I have really enjoyed all of the assignments and I wish this was not a sumer class so I could do it more. I have learned alot about how to teach so that what a student reads just does not go in one ear and out the other. I have enjoyed the experience with bloging and will use it when I finally get to teach.
Thanks so Much!!!
Lesson #1
Name of Site: Science NetLinks
Link: http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/lessons.cfm?BenchmarkID=11&DocID=385
Name of Lesson: Systems of the Human Body
I liked the way this lesson was broken up, it had a section for motivating students, how to assess them, purpose and extensions on ways to relate or carry it over to other subjects. I like and will use this lesson plan because it is really easy to understand and would not be stressful for the students, because it is well structured. I like this lesson plan because it would be great to do the day before a lab, or review for a test. This site has a cool web qust that goes along with it, that has a game where you put the body parts where they belong. I thought that it was cool that in the begining of th e lesson it addresses what students should already know, and activities for upper level students. The game is really cool and you can find that at the e sheet link, I played it for a litte while and the comments and voice made me laugh so I am sure it would do the same for the students.
On that website: Science NetLinks
Summary and Review: This website has a ton of lesson plans for science broken into different topics for science. The neat thing was that if you just wanted to look through all thier lesson plans, you could just scroll down the list to the grade and topic and there were symbols beside each lesson which told you if it was hands on, worksheets, book work or internet.
Lesson #2
Name of Site: Discovery School
Link: http://school.discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans/programs/thebigwet/
Name of Lesson: The Big Wet
Summary of Lesson: This is an hands on lesson which allows students to map out the twelve differnt limates found around the world. It has the students looking at and comparing the different types of climates around the world. I like that it also uses the three, two, one rubric to assess what each student has learned from doing the project. This lesson also gives the standards and objectives that are involved in it. The vocabulary that the students would be using are found on the site in a way that you can listen to how to say them as well as the difinition. It also gives the links needed to use with this lesson. Overall, I would say that this is a well written and easy to use lesson.
Summary of Site: The Discovery School site is unique becasue it has all sorts of lesson plans sorted out by the different topics in science. It is very useful all round and not just for lesson plans.
I really enjoyed and learned a lot from reading these two articles. I really like the multigenre project idea, I think that it could be used many more ways than just an alternative to a research paper. I would like to use it as a final project for the things that were studied in a nine weeks. When students are given the chance to be creative and not just stick to the traditional ways of doing things a majority of the time they will go an extra mile and really surprise the teacher and their parents. The multigenre project has so many ways for students to shine that every student would feel some sort of success in school. I think that visual learners would really benefit from this project because they can see the artifacts and the different types of writings, and see how each can be used.
The vocabulary instruction gave me a whole new way to think about how to teach vocabulary. I never thought that there was that many ways to teach vocabulary. I really liked and will probably use the literature circle ideas for learning vocabulary. I think that as teachers we do not think or sometimes talk the same as our students and in letting the students discuss and agree on what a word means they truly do get a deeper understanding than if the teacher stands up and tells them what a word means. The other idea that I thought rocked was when the students drew what a word meant, which would really aid the visual learners.
All of the ideas were just wonderful!! I think that these articles could really help a teacher teach and be able to differentiate much easier. The multigenre though would really give students a creative turn to te traditionally boring research paper.
Summary
The multigenre paper is truly unique and a creative way to get students to research a topic. This article gives a wonderful alternative to writing a research paper. The only problem that teachers seemed to have when using it was that it was hard to grade, because of the different genres used. Research papers are good, but with all the technology around us, research papers are out of date. Students are getting bored with them and so are teachers. The creativity that is used for this engages and interests the students so that they can truly learn from what they are researching. His creativity of this project allows the students to practice writing using the different types of genres and reading them. The students’ view of the multigenre paper was that they enjoyed doing it; they loved the creativity that it allowed them to use. Students’ were also very surprised about all the time that they spent on it. From a teacher’s standpoint, it was hard to grade, because of some of the questionable plagiarism and lack of information. So some of the teachers decided to use a learning log so that the students could write down their research, and some teachers use endnotes and a bibliography. When these were used these problems seemed to dissipate. This article gave a wonderfully explained alternative to the traditional research paper.
Thinking Questions
1. Is a rubric appropriate way to grade a multigenre paper?
2. Are there any ways to accommodate exceptional students?
3. How could a science and math teacher use the multigenre paper?
Comment
I think that this is a wonderful idea and could be used in any class. I can see students making a scrapbook full of information in creative ways and actually enjoying the project. I wish that the article would have given more description to how each one was graded. I think that these projects would be much more fun to grade rather than the traditional research papers. Overall I think that this article done a wonderful job describing how to assign, make and show a multigenre paper. The only thing that I was disappointed about was how did the teachers grade each one and what were the justifications.
