Reading Reflection #6

1. Discuss how technology tools can encourage students to be reflective and evaluate their own strengths.   Technology tools can encourage students to be reflective and evaluate their own strengths.  This can be done by use of blogs to reflect what they are learning over the course of learning.  ProfilerPRO can be used to determine a student’s learning characteristics as well as identify their strengths and weaknesses.  Also, SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang are websites that use surveys to help students track trends and help individuals to compare their self-assessments with their whole group. 

2. Describe several ways in which you can get students’ minds ready for a project.   Before the project begins, the students will need to have their minds ready and a collection of their prior knowledge will need to be discovered.  Many teachers use a Know-Wonder-Learn activity to begin students with the project.  One important beginning step of introducing the project is to help students develop excitement, passion, imagination and begin to think about the project and develop ideas.  Teachers may help students develop excitement prior to beginning the project by posing questions a week or two before the project is introduced to get students engaged and excited about the topic. 

3. Discuss the elements of teaching fundamentals first.  It is important for teachers to teach the students fundamentals of the topic first, before launching the project.  This is important because students can then be introduced and taught the basics of the topic so they can distribute their time more efficiently.  Instead of using the project time to become familiar with the basics of the topic, they can manage their time more efficiently to study the topic deeper. 

4. Describe the important steps in preparing students for using technology in project.  Preparation to use technology in the project requires advanced planning. The use of technology is not the project, but instead, how the project will get done.  This preparation can be done by considering that you are a student, and which methods would be most effective to get the project done. 

5. Discuss ways to promote inquiry and deep learning.  By creating an exposure to many, un-alike topics, teachers can promote inquiry and deep learning by asking the students to brainstorm ways that those topics can be connected.  As a project is launched in this manner, students will branch off with their own inquiries to develop a deeper understanding in those areas they are interested. 

6. Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.  Concepts in this chapter relate to my group’s project especially the idea of reaching a deeper understanding.  By allowing the students to brainstorm and develop their own chosen plans for health and nutrition, they can take the knowledge to a deeper understanding by investigating, researching and studying a topic they are more interested in.