Chapter 3 begins with a parent-teacher conference that occurs where the parent is a bit old-fashioned in the sense that technology of today cannot really enhance the classroom experience they remember growing up. This chapter's purpose is to describe how improved the classroom is with all these new forms of technology. The book uses three terms to describe the effect this has on students and teachers inside of the classroom-- unique, powerful, and transformative. It's a different world today as computer screens are replacing papers and students are typing their answers instead of writing on a sheet of looseleaf. I just want to add more own experience with this as a student where, I had seen this transition take place. In high school, there was a traditional feel to the class, however, it is different now where my same exact high school has students completing homework assignments on their iPads with a stylus. Furthermore, as a math student, anytime I would struggle, I would either use online tools to help, or refer to tutorials in order to help explain the topic at any time. I need to bring up the fact that there or so many tools to help mathematics students, such as Wolfram alpha, where it can serve as a online calculator, along with explanations.
The chapter also mentions interactive gaming sites. This can be a fun and enjoyable way for children to interact with real-world problems and the notes given in class. It's funny to note that the book mentions the Natural Library of Virtual Manipulatives. I remember actually using this site inside of class in elementary school during a math lesson. I had always looked forward to those problems and the feedback was important as it did display to us afterwards where we were at in terms of the content. The fact that it was instant allowed us to recall the kind of problems used. As a future educator, I could view how my students feel in a particular area. Also, I want to relate the three basic characteristics mentioned in the textbook to this specific site, NLVM. First, it uses computers and laptops at any time. Second, there are a bunch of games, such as the Spinners one, to illustrate many mathematical concepts, in this case probability. Third, the games are fun and are well-paced, such that students want to learn more concepts.
Information and Internet literacy go hand-in-hand. Information literacy is a capstone term that incorporates reading and comprehension displayed in a paper format or digitally. Groupwork is mentioned and can decrease the teacher's workload. Students collaborate together to work on one simple task using technology and remaining engaged. They assign tasks to one another such as note taker or artist, in order to formulate a final product. These skills could prove beneficial, if they choose the business world some day down the line.
I also want to reflect on the term service-learning, as I had done programs such as those numerous times as an undergraduate at St. John's University. We had used three of the four areas, as I recall, when assisting a local senior center. Those were Personal Self Reflection, Project Documentation, and Service Projects. It can be seen that technology can help creativity, problem solving, and assisting the community.
Chapter 7 begins with how online math learning, teacher, and student all connect to one another. Problem-Based Learning is something that I've always believed to be essential. Students would say, "Why does this matter?" or "Why do I need to know this for the real world?" Under computational thinking an coding, I couldn't help, but recall the fact that the way I was taught coding wasn't ideal. However, I had always known that these jobs are on the rise the more technology advances. I do agree that it should be somewhat emphasized throughout the high school grades. Bloom's taxonomy, which was a term that I hear over and over again. It involves remembering an interpretation of information to analyze different points of view and theories, or lower and higher-level thinking respectively. Skills-Based Learning software can help students with mathematical operations, along with discovery-based software to help students problem solve.
Something that I can definitely take to my own math classroom would be the I've certainly used Mircrosoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. To the point where I've mastered them. I can create charts, tables, and graphs on Excel as needed. Furthermore, gamification is a term to described applying gaming aspects to non-gaming scenarios. This intrigues me because this is a step away from the traditntal classroom look. It could prove to be engaging for students. As I am typing this, I do remember playing Oregon Trail in elementary school, or even something as simple as Jeopardy!, in all levels of my individual education. What I'm trying to say is, I definitely will use PowerPoint, and the Jeopardy! game together during lessons. Maybe hide some math word problems and divide the classroom into separate teams. Something of note, however, is that there are split opinions on the impact gaming has on educational procedures. Some psychologists say that they are irrelevant, while researchers believe that students develop a wide range of skills and focus.
Thinking Based Questions
1. Since a lot of these students are into the virtual-reality aspect of gaming, how can we translate to the classroom? Can it be effective/engaging?
2. Are there any web-based tools that you use inside of your classroom?
3. How can we measure the effectiveness of our lessons as teachers with all of the resources available to each student online?
Virtual-reality in gaming is something that is maybe a bit too far away from being applicable in the classroom until the technology is developed further. It could definitely be interesting to see engaging activities in the classroom with VR once it is futher developed though. Currently it is kinda unpredictable and unresponsive at times, a bit too expensive for the classroom (a decent setup requires a really powerful computer and like ~800 dollars worth of gear to go along with it). I do know that a friend of mine bought a VR setup for school related purposes though, they have real VR surgery experiences where you can look around an actual surgery and get an idea of what is happening (med school student). I do think that VR has some real potential for science classroom particularly once it is developed further. Doing a lab in VR can allow for more "dangerous" activities to be experienced safely.
ReplyDeleteI think that with evaluating lesson effectiveness especially in the math field, requiring students to explain their logic and reasoning behind at least one or two questions can effectively do this. This form of assessment shows whether students truly understood the topic or just looked up answers without actually understanding anything about the topic.