Investigating Leaves of Plants

First grade students are required to learn about and explore various plants from their environment. It is important for children to understand that not all plants are the same and, therefore, be able to identify the differences between them. For this activity, I worked with Heather Harris to plan an activity that involves technology in carrying out a science lesson. The objective we focused our lesson on was that students should investigate plants through observing and drawing pictures of plants. Further, we extended the lesson to explore identification of plant leaves.

To start off our science activity, we would have the students get into groups and gather various leaves from outside. Once the students bring these leaves inside, we would have them draw pictures of the leaves they collected. The picture below show our drawings of our leaves.


After the students have drawn their pictures, we would have them go to a leaf identification website, www.fw.vt.edu/dendro/forsite/key/intro.htm, where they would use this technology and their observation skills to identify the type of plant their leaves came from. One of the leaves we identified as we did this activity was a leaf from a sumac plant. In the picture below, you can see the image of our leaf next to the plant it came from on the identification site.

Once the leaves have been identified by the children, they would put their leaves under a microscope to observe in more detail. The children will notice that the leaves are not just one solid color, but have speckles and different colored veins. Also, there are often holes and blemishes in the leaves. Below is shown how our leaf is actually many different shades of green, unlike the dark green color that is seen without the microscope.

Additionally, each leaf contains veins, blemishes, and even tiny hairs, which are hard to examine without the help of a microscope. Below, you can see the veins of a dried leaf that we observed while doing this activity.

After the children have observed the leaves carefully under the microscope, we would have the children make new drawings of their leaves, making sure to show the new details that the learned about and observed.

IPT 287 - Science Technology

My favorite science technology that we explored was the microscope. It was shocking to me that the microscope was only $80, and that made me very excited because it helped me to see that it really isn't such a huge financial burden to buy fun technology tools to supplement my teaching. I had a lot of fun looking at various things from outside under the microscope because it made me really excited about learning about the world around me. I think that this would be a great tool for me to use with my future students because it will help me to get them excited about science. Also, it would be very easy to do a lesson with the microscope like what we did in class because all we did was go outside and collect samples of whatever we could find. By allowing my students to go outside and pick up samples of things they would want to look at, this would be a great way to use their natural curiosity to learn more about their environment. Also, this would be a very inexpensive way to have a meaningful science lesson.

IPT 287 - TPACK

Before this week's class, I had no idea what TPACK was. TPACK stands for Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge. This represents various areas of knowledge that are especially important for teachers to have when they are teaching in order to make their lessons most effective for their students. I think that it will be especially helpful to me to recognize the importance of tying technological knowledge in with my knowledge in other areas because it will help me to make my lessons much more interesting, and I will be able to reach my students much more easily. I think it will be very useful to understand TPACK as a teacher because it will help me to concentrate on improving my teaching skills and knowledge so that I will best be able to help my students learn.

IP&T 301: Observational Learning Report

For the observational learning report, I observed a young man in my ward while he was teaching Sunday school. I was very impressed by his teaching skills, and I feel like he was definitely an effective teacher. There were many strategies that I noticed him using which helped him to get his messages across to the class more successfully. One thing he did was write important information and lists on the board. I think that this helped to reinforce the things that he was saying, and it enabled the people in the class to stay with him in the discussion. Also, the teacher included the members of the class in a lot of discussion. When he called on each person, he would call them by name (and ask for their names if he did not already know them), which I believe helped the class to feel more valued and involved. By calling people by name, this teacher was able to help the members of the class feel more comfortable, and I think that people were more encouraged to share their thoughts as a result. After most of the comments from members of the class, the teacher would reinforce what was just said and expand on it if he had any further thoughts on the subject. I think that this helped people to feel like their comments had value and could contribute to the overall lesson. In addition to this, this teacher relied a lot on the scriptures to back up the statements he made. He had people read specific scriptures to point out things, and would then make connections with the things that were read and discussed. By including so much that came straight from the scriptures, this gave more validity to the things that he was teaching. One of the best things about the way this teacher taught was his great use of humor. He was able to really keep the class involved and interested through making us laugh, but he was also able to keep discussions serious when it would not have been appropriate to use humor.
As a learner, I felt very comfortable in his classroom. I really enjoyed his lesson, and I feel like I was able to get a good, uplifting message from it. I think that this teacher did an excellent job with his lesson because he was able to keep the attention of the class and convey his intended message.
If I were to teach this lesson myself, I would not change too many things about the way it was presented. Probably the only thing I would change would be to focus more on the students’ everyday lives and how their experiences can be related to the topic of the class. By doing this, the students would be able to make more connections to the lesson and be able to apply it better in their lives.

RSS & Web 2.0

Before today in class, I had never heard of RSS and had no idea how useful it could be. I have not had much experience working with Web 2.0 either, so I learned a lot today about various different ways I would be able to use these in the future as a teacher. I think that RSS will be extremely helpful to me when I teach because it enables me to have faster, easier access to resources all over the internet. Because teachers often have very busy schedules and may find it hard to spend large amounts of time searching the web for new ideas, suggestions, research, education news, etc., it will be extremely useful for me to use RSS to have quick connections with all of these different sites in order to save a little time. Also, because it will be easier for me to access this information, I will be much more likely to use it in my classroom and hopefully make my teaching more effective.

Technology Experience

I feel like I'm fairly proficient with technology. Basically, I've used computers quite a bit since I was in elementary school and middle school, even more in high school, and significantly more than that since I have come to college. I feel pretty comfortable with technology in many cases, but there are still lots of areas of technology that I feel like I need to learn more about.