We are almost halfway through. Praise the Lord. This week we have been working on SAMR and TPACK. I had actually never heard of these acronyms before this class. TPACK talks about making the heart of our teaching the combination of technology, pedagogy, and content for the benefit of the student. It is all about making the learning for the connection of the students. SAMR talks about the different levels of technology in a lesson and the process of enhancing that technology. These acronyms are definitely going to be applied to my unit, but they will also be applied in my future classroom.
During my research this week, I found a couple good things to help with literacy and problem solving. I really love the app Toontastic. It allows students to create their own stories, characters, and it even allows them to do a voice-over of their stories. It allows students to work with the beginning, middle, end of stories. It also helps them to understand the attributes of a story such as theme, main message, details, etc. For problem solving, I found a great pdf from readingrockets.org. I will post the link below. It gives strategies for students to solve problems. One of which is a four step process.
1. Understand the question
2. Select a strategy
3. Apply the strategy.
4. Check the answer or work.
This may seem simple to adults, but to children problem solving is not always an easy task. For help in the classroom with this, they suggested that you give students a problem of the day every day. It allows them to first think about the problem and consider the solution, pair up to discuss, and share with their classmates why they think the answer is what it is.
http://www.readingrockets.org/content/pdfs/promoting-problem-solving-skills-in-elementary-mathematics.pdf
I will use both of these in my future classroom. Both of these resources connect to Standard 4: Teachers facilitate learning for their students.
Here is your weekly dose of encouragement and Jesus, guys. In this stressful time, it is important to remember that we can rejoice daily, and give thanks to the Lord because he is worthy. He is worthy no matter the circumstance. I am thankful this week for his sovereignty in my life. I challenge you to find a reason to rejoice and be thankful this week.
Stay strong,
Mallory
Mallory, like you, I had never heard of TPACK and SAMR before this class. I'm glad that we did learn about it though because we can definitely utilize technology well in our future classrooms. I like the four step process that you mentioned because problem solving can be difficult for our students. I think that by giving our students a clear process to follow to help them work through problems, they will not struggle as much with the concept of problem solving.
ReplyDeleteI also had never heard of TPACK or SAMR before this class. Technology is a ever changing thing and is constantly changing the world and the way students learn, which is something that we need to constantly be aware of and keep up with. As Dr. Parker posted the picture of all the things that have been replaced over the last 9 years, I thought that was crazy but amazing at the same time. I'm glad you shared your extra research this week, I think the 4 step process would be a great thing to use to help students.
ReplyDeleteMallory,
ReplyDeleteI love that you brought up how problem solving is not an easy skill for everyone, especially students. I love the step by step process you discussed throughout this blog. One of the best ways to keep students engaged is to give them a step by step process to go by, and that is exactly what you have done here! You have brought up a wonderful way for us to facilitate learning in our classrooms.
Mallory,
ReplyDeleteI am glad that you have already begun to learn about effective tech integration strategies!