ENGAGE:
TED talk on motivation: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
As STEM educators we are supposed to teach
students how to think. Why should they be learning about math? Will it help
them later in life? Do some incentives demotivate or hurt students (Could this
be connected to grades)? According to Dan Pinic, the “Mechanistic reward and
punishment approach does not work for 21st century tasks.” Why then,
do we use a reward and punishment approach in our school system? Rewards narrow
the mind, and focus the worker on one task. This may not be bad for performing plug
and chug homework problems, but if we want the students to really think and see
what they really know (I.E. projects, essays, group talks ect…) then there
should not be a reward/punishment system because it restricts student responses
and strangles creativity.
If students are afraid of getting a bad grade
because of their essay response, project idea, or group discussion thought,
they are likely to stick to the “normal response.” They might be afraid that
going out on a limb and doing something different might not be accepted or fail
and give them a bad grade. Therefore, I think it would be interesting to see
how students performed on essays, group discussions, and projects if they were
not given a grade on the subject, but rather given time and resources to do
whatever they wanted to fulfill their own inquisitive mind. This type of “do it
yourself” thinking is performed during something called “20% time” at Google
headquarters. During 20% of their time, workers are able to work on what they
want, where they want, how they want, with who they want. Not too surprisingly,
over 50% of Google’s major projects are created during this time, including
gmail. I say, all the more reason we should include something like this in our
schoolrooms!
The main goal of universal learning was to make sure that
“no student is left behind.” Every form of education available was utilized in
order to make sure that the students with language barriers or learning
disabilities were not left in the dust. This incorporates a lot of the concepts
talked about in the “Learner-Centered environment” in our How People Learn textbook. The focus is on the learner, making sure
they are thinking about and understanding the concept at hand. One potential
problem that I see with this method of “universal learning” is that it could be
possible for some students to be held back from their full potential (Like many
other forms of instruction). I think that if the teacher is reviewing a topic
in too many ways it could make the subject boring for some of the normal or
more advanced learners and could discourage them from getting a deeper
understanding of the subject. This may not be the case all of the time, but I
believe it is something that must be looked for.
Below is a brief summary of Universal
Learning as described in the video:
Three principles of Universal learning:
1. How do we help the learner pick up
information?
A:
We use multiple representations (Auditory, visual, and tactile materials)
--Multiple means of representation
· Make sure every child can precieve it
·
Use
language and symbols
· Make sure the information is comprehensible
2. How does the learner Express information?
A:
Let them use drawing, written expression, or converse about the information
--Ask
learners to express what they know
· Provide options for physical expression (For
every level)
·
Provide
options for expression and fluency (I.E. writing and drawing, spekaing)
· Provide options for executive functions
(Setting goals, organizing, planning acts, monitoring projects, “executive
work”)
3. How is the learner Engaged in the
information?
A:
Help them get motivated, excited, and passionate about learning
--How to get students engaged (Engage,
sustain, regulate
· Provide options for recruiting interest
·
Sustain
learning
· Provide options for “self-regulation”
The four main parts of a universal learning
classroom
1. What are the goals? (To teach a subject?
To make the students think?)
2. What are the materials in the classroom?
(What are on the walls? What materials should the student bring to class, how
much technology is involved?)
3. What are the methods? How does the teacher
teach? (Groups, lectures, real life experiences, models, ect…)
4. How are the students assessed? How do we
know learning occurs? (Do we use written tests? Verbal tests? Projects?
Discussions? Worksheets? How can it be made fair for everyone?)
EXTEND:
I thought the website and video regarding how
students interpreted graphs was pretty interesting. I never had a problem
reading graphs as I always read the both of the axis before I tried to
interpret the graph. This made looking at the graph much less confusing once I knew
what the directions were defined by. Almost all of the science portion of the
ACT is testing a student’s ability to read and interpret graphs and thus is a
very important skill in the academic field. Not to mention in the real world,
most representations of data and information are done in some sort of graph!
Therefore, it is imperative that students can comprehend and read graphs with
ease. This website is a great resource to help teachers better understand how
to help their students look for certain parts of concepts that might be trouble
spots for them.
ON
MY OWN:
During my free time I have become very
intrigued by mental mathematics. Through doing so I found a link to some really
cool “mental math games” that help sharpen the mind by performing simple mental
mathematics exercises in a fun and “video game” type of way.
Additionally, I found another site that gives
a good “ground and pound” method with flash cards of mental math exercises that
could be useful for teachers and students alike!
I hope you find these resources to be as
helpful as I have! I had a really good use for them as I performed my clinical
interview on mental mathematics, but I believe that sharpening up your mental
math abilities never hurts and is always something impressive to show your
students. I remember calling my 8th grade math teacher the “human
calculator” because of the mental math functions he could perform in his head,
and he earned the respect of every student in the class after regularly
performing mental math operations.
READINGS: Knowing and Learning chapters 4 and 7
All of chapters 4 through 7 covered various
techniques that could be applied to the classroom. These included chalk talks,
see-think-wonder, think-puzzle-explore. 3-2-1 bridge, and many more. Each had
their own unique advantages that they brought to the classroom and will be very
useful to me when I am planning out lessons. We had a discussion about chapters
4,5, and 6 through my online class (Knowing and Learning) and each student
created their own lesson plan that included one of these techniques. These were
very unique and had never been created before (for the most part), thus
creating over 20 STEM related lesson ideas that our class can pull from in the
future. I think that the techniques discussed in this book are great tools that
can be used to engage the student in learning, keeping their attention while
they are excited about learning. Giving the student a different environment
other than a “lecture” helps make the classroom a more fun and exciting place
because it is abnormal. I believe that our psyche subconsciously seeks out
adventure and therefore students who are presented with learning new material in
a different way will jump at the opportunity to learn and will be much more
engaged in the topic.
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