Reading Reflection Chapter 6

Discuss how technology tools can encourage students to be reflective and evaluate their own strengths.

Technology tools can be a great way to encourage students to be reflective and evaluate their own strengths.  Blogs offer students a space where they can they can reflect on their own progress, but also it allows other students to give some feedback to another student as well.  Another technology tool that can encourage students is ProfilerPro.  This allows the students to evaluate their own progress throughout the semester and focus on what they need to work on and what they should be proud of.

Describe several ways in which you can get students’ minds ready for a project.

When getting students ready for a project it is important that you are as enthusiastic about the project as you can be.  When you are discussing the project with the students tell them all the exciting things they will do throughout the semester and how much they will learn in the process.  You have to show some excitement because if you are not passionate about doing this project, your students will see that and not want to be passionate with you.  It all starts with your attitude and it could make or break your student’s excitement.

Discuss the elements of teaching fundamentals first.

When getting ready for a project you want to make sure that you are teaching the students the fundamentals first.  Know your students prior knowledge and skills in order for your students to be successful.  You want your students to start in the right direction and continue on that path throughout the project.  You want to give them the basic fundamentals first so that they can grow on their own.

Describe the important steps in preparing students for using technology in project.

With many kids today, it is hard to find students who have not used technology, so you might not have to prepare them as much as you had to be as a kid.  But once you have decided on a project, it will be easier to prepare your students for using technology.  One of the steps is setting up a technology community where the students get introduced to the technology and get a chance to explore the technology on their own.  Give them a chance to explore, play, and try things out by themselves.  Of course you will be there to monitor and answer but giving them that freedom to figure things out on their own will make them understand things a lot better. 

Discuss ways to promote inquiry and deep learning.

When promoting inquiry and deep learning in a project you have to make sure that you include as many subjects as you can into that project.  This can give the students an opportunity to connect a deeper understanding of learning.  When your students ask questions about the project you want to make sure that you don’t just answer the question and move on.  Convert that question into a deep inquiry to make that student think and expand their mind.  Push your students to think outside the box and expand their knowledge!

Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

We are obviously using technology throughout our whole project.  But we also want to excite our students when we talk about our project by describing all of the entertaining and thrilling ways we will use this technology and what we are going to do throughout our project.