As We Depart

It is sad to say that this is our last class and it is now time for my last post on the semester. Throughout this course I learned a lot of valuable content that I will take with student teaching and further experiences. One aspect that I really enjoyed from this course was blogging. Blogging seems tedious and a waste of time, but it is actually the opposite. Writing every week helps you summarize what you did on that specific week and it also helps organize your thoughts. I plan on implementing this within my classroom and I hope I have enough time to do it as well. Another attribute that really helped me excel in this course was incorporating the different means of technology. Being an ITE major I knew a couple of ways to implement technology, but this class goes more in depth with the concept. I learned how to use technology through the direct, inquiry, and cooperative lesson plans. These three lesson plans were vital to learn with teaching at Bishop Dunn. Before this class began we were required to fill out a self evaluation sheet based on the concepts that were taught in this course. There were a few pieces of content that I was unfamiliar with, but I can see the growth I made throughout the course. Some of these concepts included: the different types of lessons, using some technology tools and a few other aspects. One of the first attributes that we learned in this course were the three lesson plan formats. Through this we were asked to use them within our teaching session at Bishop Dunn. It took a little while to get the idea of how to write the three lessons, but Dr. Smirnova guided us through the process. With her help and collaboration from my peers I learned how to write a well formatted lesson. Through this course we were also asked to research some philosophy of teaching. My philosophy of teaching would follow a constructivism approach. The constructivist involves students to learn by experiencing certain aspects. This would be through the inquiry method where it states hands on, minds on. Students are manipulating materials or reflecting on their experience. According to Concept of the Classroom, "Constructivist teachers encourage students to constantly assess how the activity is helping them gain understanding. By questioning themselves and their strategies, students in the constructivist classroom ideally become "expert learners" (p. 1). As mentioned before this philosophy will help students become expert learners. Relating the concept to expert learners can be correlated to the Bloom's Taxonomy Pyramid. This concept was also taught throughout the course and is meaningful for teachers to follow by. In my other ITE courses, this concept is mentioned through the issue of technology and how to implement the vocabulary of Bloom's Taxonomy within a lesson plan. Using these key terms will help you construct a better lesson plan. This theory will help students reach a higher level and will also help reach mastery level on the content. I plan on using this through teaching because it will supply a guideline for the students and myself. Before starting this course, I knew I was going to have a hard time with teaching Social Studies because it is not my favorite subject. At the end of Social Studies I was a little more comfortable with the content and it also helped that I had a chance to look everything over. I am glad that I took this course at the end of my college career and I am happy to know that I learned a lot in this classroom. This successful course would have not been possible if it wasn't for Dr. Smirnova. She pushed me to excel and go above and beyond expectations. This outlook inspired me to be a better me. I would like to finish this last blog with a quote by Sidney Sugerman, "Teach the young people how to think, not what to think."

Tying It Altogether

It's astonishing that this is the second to last class of the semester. This class was designated to tie up all the concepts we learned throughout this class. Instead of doing an exam, Dr. Smirnova decided to do a mock interview. The class picked four administrators to provide questions to our fellow teacher candidates. I was asked to be one of the administrators from my group and accepted the challenge. Through this I had come up with questions based on the topic I was asked to present. The topic that I chose was the inquiry method. My main reason I chose the inquiry method is because the only way I retain information is through hands on activities. The inquiry method implements this theory in order for the students to learn. After my other fellow administrators picked which method they were focusing on; it was our duty to construct a few warm up questions and questions based on our topic. Honestly, I had a difficult time constructing a few questions to ask. All questions had to be an open ended responses and they should apply to the mock school that we are creating. While contemplating the questions I decided to construct my school through a Montessori approach. This type of school will allow students to use the inquiry method to learn new content. According to the American Montessori Society, The classroom is prepared by the teacher to encourage independence, freedom within limits, and a sense of order. The child, through individual choice, makes use of what the environment offers to develop himself, interacting with the teacher when support and/or guidance is needed (p. 1). Through my mock school, I wanted teachers to follow this attribute within their classroom. Teachers should be helping their students gain that sense of independence and free will. These are a few attributes that I considered through the interview process and building the questions. Most of the questions that I made up relate to this approach and I was interested to see what my fellow teacher candidates had to say regarding the questions. Listed below are the scenarios and questions that we came up with. Please feel free to look through them!

It was now time that we implemented the questions to the teacher candidates and see their responses. Before we started the interview process, we each had to explain a little bit about our school. Which theory we rely on the most and what type of demographics we have. One by one we gave a short presentation on what we expect out of the following teacher candidates. After we introduced ourselves, we started off in our groups from Bishop Dunn. One of the first questions I asked was, "I know that you have been in Dr. Smirnova’s class, where she used the principles of Flipped classroom. How and will you use flipped teaching/ learning in your social studies classroom?" Some fellow teacher candidates were unaware of this terminology and were confused by the question. Other fellow teacher candidates came up with good answers based off of what they do know. One answer in particular caught my eye was the jigsaw method. The teacher candidates explained why this would be a good method and how they would implement it within their classroom setting. When each group was done answering this warm up questions they were then asked to pick out of the bag and read the number off the paper that they picked. I did it this way because I wanted to make it fair for everyone

in the group. Everyone in the group had different questions and they all had different answers. All of the groups used academic language that was needed for this interview and they made excellent eye contact. The one suggestion I had for the entire classroom was not use the tool Voki for all the inquiry lessons. This tool is just there to engage the students in the beginning of the section. There are other tools such as: web quests, experiments, etc. All of the administrators went to each group and presented their questions to each potential teacher candidate. Once we were all finished with each group we were asked to go out in the hallway and discuss who we would like to hire from each group and why. This discussion was in depth and long because there were a lot of great answers. We eventually made a decision and discussed some findings that we had throughout the whole classroom. As a group, we gave them suggestions and some likes from certain individuals to all teacher candidates. Through this time we not only reflected upon everyone, but we also reflected upon the concepts that we learned throughout the semester. This was an excellent way to retain all the information we learned and bring it out in a "real-life" situation. Doing this interview was a great way to end the second to last day and it also gave us tips on how to run an interview. I am looking forward to using these techniques on an actual interview. Until next time bloggers :)

Interview Questions

Surprise Artifact Bag

Before Social Studies and Science Method class I was unaware of artifact bags. In my school years, we never used anything similar to this mini lesson. With this being said I enjoyed constructing this activity because it had me thinking creatively. Before picking out the artifacts I had to decide which explorer I wanted to do it on. Naturally the first explorer that came to mind was Henry Hudson, but I figured everyone in my Early Explorers groups would do the same thing. At this moment I had to think outside the box and think of all the explorers we taught to the second grades. I decided to go with the Pilgrims because I figured I could get artifacts from my father. It was convenient that my father group up near Plymouth and it would be an easier artifact bag for me, but I thought wrong. Unfortunately, my father did not have anything saved from Plymouth and I was left on my own to think of artifacts. I was having a hard time thinking of different artifacts, but I did some research and found some interesting artifacts that I could implement in this lesson. The first artifact I decided to make was a Pilgrim hat. I made it small enough so it could fit in the bag that I supplied the students with. My second artifact was the Plymouth rock which was very tiny, but they can get the idea from the given date on the surface of the rock. My other two artifacts were a burnt map of travel route and needles. All these artifacts signify some importance to the Pilgrims, but it also makes the students think logically through the inquiry process. After the artifacts were placed in the bag, I decided to make the bag authentic. I found fishing net and wrapped it around the bag because the Pilgrims used to fish for food and it tied in well with lesson. According to Lesson Planet, "Your artifacts don't need to be amazing or complex; real historians can learn from even these simple things. Actually, simplicity usually draws out more critical thinking. I also put out an "ad" on Facebook, asking for authentic memorabilia from this era, promising it would be cared for and used to further the education of the next generation..."(Mollie Moore, page 1). All of the artifacts that I choose are simple, but it will get the students to think of all the explorers that were taught about in the direct lesson. Once I was completely finished with the artifacts; it was time to create a presentation on my explorer. Instead of using Google Presentation, I decided to use Symbaloo to display my artifacts and embed my presentation that had the task that the students had to solve. In this PowerPoint I included the 5 W's of Social Studies and make duplicates of that specific slide. This was for students to collaborate together when pulling out the different artifacts. The 5 W's is important to learn because this aspect can relate to any subject that is out there in society. I was reading on one article and the 5 W's can relate to journalism and I found one quote that mentions this term. According to Andy Tattersall, "Applying the 5 W's to your research might not work for every piece of research, but it is a useful idea worth exploring" (Impact on Social Sciences, page 1). What I got from this article was the importance of the 5 W's and how it can change the outcome of the situation. This tool should be implemented regardless of the subject that you are teaching. Anyways... After constructing my Symbaloo page it was now time to implement this mini-lesson plan to my fellow colleagues. During this time I was ecstatic to see everyone's artifact bags and I was also excited for them to see mine. I can definitely see the impact on what this might have on the students. We eventually separated into our groups and began to present our artifact bags. I decided to go first in my group and I began by displaying the Symbaloo page and asked my fellow colleagues to look at the background of this page. Displayed on the background was a ship and the signified the Pilgrims ship. I wanted to have them see the connection with the artifacts and the ship that was displayed. All of my fellow colleagues answered this questions and then we decided to move forward with the lesson. As soon as they were done looking at the background, I pulled up the presentation and began to talk about what my colleagues will be doing today. On the second slide, there was a task for each of them to complete by seeing what's in the artifact bag and filling out the slides with the 5 W's. This would help them decide what explorer is related to artifacts. Emily decided to pull out the first artifact which was the Pilgrim hat. Immediately everyone in my group realized it was a Pilgrim hat, but they were still unsure of the mystery explorer. The next artifact that was pulled out of the bag was a burnt map that displayed their travel. Kim and Emily began to discuss the burnt map and see the correlation between the hat and the map. Both of them immediately thought of Christopher Columbus, but they were all still unsure of their decision. The next artifact that was pulled out was was the Plymouth Rock. Sarah examined this rock carefully and noticed a date on the surface of the rock. She then read the date that was stated and Emily immediately knew it was the Plymouth Rock. This really got my fellow colleagues to think about this explorer. Last but not least the last artifact was a box of needles. Sarah, Kim, and Emily then brainstormed the different ideas based off of the 5 W's and the artifacts. Their final decision on their mystery explorer was The Pilgrims. They based all of their prior knowledge to answer the question that I gave them. Overall I think this lesson went really well and it made my fellow colleagues think critically. The artifacts weren't easy enough for them to guess on the first try. After they were done finding the mystery explorer, I provided them with a book that I choose. The book that I would be implementing within this lesson is, If You Were At, The First Thanksgiving by Anne Kamma. We didn't have time to read the book, but I did a picture walk with my group to show them the theme of this book. When applying this lesson with my students, I will read this book before the artifact bag. It will give them

an essence of the different artifacts that the Pilgrims used. When I picked out this book I wanted to relate it to a third to fourth grade level. The lexile of this book hits right in between these two grades. This experience was very insightful because it helped me learn how to implement teaching social studies in an engaging way. I am looking forward to using this artifact bag while student teaching. Until next time bloggers :)

Becoming Historians

Today in class we learned about engaging students in examining history. When I was in school history used to be my worst subject because I would have to remember dates. I have no recollection of teachers actually going into depth about the importance of history. To this day, history still remains my worst subject because of what it entails. Dr. Smirnova's PowerPoint, hit all the major aspects of becoming a more diverse history teacher. She depicted all of the misconceptions of this subject and the importance of teaching it as well. The first question that she asked was what are the powerful elements of teaching history. There are five key elements when discussing the importance of engaging the students. They are listed as followed:

1. Meaningful: "Engaging, connects students with real-world situations."
2. Integrative: "Draws on more than one discipline, subject or skill set."
3. Value-Based: "Strengthens students' sense of democratic values and social responsibility."
4. Challenging: "Incorporates different perspectives and draws on students' critical-thinking skills." 
5. Active: "Participatory, makes use of manipulative or physical environment."

All of these 5 elements are important to include within a lesson plan. I am going to go more into depth about these 5 elements and really interpret what they include throughout each lesson. The fist element is meaningful. As described above, meaningful element should connect students to real-world situations. According to A Vision of Powerful Teaching, "Key concepts and themes are developed in depth. The most effective social studies teachers do not diffuse their efforts by covering
too many topics superficially. .../Deep and thoughtful understanding is essential to prepare students for the issues of the 21 century citizenship" (p,1). This statement is basically saying that teachers should not teach too many topics. Teaching too many topics will not allow the students to convey a deeper understanding and thoughtful discussion. Instead the teacher should pick one topic to go into detail about. This will start off with a Direct Lesson and eventually make its way through until cooperative. Having the teacher distribute out a whole unit will allow the students more time to understand the material and grasp the concepts better. Which then leads into the integrative section.
Integrative as mentioned above draws on more than one discipline, subject or skill set. An example of this would be drawing ideas from: economics, geography, history, political science, and sociology. All of these subjects can correlate with one another. One way to make these connections is to look at the past and present and see if the students can make any connections between the different aspects. This will get them to relate certain aspects and will deepen their content knowledge. The one item that is important in this section would be the use of technology. Technology is becoming more prominent in the classroom and the students are relying more on technology. To intertwine technology and integrative teaching would be an excellent idea. One way that teachers can do this is by using Web 2.0 tools for the students to collaborate and work together to solve a problem. Having the students read and write will help them "add important dimensions to students' learning" (A Vision of Powerful Teaching, p.1).
The third important element that is mentioned is Value-based. As mentioned in Dr. Sminova's slide, Value-based instruction strengthens students' sense of democratic values and social responsibility. Through this section students are becoming aware of certain policies and help them think critically towards that specific subject. They do this by making decisions and making choices that are needed. According to A Vision of Powerful Teaching, "Students learn this value through discussions, debates, the use of authentic documents, simulations, research, and other occasions for critical thinking and decision making, students learn to apply value-based reasoning when addressing problems and issues." It is important to have this value-based instructions because it allows each student to speak his/her opinions on the given subject. Also it helps them realize that they need to be open-minded and use research to back up their answers. This form of debate helps students realize all of these important factors. Debating is not the only way to reach the value-based instructions. There are multiple ways to guide students through this specific section.
Second to last element is challenging your students. Challenging your students allows them to think more critically and reaches a higher point on the Bruner's scale of learning. This section can actually be seen through the inquiry process. During this inquiry process, students are being asked to research a specific topic or given an experiment to complete. Through this the teacher is challenging his/her students to come up with an answer to the problem. They are either doing this research or experiment by themselves or within a group. The teacher is just there for the students if they have any further questions, but the teacher is not allowed to help through this section. Students are discovering new facts and vocabulary and they are challenging themselves to think critically. This helps each student grow with their cognitive ability.
The last and final step is active.  Active is the last step because this is where the students are putting the aspects that they learned together. Students are working individually and collaboratively during this point to implement what they learned from the previous sections. They do this by explanation and modeling for the whole class. All of these attributes can be seen through a cooperative lesson plan. In a cooperative lesson, the students gathering their ideas to eventually share with the classroom. This helps the students implement their findings and makes them state the important facts on what they learned. Having an active part through this section is also important because it develops students' social skills. All of these elements are important to include within your lessons because it helps students realize a deeper understanding of history. If these elements were included while I was in school I would've been more engaged in the different topics. As a teacher it is important to include these topics and reach all of your students needs. Until next time bloggers :)

Exploring Through The 5 E's

The 5 E's are vital in a lesson plan and in a classroom. Teachers should be aware of these 5 aspects when implementing an inquiry lesson. Let me first start off with talking about what is consisted of the 5 E's. According to Enhancing Education, "The 5 E's is an instructional model based on the constructivist approach to learning, which says that learners build or construct new ideas on top of their old ideas." When students are exploring through the 5 E's they are tapping in on their prior knowledge and using that as a "crutch" to the lesson. Wait, but what are the 5 E's? Well I'll tell you, the 5 E's include: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. These 5 attributes should be included in your inquiry lesson to help the students build their knowledge. Another attribute that the 5 E's helps are cognitive skills. When going through each E, it helps the students develop a higher order of thinking according to the Bloom's Taxonomy Pyramid. All of these E's have a different aspect, but they all come together at the end. Breaking down each E is the best way to explain these different aspects. The first E that I will begin with is the Engage.
Engage section should always be the first E when implementing a lesson. This helps you make connections between what the students learned before and what they are learning now. The engage portion also introduces the problem or aspect that needs to be solved. An example of this was our group introducing the Web quest to our second graders. We gave the students a problem to solve and this helped us/them begin their lesson. Through this portion the students should be asked a question and this should get them to start thinking about the possible answers. This is where students "Become mentally engaged in the concept, processes, and skills" (Enhancing Education, 1). Also this section is important to bring in students prior knowledge on the subject, either by bringing up questions that were asked in the direct lesson or what the students should already know. After introducing all of these aspects it's time to move onto the second part of the 5 E's.
Which brings us to Exploring! This section is for students to develop among themselves. Whether this is making the discoveries in a group or working alone. During this E, students are identifying and developing concepts. They do this by researching the subject and/or experimenting with the different ideas that they previously learned. The students are now taking the question that was posed in the Engage section and using that question to make new discoveries. Relating back to our fieldwork experience, students were asked to do research on their mystery explorers and they had to go through the inquiry process to complete this assignment. They had to read the first article that was supplied and make a hypothesis based on it. Through this students were asked to read through other research articles and find out more information on their mystery explorer. During this section, the students were exploring new pieces of information based on their "mystery explorers." The exploring section should be done by the students and ONLY by the students. Teachers should be there to support and observe the students learning during this section.
The next E that follow Exploring is Explain. This portion should only be done when the students have completed the Exploring portion. If students are not done with that portion this will be difficult for them to complete. Through this section, students are asked to explain their findings to the whole class or a small group. Having the students explain their findings helps them review on what they learned and might even introduce new key terms. Through the students verbalizing their findings they are also creating social skills. This section is pretty self explanatory and I think is the easiest section for the students to complete. To the right of this blog is a video that goes into depth about the 5 E's. It breaks down all the concepts in a simple language and helps people understand the importance of including these different attributes.
The second to last E is Elaborate. This section goes more into depth about the given topic that the students just researched.  During this section, the students "Expand on the concepts they have learned, make connections to other related concepts, and apply their understandings to the world around them in new ways" (NASA, 1). Through this process the students are building more knowledge on what they discovered and implementing them through this process. An example of this would be having the students write a letter to their mystery explorers. We did not have time to incorporate this in our lesson, but we included it in our lesson plan. Having the students write a letter helps them use the terms and attributes they learned in the previous section. You can see that each step relies on one another in order to complete the 5 E's.
Final Step: Evaluate! Last but not least is the evaluate section which is crucial in this learning method. According to Enhancing Education, "Evaluate is the phase that encourages learners to assess their understanding and abilities and let teachers evaluate students' understanding of key concepts and skill development" (p. 1). The last section allows the students to tie up everything they discovered and present their findings either to class or small groups. This coincides with the Explain section. Through this the students are asked to use academic language they learned and key details. If there are any confusion with any topics that the students researched this would be the time to clarify any loose ends.
Learning more about the 5 E's definitely helps me see the importance of this aspect. Without these E's our lessons would not be engaging for the students. The whole point of teaching is to help the students learn through an engaging and helpful way. When writing this blog, I came up with a bunch of ideas to use the 5 E's of learning through a Social Studies lens. I'm hoping that I can implement these ideas when I student teach. Until next time bloggers :)

Works Cited

Dunbar, B. (2012). 5Es Overview: "The 5E instructional model" Retrieved April 12, 2016, from http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/nasaeclips/5eteachingmodels/ 

The 5 E's. (n.d.). Retrieved April 12, 2016, from http://enhancinged.wgbh.org/research/eeeee.html

Tlingit Tribe

This activity was completed in the classroom and we were asked to do some research on a specific tribe. On Tuesday, we got split up into our master groups to begin our PowerPoint lesson. The activity that we did was through the Jigsaw method again. I'm actually beginning to like this method because it helps you work with different people each time. It also allows you to learn new ways of teaching because everyone has a different teaching style. Before starting out presentation, everyone gathered the information that was needed to complete this task. Melissa shared the Google Doc that we were all working within and we started to answer the questions based on the sheet. We were mostly hyperlinking certain websites and jotting down a few notes because we were running out of time to complete this assignment. While everyone was researching it was my job to start the PowerPoint and copy some of the important ideas over. When I was copying the information over it helped me go more into depth about this specific tribe. It's amazing to see that there tribes still alive around this area and I found all the facts and information intriguing. Copying the information really hit the lowest level of Bloom's Taxonomy. I was rereading all of the information that we found and remembering the facts and key details. Personally I don't think I ever moved passed the first level of Bloom's because in this presentation we were asked to research these questions and present our findings. When we were looking for pieces of information we were still considered to be on the first level. There was no activity that was involved through this project to help us apply our knowledge any further. After I was done inputting the information, I decided to take a step forward and use a different presenting tool other than Google Docs. One tool that came to mind with presenting information was Symbaloo. I have previous experience in using this Web 2.0 tool and I enjoy working with it. Inside this tool you can add: websites, videos, any social media, pictures, and much more attributes. Before designing this Symbaloo for this project, I first had to look at our PowerPoint presentation and base off of that. I decided to start off with the resources we used in our Google Presentation. In the top left corner I added tiles that ran through all the links we used and more links that I added to the one's we picked out. I made sure they all had the text labeled Resources and the same background color. One way I like to organize my Symbaloo is making sure everything matches with the other desired panels. My

next panel I decided to create were the videos. I used the one video that we included in the Google Presentation and added two more videos that discussed about this specific tribe in more depth. All the videos are located on the bottom right and are embedded into Symbaloo. The rest of the panels have pictures of this tribe and I also added in the Presentation we all created. Symbaloo is an excellent tool to implement within a lesson plan. All the materials and resources can be put right on that exact page. It helps keep everything organized and teachers can use it to store different resources and many other things. I would recommend using this tool in a higher education setting because it can get very complex for students. With my group they had a lot of questions on how to use it and they asked if it was an easy tool to manipulate. Personally this tool is very easy to master, but it takes time and practice in order to become experts. Attached to this blog is a video on how to create a Symbaloo and how to use the basic tools that are supplied within it. I hope everyone experiences this amazing tool and can implement it within their classrooms one day. Also below this blog I will hyperlink the Symbaloo I created for this Jigsaw Activity. Getting back to the Tlingit Tribe it was important to master the content before we went off into our base groups to teach them about this specific tribe. So at this point of time it was our job to make sure our group applied the knowledge we just learned. We jumped up a few levels on the Bloom's Taxonomy Pyramid and we are beginning to understand what is asked of us. Watching the other expert groups present it was important to listen and record down any important facts that they just mentioned. After all the people presented in my base group it was now time to recall the information that was just taught to us. It was time to conduct a SCAVENGER HUNT and the first group to answer all the questions right was the winner. Our base group put our "game faces on" and we were ready to win this competition. We all decided to assign each other roles during this sections because we thought it would be easier to conduct. Emily was in charge of scanning the QR codes, Bryanna was in charge of writing down the questions and I was in charge of writing down the answers. Once they both got through all the codes they began helping me answer each question. Sadly our group came in third place, but I learned a lot of information during this section which helped me memorize the different pieces about each tribe. Overall this Jigsaw activity was yet again another hit for us. I am looking forward on implementing this technique in my future classroom. Until next time bloggers :)

Tlingit Tribe Symbaloo

Putting Pieces Back Together

This past week and the week before Spring Break we learned about the Jigsaw method. I had an idea of what the Jigsaw method could be, but I wasn't completely 100% sure. We were required to read a little more on this method and really break it down into pieces on what this method was about. According to Reading Rockets, "Jigsaw is a cooperative learning strategy that enables each student of a "home" group to specialize in one aspect of a topic (for example, one group studies habitats of rain forest animals, another group studies predators of

rain forest animals)." In order to successfully do this students must meet up with their groups and collaborate with whatever material that they are supplied with. This is a great way to have students interact and help them with social skills that are needed to succeed. We had this opportunity to discover how this Jigsaw method worked in our own classroom. Dr. Smirnova introduced this method to us and wanted us to complete it altogether. The first step in this lesson was to get with our fellow colleagues that were sitting next to us at the time. Second step was to discuss in our group who wanted to do which components of the cooperative lesson. We all decided on what we wanted to be because that was going to be our expert group. At this time I was confused on what was going to happen next because I was still unsure of how this was all going to work out. After we picked our expert groups we then had to meet up with the same people in our expert groups. Finally we were altogether and that's when I realized the different components on what makes up a Jigsaw method. I like to think of it as putting the pieces back together. Once we were in our expert group we collaborated on the topic that was handed to us which was Positive Interdependence. This was the first aspect that is included in the 5 PIGS. As soon as we met up in the group "we got down to business." Our group started looking up different articles and highlighting important words to add in the PowerPoint. While they were looking up information I was beginning to started the PowerPoint and the Socrative game. I thought Socrative would be an engaging game for the students because it was a new tool that was introduced to them. The point of this Jigsaw method was to work together to complete a task with your expert groups. Once completing the task it was now time to come back together and have each expert group explain their findings with all of the class. At this time we are learning while the experts are deepening their understanding of the material. Each group had a different twist on the way they presented their material. Some groups used videos to convey their messages while others used lecturing to teach their lesson. The one thing I noticed from everyone was the use of academic language and eye contact. I can see that everyone is growing and going to become excellent teachers one day. Personally I started to feel more confident and comfortable with speaking in front of the classroom. It's amazing what practice can do. Listed below is my groups Jigsaw PowerPoint. Feel free to access it whenever you want. Also towards the end of the PowerPoint there is the Socrative game that you can access, from there you can set up an account. I highly recommend using this website in a classroom setting. This is a great way to assess students knowledge and make it into a competition. I hope you sign up and use this amazing tool in your classroom. Until next time bloggers :)

Positive Interdependence 

Higher Order of Thinking

In order to master content one must reflect upon it. In this blog I will be talking about my fieldwork experience and go into depth on how it helped me master certain aspects. Before beginning my experience for fieldwork I was overwhelmed and didn't know where to begin my lessons. I've heard of the three different lessons, but I was unsure on how to implement them. Watching group one go made me realize the distinct difference between each lesson. During these lessons I was talking mental notes on what will benefit our group. Even at the end of group ones teaching we all had a moment to reflect upon how they did teaching. This gave all of us insight on how we should set up our lessons and implement them. A few blogs down, I gave my feedback on how group one did to mater their content. We were asked to fill out a reflection template based on how each group implemented their lessons. At first I thought this was going to be busy work and had nothing to do with the content, but it was the complete opposite. During this time, I was learning on how to think critically and even give "sound" feedback to each group. This was a learning experience for me and I enjoyed writing these reflections. In each reflection I put down aspects that I liked and how I would maybe implement some things different. The way I constructed it helped me apply my knowledge and construct a higher order of thinking. I was looking back to my recent reflections and observed how I was still unsure of the content and was confused on what to write. Skimming through the later reflections, you can see more in depth detail and a lot more emphasis on how to implement a proper lesson. Overall I think the reflections that were required helped me understand the difference between the lessons and how to implement them within a classroom. When reading about Bloom's Taxonomy I was a little skeptical on how this all connects with teaching, but it connects in a way through the students. Students are "blank slates" as they call it, but they do have some sort of prior knowledge on the different subjects. When learning new content they start at the very bottom of the pyramid and eventually build their way up to the higher order of thinking spectrum. We do this by building a foundation through the direct instruction. This is where it is teacher centered and the students are learning either by listening or writing. Listening would be on the bottom of the pyramid along with accessing prior knowledge. I like to think of this process like building stairs, in order to get to the next step you have to follow it in sequential order. The next lesson that is given would be the inquiry process. Students are applying the knowledge they just learned in the previous instruction. They are starting to build a higher order of thinking by making their own discoveries. Finally is the cooperative lesson. Cooperative is important to build students social skills and also evaluate their fellow peers on how they worked together and their overall summary on the content they learned from the inquiry lesson. Evaluation and reflection would hit the highest point on Bloom's Taxonomy. Relating this theory to the three different lessons really showed me the crucial connections between theories and designing lessons.
Another important attribute that I would like to talk about is implementing the 5 E's during the inquiry process. When designing the inquiry lesson, I was unaware that there were 5 E's that teachers must hit in order to develop this higher order of thinking. I started to realize this aspect when the first group taught their inquiry lesson. While they were teaching I was looking down at the reflection paper and comparing and contrasting on how they implemented these concepts. According to CScope, "Teachers should encourage students to explain observations and findings in their own words (5E Lesson Design: Applicationto CSCOPE Social Studies, page 28). The inquiry process should be a dual interaction between teachers and students. Students should have more control during this process, but the teachers are there to provide help to any students that are struggling. The 5 E's help the students discover their own findings either with a group or individually. Overall I think my fieldwork experience was successful and helped me develop more knowledge on not only how to teach well, but also how to write a well developed lesson plan. Before fieldwork I was not really sure on how to even start a lesson plan or even know how to implement it. I'm feeling very confident in what I am doing now. Below is a rubric that is based on my fieldwork experience. Feel free to look at the marks and I hope you enjoyed this blog. Until next time bloggers :)

Assessment & Instruction Reflection Rubric 

Lesson Plans Are Vital

Wow I can't believe we are halfway through the semester. We are about to finish up fieldwork which means it's time to stop and reflect on all of things we did. This fieldwork experience taught me a lot about lesson planning and collaboration. Collaboration was the key during this fieldwork experience.Without this key attribute groups would not be able to get any work done. This was my first time ever teaching a full classroom and I was little nervous throughout this process. Once I got up in front of the classroom it just felt natural. One thing I gained through this experience was confidence. Before this class I struggled with knowing what to say to students and being timid in the classroom.  After I taught it was a big weight off my chest, but also gave me the boost that I needed as well. Not only did I gain the confidence to teach, but I noticed my reflections towards my fellow peers increased over time too. Looking back to the first reflection and my last reflection I can see some progress in my writing and academic language.The one aspect I want to reflect on are the lesson plans. Dr. Smirnova wanted us to take our lessons plans and make a copy of the formatted one she corrected. With this new copy we had to design our own lesson based off of on our beliefs. I liked this assignment because it gave me time to really reflect on how I would want to change certain aspects. It also gave us an opportunity to look through a deeper lens undergoing the process of evaluation. The first step in this process was to make a copy of the original lesson plan and correct the changes I thought were necessary. For the direct lesson plan there was not much for me too change because I made all the changes that I thought were necessary the second time around. I tweaked a few things here and there, but nothing to drastic. When designing this lesson, I tried to think of how to incorporate technology. This was a hard process to think of something with the use of technology. One thing we used was the Smart Board for the guided practice. I really liked how we incorporated the Smart Board for this assignment and the students seemed to be engaged with the lesson. While correcting the second lesson plan I noticed a few important details that needed to be changed, but it was nothing too serious. The wording was a little jumbled and I just added in a few words to make is sound smoother. One aspect we forgot was to hyperlink the Web Quest within the lesson. This will make it easier for whoever is reading the lesson to follow along. The one aspect that I was struggling with was the objectives. I wanted to make sure the objectives were observable and measurable for us. Eventually I figured out an objective to write that correlates with our lesson plan. Our inquiry lesson was not as detailed as our direct was because the direct is more teacher centered then the inquiry. Overall this lesson plan was written very well with just some minor adjustments. The cooperative lesson plan was the last one that we did as a group. With this lesson plan there were also minor adjustments to this as well. Like the inquiry lesson, I fixed little details here and there. Most of the adjustments was on the wording and phrases. I would say all of our lesson plans were created to the best of our capabilities. I'm glad that I had a great group to work with and I look forward to being in the classroom now. Below this blog are my lesson plans that I revised based off of my perspective. I hope you enjoy reading our engaging lesson plans. Until next time bloggers :)

Direct Lesson Plan
Inquiry Lesson Plan
Cooperative Lesson Plan

The British Are Coming

British Are Here

This is our third time coming to Bishop Dunn, but this time we are learning about how the colonists became free. Group three consisted of: Elizabeth, Melissa, Emily, Keilani, and Kim. This group was responsible for teaching the second graders about the important facts that follow along with the colonists. Before starting the lesson, Melissa asked questions that required the students to tap into their prior knowledge. This gave a good evaluation to see what the students knew and what the students didn't know. It also gave an opportunity for the students to see what they will be learning within this lesson. After the review the group decided to use an interactive song that sang the 13 colonies for the students. I noticed with this group they love to sing songs and it is easier for them to remember the material that way. The song that this group implemented within the lesson was an excellent idea. Every student was actively paying attention and singing the lyrics by the end. It is important to keep in mind that everyone has different learning styles. Having them singing this song allowed them to have a different approach to teaching. The transition from the introduction to the development was smooth and precise. Each student was supplied with a worksheet which had fill in the blanks and a timeline on the side. The timeline was a good idea, but they did not give the students enough space to write down the important event. Also providing them a visual either on the White Board or Smart Board would have helped them out significantly. Group 3 did use a Poster board for their timeline, but wasted too much time filling it out. Using this timeline was a great idea for the students to follow along in sequential order. It was noticeable that each teacher candidate in this group was knowledgeable of the content they had to teach. When teachers are knowledgeable of the content it allows students to open up to learning as well by asking questions. I noticed that this group was asked the most questions and the answers were precise and quick from each teacher candidate. Another aspect that I really enjoyed through this lesson was the storytelling. Keilani did an engaging storytelling with the students. As a student storytelling is an active listening portion, but I could tell all the students were engaged within this story and the enthusiasm that burst through Keilani's body language was noticed by not only the other teacher candidates, but by the students. The last aspect that I also really enjoyed through the development was the different signals. Having the students follow by different signals definitely kept them on their toes and helped them pay attention a little more. The last attribute that Group 3 used was a booklet for the guided practice. During this section, the students were given a booklet of questions that they had to answer based off of what they just learned through the direct lesson. It helped that the teacher candidates put the questions on the board because the students could follow along easier and helped them spell an complex vocabulary words. With the independent practice Group 3 asked the students to answer a few multiple choice questions based on what they learned and discovered. At this time everything seemed a little rushed, but they all still managed to answer their questions to their fullest capabilities.

Gaining Independence Through Inquiry and Cooperative 

A week after Group 3 presented two other portions of their lesson plan. It was now time for them to present their inquiry and cooperative lesson. As usual the group started off with review questions based off of the Direct lesson. This was a quick review for the students to get their "minds going" before their inquiry lesson. The problem for this lesson was shown through a Voki video and they used Steve from the first group which was good for the students to make previous connections. After the Voki was done the students were taught the process of the inquiry method. I think it is challenging for the students to learn and master the inquiry method because it is such a complex idea for them to understand, but this group did an excellent job explaining the steps. After discussing the methods, the group modeled how they were going to do the artifact bags. Melissa and Emily did a great job modeling how the students will be working together in groups. Modeling is an important process for the students to see because it helps them realize the roles that they have within their group. When Melissa and Emily were done modeling their artifact bags it was the students turn to complete this task. Watching the students look through the artifact bags made me realize that hands on activities really help the students learn. Each group was going through the inquiry method with the help of their classmates. The only suggestion I have for this section is to make sure that the teachers have little impact on helping the students. If the students are not doing the steps right let them think about the steps by themselves and have them make the discoveries on their own. Group 3 managed to hit all of the 5 E's within this lesson which then helped the student become experts on the material. The independent practice that they assigned the students was to write a letter to the first graders. This was an excellent idea, but the students did not have enough time to write their entire letter. My suggestion would be to assign this writing for homework or during any free time they might have throughout the day. This will help you save time and will everyone moving onto the cooperative lesson. During the cooperative lesson, the students were a little rowdy because they were excited for the next activity. The teacher candidates explained the directions for this section and had the students start working on the poster. Each group was assigned a few letters from the word "Independence." They were asked to write an acrostic poem for this specific word. Looking through the 5 PIGS this group did hit many of the aspects. One aspect that I observed was no clear roles during this section. In the inquiry section their were distinct roles, but not during this lesson. There was no individual accountability throughout this lesson, but the good thing is all the students seemed to work on the poster. Each group was asked to brainstorm ideas and eventually a teacher candidate wrote down all the words from each group on a big poster board. At the end of completing this poster board, Melissa read each letter going down. The only suggestion I have for that is to have each group read their own words that they made. Overall I think all three lessons went really well and I can't wait to see your group grow from this experience. I look forward to the last group presenting their topic. Until next time bloggers :)

Wonderful Web Quests

For my inquiry section, we decided to create a Web Quest. This was an excellent idea in the beginning, but then I realized how much work it was to complete the task. I had six groups in total to complete. Each group was an explorer and they had to find out which explorer they were through the inquiry process. Designing a Web Quest for second graders was little challenging. The few aspects that I needed to take into consideration were reading, writing, and presenting the material. Before I started my Web Quest, I laid out exactly what I needed to do. I started to Google search some articles that could be useful to this assignment and marked down the important information. Then I proceeded to figure out what explorers that each group was going to use. The explorers we decided to use were: Christopher Columbus, Pilgrims, Henry Hudson, and John Smith. Due to time, I decided to repeat two of the same explorers for certain groups. In order to complete this Web Quest I used Google Sites to create each page. The beginning section of the Web Quest is the problem that they have to complete. This coincides with the Voki that was introduced to the class previously. This section was by far the easiest to create because it did need a lot of information. Moving on to the next few pages was rough. I spent all day on these sections because there was so much information involved. The way I went around lengthy articles was to include some pieces of information in a Goggle Document. This way the students were not worried about reading long articles. They can pick and choose what to write down on their organizer we supplied them with. The way I designed this Web Quest correlates with the graphic organizers that were given to the students. There was a fill in the blank section for them to write their hypothesis and their conclusion. I also decided to add in visuals on the Web Quest because this will help them follow directions on what to do. An example of this is if you click on the first crew it shows you a stop sign at the very top. After reading the first article students need to stop and write their hypothesis based on the first article. Once the students are done with writing their hypothesis they can begin to look through the articles and find out what explorer they have. Each article is personalized through Google Docs and this took up the majority of my time because I needed to find articles that were relevant to the explorers. After finding articles I made sure to hyperlink the Google Docs inside the Web Quest. The one factor that I had consider during this assignment is making sure the students or teacher candidates had access to edit it when presenting the information to the groups. One way I did this was just sending my fellow teacher candidates the link that is setup right to the Web Quest. There were so many important factors that I had to take into consideration. Once the Web Quest was designed I wanted to make sure everyone also had access to the Google Documents that I had created. I did this by signing out of the Mount account and opening up the Google Docs. At this stage everything seemed to be working fine. Some teacher candidates used their iPads to look at the Web Quest and I wanted to make sure everything would show up for them so that the students won't miss out on any information. It is so important to think of all the things that could go wrong throughout this experience because I spent so much time on this. Overall the students seemed to enjoy this Web Quest because we incorporated technology. Below is the link to the Web Quest that I created for the students. Until next time bloggers :)

Welcome to The Museum of Natural History

Test The Knowledge

As a group we created a Pre/Post Tests for the students in second grade. We created this test by using Google Forms. I was never aware that tests can be created within Google. This is such an important Web 2.0 tool because everyone can collaborate to the assessment. When creating these assessments each group was in charge of their own subject. My group was in charge of making questions based on the Early Explorers. For the Pre-Test, we looked back at the previous year and tried to make a correlation between what they learned in first grade. This accessed their prior knowledge on the subject. We went this way because we wanted to see if there was any stipulations that the students missed last year. Doing it the way we designed also helps the students understand the concept on Bloom's Taxonomy. My group outlined this pre-test to have a higher order of thinking and allow students to use their recalling skills through the cognitive lens. As you can see through the link some of the questions are short answer and the rest are multiple choice. Not only did this assess the students prior knowledge, but it also gives them an opportunity to see what exactly they will learning in each section. Personally, I thought that the short answer questions were harder to think of because I didn't want to make the questions too difficult for the students. The pre-test in general was hard to construct because we were all unsure of their prior knowledge based on the subject. Created the Post-Test was a completely different change. We decided to keep a few of our questions and change two of the questions. This section is a little different from the first test that was given to the students. It was a general overview on how the students learned. These questions are to see if the students understood the material and stored it into their long-term memory. This section was a little easier to construct because we used some of the questions that we asked when teaching them our direct lesson plan. These questions were more short answer questions because we wanted to see them reach a higher order of thinking during this section according to Bloom's Taxonomy. Applying their knowledge based off what they learned. This is why we added questions like: "Why, How, What, etc." To see how the students respond to the given questions. This allows the students to thinker deeper and evaluate themselves on the thinking process. Designing these types of questions really helped us pinpoint what we would be teaching the students. This falls more into place with the pre-test. Whatever questions we used during that specific section; it helped us with what exactly we were going to teach. It also helped us with the post test as well. The questions that we added during the post-test were based off the content we used for our direct, inquiry, and cooperative lesson. I really liked this assignment of creating these two tests. It helped me become more diverse with Goggle applications and I thoroughly enjoyed this experience. Until next time bloggers :)

Drastic Change In Schools

Recently Dr. Smirnova gave us an article to read about Finland's school system. Before reading this article I had an open mind on how other countries and places taught their students in a classroom setting. While reading this article, "How Finland Broke Every Rule" it was interesting to see how exactly the students learn. The first couple of paragraphs discusses what a fourth grade classroom in rural Finland looks like. William Doyle stated, "Instead of control, competition, stress, standardized testing, screen-based schools and loosened teacher qualifications, try warmth, collaboration, and highly professionalized, teacher-led encouragement and assessment." This aspect is completely different compared to the American education reformers. We require our teachers to be qualified when choosing them for the job, but not as highly qualified in Finland. Another attribute that is different is the standardized testing. Standardized testing is a big deal for New York. Students are required to either take regents and many other testing. America thinks that tests really measure the students capability of their cognitive skills, but in actuality it doesn't. Taking tests require students to memorize the material, but this doesn't help their higher order thinking skills. In Finland students are not immersed in technology as much as other places. They do have the high tech devices, but they are never really seen in the school system. There is usually just a smart board and a teacher's desktop. Comparing that scenery to our college; there are certain rooms that only have those two aspects. This can be seen in our lecture rooms with the desks facing towards the smart board. The one aspect that is different in Finland is the teacher only uses their smart board when he/she is delivering simulations of personalized teaching. This is unique characteristic that I have NEVER seen before in a school system. I'm not positive on what exactly it means, but the thing I take out of it is someone virtually teaching the students through technology. This is one aspect that I definitely am going to look into! If there is a simple way of creating the simulations, I would conduct it in my own classroom. 
The classroom management is also done a little different in Finland. I like the fact that classroom is setup for student to slouch, wiggle and giggle for the students. Just that little movement allows the students to be kinesthetic learners. This is definitely one attribute that should be added to the classroom in America. Teachers in America refrain students to move around and "do silly things" because they think it will distract the other students from learning. I like having this attribute in the classroom because students need a moment to be silly and get all of their energy out in some way. The other major difference is the atmosphere. In Finland the students are encouraged to constantly experiment with new approaches to improve learning. The students are learning by doing which hits many points on the Bloom's Taxonomy pyramid. There are so many attributes in Finland that make me wonder about the American school system. Finland seems to have terrific success rates and the students seem to be more interested in learning new things. Right on the side of this blog, I added a video which includes more information on the Finland school system. The one thing that surprised me was the dropout rate compared to the American dropout rate. They mentioned that students DO NOT dropout in Finland and if they do then it is only 5% compared to half the students in America. This video really goes into depth about the school system and what you see inside their different schools. I recommend watching this video to anyone that is interested in learning about this AMAZING school system. Until next time bloggers :) 

Native Americans Rock!

Talking About The Native Americans

Today was our first day at Bishop Dunn watching Group 1 take the plunge and teach for the first time. I felt nervous for them and commend them for going first. There topic was on Native Americans. The students seemed to know a lot of prior knowledge on Native Americans which helped them with this lesson. Bryanna started with the opening of the lesson and clearly stated all the goals that the students will be able to accomplish in that time period. I think it was important to include this aspect to help the students pinpoint what they will be taking out of this lesson. In the development my fellow teacher candidates ran into a few problems. Before the problems started they gave a brief introduction on what the word shelter means to the students. Heather asked the students their definition on shelter and based the definition off of the pictures that she showed them. I really like how Heather compared and contrasted certain shelters so that the students could get a clear view on what they are looking at. The one suggestion I have for group one is to try not to make it sound so rehearsed. Everyone knew the content which is really important, but if it sounds too rehearsed the students will be able to pick up on it.  After a few slides were up, unfortunately the power went out and Group 1 was no longer able to use the Smart Board for their presentation. This was an unfortunate power outage, but Group 1 worked with the inconvenience and finished their Direct lesson strong. I know being the first group it was hard to think about backups, but when teaching we have to keep in mind that technology can be our enemy sometimes. The only suggestion with that is to bring in visuals for the students just in case something like this happens. An example of this would be using a poster board to post all the key terms you want the students to know. Something as simple as that will go a long way for the students. The one thing Group 1 did well with is recuperating and getting back the lesson. Each student was given a colored card to hold up if the students agreed or disagreed. This was mostly used with the check point questions which hits the understanding section with Bloom's Taxonomy. Students were asked to hold the green side up if they agreed and the red side up they disagreed with any statement. This helps the students stay on task and helps all students participate. Now that I talked about the introduction and development, it is now time to discuss the guided practice. Group 1 supplied the students with 1 guided practices that they all completed. The one they used was a graphic organizer describing the difference between each tribe. Graphic organizers are a good way to help the students organize their thoughts and ideas. This assignment was designed to help the students understand the difference between the tribes and their shelters. I thought it was an excellent idea to draw a graph on the board so the students could follow along. Melissa did a good job working with the students to complete the activity. After the students were done filling in the information, they were asked to draw a picture of the different shelters. I noticed with this grade in particular, students seem to love drawing pictures. Drawing pictures is very useful for students because it still hits a section in Bloom's Taxonomy. This is not considered the highest order of thinking, but it is still apart of the understanding section. I really liked how you had the students draw on their paper and then come to the board to draw on the board. Just be careful with having the students come to the board because every student wants a chance to draw on the board as well. Overall the direct lesson went really well for your group. I will mention every lesson in this one blog.
Helping Steve
Artifact bags are a great idea for the students to follow the inquiry process. Before introducing the artifact bags the students listened to a Voki giving them a problem to solve. Voki is an excellent Web 2.0 tool to use for the students because it helps them engage within the lesson. The only thing with the Voki is to make sure to show the students at the right time. It was a little to early in the lesson to introduce the Voki because when the students were about to complete the artifact bags they forgot what the problem was for them to solve.  I also know how hard it is to teach the steps of inquiry, but if you modeled the steps for them I think they would grasp the concept of what is required of them. It was so much fun to watch the students interact during this artifact bag lesson. Each student seemed very engaged and excited to find out their tribe. During this inquiry process, students are hitting the applying section of the Bloom's Taxonomy. Each step in this pyramid can go by how you implement the lesson being taught. The students didn't really get a chance to explain their findings. Due to time Payge, explained the answers to the artifact bags. I understand time was permitting, but giving the students time to present their findings hits a higher order of thinking. This allows the students to evaluate how he/she worked within their groups. The only suggestion for this section is to have a more structured time frame that the students had to work within. Otherwise for the first group to go you did an excellent job with your inquiry lesson. Which then brings me to the final lesson which is Cooperative. 
Building Tepee's
Making tepee's was an excellent way to end the lesson. This worked with the kinesthetic learners because they had to do hands on work. The one aspect I really liked through this lesson was how the teacher candidates worked one on one with each table. Everyone kept the students on task and helped if they asked for it. One thing I would've liked to see is each group building each shelter. I know it was hard and expensive to buy all the materials, but when you are student teaching that would be an excellent idea to have the students create the shelters. Group 1 seemed to use some of the 5 PIG's within this lesson. They hit  most of them except the face-to-face interaction and positive interdependence. During this lesson, it is important to have the students chose roles and have responsibility for that desired role. I didn't really get a chance to see if each student had a certain role to follow when they were building their tepee's. The last aspect that I will mention is face-to-face interaction. Time was running out at this point and it was hard to have the students present their tepee's. Time management was extremely hard with teaching both inquiry and cooperative. I think Group 1 worked well with the time management in some attributes. Overall Group 1 set the bar pretty high for the other groups because they did extremely well with all their lessons. Until next time bloggers :)

Snow Day Online

I've missed blogging for a little while, but now I'm back. I wanted to take a moment and begin explaining what happened a few weeks ago! Well here I go, so a few weeks ago we had a little snow storm which caused Bishop Dunn to close. Dr. Smirnova, decided the safest way to still have class was through Adobe Connect. I've used Adobe Connect before, but it was exciting to use it all over again. I walked to the computer lab that we were originally supposed to be in and began logging on as I usually do. Dr. Smirnova began with her introduction and went right into the lesson. With Adobe Connect you can do a lot of neat aspects. She decided to project a PowerPoint in the background so we could all see it. While we were all viewing the PowerPoint she did a voiceover on what she wanted us to know. Her PowerPoint was about designing lessons for edTPA. The cover page really caught my attention because edTPA is such an important aspect to learn about for student teaching. There are five different models of teaching just like the blog below. The five types are behavioral, information processing, social interactive, experiential, and independent study. These five strategies do sound very familiar to me. Some of them were actually used below this specific blog. Moving along, the next couple of slides were discussing the "meat and cheese" of writing a lesson plan. This would include: goals and objectives. These two terms I am very familiar with, but it never hurts to brush up on aspects. The examples she used would were:

Objective Example: Given a task to work in a group of 4 and the resources on the American Revolution, the student will create a poster, following the criterial of the rubric and scoring at 3/4.

Dr. Smirnova supplied us with an outline when designing your own objective which is also very useful. The formula she gave us was: Given (a task or materials) the student will verb (from Bloom's Taxonomy) with (an expected level of performance). You have been hearing me talk about Bloom's Taxonomy so much but what really is Bloom's Taxonomy? In 1956, Benjamin Bloom collaborated with a few other colleges and designed a framework with educational goals. They broke it up into small little sections, what you might know as a pyramid. The six sections of this pyramid include: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Each section has a purpose to accomplish a higher order thinking. Remember is always at the bottom of the pyramid and creating is always at the top. As you can see by the pyramid to the right. There are multiple versions of this Bloom's Taxonomy pyramid, but they all correlate back to the original one. Before getting into the detail about they other pyramids let's first break down each part. 

Remembering/Knowledge

This process involved the recalling of specific material. It can be a recall in pattern, structure, or setting. I like to relate this section to the direct lesson. Throughout a direct lesson the students are recalling the information that is given to them. This is hitting the first section in Bloom's Taxonomy. It is pretty amazing to see some sort of correlation between the two.

Understanding/Comprehension

It is just the next step in the process. This refers to the type of understanding or apprehension so that the individual can make connections with the material. A good connection with this would be having the students answer check point questions based on the direct lesson. The students are understanding the material and applying their cognitive skills to answer the question. Which brings us right to applying. 

Applying/Application

This process uses the abstraction of particular and concrete situations. I know this definition doesn't really explain the attributes. Basically what the definition means is to have the individuals taking the material and using it in and out of the classroom setting. The students/individuals apply their knowledge into the "real world." 

Analyzing/Analysis

It is the breakdown the material into component parts so that the structure may be understood. The outcomes in this sections have a higher intellectual level than comprehension and application. Through this step individuals are understanding the relationship between the content and structural form of the material. 

Evaluating/Synthesis

The second to last step would be the evaluating section which is confusing because in the original Bloom's taxonomy model this would be the last, but they focus on the same attribute in this part of the pyramid. This is where individuals are able to put the pieces back together to make it into a whole. It is either done by research or unique communication. You can say during this step the inquiry process would be a good way to hit the higher order thinking. 

Creating/Evaluating

Last but not least creating! This is the ability to judge then value of material. The judgement are based off criteria that is set for the individuals. Through the teaching model the cooperative lesson plan hits this top section. This is where the students are creating their own presentation, but also giving a peer evaluation. 

Look at the Bloom's Taxonomy model, there are many attributes that carry right into teaching. Dr. Smirnova mentioned many of these attributes throughout her Adobe Connect conversation. I look forward to having more of these online meetings and learning more about Bloom's Taxonomy along the way. Until next time bloggers :)