Can You Solve It?

Well, after a little bit of frustration, I was finally able to make my crossword puzzle in Microsoft Excel. It was actually a great learning experience because I never knew that you could even make a crossword puzzle using Excel! I feel that this is a great tool to show students how to use....especially when integrating technology in the classroom. When students see the true value of what a program like Excel can do, I believe that they will be more open to using it. It would be very boring, and almost pointless, to just simply teach Excel as a stand-along software. I bet many students would say, "So what??" However, if you teach students how to use excel to create study tools, such as crossword puzzles, they will be able to see the relevance. For example, if a teacher wants to review science vocabulary for a test, he/she could pose an assignment to have students make a crossoword puzzle using graph paper. Then, he/she could pull the students together and show them how a cross word puzzle is constructed using Excel. Usually, students are very excited to try a new task with technology, so the students could then have the opportunity to make their crossword in Excel. Not only are they learning how to use new software, they are studying for their test! I think using Excel to make crossword puzzles is a wonderful tool for learning content vocabulary because it gets the students engaged, and it allows them to use their creativity to think of "clues." Students have a better chance of understanding the words through this process, rather than copying down definitions. Another fun idea would be to have the students print out their crosswords and randomly pass them out to each other to try to complete! Again, this acts as another study guide...and I bet they will LOVE to solve their friend's puzzle!
I also made a crossword puzzle using ED Helper. This program was so easy to use, and it also created an answer key! Though learning how to create a crossword puzzle using Excel was a good experience, it was very time consuming. ED Helper was quick, and the program automatically formatted everything for you. With my busy day to day schedule, I would have to say that I would use a program such as ED Helper to make a crossword puzzle for my students.

Put on your Thinking Cap!

Have you ever been in a class where all the teacher does is lecture and have you memorize facts? I sure have! How boring! Speaking from personal experience, after a while I completely zoned out and didn't absorb anything of relevance. It's just human nature! Well, this is what many students are still experiencing today. This is why teachers need to keep up with the current trends and models of keeping students engaged in the classroom.
There are many teaching strategies that teachers can begin to incorporate into their daily lessons. Often enough, many teachers resort to the Behavioral Model because it involves the teacher talking and the students memorizing. It is the easiest model for many teachers, and this is what they are used to. The Inquiry Based Learning approach is the total opposite from what has been going on in traditional classrooms for years. Inquiry learning is a seeking for truth, information, and knowledge. Students seek information by questioning. With inquiry, students are able to find out more about a certain topic that interests them, rather than have to research something "just because the teacher said to." The inquiry process begins with gathering information and data by using the five senses. In a traditional classsroom, the most important goal was to have students memorize facts and data. With Inquiry Based Learning, students are understanding how to get and make sense of data, which is a life long skill. I read on one website that traditional learning focuses more on learning about things, while inquiry learning focuses more on learning things. This is so very true once you think about it. Inquiry enables students to develop useful problem-solving skills, as well as develop habits of mind that will be carried with them to guide learning and creative thinking.
The 5E Lesson Design is aligned with inquiry because students are exploring new ideas on a certain subject, in this case science. The teacher begins by engaging the students in order to capture their interest. Next, the students begin to explore. In this stage, students get directly involved with materials and activities. Students work together collaboratively, which enables them to share and communicate and the teacher acts as the facilitator. In the explanation stage, the student begins to put the abstract experience into a communicable form.
Communication occurs between everyone (peers, facilitator, learner himself). In further stages, students expand on concepts they have learned, make connections to other concepts, and apply their understandings to the world around them. This is what true inquiry is all about. If I were a principal in a school, I would definitely encourage my teachers to use this model in their classrooms because I want to see students make meaning of something that is real to them. This model allows students to go beyond their comfort zone and actually demonstrate a solid understanding of the concepts learned. This is what is going to make our future citizens critical thinkers and problem solvers.

Stretching the Mind

Last week was very interesting in which I had to "stretch" my mind! At first I wasn't sure why we were asked to make a mind map...but the more I thought about it, the more the assignment made sense to me. I rationalized it as this:
In life, we are constantly asked to make decisions based on some sort of problem or action. The mind map allows us to think about a certain concept in depth, branching out all the possibilities to make that concept work. Though I decided to make my first mind map about my life, I believe that Dr. S was trying to get us familiarized with the process of these decision making skills. Once you are familiar with the logical way of thinking, such as the mind map structure, you can use it in the future to help solve other problems or make important decisions in your life. I was glad I was given this opportunity!
After looking through all of the programs that Dr. S had given to us, I decided to use Inspiration to create my first mind map. To me, this looked as though it was the most user friendly. I downloaded the free 30 day trial, and I had a blast experimenting with the program's tools. There were a lot of neat graphics that I could use and I enjoyed the fact that I could add links and notes to my map. This enabled me to further describe parts of my map in detail. I think I got a bit carried away because my map turned out to be larger than I imagined! Oh well!
The next night, I wanted to experiment with a web based mind mapping tool. I decided to go with Gliffy. Believe it or not, I thought this program was easier to navigate than Inspiration. Like Inspiration, it had a lot of great graphics and designs that I could use to personalize my map. I feel like my map on Gliffy was more organized than my map on Inspiration. Another neat feature of Gliffy is that you could publish the mind map to the Internet. I like this feature because now I can give anyone the web address and they can access it!
I definitely believe that students should be exposed to mind mapping in the classroom. As I mentioned above, it will allow them to think critically, while also sharpening their decision making skills. It also enables visual learners to have a graphic to look at. For example, when integrated into the content areas, it can be used as an outline or a study guide. I believe the possibilities are endless with mind mapping!

Below is a link to my Mind Map created with Gliffy:
http://www.gliffy.com/publish/1624132/