Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Project #13

This lesson plan addresses Common Core Standard 3 for Science. It is designed for a 1st grade classroom and will to last a week. This is group Miami's Project Based Learning Lesson Plan This is the calendar associated with the lesson plan.

Blog Post #6

In the video "use technology don't teach it" Anthony is discussing several different things he is using in his 3rd grade class to help with teaching. Anthony believes strongly that you cannot teach technology but to allow the kids to teach themselves by using it hands on with direction from a teacher. Anthony says that the best way for students to learn technology is by allowing students to complete their projects by the use of technology. This allows the students to be hands on with technology and to complete coursework while learning in the same process. The teacher should only direct the students and be used as a tool to better the students in their adventure with the use of technology. He also says that each lesson should have some type of technology built in to it and each lesson should be a stepping stone fore the next. This way the students build on their learning experience with technology. At the end of the class the student should be well educated on the use of technology and ready for what the future holds with this way of learning.
In the video "Anthony-Strange Tips for Teacher's Part 1" Anthony and Dr. Strange comes up with a list of tips for Teachers. The way of teaching is changing in the 21st century and these are helpful tips about how a teacher can better themselves and their teaching habits. With new technology and different types of tools learning can be known as "learning on the go." This video was great and honestly goes back to our first day of class where Dr. Strange pointed out that you never stop learning, no matter what age or position you hold. In order to be an effective teacher you must always keep learning and educating yourself on all of the new technology advances along with everyday issues. Most people look at teaching as boring and learning as well, it doesnt have to be that way. The more fun that you have learning and teaching to the students will result in a better class atmosphere and definitely make the class more enjoyable. Technology is definitely giving this opportunity to the teachers so explore, learn and have fun with this new advance way of teaching in the near future.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Douglas Sharpe's EDM310 blog post #5

The Personal Learning Network is a wide variety of tools that allows you to help find people that you could get in touch with to learn new ideas. This network allows you to improve your classroom by learning all of the new technology that is out there for teachers. Teacher's are always trying to learn new ways to make their classroom better and PLN can help with that in many ways. Creating a PLN allows us to communicate world-wide and to meet so many new people. Technology is changing the world in everyday life and especially in the classroom and having a PLN allows us to educate ourselves so we can become a better teacher. I would like to be a college level football coach so I searched on twitter for football coaches and found @coachbriankelly, @BYUfootball and @coachsark, I requested to follow them on twitter so my PLN consist of them so far. I plan on expanding my PLN as I find more coaches on twitter. I believe that this is a great way to meet new people and to have the opportunity of learning how technology can make us more of a well rounded person. I really do look forward to expanding my PLN in the weeks to come.

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Douglas Sharpe's EDM310 blog post #4

It is very important for all of us to ask questions. The process of learning never stops, no matter how old we are or what position we hold in our career a dumb question is one that goes unasked. I believe in order to be an effective teacher we should be well rounded and have a wide variety of life experiences along with an educated brain in a lot of different areas. In this unit of EDM310 I have learned that you must be specific when asking a question. Another key role in asking questions to your class is planning your questions out by knowing what you will ask the class and in what order you will ask them is very important. In doing so, you wont to stay away from the leading questions and to never ask a yes or no question back to back but to ask a simple why or why not after a yes or no question. This will cause the class to discuss their yes or no answer and to always allow 5-10 seconds before you ask for a response from the class. This allows the student the amount of time that they need to ponder the question. You also need to play with questions in some type of way and that is honestly up to the teacher how he/she wants to do so but the main thing is to keep the discussion active. The last thing that I have learned in this unit that seems most important to me is to preserve the good questions until the end. This allows the students time to join in discussion and once you reach the end when it's time to ask "the good questions" each student will be proactive in the conversation where they will end up learning what your trying to teach in the lesson.

Friday, June 6, 2014

Douglas Sharpe EDM310 blog post #3

I have always found it very difficult to peer review a fellow students work. The tutorials in this unit has given me the opportunity to learn what the correct steps are in doing so. Honestly, it has been a confidence booster in showing me the correct way to handle peer reviews. In the past year, I have taken EH 101 and EH 102 at South and dreaded the days that we had to participate in peer reviews. The tutorials in this unit provided us with the 3 basic steps which are compliments, suggestions and corrections all of these are very important while reviewing someone's work. The students that is doing the peer review should always start out with a compliment. There has to be something good about the work that you are reviewing. This helps build confidence for the writer and allows him/her to not get down on about the work that he/she has completed. The next is to offer suggestions, this could be anywhere from changing the title, word choice, using details, organization and sentence structure. The next step is corrections this is focusing in on the paper and being specific about what needs to be changed. This allows the writer to see what he/she did wrong and allows this to fix the paper before it is graded. I have learned a lot from this unit and hope that allows me to progress and do a better job while peer reviewing my classmates work. p

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Douglas Sharpe's EDM310 Blog Post #2

The central message of the video "Mr. Dancealot" is if your going to teach a dance class do not do your teaching behind a desk where the class cannot follow your instructions. The other message that this video is giving us is to always allow your students to ask questions and to give them positive feedback to allow them to understand what is being taught. The conclusion of the video allows us to witness what happens when a teacher does not do a good job explaining what he is trying to teach. I do agree with the authors conclusion because it gives us an example of what happens to the students when a teacher does not do his job correctly. The author Kevin Roberts of "Teaching in the 21st Century" thinks teaching in 21st century is about engaging and not entertainment. The idea of engaging yourself will teach you a lot more about the world we live in today and prepare you for the up's and down's of the real world. I agree with Robert's on his thesis of the way that teaching is changing in the 21st century. The teacher should incorporate all of the everyday tools that we use on a daily basis to better his/her students. as a future educator this will definitely change the way that the classroom will operate during school sessions. For example, the teacher must be well rounded to accomplish these goals in the classroom. This way is definitely more of a hands on approach with the technology that will be used in the classroom and I think this is brilliant the way educating students is headed. My reaction to "The Networked Student" by Wendy Drexler is quite simple. I do think that a student taking a online course or a blended course should always have direction by a teacher to better their learning experience from the class. The teacher should be there for a point of contact, to help the student better understand the task, inform the students if he is doing the course correctly and to also guide the student in the course. All of these are very important in the learning process and the way that technology is changing the way we live on a daily basis. It's very similar to an everyday job that most of us will have. Most jobs are technology based and instead of a teacher we will have a boss that will be our guide if we are stuck at a dead end road. I agree with this type of teaching in colleges and am very proud to take part in this type of learning method. In the video "Harness Your Student's Digital Smarts" by Vicki Davis her thesis is to engage your students in learning how to teach themselves. She said that she allows her students to teach the class and that even she has learned from her students. The key factor of this video to me is that no matter what your age or position you are you never sop learning. The teacher allows her students to communicate via blogging and has created her students with relationships all over the world. This way of learning I think actually makes the student want to learn because it seems to be a lot more exciting and different than the normal way of teaching by books, paper and pencils. The way that she allows the students to teach other students definitely grasped my attention and I think its a great idea. It allows the student to be an instructor and that allows them to be more interactive. This way of teaching definitely prepares the student for college and their future job. The Phrase "Flipping the Classroom" is definitely new to me and actually this the first time I have ever heard of this teaching method. I do think that this way of teaching could be useful to me because it offers the class to flow I believe. If a student incorporates the use of technology with homework I do believe that more students would complete their homework. With more students completing homework, I think it would benefit the teacher by students learning "how to do it on their own type of method." All in all, I think this is a great way of learning.

Douglas Sharpe's EDM310 Blog Post #1

Before starting this class EDM310, the only piece of information that I had received about this class was it was difficult and would take up a lot of my time. So I will be honest and say that yes I was a little fearful about taking this class especially in the summer semester. My schedule this summer allows me to have plenty of time to focus on this class but there is still that fear of what if. Honestly, I do not think any class that I have taken so far in college would prepare me for this class. The reason for that is this class is project based and allows you to let your creativity speak about what type of person you are or want to be in your teaching career. I really do think the most difficult thing for me with EDM310 is being creative, I have never really been a "creative person" but would definitely like to change that with this course. The best way that I can address this is being open minded and to give it my all by doing the best that I possibly can with this class. Honestly, I don't really have any questions about what EDM 310 will be like because I have read the syllabus thoroughly and watched all assigned videos and it's really straight forward to me. I understand that you have to take a professional approach to this class and put the time in that it requires. It really does seems like if you do the things that are required with this class then you will do just fine and have fun while doing so.