Technology tools encourage students to be reflective and evaluate their own strengths by offering them opportunities to build awareness of the skills and attitudes of accomplished scholars. Technology such as blogs offer students a space to reflect over time about what they are learning. ProfilerPRO, which we used in our class, is an online survey tool that allows teachers to identify learning interests, strengths, and weaknesses. ProfilerPRO can be adapted to meet each persons individual needs.
To get students minds ready for a project, it is important to know the students' prior knowledge. You could use a Know-Wonder-Learn (KWL) activity to get to know students better, and to discover their prior knowledge of a topic. The teacher should encourage students to explore and think together when beginning a new topic.
It is important to teach fundamentals before launching a project. The fundamentals include knowing what prior knowledge is necessary. It is important for teachers to set the stage for independent inquiry. The teacher could do this by using the K-W-L activity to tell what they know, wonder, and learned. The teacher should also share the assessment rubric with students to guide them to achievement.
To prepare students for using technology in a project, the teacher must plan effective ways to get the students ready for using technology. The teacher should set up a technology playground for students to learn how to use technology from each other. It is also important that the teacher taps into the student expertise. Students can sometimes help each other more than a teacher can help them. The teacher can then introduce project-management tools and demonstrate process to the students. Use your technology specialist if you need help.
To promote inquiry and deep learning, the teacher needs to guide students to choose questions, plan investigations, and begin to put their plan in action. When brainstorming ideas, students will be able to combine information through several context areas (social studies, science, math). Guide students toward skilled questioning by imagining what practitioners or experts might ask.
These topics from chapter six will help us with our project by allowing us to think about what is important, and how to effectively incorporate technology to give the students a positive learning experience.
I agree with the concept of students helping each other more than teachers do. I think that students understand each other in a different way than teachers do because they are experiencing the project together. The teachers are only teaching the topic and being there for support but in reality only the students know what is really going on inside their own head.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned a lot of the effective strategies that teachers can use to maximize success amongst students and to ensure project effectiveness. I agree that teachers need to plan for students to use technology and by creating the technology playground it will help students get acclimated to usig technology. The technology playground is a great way to get students familiar with technology. Perparing the project launch is just as important as the project.
ReplyDeleteI agree! KWL is a great way to activate prior knowledge about a subject with you students. It seems like a valuable tool in the teacher tool box. I feel like all of the techniques in chapter six are useful for implementing a plan for our projects. Brainstorming and web diagrams are great for any subject and are useful skills that will help your students become successful problem solvers in the future. It's really important that we give them the tools that they need to be good leaders and solvers using tools like brainstorming and organization and them being able to activate prior knowledge. Great summary on the chapter :)
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