This week's assigned reading was Chapter 11 in our course text which was focused on generating and testing hypotheses. The book states that "When students generate and test hypotheses, they are engaging in complex mental processes, applying content knowledge, and enhancing their overall understanding of the content" (Lever-Duffy & McDonald, 2008). This is very important for students as it requires them to use higher order thinking skills while allowing them to "construct" learning through testing different hypotheses. This is what the constructionist theory is all about.
Chapter 11 shows how to use interactive spreadsheets with students so that they can organize data while testing different hypotheses. This is a technology application that allows students to create a plan and compare their predictions. It saves students time and also reduces the amount of error in the hypotheses. Through using these interactive probes students are constructing their own learning and not relying on a teacher to give them all of the information. The chapter goes on to discuss data collection tools and digital probes which I was not familiar with. I have not used probeware with my third grade students so I was a little unsure of how those work. I was able to gather that digital probes are another way of students collecting data and creating a digital representation of the data, again aligning with the constructionist theory of learning.
Students are typically more engaged when participating in project-based learning and chapter 11 gives some excellent ideas on how to implement more project-based learning into your curriculum through the use of generating and testing hypotheses.
References
Lever-Duffy, J. & McDonald, J. (2008). Theoretical Foundations (Laureate Education, Inc., custom ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
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5 comments:
Clarissa,
I liked watching your clip of Seymour Papert. I too agree that students learn better through project-based activities. If they can get their hands on different materials and actually construct artifacts that help to explain the material, they can connect it to their memory better. When I think back to when I was in school, it is the hands-on projects and experiments that I remember the most.
Clarissa,
I was also not familiar with the probe ware they discussed in the chapter. I wish they had gone into more detail about that just so I could have known more. I wonder how elementary friendly it is?
Clarissa,
Great video clip. I agree with you that it is very important to teach higher order thinking skills. I teach high school and I deal with a lot of students that don't know how to think. They just want everything handed to them. Often times when I require them to "think", they just give up and say that it is too hard.
Clarissa,
I agree with you that students are typically more engaged when they are participating in project based learning. My only question is how do we fit this all in with the TIME issue. The state has given us a pacing guide that we are to follow. However, I am guilty of not following it. I can not bring myself to spend only 2 days on a very difficult math concept. Why are we going to "breeze by" everything and give the students just an overview rather than fully teach it to mastery. I truly believe we need to rethink what we are doing to our students by setting this rigorous pacing guide. I do agree that we have to have some time line to follow but I just think we are trying to cram too much into the kids in one year. It seems like a game to see how many concepts we can "teach" not how many can we make sure the students understand. I would love to create project-based lessons but there just isn't the TIME!
Clarissa,
How refreshing to see one of us using technology to add to our point! Using a video clip was a powerful way to engage me in your blog. I might have to steal that smart idea!
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