Google Maps

View EDT Google Map in a larger map The students will be contacting students in Brazil, South America in regards to collaboration with outside the classroom through EPals. Identifying location and other geographic qualities of Brazil and compare and contrast them with qualities here in kalamazoo will incorporate both social studies and language arts while incorporating our main topic of Gardening. By providing a google map of the direct route from Kalamzoo, MI to Brazil, South America students can use relative location to where the students they are talking to are and even learn about North East South and West.

Part A ePals

Gardening Websites

Kids Gardening
http://www.kidsgardening.org/

Choose My Plate

<a href="http://www.choosemyplate.gov/"></a>

http://gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/schoolgardens/hot_topics/garden_safety.shtml

Websites

http://www.rhs.org.uk/Children/For-families/Safety-tips
http://urbanext.illinois.edu/gpe/case1/c1facts3a.html
http://www.brainpopjr.com/science/plants/plantlifecycle/grownups.weml
http://www2.bgfl.org/bgfl2/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/science/plants_pt2/index.htm
http://urbanext.illinois.edu/firstgarden/basics/index.cfm

Marshall: Chapter 1 RR

Facilitating a well-designed project is key in making a lesson memorable, enjoyable and able for students to learn. You need to get comfortable with change as it occurs often. A major benefit I see to the PBL approach is that the students are doing hands-on work that will allow them to learn from the first hand experience. All of the research and work that is put into the PBL is in real time and relevant to the world in which we live. Students who participate in PBL will benefit by developing good communication skills, inquiry skills, how to be flexible, develop a fuller understanding of how our world works and how they can change it. Using the PBL approach is an investment of time. It will require doing research and developing lessons for PBL to suit the needs of the material to be taught. Sometimes starting a project may not take you and your students in the direction you had planned and so you will need to make up for time lost as well as moving in into the direction that the student needs to be. How the classroom is set up could be an issue. There will need to be technology readily accessible and desks arranged for students to work collaboratively. Another issue is how to grade students and measure their success. This will not mean that every assignment is graded and collected and that there will be 100 question assessments for every benchmark learned. The homework and assessment will need to be based off of what the student is currently working on and if they are making progress. The New Technology Model used in New Technology High is something that I think most teachers would want their classrooms and schools to look like. Having a cap on how many students are accepted into the school does allow for better classroom management and more time for learning. I really enjoy how there is a collaborative approach for everything. The students have time to work with each other and share their ideas. Teachers are also given time to work together and plan lessons.

Morse: Chapter 1 RR

Project-based learning (PBL) has been a huge part of the educators-to-be curriculum here at WMU. What seems so odd to me is that we never grew up learning this way, nor do we see this learning strategy in classrooms today. With the evidence that is used to support the benefits and positive outcomes through students, why is this not more prevalent in schools? As we become teachers with our own classroom it is important to keep in mind a few things to help us through the journey of using PBL with our students. Technology is used often with students both in and out of the classroom and is where most of them spend a majority of their time looking up research or for fun. We can use this tool in our classroom because our students will already have the previous knowledge about working with technology and because they are so in tuned with media based aspects of life, we can use this as a benefit for capturing our students attentions and curiosities. Another aspect the book talked about was that the real world is ultimately what we are preparing our students for. Not only to learn but to also live in and if we create real world experiences in our classroom we are better preapring them than if we have them read out of a text book for all of the necessary information.

One of my concerns as a pre-service teacher is that if we are employed at a school in they follow a curriculum that is not geared toward PBL, then how do we change this or even be allowed to use this technique in our classroom? With the evidence that provides the benefits of students and teachers it should be easy to change the way the curriculum is taught in schools. Some of these benefits include students are encouraged to use critical thinking strategies, work as a collaborative time and using technology to find research. These skills that they learn while working through the school year are skills that can also be applied to real world jobs. I feel that it is important to be using PBL because of these benefits but how do you make sure the GLCE's are being met? How do we as teachers make sure they students see that these skills they are learning with one subject area can be applied with other areas? How else do we open our students eyes to other topics they may see as boring as first but interesting in the end? How do we create a balance between answering questions through research and guiding our students into all areas that need to be met academically?

The New Technology Model was evident in New Technology High and I really liked how it was another real-life example of PBL. I really liked how they limited the class sizes down to allow for personalization within the classroom between the students and teachers. I also liked reading about how teachers are given time and incentives to work together and provide feedback towards projects that will be done with the student. Thee PBL style of New Technology High is about the students and their learning, especially when it comes to introducing new projects. PBL is a new and improved way to introduce curriculum to our students in a way that makes it interesting for them.

Concept Map A

TestMorse

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Test Marshall

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