Constructivist Lessons & New Teachers

I am very interested in working with new teachers and I always have enjoyed working with preserve teachers in my classroom. As I was thinking about our discussion on basing lessons on a constructivist problem/solution approach as opposed to a more traditional approach of teaching, I thought about what the undergrads must have been thinking as we are saying what "good" teaching looks like. I know how incredibly overwhelming your first year of teaching is and I know that most first year teachers will be lucky to even get in one lesson/unit in a constructivist framework just because it is so time consuming. Also, to plan a constructivist based lesson/unit you really need to be able to see the whole picture of your curriculum to integrate subjects. Most teachers will not be able to see that until after their first year, or second semester at the very earliest. I think it is so important to give these preservice teachers and first year teachers permission to wait on these types of lessons until they have the basic fundamentals of teaching down first. I would hate for them to beat themselves up for not teaching the way "good teachers teach". It will evolve as they become more comfortable in their position. I think if new teachers are reminded of this, the rate at which teachers change careers after only a few years in the profession may be reduced. Just some thoughts I had that I wanted to share.

PodCasts

I went to the PodCast websites and enjoyed listening to the kids teach me about various topics such as the constitution, fish, and art (Thank you Dr, Schmidt for emailing me the websites). The one thing that stuck me the most was the fluency in reading that I heard in grades 7 all the way down to 1st grade. Those students must have practiced their script several times to be able to read that fluently. They all seemed very knowledgeable of their topics too. I wished they had video to go with them. If they did, my computer did not show it or I didn't understand how to get them to play.

What are the benefits of the Podcasts in the classroom. One benefit would be a deeper understanding of the subject matter. My guess is they learned the information (comprehension), wrote their script (synthesis and evaluation) and then produced the podcast. What a deep learning would take place in this type of project. Reading fluency would improve due to the repeated readings of the script they wrote. Cooperation between group members had to occur which helps with the social aspect of school and the ability to get along and take constructive criticism. Motivation has to be very high in these types of assignments and finally the listening piece by other students.

What would be the uses in the classroom for Podcasts? The two uses that jump right into my head are science and social studies reports and readers theatre scripts or book readings. We could have a whole library at our school of various books being read or reader's theatres scripts that people have written for kids to listen to. It would be easy to record with sound effects and it would be highly engaging for the kids to listen to. For the science and social studies projects, what an awesome way to teach other kids than to listen to Podcasts that kids in earlier years have produced.

Are podcasts better than other technology projects we have learned about in class? I am not so sure. I really like the iPod recordings with pictures and sound that we did at the end of class last week. I am really excited about those for listening to books on tape just because of the visual aspect of those productions. I am also very excited to learn more about talking books. I can't wait to learn how to make those so the sound and animation works.

If I had the equipment at school and I knew how to use it without much relearning, I would do it if it worked into my curriculum and I had a group of kids that could do it. Some years we do have kids we can do just about anything with - some years we do not.

Online Lit Circles and Talking Books

Wow! Great articles.

On Line Lit Circles - I have a friend that teaches 3rd grade in Birmingham Alabama. We team taught a regular ed classroom together for a year due to classroom constraints and we bought 3 sets of classroom books together. I emailed her after I read this article. I also sent her the article. I know we could set something up like this with one or all three of those books this year. Her 3rd graders are operating slightly below our 3rd graders and my 2nd graders are pretty much on grade level so I think it would work. How cool it would be for the kids to interact about a book and not just writing and sending pen pal letters.

The talking books sound so cool. I do power point presentations all the time to introduce a topic or to cover information. I used them much more in middle school than I do now but this idea may be a way to engage the younger students with these kinds of presentations. I love the idea and cant wait to find out how to use the audio and animation features of power point. I have never been successful with the audio part so power point.

The Dark Side of Technology in the Classroom

I read an interesting article in NEA Today about the dark side of technology. It was about how kids will record events that go on in the classroom on their cell phone, take it home and edit it to look like something completely different then post it on You Tube. The article reported about incidents that didn't turn out so bad for the teachers (a teacher performing a cheer to her students in a somewhat provocative way. She was called into administration but not fired) to incidents that made the teacher lose their job or go on probation. I know last year, as a joke to introduce the year, our tech guy showed us a video on You Tube where a kid was recording on his cell phone in the classroom. The video showed a student run up from the back of the class, pull the teachers pants down to his ankles and then run out of the room. All the students in the classroom were screaming with laughter. It had been posted on the web for all to see. A middle school or high school teachers worse nightmare. He showed us other videos that kids had recorded of teachers reprimanding (screaming at) individual kids, tackling kids, or yelling at the whole class. Though I know behavior like that is not acceptable, it is not up to the students to expose it. I think in all this technology training, the one piece we cant forget is the social responsibility we need to teach to kids. What is the acceptable way and what is the unacceptable way to use this technology in schools. Though we are mostly elementary teachers, it has to start from day one.

Yesterday was an "F" day at my school so I took Dr. Schneider's advice and did a publishing party. The kids sat in two groups and read their writing with their peers. It was awesome and I heard the kids say that they loved it too. We are always going to do that on "F" days - what a great management idea. I always struggled with trying to fit in the reading piece to writers workshop and this worked great. Thanks for the idea Dr. S!!!!!

Tim Stednitz Lesson Plan

Getting To Know Numbers
Getting to know numbers is the lesson I chose to review. It focuses on calendars, odd/even, and counting on/counting back. There were not many lessons to choose from for the primary grades. I like this lesson to teach calendars. I have been wanting to do calendars every month for the kids and I like the idea of using handhelds to reinforce how a calendar is set up, the abbreviations it uses, and then finding important dates. Birthdays are always a big deal to 2nd graders (to all kids) so I know the subject matter will be engaging. I am not so sure it teaches odd/even but it does offer practice and reinforcement of this concept. I couldn't get the PrizeWheel to come up (I couldnt find it) but that did sound fun to count up and to count back with numbers. Input and output are concepts I found needed to be explicitly taught to 2nd graders so this would be a good reinforcemnt activity. I will bring the lesson to class.

Kidspiration

My school does have Kidspiration and I did get on it this week and it is cool. I really love the writing templates. There is one on there that helps kids write a friendly letter. You fill in the blanks and then transfer it over to word and you have your letter. It is really fun. I think I am going to use it soon in my classroom. I am going to have the kids do their own idea web for writers workshop on it. I think they will like it.

I will bring in my slide show from KidsPix but it is not the way I wanted it to turn out but I have invested way too much time into it and it was suppose to be a student project. I am not so sure I will do it next year. However, most of my time spent was learning the program. Doing and undoing, saving and resaving. It has been a true learning experience.

Also, if you are interested in showing the class what the webkins web site looks like, I can give you matthews user name and password and we can explore it on Wednesday. He doesnt use it much - he is very much an outside boy but you mentioned that it would be fun for everyone to see what kids are doing at home so I thought I would offer.