Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Final Psychology Questions

1. The divorce rate in the United States is the _______ in the world.

2. _______ is an understanding that other people are people too, with their own minds, thoughts, feelings, etc.

3. Aggressive children tend to believe that violence will be ________, and they use aggression to get what they want.


Answers: 1- highest, 2- theory of mind, 3- rewarded.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

My Technology Enhanced Lesson

For my technology lesson I taught the students about what an inference is and how to make one. I was able to first teach them using a book that requires students to make an inference for it to have meaning to it. At the end of my lesson I showed them how, using my own background knowledge and textual clues, I came to the conclusion that I did and inferred what I did. To further reinforce the importance of inferences and how to make them, I used a quiz from the internet. In this quiz there is a sentence given to the students and then four answers that could be what you inferred from the sentence. This was a really good way to teach them better about inferences because I was able to use the projector so that all the students had access to the technology and the words. It was also a fun way to teach them inferences so that they didn't get bored repeating the same things over and over. As a class we were able to get 15 out of 15 on the quiz and I think that the students really enjoyed using a fun website to learn something new.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Technology Enhanced Lesson

The content that would be taught would be Standard 3, Objective 1, Indicator C which talks about students investigating how forces applied through simple machines affect the direction and/or amount of resulting force. By the end of this lesson students will be able to identify all six (or seven if you don't include the gear with the wheel) of the simple machines.

The pedagogy used would be class discussion so that I can observe how much the students are understanding and they can ask questions for anything that they are unsure of. While all the students will have their own computers I don't expect them to work quietly. I will encourage small group discussion to answer the multiple choice questions asked on the website, as long as they stay on task.

The technology used would be the rotating set of classroom lap-tops. There is a website that has four different rooms. Within these rooms there are everday objects that students can click on to find what simple machine makes this work. Multiple chioce questions are asked to guide the student in choosing what they think is the simple machine used. An example is a toaster and the handle on the toaster that is a lever. We would explore one room as a class and then the students would be free to roam throughout the rest of the website. They will have strict rules to not deviate from the page. Students would be able to have fun and work interactively, exploring how they feel necessary for their learning.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Technology in the Classroom

Since being in the practicum, I have noticed that Deerfield Elementary in the Alpine School District greatly values technology. Last year one of the 5th grade teachers received a grant for all of the fifth grade classes to get a classroom set of laptops, smart boards for all of the students, as well as other increased technology. At this time there is more technology in the fifth grade than other grades but the school has plans for the future and for the other grades.
I am in a third grade class and there is quite a bit of technology available to them. They have listening and recording centers, a projector, a video camera and digital camera for them to share with the school, and a few other things. The school also has a Mac Lab that has about 40-45 computers in just that room that is available to all the classes. Overall I think that this school understands the importance of technology and is trying their best to make it available to their students.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009