IPT 287, The Voice Threads I watched and what I learned

I watched the following peoples Voice Threads:

Kaylie, Aubrianne, and Laila

When viewing the different things you can do with technology in science classes, I saw that there is so much more you can do. When using physical models to teach science, you are truly limited to only teaching the science idea that that model relates to. On the other hand, you can use a science computer program or a probe to do many different types of science experiences since they have a larger range of features to them. Having this range of uses dose not only get more use out of your equipment, but also saves on having to buy and store items that are more limited on their uses.

Daren's science technology VoiceThread post

Here is my post for my science technology VoiceThread.

IPT 301 Daren and Laila Cognitive Development Disscussion

Daren Parker & Laila Samhouri discussion.

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While talking about Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories, we found that there were parts of both theories that we really liked. When we talked about Piaget’s theory, we felt that his theory had a very good foundation on cognition that showed that some development had to come first before learning occurs. After this learning occurs, we then feel that Vygotsky’s theory builds off this foundation Piaget’s theory set. We then felt that as children continue to grow older Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theory then start to intertwine and are in a way both being used to help a student learn and develop as they grow.

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When it comes to language development, we were both more in agreement with Piaget’s theory on language development. He believes that language was a necessary but not a primary role in logical thinking. We agree with this because an infant has no language ability but is still processing information. Likewise, a deaf child, prior to being able to read, has no interactions with audio or written language, but can still classify and organize information through thinking. But we also agree with Vygotsky that once language is achieved, it does help to strengthen cognition and inner speech.

Daren's IPT287 science technology activity plan

Daren's Science Activity
My science activity will be covering 6th grade science, standard 4: objective 2 using the stellarium technology tool. For this activity, the students in my class are going to be using the stellarium program to locate and identify star consolations in the night sky. The teacher will give each student a list of constellations, star names that are in those consolations, and a specific time of night to look at, and what the constellations look like. It will then be up to the students to look at the night sky and the time given to them and to see if they can find the constellations pattern without using any special features. After they think they have identified a constellation, they can then use the more special features on the program to see if they have the right constellation. (Note. If there is enough time, the teacher can also have the student’s change the time of night they are looking at and see if the students can still find constellations that they found at the other time of night.)

TPACK
Content- We will be doing the Science Core Curriculum Standard 4: Objective 2 which is describing the appearance and apparent motion of groups of stars in the night sky relative to earth. We are doing this by locating and identify stars that are grouped in patterns in the night sky.

Pedagogy- I am using a teaching method where the students are learning how to find star groupings (constellations) are on their own. Doing this helps students internalize the lesson better since they are required to think about different ways to find the constellation. This also goes very well with the content since the focuses is to identify the star groupings. Being able to identify a constellation by themselves is much more effective then just being told where it is by the teacher.

Technology- My class will be using the stellarium technology to look at the night sky. This technology works very well with the pedagogy because it allows my class to look at the night sky on their own at any designated time (in this case, during class). Without this technology, the only time to do this kind of project would be at night with the real sky. Although using the night sky to find consolations would be great for the students, actually doing the project is much harder since you have to worry about weather and you cannot gather the class together at night.

The ups and downs of digital tours

I really like the fact that digital tours give students a lot of freedom to explore by themselves. Many times, when a teacher chooses all of the specific things students are to look, students can get board and not pay attention to the lesson. By being able to choose what they think is interesting, students will be more interested in the tour and will pay better attention. Unfortunately, the disadvantage I see with the digital tour is that it does take a lot of time to make. Going through and selecting all the places and what to look at while there takes a lot more time then just finding pictures on the internet to put on a PowerPoint. Therefor, because PowerPoint is easier, I think teachers will more likely do the PowerPoint presentation.

Also, I looked at the digital tours of Kaylie, Melissa, and Lisa.

ipt 301 social constructivism

Week 7 Social constructivism

1. What types of cooperative learning activates have you experience at both an elementary and college level?

-In elementary school, there were many times when we would have to work together to build model projects. One example was building a noodle bridge. During this activity, all the members had to bring different noodles and then took part in building different parts of the bridge. In collage, a lot of cooperative learning I have done has been in presentations. We would work as a group to put together a presentation during which, different parts were assigned to different people to do. The group relied on each other because if someone did not do their part, the presentation would be incomplete and everybody would get a bad grade on it.

2. In your opinion, do you feel that cooperative learning promotes learning? Why or why not?

-I believe that it can promote learning. By working together, students can help each other come to understand things so that the whole group can be effective in their project. Unfortunately, there are times when other group members may refuse or not care about helping others and just let the other members in the group fall behind, even though it is hurting the group project. In this case, cooperative learning becomes a negative experience.

3. What are the similarities and differences between Reciprocal questioning and instructional conversations?

-The differences between these two is that Reciprocal questioning seems to rely on the teacher for giving or reinforcing ideas while instructional conversations relies more on the students on giving their impute on a subject.
-although they are different, both of these methods are effective on helping students/teachers have a better understanding of the subject matter they are looking at.

4. What are some examples of when you would want to use ability grouping? When would mixed-grouping be more appropriate?

-One reason why I would want to use ability grouping is if I was trying to get just a few students prepared for a single event like a spelling bee or math tournament. Having students of the same ability would be needed for preparing for this since it is a specialized event that not everybody participates in
-For mixed-grouping- I would want to use it in curriculum where I want students to learn from each other. By having different levels of students in a group, students who may not have such an easy time on the subject when it is explained by the teacher may have a better understanding when instruction is coming from their peer who is more at their level and may understand their confusion in a different way from the teacher.

Daren's google Earth world tour on Religious buildings of the world

Here is my Google earth tour on Religious buildings.

Daren's IPT 301 Questions 6

Week 6 Behaviorism

1. List an example of contiguity learning from your own experience both in and outside of school.
-outside of school, as a child I learned through contiguity learning that whenever there was a car with flashing lights or making lots of sound, the car you are in needs to move over to the side because there is an emergency and the important vehicles like the ambulance and fire truck need to get by. As for in the school, a type of contiguity learning I had was during art class. Many times my art teacher would hold up pictures during the class showing different examples of the types of art we were doing. Having these examples helped me to learn the art styles quicker because I had an idea of what the outcome of the art should look like.

2. Describe some effective reinforcements you remember as an elementary school child.
-One of the biggest positive reinforcement I remembered in my elementary class was what we called the paper clip party. In our room we were put into different desk groups. When a group was good, they would get a paperclip that they would hang on a chain from the ceiling. When the paperclip chain reached the desks, that group was allowed to have a desk party during class. This positive reinforcement was very effective in the fact that we always want to behave because we new eventually we would be able to have a fun, enjoyable party during class. This was something that I have never seen done in another class since then.

3. Describe how you could use reinforcement schedules in the classroom.
-First, teachers can do reinforcement schedules by allowing the class to have a longer recess if they behave. A teacher can also have the positive reinforcement of allowing more fun curriculum activities such as children having more time to work on projects while talking to their friends, or having more time to read books of their choice. Both of these cases can work for positive reinforcement scheduling, but there are cases where they may also not work due to the fact that the students of that class may not like the specific positive reinforcement they are getting.

4. Identify potential contradictions between behaviorism and the gospel perspective of agency.
-When you look at our gospel, one of the biggest focuses is that we are given agency. This means that we are able to choice the things that we want to do weather they are right or wrong. Behaviorism does not follow this. With behaviorism, you are trying to control the behavior of the person to get them to do something. This in a senses is taking away choice since you are trying to get them to do only one thing rather than to choice between many things.

Daren's tour standers and reasons

My tour would be focused at 6th grade and would covered the social studies standard 1, Objective 2 which is as follows:

Standard 1
-Students will understand how ancient civilization developed and how the contributed to the current state of the world

Objective 2: Evaluate how religion has played a central role in human history from ancient times to today.

The reason I though to do a Google tour on religious sites is because I feel a student would be better able to understand the impact a religion has on a culture by comparing famous religious structures to the areas surrounding them. By looking at images of these structures and seeing what kind of impact they have on the city, I feel the students would get a better idea on how region has influenced cultures since these structures are right in the middle of their cities rather then out in the middle of no where. I also feel that using the Google tour would be more effective then using pictures due to the fact that the students could actually travel around the city and discover things that have been effected by religion on their own. I felt that this would be much more beatifically then just having the teacher show a lot of pictures of cultures affected by religion.

Daren's Google Earth tour plan

Location	Activity Description	Google Earth Content
1. Vatican in Rome	Students are to find out what church this building belongs too, write down one interesting fact that they found out about the building (historical, structural, etc.), and describe how that structure impacted the city around it.	3D buildings, 360 cities, panoramio.
2. Dome of the Rock in Israel	Students are to find out what church this building belongs too, write down one interesting fact that they found out about the building (historical, structural, etc.), and describe how that structure impacted the city around it.	3D buildings, 360 cities, panoramio.
3. Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris	Students are to find out what church this building belongs too, write down one interesting fact that they found out about the building (historical, structural, etc.), and describe how that structure impacted the city around it.	3D buildings, 360 cities, panoramio.
4. St Paul's Cathedral in England	Students are to find out what church this building belongs too, write down one interesting fact that they found out about the building (historical, structural, etc.), and describe how that structure impacted the city around it.	3D buildings, 360 cities, panoramio.