I think we have some really great ideas to combat the overuse of lecture style classes in our field of social studies. We came up with a couple ideas for each of our endorsement areas: anthropology, economics, geography, government and politics, history, psychology, and sociology. All involved creating a tool that would help students understand key concepts that we have found to be difficult in our time learning them.
For anthropology, we thought it would enhance student learning to see the different types of skulls of hominins throughout history when studying evolution. We would use the smithsonian website and the african fossil website to find 3D printer templates for the different skulls. In economics, we would create lines for graphs of supply and demand. We would be able to manipulate those graphs to show how different economic factors change the graphs. In geography, we thought we could create a map puzzle using the laser printer. For government we thought we could create a gerrymandering app where students can gerrymander their own districts to get a deeper understanding of the concept. For history, we could use 3D printing to create busts of historical figures so students feel more connected to them. In psychology, we will make a model of a brain, specifically of the different lobes and sections so students can see, feel, and put them together to get a better understanding of where they are and how they work. In sociology, we would make a pie chart with the 3D printer and use that to help with statistics.
Thursday, October 26, 2017
"Human Centered Design" Response
Human centered design is a useful three step process. Inspiration, ideation, and implementation all play a large role in getting new ideas and influences out into the world.
Inspiration is the learning that must take place before ideas can develop. Being open to new things, learning continuously and evolving make up the core of this step.
Ideation is the planning phase. Generating lots of ideas, both good and bad, is what the first step here is. After creating these concepts, you test them and learn from your mistakes to create even better and more advanced ideas. Then you can work on integrating them into your workspace.
Implementation is the step where you take your idea and put it into action in the real world.
This process results in a world where everyone benefits and can work better together through the use of human centered design. Having a theory that can't be easily applied to everyday use is no good; using human centered design you can be sure that your idea will work.
Inspiration is the learning that must take place before ideas can develop. Being open to new things, learning continuously and evolving make up the core of this step.
Ideation is the planning phase. Generating lots of ideas, both good and bad, is what the first step here is. After creating these concepts, you test them and learn from your mistakes to create even better and more advanced ideas. Then you can work on integrating them into your workspace.
Implementation is the step where you take your idea and put it into action in the real world.
This process results in a world where everyone benefits and can work better together through the use of human centered design. Having a theory that can't be easily applied to everyday use is no good; using human centered design you can be sure that your idea will work.
Thursday, October 19, 2017
"Learning Technologies and Educational Equity" Response
The article "Learning Technologies and Educational Equity" really struck a chord with me. Often in education, people see these grand fixes for all the problems within the system and many jump behind this one save-all that in the end doesn't really do much. Educational reform usually follows this pattern. We see one big idea and leap on board then realize that just changing one thing doesn't actually help. It's the same with technology in education.
We saw it with SmartBoards, now with one-to-one distributions of iPads, ChromeBooks, and tablets, the spending is just growing, without thought about if the technology is truly helping students. There are "promises that digital wands will mysteriously extricate us from the systemic failings of schooling. Perhaps the most tenacious lore is the conviction that technology will motivate learning in today's digitally savvy youth." This may even be the opposite of the truth. Many young people see technology as a plaything, not a useful learning tool. The technology itself is NOT going to fix the system. Teachers have to up their game, principals have to up their game, the education system as a whole needs to be changed to accommodate the changing platforms of technology that students are using.
We saw it with SmartBoards, now with one-to-one distributions of iPads, ChromeBooks, and tablets, the spending is just growing, without thought about if the technology is truly helping students. There are "promises that digital wands will mysteriously extricate us from the systemic failings of schooling. Perhaps the most tenacious lore is the conviction that technology will motivate learning in today's digitally savvy youth." This may even be the opposite of the truth. Many young people see technology as a plaything, not a useful learning tool. The technology itself is NOT going to fix the system. Teachers have to up their game, principals have to up their game, the education system as a whole needs to be changed to accommodate the changing platforms of technology that students are using.
Bootcamp Bootleg Response
I found the Bootcamp Bootleg reading to be very insightful. The graphic at the beginning is a very useful tool for educators because it helps remind us what our purpose is in our classrooms.
The modes show different ways we can interact in our classrooms. We must empathize with our students, and understand their point of view; define goes along with this in that we must look over the information we have gathered from empathizing to generate the kind of environment we want in our classrooms. Ideating takes our empathies and definitions and broadens them for use with the entire class. Prototypes come from the learning and interacting that takes place when the other three components are used. Testing has us step back and evaluate what we have done; it takes us back to the beginning to review if what we did was the right choice.
One particular method that struck me was the Why-How Learning method. This would be a useful tool in a social studies classroom. I could use it to help lay out a historical event and discuss why it occurred the way it did; what choices led to it, how it could have been different, etc.
The modes show different ways we can interact in our classrooms. We must empathize with our students, and understand their point of view; define goes along with this in that we must look over the information we have gathered from empathizing to generate the kind of environment we want in our classrooms. Ideating takes our empathies and definitions and broadens them for use with the entire class. Prototypes come from the learning and interacting that takes place when the other three components are used. Testing has us step back and evaluate what we have done; it takes us back to the beginning to review if what we did was the right choice.
One particular method that struck me was the Why-How Learning method. This would be a useful tool in a social studies classroom. I could use it to help lay out a historical event and discuss why it occurred the way it did; what choices led to it, how it could have been different, etc.
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Curation Tools: PLN Step 6
Write a post on your blog about what you learned. The focus here is to reflect on your learning. For example, ‘What did you learn about using curation for building a PLN that you didn’t know?’, ‘What did you like/not like about the popular curation tools?’, ‘What advice did we give that you don’t agree with or we should have included?’ "
I think curation is a great ability for one to have, especially in the education profession, but for any one else as well. I've never used Evernote or Flipgrid but they are both very useful tools. I personally downloaded Flipgrid because I like the idea of using it to get news in one place.
Evernote seems very usable, but I'm not sure that it will replace the document tools I already use. While I like that it is concise and keeps all my files in one place, but since I already use 2-3 apps that do similar things and have all my files on there already, I do not see myself switching to using Evernote singularly.
I wish the article had more comparisons between curation apps, though. It gave many examples of curation apps to use, but it didn't really tell what each one does. It would have been nice to see some comparisons before I had to decide which one I wanted to download.
I think curation is a great ability for one to have, especially in the education profession, but for any one else as well. I've never used Evernote or Flipgrid but they are both very useful tools. I personally downloaded Flipgrid because I like the idea of using it to get news in one place.
Evernote seems very usable, but I'm not sure that it will replace the document tools I already use. While I like that it is concise and keeps all my files in one place, but since I already use 2-3 apps that do similar things and have all my files on there already, I do not see myself switching to using Evernote singularly.
I wish the article had more comparisons between curation apps, though. It gave many examples of curation apps to use, but it didn't really tell what each one does. It would have been nice to see some comparisons before I had to decide which one I wanted to download.
Thursday, October 5, 2017
Response to Chris Emdin's Talk at SXSW
Listening to Chris Emdin's talk about race and society in school at theSouth by Southwest leadership conference was a rollercoaster experience. I really enjoyed listening to him speak and he had a lot of interesting viewpoints, that I personally agreed with. His ideas about the people who think they support underprivileged youth, but don't put those beliefs into practice really made me think about my own beliefs and whether or not my actions reflect them. I was very inspired by his talk and I plan on purchasing and reading his book, "For White People Who Teach in the Hood... And the Rest of Y'all Too".
Response to "Women's History Month: 6 Lesson Plan Resources for Teachers"
Recently, I read a post on Matt Davis' edutopia blog about Women's History Month, which is in March. Read it here: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/womens-history-month-lesson-plans-matt-davis
It may seem silly to be planning lessons that I won't use for months, but I think it makes sense to plan that into the schedule of things I want to cover. I don't want to make a last minute change and not have enough time to cover all the topics I need to in my class.
I loved this blog post! It had great resources for teachers, including fully formed lesson plans for a multitude of grades. Utilizing this time to discuss gender stereotypes in class is a great point that the blog post brought up. That's a hard discussion to have with young minds, especially when you feel strongly, as I do, about it. The post supplies resources to bring up that topic and to enhance your class discussion about it.
It may seem silly to be planning lessons that I won't use for months, but I think it makes sense to plan that into the schedule of things I want to cover. I don't want to make a last minute change and not have enough time to cover all the topics I need to in my class.
I loved this blog post! It had great resources for teachers, including fully formed lesson plans for a multitude of grades. Utilizing this time to discuss gender stereotypes in class is a great point that the blog post brought up. That's a hard discussion to have with young minds, especially when you feel strongly, as I do, about it. The post supplies resources to bring up that topic and to enhance your class discussion about it.
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