2. Unit 7 Objectives Design beginning activity so students will take notice of what they’ll know and be able to do when they are finished with culminating performance Incorporate uncovering student misconceptions within the initiating activity Utilize the 4-step backward design process to develop an initiating activity that is an introduction to the Integrated Technology Unit Project and that will engage learners
3. Use the 4-step process Review objectives, learning targets and essential questions Select appropriate instructional strategies Choose technologies that support your strategies and learning targets Create assessments that measure learning targets and involve student in a culminating performance
4. Read Chapter 8 “The Initiating Activity” from Integrating Technology into Teaching by Arthur Recesso
7. Address misconceptions Student arrive, believing they know “how things work” They may have learned things incorrectly, may have only rote memorization or naïve conceptions
8. Things to incorporate during initiating activity to address misconceptions Pose questions Encourage student dialog and time to reflect on what has been learned—”sense making” Compare between their models and reality Use multiple models for vocab and spatial ideas
9. Results of these actions Students can recognize their own preconceptions and biases Students will start to question their own understanding and be curious to learn more As they encounter new information and understanding, they will be able to ask more questions to help them grow
24. Since at this point in your unit assessments are formative, consider…. Word processing possibilities Graphic representations Classroom response systems
25. More about graphic representations Enumeration Chronological order Compare/contrast Cause/effect Problem and solution
27. Classroom response systems Clickers collect data Teachers need to analyze the data Find and utilize specialized reports to see if any particular question posed more problems for the entire class Use specialized reports to print off individualized study guides
28. Assignments and Activities for Unit 7 Read Chapter 8 Post a copy of the Final Summary Paper and your matrix on the Discussion Forum summarizing what you found out about using social networking tools to become a lifelong learner As you finalize your initiating activity from the Online Discussion, post those to your wiki page. Update your wiki to presentation quality because next week you will be sharing your Integrated Technology Unit Project with the rest of the class.
29. Looking ahead Next week you will be presenting your completed Integrated Technology Unit Project either in class or using Adobe Connect Be sure everything on your wiki pages is in final presentation quality, that it’s easy to read, navigate and thoroughly explains each of the following elements Ties to curriculum, learning targets and essential questions Code of Conduct and Letter Home Culminating Performance and Rubric Learning Activities and Formative Assessments Initiating Activities
Editor's Notes
Initiating activities are simply what the name implies…something that is intended as an introduction to the learning unit. It is the last piece of the unit you design because you know what you’ll assess and the learning activities that you are going to use…now, you will have a broad enough picture to design something that will capture the attention of your students and address all the things you’ve deemed important.
This is the same 4 steps we’ve been utilizing throughout the course. It is dependent on the backwards design philosophy that utilizes constructivist notions. By starting with the end in mind, all the pieces will align towards that culminating performance and will lead students step by step towards a successful learning experience. The learning activities were scaffolded in order to make sure that all the basic skills and knowledge were in place so that students could perform those higher level learning tasks you designed towards the end of the unit and the embedded authentic learning they will undertake in the culminating performance.
Initiating activities usually instructional approaches of presentation, demonstration and discussion. The idea isn’t to teach your students everything but to make sure they have enough background knowledge to start new learning.Since you know how students will be assessed in their culminating performance and you know the instructional strategies you will use to prepare them for that assessment AND you have specified the learning targets and essential questions….you will focus the student attention on what they may already know about the content or skills they’ll need. You will design soemthing to engage them and layout the course of learning they’re about to undertake.
Using presentation, demonstration and discussion, you will engage your students into the learning targets you’ve created. It isn’t necessary to teach them everything…in fact, that’s the trap many teachers fall into. As the sage on the stage, teachers sometimes believe they must teach students everything they’ll need to know. Remember…the constructivist philosophy of this kind of unit requires you to guide them into progressively more challenging learning activities so they “discover” and “create” ways of making sense of the new information they must learn.
Students arrive in every new class—indeed, every new lesson—with their own notions of "how things work." Theorists and researchers call this alternative frameworks, naive conceptions, alternative conceptions. We will call them misconceptions, and of all the things we can never be sure of in today's classroom, we can rely on the presence of student misconceptions in abundance.Regardless of the cause, there are strategies we can use to address and correct these misconceptions.
Causal questions get at students' perceptions of why we see what we see in a modeling exercise. Though they often know the facts, students' understandings of causes are typically incomplete at best. Upon questioning, watch for the puzzled response. Upon misalignment of their views with new learning, students will begin to amend their conceptions. For the most part it will also be, at least initially, a private affair. Conceptual change theory tells us that to modify conceptions we should continually provide ways for students to become dissatisfied with their own ideas. Research in modeling for learning indicates that once students begin to amend their prior conceptions, the process becomes continuous throughout the modeling exercise, and even throughout the unit and onward. For every new action, activity, and discussion, new and modified conceptions form—typically still incorrect to different degrees, and typically representative of a cross between the original (or prior) misconception and the new learning that has occurred. Conceptual change theory tells us that to modify conceptions we should continually provide ways for students to become dissatisfied with their own ideas. Research in modeling for learning indicates that once students begin to amend their prior conceptions, the process becomes continuous throughout the modeling exercise, and even throughout the unit and onward. For every new action, activity, and discussion, new and modified conceptions form—typically still incorrect to different degrees, and typically representative of a cross between the original (or prior) misconception and the new learning that has occurred. Students regularly have difficulty with both spatial aspects and domain-specific terms related to models. Interestingly, these problems are more common when working with models that are familiar to students because of past classwork and/or experience. Many of these misconceptions arise when working with models whose purpose entails studying changes at the particulate or unobservable level. Sometimes misconceptions are formed from a student's past experiences, sometimes from incorrect past teaching; often the cause can't be identified. Theory tells us—and it is borne out in the evidence from the studies we've analyzed—that in the absence of complete and accurate schema, students will inductively assemble the various pieces they have in whatever whole conception seems to fit all of the data at hand.
These activities, while helping them with understanding their own knowledge and correcting misconceptions, they must also capture the learner’s interest and attention. It must support the connecting of new knowledge to prior knowledge. The following idea bank shows how technology can become an engaging factor in this part of your designing efforts.
Google Earth is even more than our own earth…it now brings you the moon, the ocean, historical images, records your own tour and Mars. You can create paths to share with your students and then they can turn around and create their own to share with others. Placemarks take on a whole new meaning with GE.
Word processing possibilities--- use the Track Changes and Insert Comments features in most word processing software to give and gathered student-led feedback. Students can create their own advance organizers or brainstorming map…teachers can review and comment on their work…directing to activate background knowledge around the essential questions of the unit.Creating graphic representations can function as mnemonic devices. It helps students sift, sort, classify, store and eventually recall information more easily. Brainstorming/conceptual mapping software forms descriptive patterns for vocabulary to diagramming how parts of systems work. Start by adding words and phrases in a contextual pattern and then add visual, audio and video images as the unit progress. Continue returning to what you start here in the initiating activity to help structure the new knowledge students will gain
Enumeration…focuses on listing facts, characteristics, features or a combination of all these. This can be especially useful to students if they are processing text as it fits with many expository text structures. The best graphical representations are mindmaps, webs (wheel and spoke version), Frayer Model, word sorts, main idea with supporting detail, staircase organizers with major points on each step and connections to other ideas written on vertical risers and railings. (Wormeli, p 12)Chronological order…structures that put facts, events and concepts in a sequence that uses time. Use timelines, flow charts, mindmaps, calendars, and clock faces.Compare/contrast…this structure helps students to frame ideas around similarities and differences. Venn diagrams, T-charts, similarities/differences flow charts, matrices, Frayer Model, and double bubble mapsCause/Effect…shows how something can happen as a result of something else having happened. Flow charts, webs, herringbone, cluster graphics, wheel-and-spoke outlines, trait analysisProblem and solution…explains how a difficult situation, puzzle or conflict developed, then describes what can be done to solve it. Flow charts, webs, herringbones, cluster graphics, wheel-and-spoke outlines, and trait analysis.
They should concentrate on giving students effective and immediate feedback. It should be specific to a criterion and sometimes students can provide some of their own feedback.
Classroom Response Systems---Clickers collects data and provides a means for immediate analysis for how students are responding to the initiating activityUse Question Report to see if particular questions posed more problems for the class than others. This can be a great help in planning the pacing of the instructional activities you’ve designed.Use Study Guide mode to print off individualized study guides. This report lists the questions and gives the corrected answer for any questions that were missed.