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Title: Image obtained from: http:www'sethwhite'orgimagespalmer2004palmer sceneryantarctica 4'jpg


1
Building Better InstructionPondering
Penguins other themes
  • Susan Bowdoin
  • MSET 365
  • 2/11/2006

2
  • Listen to teachers as they plan their instruction
    and youll often hear them talk about doing
    topics
  • doing apples in September
  • doing pumpkins in October
  • doing the 50 states
  • doing fractions or multiplication
  • doing Shakespeare
  • doing the Revolutionary War

3
But what does doing these topics mean?
  • Completing worksheets
  • Filling in coloring dot-to-dot pages
  • Decorating bulletin boards with student-generated
    thematic material
  • Eating thematic snacks
  • Singing thematic songs
  • Reading chapters in a textbook
  • Giving a fact-based oral presentation
  • Writing a paper on the collected facts

4
But what about Blooms?
  • Worksheets
  • Coloring pages
  • Bulletin boards
  • Snacks
  • Songs
  • Fact sheets
  • Reading, writing about, and presenting facts
  • Some of these activities are fun, others are
    necessary, but they focus primarily on lower
    levels of Blooms taxonomy.

Why not use these topics or themes to push
students to think at higher levels?
5
A real story
  • A group of Kindergarten teachers were excitedly
    preparing for their January theme.
  • They were doing penguins.

6
  • The teachers had been encouraged by the school
    principal to use technology with their students,
    so they went to their computer lab assistant and
    asked her to find web sites with printable
    penguin coloring sheets for their students.

7
  • After hearing this request, the computer lab
    assistant thought,
  • Theres got to be a better use of instructional
    time and computer equipment.
  • What can I do?

8
  • She thought about the skills that primary
    students were expected to master. Among these
    were
  • learning how to ask good questions
  • learning to take turns
  • using complete sentences to communicate with
    others
  • comparing and contrasting two similar things

9
  • She did some searching online and discovered that
    several zoos in the United States had penguin
    keepers with email addresses posted on their web
    sites.

http//www.stlzoo.org/yourvisit/hourspricesdirecti
ons.htm
10
  • She contacted the penguin keepers from three zoos
    to see if they would be willing to correspond
    with the primary students.
  • The response from the keepers at the Chicago Zoo
    was even better than shed hoped.

11
  • Not only were they willing to correspond with the
    students, they suggested setting up a video
    conference so that the students could actually
    ask their questions while hearing and seeing the
    keepers responses!

http//www.biocomp.net/adbcam.jpg
12
  • The teachers and students worked for a week to
    prepare for the video conference.
  • Teachers asked,
  • What do you already know about penguins?

Hey, thats asking for prior knowledge!
13
  • Students made lists of what they already knew and
    what they wanted to know.
  • Then they helped to write questions and practiced
    asking them in front of their peers.

14
  • On the day of the video conference all of the
    primary classes gathered in the library. A
    projector was set up so that all of the students
    could see the video image of the penguin keepers
    in Chicago.

http//hepweb.rl.ac.uk/ppep/exhibits/Projector/pro
jector_picture.gif
15
  • Students took turns going to the front, standing
    in front of the camera, and asking their
    questions.
  • The Chicago penguin keepers responded immediately
    with answers and additional information which
    teachers recorded.

16
  • To connect the penguin investigation to something
    that would be more meaningful to students in New
    Mexico, the teachers brought in a guest speaker
    on roadrunners. Students used the same process
    to prepare for the guest speaker.

Southwest landscape image obtained 2/11/2006
1131 PM from http//www.cibolaoutpost.com/images
/moon-L.jpg
17
  • Students then used Venn diagrams to compare the
    birds.
  • The teachers asked questions like
  • What similarities do you see between the birds?
    What differences do you see?
  • Are the birds more alike or more different?
  • Which bird is best suited to where it lives?

18
Now you compare
  • Lesson 1 Theme-based activities including
    worksheets, coloring sheets, snacks, songs, and
    learning factual information on penguins.
  • Lesson 2 Inquiry-based investigation of penguins
    including fiction and non-fiction, discussion
    with subject matter experts, analysis of
    information collected and comparison with a
    locally known bird.

19
In which lesson are higher levels of Blooms
Taxonomy addressed?In which lesson are learners
actively engaged in asking questions and
discovering answers?
20
What role does technology play in the two lessons?
21
Lesson 1
  • Falls short because
  • focus on lower level thinking skills
  • no stated goals or objectives or connection to
    Standards. Why do students need to know about
    penguins?
  • weak use of technology

22
Lesson 2
  • does a better job of focusing students on higher
    level thinking skills.
  • much stronger use of technology to support the
    learning process.
  • Still falls short because
  • there are no stated goals or objectives (though
    primary outcomes were considered in the lesson
    design.)

23
A well-constructed lesson
  • is standards-driven
  • is focused by stated objectives/outcomes for what
    students will learn
  • contains a concrete plan for how student learning
    will be assessed

24
Objectives include

25
Sample Objectives
After participating in a video conference and a
local presentation, students will be able to
  • analyze Venn Diagrams to compare and contrast
    penguins and roadrunners.
  • describe two similarities and two differences
    between penguins and roadrunners.
  • determine which bird is best suited for survival
    in its environment.

Audience Behavior Conditions Degree
26
Your turn!
  • Create an objective for one of the following
  • adding double-digit numbers
  • learning the geographic regions of the United
    States
  • conjugating French verbs
  • writing complete sentences
  • explaining the scientific process
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