Cues, Questions, and Advance organizers gave a lot of great ideas when introducing a topic or lesson. They talked about using a KWL chart when introducting a key concept. What do the student's already know? What do the students want to know? and what did the students learn? Of course adding to those questions would be my EQ (essential question). Probing the students with the EQ can really pull out information that the students didn't even know they knew about a certain topic. Another great idea was using a graphic organize or advance organizer. Starting out with a picture and the essential question get's the students mind running with questions and answers based on that lesson or topic. Using cues, questions, and advance organizers can help students get prepared and want to go further into the topic than what the original EQ asks.
Summarizing and Note taking is another key component in understanding and learning a skill. Summarizing is very important when reading a large amount of information. Finding the key points in a reading and then writing them in your own words helps the brain to remember the information in ways that work best for the reader. One of the ideas that they mentioned in the book was taking notes in a word document and write them not verbatim, but in your own words so that you can understand them. My school was given projectors last year in every classroom. We can hook up our lap tops to the projector and whatever we have on our lap tops is then on the big screen for the students to see. With my class, we read our weekly story together and the students will stop throughout the story and tell me the key components they think I should type in my word document. By the end of the story the students either tell me to add more or they tell me to delete some of the notes that aren't very important pieces. It has been a huge success with helping the students to undertstand how to summarize a story and how to write or note take the important ideas.
As I continue to learn different ideas that involve technology, I hope to use them more frequently in the classroom and feel comfortable doing so.
Katie-
ReplyDeleteProjectors and overhead cameras are excellent tools to help students visualize what the class as a whole, is learning. My students love to present their work and projects with our document camera. They get to share what they have learned and what it means to them. Have you found any projects or activities that you use in this fashion? Their child-like perspective is amazing. I am always pleased to see how they have connected their learning to what they have already learned and my students love the instant feedback as well.
Margaret Theonnes
Margaret,
ReplyDeleteI have not yet tried using the projector with my students. I am not sure of the benefit the students would have using it. Do you have any suggestions? I let the students use the overhead projector as one of their literacy centers, but not the projector or my lap top. I think I have a little bit of OCD and am scared that they will break it. Any suggestions or comments on this would be great. Thanks!
Kathryn
Having a projector and laptop in each classroom would be a huge advancement in educational technology for our school. The way you are incorporating using these tools in to note taking is fantastic. You are keeping the students attention and narrowing down the material to where the important information is accessible and easily processed for a deeper understanding.
ReplyDeleteAs Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn & Malenoski (2007) stated, “To effectively summarize, students must delete some information, substitute some information, and keep some information” (p. 119). Also, mentioned in this literature was the AutoSummarize tool on Microsoft Word. I have not used this tool before, but it sounds like a wonderful cognitive tool to highlight and apply key information (p. 123).
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
I really liked the idea of typing up the key components of the story while reading it. For one thing, I think it will help your students become better note takers (which has become a lost art), and also, the students are coming up with ideas and/or brainstorming while going over the information (instead of only right before a test).
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