Engaging Students with Concept Mapping Activities

Concept mapping can be a great tool to use in any K-12 classroom, especially to help promote thought amongst your students. As an introduction activity, a concept map could be a great tool for teachers to use with their students. For example, if I was planning on starting a science unit with my students about plants, I might make a concept map for brainstorming. I would ask students to provide words they think of when they hear the word “plant” and build a map from their input. As the students provide input, I would attempt to challenge their thinking and ask how that word is related to plants or if it relates to some of the other words that were already related to plants. This allows students the opportunity to think out loud as well as feeding off each others information and ideas.
Another very effective way to use concept mapping within a classroom could be as an assessment tool. After going through any sort of lesson with students, you could provide them with a blank sheet of paper and ask them to create a concept map about the topics you have just learned. With an example like this, it is important to provide students with examples of what concept mapping looks like as well as what key elements you want them to cover in their map. This is a great assessment tool because it provides students the opportunity to not only comprehend the essential ideas of your lessons, but also make connections among them as well. Concept maps provide a great visual of what your students have learned and how they can apply that knowledge. An additional idea for concept mapping use could be an about me. This activity provides students the chance to create a concept map of them, and to really think about who they are as a person, and what makes them unique and special.
Observing comprehension of subjects can sometimes be a difficult task for teachers, but concept maps allow teachers to clearly see a student’s comprehension of a topic. When a student creates a concept map, they are given the opportunity to think about what certain terms mean in relation to each other as well as an overall theme or idea. Concept maps show teachers how students are connecting and organizing information in their own ways, which ultimately shows a level of understanding. To be sure that concept mapping is appropriate for your activity, think about the level of comprehension you are attempting to achieve. If you simply want students to recall facts, as in a multiplication test, then a concept map would essentially be ineffective. However, if you want students to be able to demonstrate similarities, and possible differences, within a subject or idea, then a concept map is great. Ultimately, the most important aspect to keep in mind when considering using concept maps in your class is simple, could you yourself create one from the lesson? If you could think of a way to create a concept map that makes sense and is effective, then chances are likely that you students would be able to as well.

Blogs and Wikis in Education

1. Blogs today seem to be mostly used to enhance communication between teachers and their students and their student’s parents. Having this open communication with students and their parents allows teachers to be more affective in their teaching as well as creating more accessibility for students to get in touch with their teacher. Another common way that blogs are being used in education is student to student communication. Some blog sites are setup as a safe place that students can talk with other students, whether it is local or abroad, and share information. This is a great way for students to get feedback from their peers as well as sharing information or research on related topics with each other. A third form of use for blogs in education was teacher to teacher communication. Teaching is a profession where it is crucial for colleagues to work together and share information, and blogs are a great way for teacher to get in touch with each other and share their ideas.

2. I would use either a RSS reader or an Aggregator in my classroom to keep up with my student’s blogs. If my students were using any form of blog posts, I would setup a reader so I could easily be updated when my students post something new. Keeping up with what my students are posting is something that would be very important for me in order to make sure what is being posted is appropriate.

3. Two positive aspects of using a blog or wiki site in your classroom could be the increase in communication between me and my students, and creating communication networks between my students and other students. Creating these forms of communication will allow for students to gain a sense of independence with their thoughts and ideas as well as being able to personally, and privately, communicate with me. However, having a blog post could cause some issues, especially with privacy. It would be important to make sure that whatever blog or wiki site that you are using is something that allows your students to remain anonymous at all times to anyone outside of the classroom network. Another thing to be aware of would be what students are posting. As the teacher you would need to make sure the content of what your students are publishing is appropriate, and relevant to what they are supposed to be posting about.

Teacher Web Critique

A class website, such as Teacher Web, would be a phenomenal class resource. In this day in age, most families have computer s in their homes with Internet access. Having a class website would allow students and parents to access information about our class, as well as resources they can use to help build on the skills they are learning in school. Class websites are also extremely useful to help strengthen the communication between the teacher and students, as well as parents and the teacher. Having a safe place that students and parents can go to communicate with the teacher, access important resources, and track student progress is an amazing tool for any teacher to use for their classroom. I would imagine as a teacher that I would use a Teacher Web in my classroom for the benefit of my students and parents, especially now that I have become more familiar with the site. Having information about your class organized so that everything you need is all in one place, and only a click away is a great way for teacher to reduce their stress of forgetting something like a folder or paper, all they would need is Internet access.
The biggest advantage of using a classroom website such as Teacher Web would be the increased communication with students and the teacher. Having a class website allows students to always have access to what is going on in class, as well as checking their progress as they go. The resources that the teacher provides also allow students to opportunity to work on subjects or areas that they don’t feel as confident in, in order to better their understanding. Another advantage to a class website would be the organization that the teacher would have with their on-going projects and units. Class websites act as a great way for the teacher to have everything they need just a click away, whether it be a certain website with useful information, or the class calendar. One disadvantage that I could see would be if the teacher was not updating their site regularly, so that all of the information was current. It may seem like a class website would only increase the workload of the teacher, when actually it helps to keep the teacher better organized.

Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom

After taking a test to find out which of Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences that best fit me, I was interested to see that I essentially was almost even across the board. I was shocked at my results, and at first wondered if they were possibly wrong. However, the more I thought about it, and the more that I researched the different intelligences on www.surfaqauriu.com/MI, I was able to see that the results in fact did make sense. I have always been the type of person with a lot of vastly different interests. Even though my results showed me to have intelligences in almost all of the intelligences, the three Intelligences that I proved highest in were Intrapersonal, Linguistic, Visual, and Kinesthetic. The Intrapersonal intelligence makes a great deal of sense for me because I have always had the ability to understand other people, as well as myself, and their emotions. I am very good at talking with people when they are dealing with a tough time, which is also a reflection of my Linguistic intelligence. I can speak very well with people, and as my mom would be proud to say, I was blessed with the gift of gab. Writing is also one my hobbies that I have always enjoyed, and this is another example of my Linguistic intelligence. For the Visual and Kinesthetic Intelligences, those are a direct reflection of how I learn best. I learn best my seeing something done, then doing it myself. When I discover something for the first time, I need to see it and feel it in order to really know what it is. In classes, I write notes and draw diagrams while the teacher is talking, and I also shake my leg, sometimes to the dislike of people around me.
Learning more about these intelligences will give me a better chance at being a successful teacher for all of my students. Being aware of the the different intelligences will help to capitalize on each students individual strength, or intelligence, to help create a more positive and confident atmosphere for learning. For the Intrapersonal Intelligences, I will be sure to provide them with lots of opportunities to work with other students during different classroom activities. The Linguistic intelligences would simply be the students who I would encourage to write more, and read, as well as my other students. All students should be encouraged to read and write more, but there is a good chance, according to www.surfaquarium.com/MI, that the students whose strength is in Linguistic intelligence would enjoy this more and overall be more successful. To accommodate the Visual Intelligences, drawing or photography might be something that they could do within the classroom to reflect their abilities. Lastly, for the Kinesthetic intelligences I would make sure to include activities throughout the day that would allow these students to get up and move around. Truly, any lesson can accommodate each learning intelligence, it is just a matter of finding a way that works.
For each of the learning intelligences, there is a technology that would best suit their learning. The Intrapersonal students could blog with other students, safely, from other schools or countries. Linguistic students could be simply a computer with word processing for them to write stories, and a computer could work just as well for a Visual student to create PowerPoint's or web pages. Technology that would be most effective for a Kinesthetic student could be a mouse, or any type of manipulative that could be used to enhance learning. Overall I feel that gaining a deeper understanding of the learning styles will help me to be an more effective teacher who can ultimately help my students learn to the best of their ability, and capitalize on their strengths. As future teachers, it is important learn about each other's philosophies on teaching so that we all may become better teacher together.