Blog Post #13

 

 

 

 

 

 

The video about "Brian Crosby, (Agnes Risley Elementary School, Nevada) Back To the Future" Mr. Crosby spoke about how serious it was teaching his students who had English as a second language and how most of the students did not have land phones or did not even know their phone numbers and they were fourth graders and sixth graders.  He stated how important it was for teachers to make learning fun and interesting by bringing schema into the student's learning.  He also stated how important it was for teachers to bring out imagination and creativity throughout their teaching style for the students.

 

The video showed how Mr. Crosby brought schema with his fourth grade science class by having his students to blog about their attitude "High Balloon Project"!  This was about how the students had to imagine that they were the balloon flying in the air.  They had to write in their blogs about what it would be like flying high in the sky as a balloon.  Also, they had to write down when the balloon exploded how that would have felt also.  Mr. Crosby also had the students to make their own wiki webs.  The students had the chance to talk to other students across the world.  The students loved their blogging and the high schema learning from Mr. Crosby.  Mr. Crosby had a "Flicker Account" which gave the students the chance to broaden their learning.  I just love how Mr. Crosby brought schema learning in his classroom and outside his classroom.  He literally brought the words out of the book. In his classroom he also showed how a soda cane exploded from helium in the classroom.  Wow!  What a great teacher.  I just hope I can become a third of the kind of teacher that Mr. Crosby has  become within his thirty years of teaching.  There are not any barriers that Mr. Crosby cannot cross.  Therefore, that gives me a chance to do the same as a teacher.  I must bring "Schema" in my classroom as a teacher as well.  I truly loved this video and learned a lot.  Great job Mr. Crosby!

Mr. Paul Andersen's strategies that he used on "Blended Learning Cycle" were characterized into six catagories as the acronyms  "QUIVERS".

 

QU- This strategy was known as the "Good Question"!  The hook is what Mr. Andersen called it. Mr. Andersen stated that each classroom assignment should start off with a great question.  You should always gain the student's interest at the beginning of every class with a great question to maintain the students attention.

 

I- This strategy was used to "Investigate"!  During this strategy students should be able to make inquiries and do experiments.  The students had the chance to collect a lot of data on a shared spread sheet.

V- This strategy was mainly about making a video.  The video usually was about 8 minutes long.  The students had the chance at this time to learn how to apply all of their information.

E- Elaboration- During this strategy students have a chance to do a lot of reading, and make
diagrams.

R- Review-  This strategy was all about meeting with the students on an individual basis or in small group.  During this time, Mr. Andersen stated how he would implement a  lot of probing questions to his students to see how much did they really understand about the subject matter.  This strategy was pretty intense for the students because they had to be able to answer Mr. Andersen's questions thoroughly with a full understanding answer.  Oh, you could not move on to the last strategy unless you fully understood and explained all of Mr. Andersen's questions thoroughly and correctly

S-  The last strategy was "Summary Quiz"!  This strategy consisted of a timed quiz known as the "Unit Test"  If they did not do well on it then they would have to go back to the review strategy and then move on to strategy six and try the quiz over again and again.

Personally, I love Mr. Andersen's strategies.  The entire idea of "Blended Learning Cycle" is new and witty to me.  I truly like the way he makes an acronyms for helping his student's to learn their subject matter.  I even like the spinning disc (eye catcher) that he used to captivate his student's attention.  I will try to integrate these strategies within my classroom someday.  The only thing I am not sure I would use is the timed quiz!  I do not like putting a time on any test because I feel students should not feel any pressure when taking a test.  Therefore, my quiz would not have a time limit.  Overall, great method of teaching Mr. Andersen.


Final Project update






In my group's final project we have watched a lot of other final projects from different semesters to help us with ideas. Our group project will be based on things to do and what not to do to survive this class. We have worked extremely hard to make this project successful.