Reading Reflection #6

   1.       There are several technology tools that can encourage students to be reflective and evaluate their own strengths. One tool is the blog. Blogs offer students a space where they can reflect over time about what they are learning. Another tool is ProfilerPRO. This tool is an online survey that allows teachers to identify the learning characteristics of individual students. Teachers can identify interests, strengths, and weaknesses through this tool. This information can be used to guide student learning. Two other tools include SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang. These tools also help teachers to set up online surveys. Teachers can use the results to track trends and help students see how their self-assessment compares to the larger group.

   2.       There are several ways in which teachers can get students’ minds ready for a big project. One way is to tap into their prior knowledge. By doing this, you can learn what they already know, what they might wonder about the topic and what they want to learn about the topic. Teachers can also get students’ minds ready to start a big project by talking it up, really emphasizing how much you are looking forward to working on it and how much fun it will be for the students. By talking the project up, students can really get a feel for what they will be doing and will start playing possibilities in their heads of what they could do for the project. This also helps their imaginations to run and really get excited to work on the project.

   3.       Teaching the fundamentals first is a very important part of starting a project. To be able to work independently or with others on a project, the students need to know prerequisite knowledge and skills to be able to work on it. Knowing the fundamentals also help students to get pointed in the right direction when starting a project. If students don’t start with the fundamentals, they might start off on the wrong foot and it would be hard to reign them back in and go in the correct direction.

   4.       The book describes 4 important steps for teachers to take with preparing their students to use technology in a project. First, teachers need to set up a technology playground. This can be done by letting the students play and try to figure out the technology on their own. The kids won’t get bored by having the teacher demonstrate all the time and students can lean on their classmates to figure out how it works. Second, teachers can let technically able students to teach others. The teacher could train students in the technology and these students can help others in different work stations around the room. A third step teachers can take to prepare students to use technology is to introduce a project-management tool. This could be a checklist or some sort of project journal. These tools can offer up a place for reflection about the project; it can also provide just-in-time assessment and opens up doors to get feedback or correction that the students may need. A forth step is for teachers to demonstrate the technology. If the teacher does not know how the technology works, you could ask a technology specialist, another teacher or a tech-savvy student to demonstrate to the class how the technology works.

   5.       There are several ways teachers can promote inquiry and deep learning. Teachers can shape students’ interests into real inquiry, so they guide them past the superficial and factual to more meaningful research. Students can often led themselves into limited explorations, but teachers can guide them to think in deeper ways, transformed by deep inquiry. Together, teachers and students can arrive at more challenging questions that encompasses the first idea, and covers a lot more, deeper ground and understanding. Teachers can guide their students to think more like experts in a certain area, leading students to ask more skilled questions.

   6.       I think a reflection tool, such as a project journal or blog, could be a really valuable aspect of our project.  This could help the teachers get into the minds of the students, see what they are struggling with, what they like about the project and could shape what future projects look like. I think a good prior knowledge activity to do with our students about the project would be for them to brainstorm different areas of our school and what they know about those areas. It will help the students and the teacher be able to see what they already know, what they wonder, and what they want to learn about each area. As far as steps we could take to prepare students for the technology, we first need to decide what technology we are going to use. After we decide, we can train certain students to learn how to use the technology or let the student kind of get to know the technology on their own before they start the project. Also, I think as a group we need to discuss what deeper thinking we can have our students do regarding the project. To know how to go beyond just the superficial and really get students’ brains thinking in the deeper way about the material.