1. Suggest a minimum of 3 instructional methods which might motivate the learners to learn.
Think-Pair-Share- First students think individually about something they’ve read or learned individually or as a class. Then they pair up with a partner and discuss the content. Last, students share ideas with the class. Think-Pair-Share gives students time to think, an opportunity to talk with classmates and teachers a way to structure discussions. According to Maria Guadalupe Arreguín-Anderson and Jennifer Joy Esquierdo (2011) Think-pair-Share allows “students to process information, clarify their thinking, and negotiate meaning.”
KWL- "Know, Want to know, Learn"-Students identify what they know about a topic, what they want to know, and after reading or instruction, what they have learned. This strategy helps teachers engage students in their learning and can provide the students with a context for learning. Dona Ogle (2009) created KWL as a way for teachers to “engage their students, so the textbook and the teacher's lessons would be resources for inquiry and learning.”
Jigsaw-Cooperative activity that requires students to read material, meet with an expert group to discuss and learn the material well enough to teach it to others and then report back to a home team to share knowledge. My students always enjoy opportunities to work together. The author of The Jigsaw Classroom, Susan Reese (2009), notes that many of today’s industries (hospitality, health care and engineering) require professionals to work together in diverse teams and implement some of the same techniques used in the Jigsaw strategy. You can learn more about this method at http://www.jigsaw.org/ .
2. From your personal experience, share an undesirable incident which the good methods (tools) had been applied to the inappropriate situations.
Scenario: A teacher stands in front of a class of second graders lecturing about plants. Today is the first day of the new unit. They read a chapter from the science book as a group and the teacher is using the Mimio wireless and an interactive poster to introduce the parts of a plant to the class. She points to each part and asks for student volunteers to explain the function of the part. When she receives no student responses she provides the class with the corresponding page number from the science book and asks for a volunteer to read the section.
What would you propose to do to redirect the specific situation you mentioned above to make learning easier, quicker, and more enjoyable?
Because this is a new unit the teacher could have started with a KWL to get a feel for the students’ prior knowledge. I would give each student an individual KWL to keep throughout the unit and make a class KWL on butcher paper or in Mimio Notebook if I want to embed the technology. I would start by introducing the topic and ask them to write what they know in the “K” section of their individual charts. Students that would like to share can come up and add what they know to the class chart (markers if using butcher paper, or the w/ the stylus if using the Mimio). As a class we would complete the ‘W” together. By completing the want to know section together I can guide students toward key questions that I want them to think about as they read the text (Ogle 2009). The “L” section can be completed individually by students as we complete activities throughout the unit. We can discuss answers as a class before adding any information to the group chart. Students can also continue to add new questions to the group chart as we progress through the unit. There are several interactive websites we can use with this unit. For example, we could use Plants interactive whiteboard chart from Daydream education as a class for guided practice identifying and labeling plant parts and fucntions. I would then bookmark several practice websites for the kids to use independently during computer centers. After identifying plant parts and functions as a group and independently I would pose a question to the students and do a Think-Pair-Share. “Which plant part is the most important? Why?” Depending on student needs I can pair similar learners or I can pair struggling learners with more advanced learners. (Fernsten & Loughran, 2007).
References
Arreguín-Anderson, M., & Esquierdo, J. (2011). Overcoming difficulties. Science & Children, 48(7), 68-71.
Fernsten, L., & Loughran, S. (2007). Reading
Ogle, D. (2009). Creating contexts for inquiry: From KWL to PRC2. Knowledge Quest, 38(1), 56-61.
Reese, S. (2009). The jigsaw classroom. Techniques: Connecting Education & Careers, 84(4), 8.
I use KWL charts at the start of every unit. It is a great way to assess the different tiers of knowledge that is present in the classroom. This is a good assessment to use to form groups. You must keep in mind, especially for the gifted students, not every student is knowledgeable about every topic.
ReplyDeleteYes, I always used them when I was a classroom teacher. I liked having them keep them in the notebooks and work on them throughout the unit. I haven't used them in the lab but I could incorporate it into the beginnging of major units, like cyber safety, to see what the kids already know.
ReplyDeletePamela, great implementation for using technology to redirect the classroom participation.
ReplyDeleteAs stated in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski (2007) state that the strategy of cooperative learning focuses on having students interact with each other in groups in ways that enhance their learning. In my own experience with cooperative learning, I have found that students can relate with their classmates point of view on topics, and find great ways to give each other constructive criticism. I often infuse cooperative learning when reinforcing previously taught material in order to create connections between students and encourage them to work together to form correct answers. “To be prepared for the fast-paced, virtual workplace that they will inherit, today’s students need to be able to learn and produce cooperatively,” (Pitler et al, 2007). This statement is very true in regards to the outlook of our students’ success in future workplaces because our society is becoming a virtual one that can only exist with cooperation.
ReplyDeletePitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using Technology with Classroom Instruction
that Works. Alexandria, VA. ASCD.
Christa, I agree with Pitler's quote. I think that providing our students with opportunities to work together will better prepare them for the workplace of tommorrow.
ReplyDelete