EDIM513 - final reflection

Inquiry based learning includes teaching and assessing both process skills and content knowledge.  The classes that I teach Personal Finance, Entrepreneurship and Business Management include many realistic assignments that step students through the process of everyday Business functions.  I have also had to up my game and include Assessments that test a students depth of understanding in the content.  When I teach my classes and time is running short I may skip some of the "fun" real-world activities.  I also have skipped a formative assessment or Quiz when students are really into the project based assignments.  As I reflect back on what I learned in this class, I think students need both process skills and content knowledge.  

The assignment that resonates with me is the Science teacher who taught the unit on Optics.  The teacher had a nice flow with his lessons.  He had simple but effective demonstrations (Overhead projector), directed instruction on the blackboard, class discussions and group projects (draw the eye, light reflection on paper).  I also include direct instruction, class discussions and group activities.  The group activities include a credit card Charge-It trip, Google Earth Career tour and Business Plan.  These activities provide a measure of student readiness.  These activities allow students to work together as well as an opportunity for more one-on-one interaction with the teacher.  

Assessments are also critical for teaching and learning.  The assessments should be a combination of both formative and summative.  Assessments measure what a student knows and can take-away from the class.  Assessments are important for students and teachers to determine a level of understanding.  Assessments should also include clear directions and concise rubrics for students.  Assessments are also built into real life.  Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants and Teachers all need to pass certification and license tests.

I also enjoyed working with the Discovery Education techbooks.  The format was easy to work with.  The  Model lessons are interactive and include Essential Questions that help to target and provide focus for lesson objectives.  I also liked all the examples of Web 2.0 technology activities at the Discovery Education website.  Technology tools are important for today's students and tomorrow's workforce.  The Web 2.0 tools include opportunities for collaboration (Prezi, Blogs, Discussion Posts, PollEverywhere) and interactive presentations (Prezi, Blogs, Wiki's, Slideshare).  These are tools for the 21st Century learners and should be incorporated into lesson planning.

EDIM516 - Final Project & Reflection

Curated website links for - BYOD Project
Scoop it 

Screencastomatic video - BYOD Presentation

Final Reflection thoughts -

Making the video took a long time.  For the most part, the technology that I used worked.  To make the video I used Screencast-o-matic.  I tested out a quick video and saved it to my blog to make sure that it worked several days before I started the final project.  It did.  The final project though was too long and I had to make changes & redo to meet the time requirement of 5 - 10 minutes.  I originally thought that I could demonstrate a brief Prezi video and online links to APPS but that took up too much time.  I think the next time the class is taught that either the presentation should be longer 10 - 15 minutes or a paper should be included to supplement and explain the video.

I used Scoop It for the curation website.  I really like that site.  I used resources on BYOD from the Scoop It site for the data included in the final presentation.  I have two topics at the site - BYOD for the classroom & Ideas for Entrepreneurs.  The articles and links are great resources for both topics.  The articles and videos for Entrepreneurs will be very useful in my classes this fall.  I'm excited to present them to my students.

As a final thought, making the video took a long time.  I had several problems and remaking the video was very time-consuming.  I thought about the flipped classroom teachers and what a time commitment it must be to create the videos for multiple lessons and units.

Week 6 - EDIM513 Blog Post

I really enjoyed working with the Discovery Education tech book this week.  The 5E format can help to organize my lessons and lesson planning.  (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate)  This format is similar to what I currently use of Anticipatory set, Lesson, Closure Activity and Reflection.  The two E’s that are different is explore and elaborate.  Explore is something that should be built into a lesson that students can investigate and research.  An example is in the Globalization & Trade lesson where students research current economic growth trends and how that can influence the standard of living of a region.  Students may be interested in what topics we are covering but when new technologies can be used to bring the content to life, students are more engaged.  The Web 2.0 presentation tools such as Prezi, Animoto and Voicethread can be used to explain or reflect on new learning.  Students also like to work together and these tools make it easy to work and collaborate at school or at home. 

The elaborate piece of the 5E format should focus on real-world issues that students can address and possibly solve.  I usually include a reality-based activity in most lessons or units.  For example, in the credit card and loan unit I have a Charge-it trip activity that students use a credit card for an expensive trip.  Students need to research actual costs and work within a budget.  Students usually remark that the activity is fun and also they really get to see how expensive things cost.  The Charge-it trip is an example of an extension or elaboration of the basic content in the credit unit.  Sometimes I may skip these types of activities if I am short on time.  After reading about the 5E format, I see now how important all the pieces are for students to really grasp and understand the course content.  Students need to learn new material but also internalize what they learn.  The explore, explain and elaborate activities move students in that direction just as much as the main content facts and figures.

EDIM516 - Gamification in the Classroom

The Pro’s & Con’s of Gaming in the classroom –

How can you determine whether an educational game is worthwhile in the classroom?  Business simulations have been around for years and some provide real-world scenarios similar to the work-world and some of them are a waste of time.  According to Sylvia Martinez, “The pinnacle of using games in the classroom is for students to be able to program their own game.” I agree that if you can personalize or customize a game for students in your class then you can target individual student needs.  Sylvia also mentioned that educational games should be fun, social and encourages problem-solving skills. I also think that the game should add value to the lesson and not be used as an introduction or reinforcement activity.  As I examine several educational games, I will consider these factors and not bedazzled by the hype of using a game in the classroom.

The first game that I reviewed is Everfi.org Financial Literacy program.  The Financial Literacy program has 10 interactive modules on Personal Finance topics.  It is a learning platform that uses video, animations, 3-D gaming, Avatars and a real-life simulation for high school and college money management preparations.  The positives of the Financial Literacy program are that the content is designed to align with National standards on Financial Literacy.  The information in the course content does align with both National and State standards.  Students work individually and take a pre-assessment, complete learning modules, interactive activities and a post-assessment. Narrators guide students through the learning process.  Students can retake the post-assessment quizzes as many times as they want. Students are prompted to problem-solve and the modules are adaptable for each student. The last step is to complete an interactive simulation for managing money in high school and college.  Students are prompted to analyze the situation and problem-solve.  The 3-D interactive environment is on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and at a simulated bank.  One of the negatives is that Instructor learning materials are not provided.  It would be helpful to stop and teach or guide students through certain segments.  The teacher version is the same as the student and you cannot stop and have students answer questions or reflect on the learning process.  The teacher login does have easy access to student scores on each module. 

The second game that I look at is available on an ipad or iphone as an app.  The program is also a financial literacy program for teens.  The program is called Thrive n Shine” and it is a cutting-edge interactive game designed to teach financial responsibility to young adults.  The CEO of the startup company, Jason Young, has been appointed by President Obama to spearhead a special advisory council on Financial Literacy for young Americans.  Jason’s Young as CEO of MindBlown Labs, said, “I am honored by this appointment. I have had an intense passion for financial capability since my family was evicted from our home during the winter break of my sophomore year at Harvard. Now, I am working with my team at MindBlown Labs to empower 20,000,000 teens and young adults to become financially capable by the year 2020. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to achieve this goal alongside some of the foremost thinkers and leaders in this field.”

The game is a mobile, realistically based game that includes social interactions among players to help them develop financial literacy skills. In the game, players create an avatar, choose a career, and manage their own virtual lives where everything, from clothing and housing to career and social life, is customizable. Students play mini-games to earn “Money,” “Skill,” and “Reputation,” which help them move through their fantasy lives and careers. The game promotes the ability to make progress through the game quickly with good decisions.  Students say that the game is very exciting and they have a great amount of freedom and creativity and they enjoy the social interactions.  Something that was not mentioned is any instructional material for the teachers. Grading was also not mentioned at the website.

What I take-away from this is that using a computer or technology can add interest but their needs to be so much more that students gain from gamification in the classroom.  First, a social aspect needs to be integrated into the learning modules of the game.   Students can work together to answer questions or solve the interactive problems.   Students can work together to discuss what they learned and compare classroom-learning styles versus the gaming program.  Also, using the gaming software provides students with an opportunity for a do-over.  Being able to complete a module and assessments again and again without any penalties is a positive characteristic of gaming.  Students often do not have the same opportunity in the tradition class environment without having their grade affected.

References

Games in Education – Resources for the K-12 classroom, article by Sylvia Martinez. 2008. Available online at http://gamesinedresources.wikispaces.com/home.

Everfi – Financial Literacy, 2014 Everfi Inc. Available online at http://www.everfi.org.

Oakland Edtech Startup on Path to Impact 20,000,000 students – MindBlown Labs CEO joins Presidential Advisory council. May 29 2014. Available online at http://www.mindblownlabs.com.

Week 5 - EDIM-513 Inquiry-based learning

Week 5 - Reflection

What have I learned over the last several weeks about inquiry-based learning?  The last few weeks have helped define, provide examples and provide resources to implement inquiry-based learning into my classes.

The week three content focused on identifying questions that students can answer through investigations.  The main goal of taking this class is to be able to incorporate the theory presented and use it in my class content.  To achieve student learning that is at a deeper level, “Inquiry-based questions prompt students to gather, analyze, and interpret data” as indicated in Week 3: Inquiry-based learning from theory to practice Topic A Instructional Media at Wilkes University.  Students also need to think critically to make connections between what they are learning in class versus what they may encounter in a real-world situation.  The video of the Science teacher was useful to see the concepts presented in our course in action.  Similar to students that may understand a new concept better with illustrations and examples, I understand inquiry-based instruction better through watching the Science teacher in action.  The teacher provided concrete science concepts and allowed the students to conduct several investigations to test their theories.

As far as my class content, week 3 gave me new ideas on how to develop questions based on principles and theories that push students to dig deeper for thought provoking answers.  The Discovery Education Tech book is a useful tool for developing questions and activities in Personal Finance & Entrepreneurship.  The format of the tech book of engage, explore, explain, elaborate and evaluate provides many resources that can be used for lesson planning and inquiry-based activities.  The format has activities that are for summarization and analysis of what was learned.  The elaborate and evaluate provide examples of inquiry-type questions that dig deeper into the content.

Week 4 module introduced me to the Pennsylvania Standards Aligned System. (SAS)   Standards-based teaching is important to my instruction in class. I always review the standards and essentials questions are intertwined into every lesson.  I will now also view the curriculum components from the SAS site.  The Big idea, Concepts, Competencies and Essential questions are all similar to what I currently use to organize a lesson.  This website is a good place to visit to make sure I am on target and also look for new ideas for essential questions.

Week 5 modules setup a framework to organize the components of a scientific explanation.  Make a claim about a problem.  Provide evidence of the claim.  Provide reasoning that links the evidence to the claim.  This is referenced from Week 5: Communicating for Inquiry-based learning, Topic B Instructional Media at Wilkes University.  Week 5 introduced us to a wide variety of Web 2.0 tools for presentations, mobile devices and communications.  I have often asked students to try new technology but not really have a good purposeful reason to switch to something new.  The Discovery Education website explain how to best use the different Web 2.0 tools and explains what is unique with each one.  Also, the inquiry-based scientific explanation helps to frame questions that are thought provoking for students.