Teacher Web Reflection

#1) There are many ways that a teacher web could support my teaching. One example is when I am covering a certain topic in health, lets say smokings cigarettes and the risks it has along with it. I can stand in front of my class and tell them how bad it is for them, but if they go onto teacher web and take a look at the web resources that have to do with smoking they will be able to see statistics and images that they have not seen in class. When I become a teacher I want to be able to be accessible to my students. I want them to be able to communicate with me effectively. By having a teacher web they can check where I am during the day (my schedule) and find out when I am available to help them with their school work.

#2) Not only is teacher web beneficial to me as a teacher, but also to the students. I know not all students take advantage of practice quizzes, but I am going to strongly encourage my students to. It will help prepare them for my tests by seeing the lay out and the type of questions I will be asking. This may allow for some test anxiety to diminish. Another way teacher web may help them is with the interactive sites on web 2.0. These sites allow for feedback of information they put on the computer. A particular one on my web page deals with self esteem, which is a big issue among some high school students. This allows them to do a type of analysis on themselves and helps them look at areas they can work on in order to feel more confident with who they are.

Blogs and Wikis in Education

1.) Before doing this search on blogs and wikis I was unaware of how popular they are in education today. There were many web pages and articles about the wikis and blogs that peaked my interest. One fifth grade classroom was using it as a way to keep up with current events. The teacher assigned them to find a current news story and summarize and cite it. After they were posted, they were able to look at their peers articles, so they automatically had a handful of about twenty five current events. Another great idea I found was schools from different areas or even states collaberating on one wiki to communicate about their school life. It would be neat for students to do it with a school from a different country eve,n just to see how everyday life differs from here the in states during a typical school day. Lastly, a teacher that was teaching students where english was their second language had them use the wiki or the blog as a way to practice technology in english. This way the teacher could go through and let them know how they were doing and make responses.

2) After learning a little more about RSS and aggregators I came to found that they could be useful in the classroom. For example, if the students were doing a project on current events (like the conflict in Iraq) they would be able to use the RSS to get notifications about updates on any news pages they marked. The students would need to pick pages accordingly because they would not want 100 new notifications a day; that could be overwhelming.

3) Although, I have just become familiar with wikis this school year, I have quickly discovered there are some good things and bad things about them. A problem that may arise is someone going in and deleting everything that is written by the student. Also, being on the internet anyone has access to it. As a teacher, you need to find a way to protect your students work on their wikis or blogs. A good thing about them is that it is a convienient way for teachers to access student work. They are able to ask their students to post any of their work and allows for teachers to not have to carry home loads of paper work. Lastly, it can help students connect to one another. A student can post something and have their peers proof read and give feed back.

Multiple Intelligence In The Classroom

1) After taking the multiple intelligence quiz the results showed my strongest points are in the musical area, the naturalist, and a kinesthetic learner. I must say that I am these things, but I would not say that they are all my strongest ones. A musical learner has strengths with sounds and patterning. A natualist tends to catagorize things as well as classify them. Lastly, the kinesthetic approach is interaction with the environment that surrounds me. A couple other ones that I had a strong connection with is the inter and intrapersonal approach, which I believe fits me better than the naturalist. I have chosen my career goal on the sheer fact that I enjoy human interaction, and being a teacher will allow me to get that on a daily basis.

2) I have found that learners that are musical and a naturalist like patterns, sounds, and catagorizing. Coming from a personal experience, it helps me organize and store information more efficiently. An example of this is that I have a binder for each class I am taking. I would be lost and cluttered if I kept all my papers in one big binder. Also, being a kinesthetic learner, I like being outside. I have always enjoyed sports and my physical education classes were always my favorite.

3) Taking the time to read through all these different questionnaires about what type of learner I am, it helps me see that others are also very different from me. Obviously, my strong point will be being able to teach the students that have the same learning strengths as me but I must always keep in mind that it might not make any sense to another student. I will probably try and help my students to be organized as possible because with less clutter, there is less to think about.

4) I think that a technology that correlates with my learning abilities is excel. It keeps things organized in a very organized pattern as well as catagorized if need be. I am sure that there are many other technologies that would work well with this learning style, but being a health and fitness major I have been more focused on the anatomy of the body, not so much the technology aspect to fitness.

5) To encorporate all learning types of students I will have to constantly be on my toes and be ready to explain topics or activities in a different way. I will have to look at assignments and projects from many different angles to make sure I can explain it to each individual student to make sure they understand what I am expecting of them. It would not be a bad idea for me to even give them a mini assignment to have them see what kind of learner they are. I know that the quizzes are not exact, but it could at least give me a general idea of what kind of learners I am working with.

Learning Styles Results

To gain more knowledge about my personal learning style I took a quiz formulated by NC State University at the web page of www.engr.ncsu.edu. This particular quiz allows you to understand yourself better in the areas of whether you are an active or relfective learner, sensing or intuitive learner, sequential or global learner, and whether I am more of a visual or verbal learner.

After taking this questionnaire I discovered that I am definately an active, sensing, visual, and sequential learner. I believe this to be right on! I am more of a hands on person when it comes to learning new concepts and techniques. I have always been an active person because if I sit for too long, I find it easier for me to become distracted. Being a sensing learner I like to know solid facts, I don't really like open ended questions. I am more of the right answer or wrong answer, or this is the wrong way and this is the right way kind of girl. Visual learning is by far my strongest learning style. I understand concepts much better if it is drawn out in a diagram so I can see how the information ties together to create one general point. Math has never been a strong point in my schooling career, but I have found when I take things step by step to try and solve the problem I have a better chance of getting it right; instead of starting from the solution and breaking it down. This explains why I am more of sequential learner.

After taking this quiz, it further encourages me that I am on the correct career path for me. I am a health and fitness major and I am interested in teaching high school health and fitness, and also hoping to do some coaching on the side. My typical day I will be on my feet, doing hands on activities, showing examples of techniques, and interacting with all types of people. This quiz didn't just benefit knowledge of myself, but it also helped me look a little closer at other types of learners. For example, if I am teaching my students how to shoot a free throw shot; some kids will get it just from me saying how to do it, others from me showing them, and others who must try it themselves to get the hang of it. I will have to be open minded to all of the types of learning styles that are present on this quiz because all the students I have will be different.