Voicethread

I thought that voicethread was an interesting tool. I could use this in my classroom in several different ways. I could visually show students how to solve problems. The students can see me work through the problems. This would save time in class and help students be more productive while doing their homework. I could also use it to show students how to work through a lab.

Instructional Supplements

This semester I have learned many different supplemental tools to use in my classroom. I do not have access to all of the tools I would like but I have used google to create a website for my class. I look forward to adding things to my website, like video clips and helpful websites. As of now, my website has an overview schedule of the week so that students can stay caught up even when they are absent. Students can also look at pages created for each topic to help them review when they need to. I think this will help the students to take charge of their own learning. They can navigate around my website to experience more than just what goes on in the classroom.

Deeper Learning

I agree that standardized testing does not promote deeper thinking. It promotes memorization for the most part. A lesson that I feel promotes deeper learning is as follows.
The students are shown a video clip of a child sledding down a steep hill. The students are told only a few known things about the child; his mass, what his sled is made of and the angle of the slope. From this the students must come up with a step by step solution on how to find the force of friction between the snow and the sled. This is an example of constructivist learning because the students must combine different concepts in order to solve this one particular problem. A student that has only memorized facts without understanding will have a difficult time trying to solve for the force due to friction.
The importance of this lesson is that it gets the students to think through the ideas rather than just answer a simple question that they have memorized. Students learn how to take from thier prior knowledge and apply it to new concepts.

Graphic Organizers 2

My students created graphic organizers today! I really think they liked the fact that they got to be creative and use colored pencils while they reviewed physics topics from the beginning of the year. Some students even asked if I could post their organizers around the room! haha.

Graphic Organizers

I have not created a graphic organizer in a long time but after being reintroduced to them I am excited to come up with ways to use it in my classroom. In my class I am always reminding students that we never actually finish a topic, we just keep adding on. I just began Newton's second law in which we discuss force, mass and acceleration. I could use a graphic organizer to have the students connect Newton's second law to everything else that we have done this year. In completing Newton's second law problems the students must remember about vectors, scalars, linear motion, constant velocity, acceleration, adding vectors and using the kinematics equations. I think this would be a good way to review the topics we have covered and see how they all tie into Newton's second law.

Learning Styles

Elementary school classrooms to high school classrooms, they are all filled with a diverse population of learners. There are visual learners, auditory learners and more. Teaching to all the different needs of your students can be a difficult task, but it is one worth doing. I do not necessarily feel that each child needs their specific learning style to learn but a collection of all. I find that differentiating instruction is the most effective way to teach. Not only is the teacher able to reach the many different learners but show students different ways of learning.
In my classroom there are students who feel they learn the best when they recopy thier notes and then study them. The students feel that by memorizing the material they are really learning. Many of my students have previously learned that if they study the material hard enough to rememeber it for a test than they have learned it. I know this to be untrue. By introducing my students to new ways of learning I am trying to ensure that they retain the material.