Standard 8 Instructional Strategies
Rationale:
I really enjoy creating a variety of assignments that appeal to learners in various ways. Here I have included several artifacts that demonstrate how I can apply several different strategies to one lesson. For the visual learners I always start and finish a unit with a visual power point presentation that demonstrates the key points and ideas of the lab. While talking about the information in the power point I would model what they would be doing while conducting the lab (8e) For the kinesthetic learners our inquiry based labs were all hands on and involved problem solving. Some activities I used were from scitunes where they listened to a song to learn new information. The worksheets that went along with it they did independently and this helped to encourage those students that do not do as well working in groups (8h). With each activity their were a variety of assessments varying from written summaries to presentations of learned material (8b). While most of my "lectures" were inquiry driven and probed students using open ended questions (8i) discussing what we learned. As a group we would take notes about the highlights and then they were asked to write a conclusion, or a summary box to pull it all together. I believe that learning through inquiry is the best format but found it important to still have the power point presentations that were visual and summarized the information in a different format. I was fortunate to have the ability to teach both my mentor teacher and the students how to use and implement Google Docs into the classroom. This was a great forum where we could share ideas, notes, and resources in a virtual format (8g). It was not uncommon for me to use a youtube video to help engage the students and reenforce an idea that we were covering(8n,8o). I also utilized other teachers in the edmodo science forum to help generate ideas for teaching a topic or presenting the material. I connected students with each other and myself by using edmodo and a resource I found for studying next generation science standards called BRAINGENIE. In each of these programs students can send notes to each and ask questions and play "games" that reinforced the topics we were covering(8q and 8r). As I have already demonstrated, I am very flexible in my teaching process and willing adapt my class to the learners and their engagement (8s).
I really enjoy creating a variety of assignments that appeal to learners in various ways. Here I have included several artifacts that demonstrate how I can apply several different strategies to one lesson. For the visual learners I always start and finish a unit with a visual power point presentation that demonstrates the key points and ideas of the lab. While talking about the information in the power point I would model what they would be doing while conducting the lab (8e) For the kinesthetic learners our inquiry based labs were all hands on and involved problem solving. Some activities I used were from scitunes where they listened to a song to learn new information. The worksheets that went along with it they did independently and this helped to encourage those students that do not do as well working in groups (8h). With each activity their were a variety of assessments varying from written summaries to presentations of learned material (8b). While most of my "lectures" were inquiry driven and probed students using open ended questions (8i) discussing what we learned. As a group we would take notes about the highlights and then they were asked to write a conclusion, or a summary box to pull it all together. I believe that learning through inquiry is the best format but found it important to still have the power point presentations that were visual and summarized the information in a different format. I was fortunate to have the ability to teach both my mentor teacher and the students how to use and implement Google Docs into the classroom. This was a great forum where we could share ideas, notes, and resources in a virtual format (8g). It was not uncommon for me to use a youtube video to help engage the students and reenforce an idea that we were covering(8n,8o). I also utilized other teachers in the edmodo science forum to help generate ideas for teaching a topic or presenting the material. I connected students with each other and myself by using edmodo and a resource I found for studying next generation science standards called BRAINGENIE. In each of these programs students can send notes to each and ask questions and play "games" that reinforced the topics we were covering(8q and 8r). As I have already demonstrated, I am very flexible in my teaching process and willing adapt my class to the learners and their engagement (8s).
This is an example of an introduction power point for lab 3. It includes information about the test we were doing, what the results could look like, how to set up their trays, the lab safety information and their homework for the night.
This is a data table used to collect the data within the lab, helping them to organize the information they collected in the lab and providing them with a couple questions to analyze the data.
Here is an example of a template I created and shared in Google Docs to collect an entires class data for discussion. This was a lot of fun and lead to a great conversation piece for discussion. This was a shared document and the students had to type in their own information using their group color.
This is an example of the notes that we took as we discussed the lab and its important concepts. I probe students with open ended questions and then type them up as we talk. Students were also responsible to typing the notes as we spoke in order to help aid in their learning and the retention of the material.
This is an example of a student conclusion that proves how students can take this information that we have accumulated from the hands on lab, the notes and class discusion and how one student pulled it all together and answered all of the questions that were asked of him. Their is also a copy of the rubric that I created to grade these conclusions.
The rest of these documents were just assignments I used to aid in students learning and the graphic organizers I used to help them really remember the material and pull out the key components.
This is the graphic organizer I used to help students learn to take notes and pull pertinent information from the article.
This is just one more example of a method I used to help students to brainstorm similarities and differences between sugars and starches. This helped students to look a little more critically at what they had learned and what they knew about sugars and starches(8e, 8f). While some students struggled with this open ended assignment once they figured it out, they really started putting in the extra effort and expanding on the concepts.
While this is not a real complex crossword, but, it was used to introduce the vocabulary to the students for this unit. I gave them a word bank and asked them to look at the definitions and look up words they didn't know to kick start the vocabulary they were going to be learning.
This is just a graphic organizer to help pull out the important information about the food pyramid. Using a graphic box like this really seems to help students learn the material. The other graphic organizer for this unit was about the essential nutrients and was formatted the same way as this one but helped to reinforce the nutrient article they had already read.