions that the book proposes really made me think about the relationships between students and teachers.  Some such questions were “how do you get to school?”, “what do you do after school?” and “what time do you usually get to bed at night?” (pg. 10).  It really stuck out to me because I never would have imagined one of my teachers in school asking me those sorts of questions.  This is probably the best way to really find out about your students and I plan on implementing some version of this when I get into the classroom.

Learning Style Inventory Results

I found that the results of my personality test were fairly consistent across the board.  The highest categories for my personality include physical and solitary.  I find that I actually do my best work when I am alone, so this does not surprise me.  I do love playing sports and other activities that get me outside which shows up in the physical category.  I was very surprised, however, when my visual score was not as high as the others.  In fact, my visual, oral and verbal styles were all low compared to the rest, as seen in the graph below.  I believe that this is actually a good representation of my learning habits, with the exception of the visual.  I feel like I learn faster and more completely when there is a visual section involved.