EDM 310 Class Blog

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Monday, October 28, 2013

Project 14


Project Overview


Name of Project: Genetics, probability, and punnett squares

Subject/Course: Life Science Teacher: S. Gajewski

Duration: One Week Grade Level: 7th

Project Idea Summary of the issue, challenge, investigation, scenario, or problem:
Students will research basic genetics discovered by Gregor Mendel, the law of probability, and how punnett squares show the percentage of offspring ratios for dominant and recessive trait characteristics in offspring in the first generation-F1 and second generation-F2.

Driving Question
What is the basic probability of five different characteristics of the cabbage white butterfly in the F1 offspring and F2 offspring using the Mendel's basic law of genetics?

CCSS to be taught and assessed:
CC 6, 11,12

21st Century Competencies
Collaboration: Students will work in groups of three.
Creativity & Innovation: Groups will create models of offsprings
Communication (Oral Presentation)

Critical Thinking:
Groups must research probability to discover possible outcome of level one offspring to create a model.

Major Products & Performances
Group: A completed F1 offspring model of a cabbage white butterfly using five characteristics.
Individual: Each student within the groups will completely answer set one research questions. Each students will also complete set two: punnett square probability chart.

Presentation Audience
Class
Other: Group members

Entry Event to launch inquiry and engage students:
Teacher will show a video clip from Discovery Education on the cloned sheep that survived the cloning process. Teacher will ask the students "If you could be cloned, what good or bad things do you believe will happen if you were cloned?" Students will respond openly in a class discussion forum.

Assessments
Formative Assessments (During Project)
Journal/Learning Log
Notes
Checklists

Summative Assessments (End of Project)
Written Product(s), with rubric: Punnett Square probability chart
Other Product(s) or Performance(s), with rubric: Cabbage White Butterfly F1 caterpillar

Resources Needed
Materials: Paper, writing utensil, student brains, marshmallows, pipe cleaners, toothpicks, and M & M's.

Reflection Methods (Individual, Group, and/or Whole Class)
Journal/Learning Log
Whole-Class Discussion


PROJECT CALENDAR


Project: Mendel's Genetics, Probability, and Punnett Squares

Notes: Students will create a caterpillar using probability of characteristics of dominant and recessive traits.

Monday
Teacher will introduce Gregor Mendel’s work with genetics. Teacher will discuss what genetics means.
Students will complete a research assignment on basic process of trait transference from parent to offspring

Tuesday
Teacher will review basic meanings of genetics. Teacher will introduce and discuss probability using sports references. Teacher will discuss how probability functions in genetics. Teacher and students will complete a probability chart with several traits.

Wednesday
Teacher will introduce the common genetic traits of the cabbage white butterfly to students. Students and teacher will evaluate all dominant and recessive traits of this species. Teacher and students will create punnett squares to test probability of butterfly traits.

Thursday
Teacher will show a sample of a completed offspring caterpillar using 3 completed punnett squares per dominant trait of the butterfly. Students will work in groups to find the average probability of cabbage butterflies to discover what offspring will look like.

Friday
Students will use the following supplies to create their F1 cabbage butterfly offspring to display for breeding of F2 generation matting: marshmallows, pipe cleaners, toothpicks, small colored marshmallows, and M & M’s.


PBL Essential Elements Checklist


Whatever form a project takes, it must have these Essential Elements to meet BIE’s definition of PBL.
Does the Project . . .? ?

YES NO

FOCUS ON SIGNIFICANT CONTENT
At its core, the project on Genetics of Cabbage White Butterfly offspring is focused on teaching students important knowledge and skills, derived from standards and key concepts at the heart of academic subjects.

DEVELOP 21st CENTURY SKILLS
Students build skills valuable for today’s world in the science and medical fields of study, such as critical thinking/problem solving, collaboration, and communication, which are taught and assessed.

ENGAGE STUDENTS IN IN-DEPTH INQUIRY
Students are engaged in a rigorous, extended process of asking questions, using resources, and developing answers while creating a possible prospect of probability in offspring.

ORGANIZE TASKS AROUND A DRIVING QUESTION
Project work is focused by an open-ended question regarding Genetics and probability that students explore or that captures the task they are completing.

ESTABLISH A NEED TO KNOW
Students see the need to gain knowledge, understand concepts, and apply skills in order to answer the Driving Question regarding Mendel’s Law of Genetics and the process of probability between dominant and recessive traits in offspring and are able to create project products, beginning with an Entry Event that generates interest and curiosity.

ENCOURAGE VOICE AND CHOICE
Students are allowed to make some choices about the products to be created, how they work, and how they use their time, guided by the teacher and depending on age level and PBL experience.

INCORPORATE REVISION AND REFLECTION
The project includes processes for students to use feedback to consider additions and changes that lead to high-quality products, and think about what and how they are learning.

INCLUDE A PUBLIC AUDIENCE
Students present their work to other people, beyond their classmates and teacher.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Blog Post #10

Randy's Lecture


After listening to Randy's Lecture on September 18, 2007 at the Carnegie Mellon University. I have realized that by setting goals and having dreams and the aptitude to follow your dreams. You have to do it don't worry about failing. Failing is only a small part of it all. It is not about success or failure it's all about what you have learned along your journey.

Randy talks of his childhood goals that he made and set out to do. He did them well most of them, but he says " I'm glad i didn't get all my goals, I had more fun not succeeding then I did succeeding." He said he learned more from failure example he used was he never played in the NFL.

Then he goes on to talk about how he wanted to be part of disney imagineering. He talks of all the brick walls that was placed in front of him such as his advisors. He tells and shows photos of some of his first things he created and worked with.

After watching this video I was inspired to follow my childhood dreams even more. If we could reach a mass amount of students and help them succeed in following their dreams. Can you imagine the type of world we could have? There is no telling the amount of things we could learn not only as teachers but as students. I recommended to some of my co workers to watch this and they was inspired to follow their dreams as well.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

C4T #2

When Students say They want to Change the World Listen Angela Maiers


Angela maiers is igniting a fire around what she and others are calling Genuis Hour. She is a former teacher and now is a full time education advocate, activist,and consultant. Bringing her passion-based learning, activist learning, and peer learning of show and tell through choose2matter and quest2matter programs for students, teachers, parents, and schools together.

When asked "what is your favorite part of school?" A child will answer "recess." Angela says her favorite part of her early schooling was "show and tell." Where the students get a few minutes everyday to talk, and learn from each other before they went back to sitting quietly and listening to the teacher until called on. Genius Hour takes show and tell to the next level. Showing the students how they matter not just telling them. First ask them something they want to change in the world then help them do it. Genius Hour allows class time for students to explore and act on matters they care about. Similar to the way Google lets its employees work on their pet projects 20% of their time. The students are encouraged to explore the topics that they themselves want to learn about. If you search on the key phrase "genius hour" will see the fire. Angela Maiers gets the students started by asking them what breaks your hearts about the world then what they think they can do about it.

11 months in to it and students in more then 1,500 schools and 6,000 classrooms went through the process of asking " What breaks your heart about the world and what are going to do about it ?" According to Maiers, " these young activist world-change angents and fearless leaders tackle problems and topics that range from building a library in a rural village of Ghana; raising money to build a well in communities with out water; starting and scaling a non-profit organizations support issues of education. The environment and other social causes and developing approaches to support others."

Hello. My name is Sally Gajewski and I am a student in EDM310 at University of South Alabama. I agree after reading your article and listening to your video interview i have to agree. It does make sense what she has been doing it sends a powerful message to the students. I cant wait to try this in my classroom

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Blog Post #9

In the video Making Thinking Visible Mark Church a 6th grade teacher from the International School Amsterdam. He has his students get into groups and has them think about a video they watched cally Early Human Beginnings : Origins of Human Society.

In it he has them get into groups so they can think of a headline. The students discuss what they need to say to get others to understand what it is they are trying to say with this headline. In the video he has one group read their headline which is " Why do mysteries begin and why are they important ?"

After they make the headlines they put them on the class bulletin board. Then after two units he has them check and see if the headlines are still the same.

Brian’s Video: Brian Crosby, Agnes Risley Elementary School, Sparks, Nevada, Back To the Future (17:43) (made in 2010)

Brian Crosby, an upper elementary teacher for 29 years, guides the learning in a model technology classroom in Sparks, Nevada.

TED type video. Hot Air balloon project. 4th graders. Students did not know their address, home state, country. I am not sure why the teacher presenting went over many topics he did, such as tissue flying in air, hot air balloon. I assume he was teaching thermodynamics in basic form, and giving examples/projects as a beginning and teaching the science of the project or demonstrations at a later date.

***Funding! This type of project (sending a balloon with quite a heavy payload, into the stratosphere, would take ALOT of money I would think...for 1 classroom.***

Good part of video is that the blog’s teach children “internet etiquette,” as Mr. Crosby states. The internet is known to be quite a chaotic or hostile environment. Teaching students to be polite is a good lesson to have, yet the importance of this lesson is moot.

Laura’s Part:
Bozeman Science
Mr. Paul Andersen is a high school AP Biology teacher in Bozeman, Montana. Paul Andersen has been teaching high school science for the last nineteen years. He has been teaching science on YouTube for the last three years. Paul spent the first seven years teaching all of the science classes at a small rural school in northern Montana. Paul is currently a science teacher and technology specialist at Bozeman High School.

One Word Questions
In one of his blog or or podcasts he talks about questio in education and in the classroom. Paul Andersen discusses the importance of questions in education. He briefly discusses the evolution of Wikipedia and the probable evolution of textbooks. He discusses the importance of questions and the problems posed by creating enough good questions. He really believes in question changing and evolving instead of the textbooks. Even with using the ipads with the textbooks, he says it is still just a textbook and nothing has changed. He believes learning videos, and interactive videos in school standards should be brought more into the classroom, or even at home with homework. But questions is what his main influences is on. He talks about how hard finding and coming up with good questions is for teachers. And how much work really goes into have good questions and great lessons.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Project #9 Podcast

By: Sally Gajewski
Brian Orr
Laura Hamilton



references: NGA
Teaching21st Final

Blog Post #8

TEDTALKS By Sally Gajewski
Was started in 1984, as a conference to bring people together from three groups: Technology, Entertainment, and Design. It's free and has over fifteen hundred TEDTalks videos with more being added every week. The conference is held in spring on the West Coast of North America. Lasting four days it 's breadth contents include: Science, Business, Art, Technology,and Global issues facing our world. Its has fifty plus speaker each of whom get an eighteen minute slot interspersed with short presentations including music and comedy. No breakout groups everyone gets the same experience because all knowledge is connected.

DiscoveryEd By Sally Gajewski
Is a website/tool than can transform classrooms, empower teachers, and captivate students, by leading them in a way of providing high-quality dynamic digital content to school districts of large and small sizes, rural and suburban areas, and everywhere in between.

They believe that by capturing the minds and imaginations of students you can accelerate student achievements. Tapping into students natural curiosity and desire to learn. Since Discovery Ed has been around it has impacted the way educators teach providing them with with digital content and professional developments. Transforming classroom instructions into an immersive experience that sparks the natural curiosity of the student.

Envisionschools By Sally Gajewski
Their mission is simple. It is to transform the lives of students-especially those who will be the first in their family to attend college-by preparing them for success in college,careers,and life.

They started as a 501(c)(3) charter school management organization in June of 2002. Today they run three small high performing urban public schools in the Bay Area of San Fransisco. It integrates a challenging curriculum that requires all students to complete the A-G Common Core coursework ensuring them to be eligable and prepared to attend a four year university.

The educators use project-based assignments that challenge students to use the 21st Century Skills of critical thinking,solving problems resourcefully, and collaborating productively. Which are needed to thrive in college, future careers, and life. Students then have the opportunity to use these skills and show what they know through the use of a portfolio presentation and defenses, similar to a dissertation. These presentations are required to graduate and are invaluable to the preparations of the students life after high school.

Building on the success of the schools they created a consultancy division in 2010. It also works with progressive teachers and leaders throughout the U.S. to create vibrant schools and engage students deeply in their learning.

Icurio By Brian Orr
My class has researched iCurio in the past, and reported on it being a magnificent search engine for school age children to use. In this post, I will go into some detail about how I might use it in a Mathematics course to help students learn outside the classroom. The website work quite seamlessly when searching for a topic, reading articles about that concept, and storing those articles in your personalized folders for later reading. I think most children older than 7 or 8 will be able to use the website fluently on their own with little hiccups. In mathematics especially, a student can research a concept that is universal to all people on the globe; what a powerful tool the internet is! Derivatives, basic algebra, quadratic functions, graphs of 3-D shapes, all of these ideas and lessons can be found on iCurio and learned by a student at their own pace. No deadlines, no homework! Students have the freedom to research to their hearts content.

I found a few lessons on Algebra II concepts such synthetic division, logarithmic functions, and simplifying exponents. Each search result brought 5-20 pages of content that would introduce each concept or develop how to use it in various cases. I could assign one of the webpages for my students to use, if they would like, to reinforce material taught in class. Or direct them generally to the iCurio database and let them choose which result they think personally best. In short, iCurio contains a lot of information, and lessons are based on meeting common core standards. Students can learn from home, quite well, and on their own initiative.

Teachingchannel By Brian Orr
Teaching channel is a website dedicated to hosting videos that teachers or schools create, to highlight different lessons plans, styles, and common core standards. The site is particularly useful for teachers wanting to improve meeting common core standards with their own lessons, and more so, feed off of a multitude of other teachers for lesson ideas. Each teacher will have some nuance or way to explain a concept different from another. These quirks and even tricks can be helpful to be passed on to other educators around the country. And with common core standards being the basis for about 1/8th of the videos hosted on the website, Teaching Channel becomes a great source to learn how these standards guide and impact a lesson plan.

Common-Core lesson plans By Brian Orr
The final tool I researched were examples of common core standard lesson plans. The examples were of lesson plan sources, such as Inspiration, would provide ideas on how to fulfill common core standards in one's classroom. There also was included a list of standards for certain grade levels and courses like Algebra 1, which detail the expectations of the state on what teachers include in their curriculum. I found it a good source for clearing up what the common core standards are and how one might incorporate their requirements and new style of thinking into some of our lessons. The idea of the common core standards system is great for it provides students with the opportunity to be prepared for nationwide jobs, universities, and styles of work that they could experience or interview to be a part of. The program sets lofty goals which teachers aim to commit to, and this website among others is helping ease the transition to this type of thinking in our education.

Edutopia By Laura Hamilton
Edutopia is a website published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF). Founded in 1991 by filmmaker George Lucas and venture capitalist Steve Arnold, the Foundation "celebrates and encourages innovation" in K-12 schools. Edutopia is a place where students and parents, teachers and administrators, policy makers and the people they serve are all empowered to change education for the better; a place where schools provide rigorous project-based learning, social-emotional learning, and access to new technology. Where we can develop 21st-century skills, especially three fundamental skills: how to find information; how to assess the quality of information; how to creatively and effectively use information to accomplish a goals.

I think what many people forget is that Physical Education is not a gym where it is the teachers job to get kids into great shape. That is not possible with the amount of time they see students. They are teaching students how to be physically active for a lifetime; introducing students to a variety of activities that they can do once they are out of school. While we want to be active in our classes and get them up and moving and we do a variety of cardio activities, it is also important to teach the other aspects of physical activity such as recreational activities that may turn students on to being active adults. We also teach current trends in technology so students have the tools needed to stay active in their world. We are teaching for the future not just for today!

PBL Workshop By Laura Hamilton
First let’s talk about what PBL is? Project Based Learning! In Project Based Learning (PBL), students go through an extended process of inquiry in response to a complex question, problem, or challenge. Rigorous projects help students learn key academic content and practice 21st Century Skills; such as collaboration, communication & critical thinking.

Within the PBL website they offer services, including a Workshop. - http://www.bie.org/services/workshop_menu/

Here they offer a Workshop Menu including:

Three-day PBL 101 workshop- This onsite workshop engages participants in learning the principles for designing, assessing and managing standards-focused projects as well as using performance assessments to judge the relevant work generated by 21st Century learners. Through a combination of direct instruction, video analysis and hands-on collaborative work, participants have the opportunity to plan, design and receive peer feedback on an engaging and rigorous project using the Buck Institute for Education model and tools. Every participant (no more than 35 in any one session) receives a free copy of our PBL 101 Workbook, which includes rubrics, planning forms, activities, readings, etc.
One-day PBL Instructional Coaching follow-ups- We conduct onsite instructional coaching visits as a required element of our sustained support. The content and process of these sessions are based on the needs of the participating teachers. The follow-ups could include additional training, classroom observation, teacher coaching, curriculum review, or a review of student work. We require a minimum of two in the school year following the PBL 101 workshop.
One-day PBL 201- Advanced Practices workshops.These onsite workshops are designed as follow-ups for educators who have taken our PBL 101 workshop and had an opportunity to implement their project. The topics range from PBL and Web 2.0, PBL and RtI, PBL and Differentiated Instruction, PBL and Special Needs Students, etc.
One-day PBL For Leaders workshops- These onsite workshops are designed to provide educational leaders with a toolkit of ideas and best practices that will enable them to create a teaching and learning environment that allows PBL to flourish in their school. Our National Faculty members who currently work as principals in PBL schools facilitate these sessions.

PBL Workshop can even be used in the physical educational field as well. Physical education can be a place where relevant and authentic learning can occur. I think project-based learning (PBL) is one way to not only create this, but to also show others how valuable PE can be. When done well, PBL gives students a relevant and authentic task that they, as a team and as individuals, must explore and solve. Instead of a project that is a curriculum or completed at the end, the standards-based instruction is filtered through this authentic task, which creates a need to know in students. They see why they are learning what they are learning. The students learn and complete the project concurrently, continually revising and producing a product that they will present publicly.

Youtube/Education By Laura Hamilton
YouTube came out with a program with schools that will redirect all YouTube links to educational content onYouTube.com/education. In addition, comments will be disabled and related videos will only be educational, both of which are a source of anxiety around exposing kids to inappropriate content. Each school and district has a different kind of filtering system, but this allows schools that block YouTube at the domain level to access it through YouTube.com/education. Educational videos can be very interactive for kids in learning. Also teaching them to read is key as a parent and teacher. So finding ways to incorporate that in with your technology use is important and very easy to do today in our society.

YouTube/education is a great tool that can even be used in the physical education field. It can not only be available for students to go home and learn more about the lesson that day, teachers can even use it as a tool to teach that lesson of the day.