March 28th, 2012

ELA 9
-Finished presenting final projects
-Prepared portfolio's for interviews next week.

SCIENCE 3
-Reviewed last class
-Created abstract art using magnets, paperclips, and paint.
-All Floor hockey notes need to be in by tomorrow.

PE 7/8
-Began preparing for Indoor T&F
-Continued with Badminton
-Return T&F forms by Friday of this week.

MATH 8
Worked on the Unit Review. We will continue this assignment tomorrow.
We will have a TEST WEDNESDAY APRIL 4TH.

PAA 8/9
-Viewed a narrated version of the Lorax and connected the themes and characters to the units we are studying.
-Researched an article on sustainability.

March 27th, 2012

MATH 8
-Daily Math
-Mental Math
-Do the Investigate p.462 with a partner
-Go over connect and ex. 1 & 2 together
-Assignment p.467-469 #s 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14,

GRADE 3
-Learned how to create our own magnets and what will be attracted by them. Remember to bring your Floor Hockey notes back by Thursday.

ELA 9
-Had a smashing good time at our Midieval feast. Thank you to all of the parents who helped the students with their dish.
-Began sharing the final Romeo and Juliet projects.

March 26th, 2012

HEALTH 6/7
-Read the first two chapters of Maureen Ulrich's books before meeting her the following period. No homework.

ELA 9
-Last day to work on the Romeo and Juliet projects. Everyone will present at our Midieval feast tomorrow afternoon.

GRADE 3 PE
-Practiced for the floor hockey tournament. Please return parent letters by Thursday of this week.

PE 7/8
-Continued with our Badminton unit

March 20th, 2012

ELA 9
-Worked on Romeo and Juliet Projects

GRADE 3
-Worked on the Children's Rights ABC book

MATH 8
-Corrected Mental Math
-Went over yesterdays assignment
-Completed p. 450-452 # 4,5,6,7,8,9,11,12. This assignment will be impossible without linking cubes so if you do not have them at home you can complete the assignment tomorrow in Math.

PAA 8/9
-Worked on the Western Red Lilly project
-Set up the Aerogarden

Best of luck to everyone at the music festival!

March 19th, 2012

GRADE 3
-Worked on the Children's Rights ABC book. We will continue working on this tomorrow.
-Practiced for the floor hockey tournament on April 3rd and 4th.

ELA 9
-Those who did not go to festival worked on their Romeo and Juliet projects.

Blog Post #1

· Blog Post 1: Explain the e-learning principles your lesson includes and how they promote critical thinking skills.

Clark and Mayer (2008) describe critical thinking as the “evaluation of products and ideas” (p.342). Although many of the e-learning principles were considered and applied to this lesson, the principles within the storyboard that most effectively promote critical thinking skills are:

• Personalization – Presenting information in an informal, conversational style cognitively prepares the learner to engage with the material being delivered.
• Pretraining – Teaching some of the key concepts and facts early in the lesson helps learners new to the self-regulation theories reduce the amount of cognitive processing needed to make sense of the ideas.
• Segmentation – Breaking the lesson into small portions helps novice learners understand and retain the information for longer periods of time by avoiding cognitive overload. Understanding the content more deeply provides them with more opportunities to analyze the content and make connections to the different applications.
• Worked examples – Providing students with an example of how to identify and remedy self-regulation issues within the classroom visually demonstrates correct actions and a template to follow for future situations.
• The modality principle – Including narration as opposed to text helps the learners to make meaningful connections between the content, examples provided, and real life experiences.

All of the preceding methods work together to reduce the amount of cognitive processes necessary to understand the theories of self regulation and how to apply them to their own classes. When students are not straining their resources to comprehend the lesson they have more chances to practice the concepts and critically analyze the effectiveness of their efforts. Therefore, each of the e-learning principles allow the instructor to progress the learning from basic understanding to higher order thought processing that involves manipulation of the ideas and applications.

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2008). E-learning and the science of instruction, 2nd edition. Pfeiffer: San Francisco, CA.

Blog Post #2

· Blog Post 2: Evaluate how you applied research-based guidelines to your lesson and how these guidelines enhance learning.

Abiding by the contiguity principle, which refers to placing appropriate amounts of text in close proximity to the graphic it is attempting to describe has proven to require less cognitive energy than if the text was separated from the topic. Since each section of the lesson is segmented into small portions, each slide is self-sustaining. This eliminates any referencing back and forth between slides where the learner can become frustrated and confused.

Practice exercises were also implemented after each small section of the presentation and followed up by effective feedback. Providing students with opportunities to apply their knowledge in a practical and work-specific format has proven to enhance the long-term learning effects of the lesson. The feedback given after each practice exercise clarifies for the student their progress and how to improve. Rather than simply stating whether or not the student’s response or action was right or wrong, explanatory feedback will be provided so that the learner can identify their errors and make improvements.

A collaborative activity is used at the end of the lesson to further the learning experiences. By sharing ideas, perspectives, and experiences the students learn to critically analyze each other’s contributions to determine how they can be improved and applied to their situations. Clark and Mayer note Slavin (2011) in e-learning and the science of instruction for stating that “Cooperative learning methods are extensively researched and under certain well-specified conditions they are known to substantially improve student achievement in most subjects and grade levels” (p. 344).

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2008). E-learning and the science of instruction, 2nd edition. Pfeiffer: San Francisco, CA.

Blog Post #3

· Blog Post 3: Describe where simulations or games might be appropriate to use to enhance learning in your lesson.

Simulations would work very well to enhance the learning within this lesson. Adjusting the practice questions so that they are simulations rather than just questions, answers, and feedback would help the students transfer their knowledge into work applicable situations. The lesson is currently set up so that after each segmented lesson students would have an opportunity to test their knowledge by answering specific questions about what they just learned. Changing the questions to simulations or including simulations after the questions would promote student engagement and require the learners to combine all of their skills to complete the work-specific task at hand. An example of this would be creating a simulated classroom full of different types of learners. The role of the teacher would be played by the person completing the simulation. The goal of the simulation would be to identify as many different student self-regulation difficulties as possible. The next level would require the teacher to choose the most effective and appropriate tool to help the student regulate their own learning. Finally, the last step may ask the participant to assess the effectiveness of their efforts in the previous level and to adjust their tactics according to the student responses. The types of students used for the simulation could be based on data collected by occupational therapists in their area. Therefore, participants would have to identify their general location before beginning the simulation.

Even though the benefits of using educational games to teach and practice skills are quite popular and can be effective, I would not choose to use a game in this lesson. Since the topic of learning modifications can be a sensitive one and should be treated with complete professionalism, a simulation would provide the necessary practice and critical thinking skills without running the risk of having the lesson’s tone be misconstrued.

March 12th, 2012

ELA 9
-Finished reading Romeo and Juliet
-Started working on Act 4 &5 questions. Act 4 questions are due for homework.

GRADE 3
-Investigated how different forces affect the speed and direction of a toy car.

Assembly

MATH 8
-Went over the test
-Reviewed last classes assignment
-Completed the Practice test in the textbook

PAA 8/9
-Brainstormed ideas for the outdoor classroom
-Presented wildlife presentations
-We will be outside tomorrow so please come prepared.

I have been sick

I apologize for not posting daily work on the blog this week but just like many of you, I have been sick all week. The dr. said I should be able to come back to school on Monday. Do your best to keep up and I will review and fill in the gaps when I return next week. Have a fun and healthy weekend!
Ms. Palmer