Assessing Collaborative Efforts

How to achieve interaction from all students?  This is a factor in distance education (DE) and in the face to face classroom.  Each student has their comfort level with public speaking and interaction and a teacher needs to find the ways to allow students to interact as needed.  As a middle school teacher, there are many times when I feel that I am able to assess what my students know through our classroom discussions more than on a written test.  It is easier to have a student expand on an answer or comment when we are speaking than on a test, when they just want to be done with the test and move on to something else.  With distance education, when there is no face to face communication, it is important that there be some type of interaction.  This can be complete with blogs or discussion boards, but again, how do you get an introverted student to interact appropriately?  The easiest requirement is to have a minimum requirement of interactions, but how do I, as the instructor, get to know the student?  One way that Karen Swan states in her article “Relationships between interactions and learning in online environments” is to have rubric that encourages the desired cognitive behaviors and interactions (2004).  Another strategy is to have both public and private responses between the student and the instructor (Swan, 2004).  An introverted student, even in the privacy that online can provide, may still not be willing to respond to a large number of students or even to the instructor when others may be able to see their responses.  The privacy and the one on one time is needed for many students who are taking the course because they do not have the time to attend a face to face class or have such a class near enough to be able to.  It is important that the student realizes what type of learning environment works best for them so that they will succeed in the classwork learn to the best of their ability (Moller, Foshay and Huett, 2008). 

When a student does not like to interact with fellow students on a collaborative assignment, how can fellow students and the instructor handle this situation?  This happens in a face to face classroom also, and can be a struggle to adequately assess the students.  The type of personalities of the students make a big difference on how much each student interacts.  When one student takes over as leader and does not necessarily listen to their fellow students on idea and has a fixed idea of what the project should look like, it can be prevent other students from feeling like they can participate.  In my middle school classroom, I have students grade each other on their participation, always with the caveat that I, as the teacher, can overrule their scores.  I may have different expectations for students based on their ability and other difficulties.  This works well in a classroom setting, but what about an online setting?  Communication between partners is the paramount need.  If one of the partners is struggling, they need to let their partners know and their partners may be able to help them through a rough area and will request help when needed.  For this to be successful in an online community, it is important that at the beginning of the class, the students and the instructor need to create that feeling of community (Palloff & Pratt, 2007).

References

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web. Tech Trends, 52(4), 66-70.

Palloff, R. M., Pratt, K., & Palloff, R. M. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Swan, K. (2004). Relationships between interactions and learning in online environments. The Sloan Consortium.

Sputnik

As I read Thomas Friedman's article "Whats our Sputnik?", I was struck by the thought of how the American people view the world and education has changed in the last 50 years.  When the Sputnik was shot into space, the American people were under a constant threat of war, a war that could affect every person in the United States, we had just gotten out of two world wars and a smaller war.  I remember having drills for Nuclear attacks as an elementary student in the 70's.  The constant feeling of having to do what was needed to keep our country safe and the rest of the world safe drove me and many other students to pursue the study of math and science.  With the advent of all of the technology students are used to having help with even simple math problems and using spell check and do not take as much time to ensure that even the most simple problems are solved, they rely on technology.  It is great to use technology for help and to help solve problems, but problem solving skills and thought processes also need to be worked on by students and teachers.  STEM education is used to help students develop this thought process, to become self assure and to allow students the opportunity to try designs (whether experiments or building an object) of their own design (Lantz, Jr., 2009).

Teachers need to incorporate STEM education into their curriculum to help students develop the necessary skills.  Administrators need to allow teachers time to attend conventions and other professional development classes so that teachers can learn how to incorporate STEM into their everyday lessons.  Technology needs to be available to the students and teachers, along with the necessary training, so that  students are working on up to date skills and developing the all important thought process skills.

References:

Friedman, T. L. (2010, January 10). What's Our Sputnik?. New York Times (New York City), p. 8.

Lantz, Jr., H. B. (2009). Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education What Form? What Function?. Current Technology Integrations. Retrieved January 15, 2012, from www.currtechintegrations.com/pdf/STEMEducationArticle.pdf

Plate Tectonics

As I have taught Plate Tectonics these past few years, I have begun to love the subject and have looked for ways to make it easier to understand for my middle school students.  It is a hard concept to comprehend when you realize that the entire surface of the Earth is moving.  I found the model that I used in my lesson from a website by a Purdue University professor, http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/foammod/foammod.htm.
The models were easy to make and in fact did not cost me anything because as I looked  through my house and my parents, I found enough foam to make all of the models that I need.  The students had a great time using the models and even though they had covered Plate Tectonics in sixth grade, many of the students stated that they understood better how the movement of the plates caused valleys and mountains.  I enjoyed the models and have used clay models in the past, but the bigger foam models worked better and the students had a great time causing the mountains to pop up.  I am definitely saving my foam models to use with my sixth graders when we study plate tectonics in a few weeks.

Compassionate Students

As a mother and a teacher, I often have pondered on how to make my daughters and students more compassionate toward each other and to people less fortunate than themselves.  The area where I teach, is composed of middle class and upper middle class families and then the neighboring town is one of the poorest in the nation, the students see first hand what poverty does to individuals and communities.  How to get students to understand and be willing to help others less fortunate then themselves when a natural disasters strikes when they are almost immune to poor communities because of their proximity to one?

When the earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, I was teaching Eighth grade Science and we were studying earthquakes.  The destruction was unbelievable as we watched CNN.  I had the students immediately start to  research the country and what the type of fault line and the type of soil and building structures that were in Port a Prince.  The students were amazed at the poor conditions of the buildings, even the better buildings for the government.  The ground conditions in the areas worst hit were filled in areas, which the students had just studied were the worst possible building sites.  It brought to life the poor conditions that the Haitian people lived in.  When just a month latter and Chile was hit with an earthquake that was much stronger, but the damage was minimal because the country was prepared for earthquakes.  The economy in Chile is also stronger and there are better living conditions, even for the poorest people.  The difference between the two countries was dramatic for  the students to realize.  At this point, my students wanted to do something to help the people of  Haiti.  I had them research the different organizations and they had to look at how the organizations spent the money, if they were already in the country before the earthquake and what type of services were they providing.  I had to
 start the path to caring as a research project, but the natural concern that middle school students have kicked in and the students were willing to do more to help.  The student collected money with the student council and decided to donate the money towards the Red Cross.  

The Red Cross has a section on their website that gives ideas that youth can do to help others in need.  Here is the link:  http://redcrossyouth.org/.    It was an eye opener to my students about what they could do here to help other in need.

Ask a Scientist

The Ask a Scientist website is neat place to browse and find information, but it is not a place to find out information on a specific question quickly.  It states on the home page that it will take at least two weeks for a response, but I did not receive a response in the last couple of weeks since I submitted my question.  I wonder if my questions was to specific.  I asked "how different cells can have the same transport proteins but only certain transport protein are "turned on" to allow in the correct molecules?"   I know that the needs of the cell determine what enters and leaves the cell, so that is probably what turns on the needed transport molecules.  I copied and pasted the same question into Google and found these other websites that answered the question.

http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-6533.html

http://www.biologyreference.com/Ma-Mo/Membrane-Transport.html

http://virtuallaboratory.colorado.edu/Biofundamentals/lectureNotes/Topic2E_Membranes.htm

These sites help answer the questions on different levels, from pretty simplistic to college level.  I often get in  trouble with the media specialist at my school because I do have my students "Google" an answer instead of going through the schools website.  I work with my students on how to recognize what is a trusted website and what websites are not trustworthy.    These three websites fit the criteria of a trusted website, they are either a part of a university, or a part of a trusted organization, such as Scientific America or uses resources from peer review journals.  To find reliable websites is important for students as schools use more 21st century technology.  

Nature's Perfect Predators- Mountain Lion

Web 2.0

I had planned on doing much research on different Web 2.0 programs over the summer.  My school district was able to get a technology bond passed and all classrooms in the district are being converted to "Classroom of Today" rooms with installed smart boards, projectors, built in speakers, etc being installed.  The district is in the process of finding grants so that we can have a one to one computer program.  I have not used much modern technology in my class because it was almost impossible to reserve a projector or the computer lab, so these changes will be great.

I have been experimenting with Glogster for my project.  A fellow Science Olympiad coach in my region is a Glogster ambassador and has given many presentations on it, so she has been giving me hints and examples to view and use.  I like how I can make one "poster" and I can include notes, any video clips I want, and other data, pictures and what else I would like.  It is like a one place stop for the information on what topic I am presenting that day or week.  I also like how I can control what a student can do and upload if they are going to work on projects.  Students can get to their Glogster projects from any computer by using the user name and password that was assigned by the teacher.  There are different levels of Glogster programs, including. a free one that does not have all of the features.  There are examples and tutorials available with Glogstser.  Since students can design the glog that want, I feel that students would have fun and be excited to create projects with Glogster.

The other Web 2.0 program that I am going to investigate more is Haiku.  This program allows you to set up discussion boards, blogs, wikipages and even quizzes where I am able to collect grades.  This program allows you to set up pages by class periods, so that you can quickly modify projects for each hours needs.  Haiku also allows the uploading of Google Docs and will help create Google Docs so that students are able to work on projects together.  There is one free version, that works for up to 75 users, and different prices for different versions depending on the number of classes/students and the amount of storage.  The website for Haiku says that it will work with your schools current SIS program to upload student information.