Reflection #6

Amanda Miller

EDT 3470

01 March 2013

Reflection #6

1.      Technology tools can encourage students to be reflective and evaluate their own strengthens by blogging. For example, blogs offer students space where they can reflect over time about what they are learning. Another way that technology tools can encourage students is my profilerPRO which allows you to identify the learning charachterisitcs of an individual and also amount members of a group. The last suggestion is tools such as SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang which allows you to set up online surveys and use the results to track trends and help students see how their self-assessment compares to the larger group.

2.      There are several ways to get students’ minds ready for a project. Some ways are to tap into student’s prior knowledge to see where they are at. Start by getting students attention and giving the idea time to settle in their imaginations. Encourage students to explore and think about the topic, and to discuss their ideas with friends and at the dinner table for several days. Another way is to invite them to open their minds and eyes to the possibilities before digging in.

3.      The elements of teaching fundamentals is to think about teaching prerequisite knowledge or skills students need in order to work with a degree of independence in their investigations. Student must know more about the project topic in order to actually carry it out. Seeing what ideas and prior knowledge the students have before can benefit the whole class or group.

4.      When preparing students for using technology in a project, it depends. Teacher’s needs to think about what tools are best for the job? What do students already know how to do? What will they need to know? Also, setting up a technology playground for the students to get familiar with would be a good idea as well. Tap student’s expertise and introduce project management tools as well as demonstrate. These are all great ideas to get students prepared for a technology project.

5.      This chapter gives a good amount of suggestions in promoting inquiry and deep learning. First, we must choose questions, plan investigations, and begin to put their plan into action. Another key thing to do to promote inquiry and deep learning is to ask questions to make sure that the students are understanding what they are learning. Ask them a series of yes or no as well as open ended.

6.      Concepts in this chapter relate to our topic/project because the above are all amazing points that we, as future teachers should keep in mind in order to make our project successful. I think that using prior knowledge can really help us as well and become engaged and prepared before doing the project could boost our potential too!