To share our Partnering Pedagogies lesson plans, we used BlackBoard Collaborate to capture our group presentation. It was a great way for students to meet up virtually to share information. I have used this a few times during college. This would be a great technology to implement in the classroom for students who are in online classes. Even in online classes, I have found that it is helpful to gather together to discuss what is going on in the class, content, and any questions students have. This is definitely something I would consider using if I ever teach in a situation like the Athens Renaissance School. I really enjoyed hearing the different lesson plans my group projects compiled. It was interesting seeing how we all implemented partnering pedagogies on different levels. I am an early childhood major, so my lesson plan was for kindergarten science. My other classmates seemed to gear their lessons more for upper elementary or secondary classrooms. It was really interesting to see their ideas for engaging their students through partnering pedagogies.
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This week in ED 307, I applied what I have learned about partnering pedagogies by writing a lesson plan that was based on project-based learning (PBL). Project-based learning is a great way to make learning more authentic for children. In this lesson, learning about the weather and meteorologists becomes real for children through first-hand experiences and hands-on learning. After learning about weather and practicing forecasting the weather in the classroom, the children go on to build their own weather forecasting station and video it to share with the rest of the school. I implemented technology into this lesson on the kindergarten level by having them learn to use the Shadow Puppet app to capture the weather forecasts. We would then edit the video together as a class on the Smartboard. The children also review what they have learned at the end of the lesson by helping me to compost a class blog entry on our class website. This week in ED 307, we researched various collaborative partnering pedagogies. My assignment was to research "community service learning". Service learning is defined as "a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities". Teachers are using service learning to help their students make real-life applications to what they are learning in the classroom. Teachers take on the role of guide and facilitator, and the students take more responsibility in their education and learning. They learn to construct their own meaning. This makes learning more meaningful long-term. See my multimedia presentation: https://youtu.be/ER_BBtolIqc In ED 307 we have been reading Teaching Digital Natives by Marc Prensky. It is a fabulous textbook that introduces the idea of the "partnering pedagogy". I really understand why it has the title that it does after studying the book thoroughly and completing our group wiki summary. Almost all of the students we will be teaching in our classrooms will be "digital natives", meaning that they have grown up using many different forms of technology. It is a part of their everyday lives. The partnering pedagogy not only encourages incorporating this technology into our daily classroom routines, but also making the learning experience more meaningful in general. All lessons that are taught need to be "real" to the students. They need to be able to directly see how the lesson affects their everyday life. This is a challenge because it makes you really know your students and be super intentional in everything you do in your classroom. A partnering teacher never "just gets up and teaches". There is always thought and planning behind what is done. Much of the learning is guided by questions that the students work to answer throughout the lesson. This way, the learning becomes more meaningful because the students construct their own knowledge. Partnering is definitely something I want to do in my classroom. It is part of the whole constructivist idea of making learning meaningful to the students. This is something I believe strongly in.
This week, we completed a group wiki summary as a group project. It was a great experience. I loved the group I was a part of. Group work is also a part of the partnering pedagogy. It is great for us to work in this way during college because it helps to develop good communication habits and to learn to collaborate ideas. Below are some screen captures of our wiki. The past two week in ED 307 we have been studying the educational theory of constructivism. Dewey, Piaget, Bruner, and Vygotsky are it's founding fathers. This theory states that student's need to construct their own knowledge and come to their own conclusion in learning rather than teachers simply "forcing truths" on the children. Something may be true, but the students need to understand why for themselves. Students come into the classroom with prior knowledge and experiences that act as a foundation for future learning. The PAR model for education supports this idea because it says that the majority of the time spent teaching a lesson should be allotted for the children to apply the knowledge and ideas being taught. Link to Zentation Presentation: http://www.zentation.com/viewer2/webcast/PNakUZQMMF/ED-307---Constructivism This week in ED 307, we studied using the flipped classroom approach in teaching. It is something I have heard of in the past, but I have never really looked at in-depth. It was really cool! The basic concept is that the students read over the lesson at home the night before, and then they complete the activities in that correspond with the lesson the next day in class. This is an interesting approach with several benefits. I really liked that it gave students the opportunity to have the teacher there when they encountered questions about an assignment. It also gives the teacher more time to do fun activities with the lesson. I was really interested in the fact that flipping the classroom could lead to more project-based learning in the classroom. The students have to understand why it is important that they learn the lesson the night before to the best of their ability. Giving them a fun and meaningful approach to learning in the classroom the next day would motivate them to learn on their own the night before. It would spark their curiosity and hopefully give them so initiative.
As part of learning about flipped classrooms, we also made animated videos to display what we learned about the flipped classroom strategy. I was really excited to fund the website abcya.com where there is a really neat place to create animated videos. It is very "early childhood friendly", incorporating many of the same concepts and skills that are in the basic Paint program that comes on most computers. I can definitely see using this in my future classroom. This program has so much potential for sparking creativity and tech skills in young children. Below are the URLs to my flipped classroom videos. Enjoy! https://www.screencast.com/t/SK4LfZ18jzz https://www.screencast.com/t/GwlbslGSBKKb I recently read an article entitled Are They Really Ready to Work for one of my educational technology courses at Athens State University. It was a really interesting article that made me consider some elements that need to be included in my early childhood classroom. The article was a summary of a study done by The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and the Society for Human Resource Management between the months of April and May 2006. The goal of the study was to find out how ready young Americans were to enter the workforce by polling employers themselves. After polling around four-hundred employers all over the United States, the researchers came to a disturbing conclusion. American is lacking competent workers! The employers seemed to all indicate that employees were lacking the same 3 skills. Those three skills are the following: oral and written communication skills, professionalism and work ethic, and critical thinking and problem-solving skills. This led the team to see that education must be restricted to prepare students for a 21st century work environment. The Partnership for 21st Century skills is the leading organization in promoting students workforce readiness in schools. They have listed the following skills as necessary 21st century skills:
The color of the week this week is BLUE. How exciting! We are having so much fun learning everything from how to spell the word blue, to reading books about blue things, to making crafts of all things blue. Singing and music are great ways to teach children new concepts. Every color we will learn this year has an accompanying song. Below is the song for the color blue thanks to Mrs. Baldridge from the Colors and Kindergarten Blog. We also will be reading the book Little Blue Truck as part of our unit on the color blue. This book goes great with our classroom farm theme, and has the potential for lots of fun related, blue crafts. We love to talk about the weather everyday during calendar time! This week, we will talk about the blue sky and blue water. We will be doing lots of fun outside observations, hands-on exploring, and crafts to make this blue weather unit super fun and exciting. |
Meet the Author:Hello! My name is Katie Harris. I am an pre-k teacher with a love for all things kids! I consider myself blessed to be able to "do what I love and love what I do"! Have a great day! Archives
November 2017
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