Friday, February 7, 2014

Reading Reflection 3



  1. Discussion on what should be considered in finding “the Big Idea” for a project.
What should students know after the project? What are the two or three things that the students will be able to do? These are just two questions you should ask when coming up with a Big Idea for a project. You need to scan the curriculum and the standards to find what the main objective is and find out what the students are interested in.
  1. Discussion on the 21st Century skills.
Teachers need to be able to use Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. They need to think about the six objectives. These objectives are; Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create. Teachers need to be able to take normal boring assignments and turn them into synthesizing and evaluating machines. These skills are meant to focused on behaviors required for accomplished people in the 21st century. This model highlights digital-age literacy, inventive thinking, effective communication, and high productivity.
  1. Discussion on the 21st Century literacies.
These literacies address creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, research and information fluency, digital citizenship, and technology operations and concepts. But what it really comes down to is, students learning to be independent, aware, and productive citizens later in life.
  1. Discussion on each of the essential learning functions.
There are eight essential learning functions for teachers, they are;
·         Ubiquity: learning inside and outside the classroom, and all the time
o   This means look for ways to branch out learning for you and your students
·         Deep learning
o   Teach your students how to make sense of all the information they find. Find those higher ordered thinking questions and use other tools to decipher the info.
·         Making things visible and discussable
o   Show rather than tell.
·         Expressing ourselves, sharing ideas, and building community
o   Make it available to the public and have students share through blogs, social software, etc.
·         Collaboration- Teaching and learning with others
o   Reach out to “experts” in the field
·         Research
o   Teach your students how to filter out information they don’t need when researching
·         Project management: planning and organization
o   Make a homepage for students to get organized, provide examples, as questions, etc.
·         Reflection and Iteration
o   Have your students reflect on their project and also make yourself reflect on what you have done.
  1. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.
This gives us great ideas on how we can make our projects better, whether through the type of research  we are using or what we want our students to do during the project and what we want the final outcome to be.

4 comments:

  1. I really like your layout for question 4! The bullet points make it much easier to read and understand. I also like that you touched on the fact that the 21st century literacies are all about preparing to be independent citizens that can feel confident about entering into the real world. You also proved a good point when you said that teachers need to scan the curriculum before choosing a "Big Idea"; This is very important for the teacher to do. Overall, this is a great reflection!

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  2. I like how you provided questions for us to think about for the idea. These are things that we might not be thinking about, and seeing them stated is a constant reminder of what the goal is to keep in mind. Its almost like a check mark. I also agree with your formatting for question #4, it makes it very easy to read. I think its pretty obvious that we as teachers need to be pushing are students harder and aiming to teach utilizing the upper potion of Blooms Taxonomy more frequently. I enjoyed reading your reflection.

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  3. I like how not only for the big idea you mentioned questions you might ask but also talked about making sure to check the standards/curriculum when picking a topic. I agree that 21st century skills are meant to focused on behaviors required for accomplished people in the 21st century. I believe that remembering this is the key for students to succeed.

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  4. I like how you mentioned the questions that should be answered when developing a "big idea". Also when you mentioned that the "big idea" should follow the main objective, but also something that the students have interest in. If students are interested in something then they are going to put their best effort and interest into the project. Those questions should always be asked when developing the "big idea" of a project.

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