Reading Reflection #3

Discussion on what should be considered in finding “the Big Idea” for a project.

Page 45 states: "After you identify the overarching concepts and processes you want your students to understand, reflect on why these concepts are important." Applying what you want your students to learn with real life is one of the first steps to finding the "Big Idea" for a project. "Who cares about this? Who does it touch?" is the next step. Being able to tie in people from the real world rather than just school is a way to grab students' attention. When it comes to a project that offers value to their community, they are more willing to do the project and are more invested in learning. 

Discussion on the 2lst Century skills.

Coming from Bloom's Taxonomy:

(Knowledge, Comprehension, Synthesis)

(1) Analyze: examine, explain, investigate, characterize, classify,compare, deduce, differentiate, discriminate, illustrate, prioritize.

(2) Evaluate: judge, select, decide, justify, verify, improve, defend, debate, convince, recommend, assess.

(3) Create: adapt, anticipate, combine, compose, invent, design, imagine, propose, theorize, formulate.

(4) Develop criteria, compare, justify.

- Students will understand what you want then to as long as your project is well designed and organized. Thinking beyond subject mastery to the important skills, attitudes, and habits of mind your project might involve (pg.47).

Discussion on the 21st Century literacies.

Learning to be independent is the 21st Century Literacies number one goal. To be independent while being aware and productive to those who are around you (in any circumstance). Using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts help the ability of literacy. Communication and collaboration also influences this knowledge which also supports individual learning.

Discussion on each of the essential learning functions.

(1) Ubiquity: Learning, Inside and Outside the Classroom, and All the time.

- Providing the opportunity for students to learn anywhere at any given time. Finding tools that will encourage this PBL and ubiquity will help students learn wherever and whenever they want to learn. 

- i.e Cell Phones, Web Applications, Google Docs, Flickr.

(2) Deep Learning

- Go beyond filtered information and help students make sense of raw information. Students need to learn how to have a higher-order of thinking. In order to do so, they would need to achieve the goals of these skills: navigating, sorting, organizing, analyzing, and making graphical representations. 

- i. e Video On Demand, real-time data sets, Primary Source Archives. 

(3) Making Things Visible and Discussable

- For those are are visual learners; making things visible help students have a better understanding of what they are learning about. Examining things such as historical artifacts, experimenting with science, expressing ideas through photography or film. "A picture is worth a thousand words." 

- i. e Visual Thesaurus, Google Earth, Flickr, FreeMind Mindmapper.

(4) Expressing Ourselves, Sharing Ideas, Building Community

- Personal interaction through using the internet has broadened the learning ability of many students. Facebook, Myspace, Instant messenger...using things like these in the classroom to help students communicate with one another is such a great idea.

- I know a professor who uses Twitter during his lecture; allowing students to ask questions or comment on things he is saying without having to raise their hand to speak aloud if they aren't much of a public speaker (or for other reasons). This gives a reason for students to come to class and want to learn something. They are using technology that they use in every day life in the classroom! Such a great idea.

(5) Collaboration: Teaching and Learning with Others

- Using universal technologies to communicate and learn with others. 

- i. e Skype or any other shared application.

(6) Research

- In order for students to learn how to research, they need to be taught was is valid information and what is not. Just because it's on the internet, doesn't mean it's true! 

- Citation Machine, ASK for Kids.

(7) Project Management: Planning and Organization

- Allows students to manage time, work, sources, feedback, drafts, and products during projects. Certain folders for certain things, having a homepage ready for use. 

- Desire 2 Learn, Moodle, iGoogle

(8) Reflection and Iteration

- Examining all sides and all points of view. 

- TUMBLR is a really good example of this. Those of you who do not know what it is, it's basically a blog site where people from all over the world are able to share thoughts and feelings with one another. I post to this blog every day, mostly pictures about what I usually dream about: traveling, Harry Potter, my favorite bands, fashion...anything! I follow people from all over the world that share the same interests with me. It's a great way to pass time or to learn about other countries with out being in school. Learning on your own terms is a great way to express your learning style and your ability to learn on your own.  

Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

- Time management is really important for our project. Having things due at a certain time throughout the semester really helps with being able to control what we do and how well we do it. 

- Communication: We use out phones to text each other to keep each other up to date on what we are doing for the project. 

- We have been researching information to help us learn more about Weather Monitoring. 

- We have been creating multiple visuals that help us and outsiders understand what it is we are trying to teach and/or present.