Collaboration & Spanish/English Books
A note about Collaboration experienced today was that I might have to take a large section of a cooperating teacher's unit to integrate informational literacy skills as well as what is important in the curriculum for the subject.
Taking one aspect of their large curriculum kills too much time.
It has also been observed that there is a need for more Spanish & English together in books. I think that it would be good to have the same Spanish and the same English in one book as well as one story infused with both languages.
I am going to look into this issue to see what resources I can find.
I have also observed a social studies class in which constructivists methodologies of integrating many styles of learning occurred but there was the freedom of choice involved too. Of course, technology in this instance, helped make the students' commercials successful and fun and interesting. I believe technology can have made other students' projects more successful if they used it as well as their creative songs used.
This brings about a sensitive area where we do not want to loose the singing and creative strategies the students are using and just train them to be technical about everything.
Perhaps not grading on the use of technology but the content and how well the learned message was taught on part of the students and how well of a job they did presenting their lesson to the class would be a good agenda for a teacher who has to grade with several methods. Being an observer in this instance, I liked that 2 student groups that did not use technology used a song and transformed it into a lingo for their social studies assignment. This was well applauded by me as well as the technology savvy group because of the way it was received by me. Of course, what should be most important is how much they learned about the project and how much their performance helped the class...Then again, that technology project invigorated energy and excitement through the classroom. I believe this is significant in maintaining interest about ancient civilizations.
posted by Jackson Magann @ 10:05 AM
2 Comments:
First of all, it will be better if you make POSTS and don't add comments. Your "comments" are POSTS -- This way you can check my comments under your posts. Your LMS can also comment if she wants to provide feedback.
I don't get the comment about taking one aspect of their large curriculum-- and how it kills too much time. Is there a World Language curriculum? Usually you DO focus on one aspect of the large curriculum! Do the language teachers not use a text book? If so, clearly it isn't sufficient.
I also did not understand the section about constructivist methodologies. You mentioned the commercials, but I have no context of what the goals and objectives or standards and essential question(s) are for that project. Freedom of choice is a constructivist strategy.
When you write a POST I think you will have to pre-determine 1-2 topics rather than write about everything in a "stream of consciousness" style -- then provide some concrete information about those 1-2 topics. This post could have dealt with examples of constructivist strategies viewed, for example.
If during a day you have several topics (which I imagine will happen), then enter each topic under a separate post. This will help me to better understand what is happening and how you are reflecting on the experiences.
Thanks,
Bill
Thank you for leaving a comment Bill. I will pass the information along to the other LMS's.
I am sorry about the inexplicable comment about the curriculum aspect. I have been developing this notion further and I will now attempt to elaborate.
As a media specialist, I know information literacy skills are a major part of the curriculum and that it even has allocated standards for it. My idea of the change for a media specialist, if integration is happening at all, moving from taking one small aspect from the students' current curriculum from a course outside of information literacy and applying it to the information literacy/computer skills class might not be as valuable as if a predetermined unit from each of the predetermined disciples can be integrated into the information literacy classes.
Instead of working on all of the Microsoft Office applications with just random topics or searches, to make them more directed toward other disciplines.
Although the media specialist would not be fully trained in Science, Math, Social Studies, Art, Music, Physical Education, etc., the Media Specialist has had some if not much post-secondary education in those fields in which he or she can associate practical applications to the media resources. Of course, mandatory collaboration if not co-teaching for the aforementioned would be implemented.
I am currently devising a lesson plan that would integrate information literacy and social studies. For this particular lesson, I am demonstrating how to graph using Excel. I know this has never ever been an exciting thing for me to learn. It is essential to know. As I was perusing the Social Studies curriculum, I noticed a need for the review of the Renaissance and in particular for some notable Italian cities.
I did some research looking for the populations of those towns at 3 different intervals of time surrounding the years of the Renaissance.
These numbers and their meanings can be analyzed by the students who would be studying the Renaissance anyway. They can cover Information Literacy Standards as well as Social Studies ones that would involve Historical Thinking, Applying History, Geography: Places, and World History all by doing an excel graph.
I can not see the value in creating a graph on artificial values that are insignificant to the students.
If they find the Information Literacy classes easy, this is a way to create a challenging aspect to it.
I hope this can be understood.
Changing the subject to the commercials demonstrated in the social studies class I observed, I used the word but instead of and.
"I have also observed a social studies class in which constructivists methodologies of integrating many styles of learning occurred but there was the freedom of choice involved too."
Sorry, that is an error on my part. I was just making note of the freedom of choice and how some students used technology to portray their message and others created their own music.
I have no idea of what the goals or objectives were for that class. I was invited to observe the class minutes before takeoff and afterwards the teacher had a meeting to attend so I had no follow-up unfortunately.
My observation led me to consider technology's impact, if it is made mandatory, on the potential loss of natural creative behaviors such as singing a cappella. What the students are able to conquer in life if they are able to sing in front of other preteens might be amazing instead of recording themselves through video, editing to make themselves perfect, and thus creating a sense of isolation where their presentation will probably speak for them too.
I have analyzed the situation completely. I know technology is beneficial, but I like to consider what I see as a potentially lost art. I enjoy art and would not like to see it eliminated.
On a last note, I have realized how to properly POST and not just comment. Sorry for the delay in learning that.
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