Technology Enhanced Lesson Plan

For my lesson enhanced by technology, I plan to teach simple machines and use a website projected on the screen to help students recognize the simple machines they are surrounded by each day. The students already have a basic understanding of simple machines so the lesson would mostly be review and help students to see facts about simple machines that they didn't know before the lesson. We will teach the lesson before Friday of this week. We will take pictures of the activity as it takes place while being careful to remember about the privacy of the students we are working with.

Ed Psych Teacher Observation Reflection

I had the opportunity to observe Brother Stephen Weber teach a Marriage Prep institute class on the topic of communication within a family. The teacher’s goal was to help students understand the importance of communication within a family as well as why the past prophets of the church also feel communication is important, and he planned to teach this objective through class discussion. Within the lesson, Brother Weber made use of some excellent teaching strategies which helped him reach his final goal teaching his objective.

To begin the lesson, Brother Weber had a “self-starter” of sorts in place for his students. A few students entered the room and signed up to play the piano, lead the music, say a prayer, and offer a spiritual thought. When the clock read 7:00 the class began with no prompting from Brother Weber. Those individuals who had signed up simply left their seats and completed their jobs. When these tasks were completed, Brother Weber stood up to begin class. With such a smooth beginning of class and transition into the lesson, students were easily able to focus into what was happening and take responsibility for their classroom and their learning.

Throughout his lesson, Brother Weber made it a point to interact with his students. Instead of simply calling on hands or moving from one response to the next, he took the time to ask for each individual’s name as they answered and let them know that he valued their comment and then explained why. He also let students lead the discussion as they shared experiences from their past of communication in their own families. This practice required Brother Weber to be flexible. With some questions, students had nothing to say and the teacher would need to offer answers and examples. At other times, the students had plenty to say and if they felt it was important to share then Brother Weber let them have their time to speak.

While he taught, Brother Weber did his best to teach students through various ways. As a class, we read from the text book and scriptures. Things were also written on the board. Discussion was used as well as examples that students could relate to and understand. Learning in such a manner really helped students understand as they read an official statement from the book and then heard an example and wrote it down and then found an example in our own lives. This method really reinforced the students’ learning.

What really caught my eye was the sense of humor Brother Weber used with his lesson. He taught the subject but had fun with it. Just because what we are teaching is serious or has a lot about it that needs to be discussed does not mean that the lesson can’t be fun and entertaining. Something else that caught my eye about the lesson is that we were asked the same question at the beginning and end of the lesson. This was an excellent way for Brother Weber to preassess our learning and the give us the same assessment at the end in order to establish what we had learned.

Brother Weber is an excellent teacher. He uses many of the techniques that I as an elementary education major have been instructed to use. It is plain to see that he cares about his students and therefore teaches in a way that will help them to best learn what he has to teach.

Technology Enhanced Lesson

I will be teaching about quadrilaterals in my class tomorrow. I plan on using the teacher's laptop in the classroom and using the projector in the classroom to show pictures of quadrilaterals that the students encounter everyday although they might not ever have recognized that it was a quadrilateral.

Reflection from Inventory

While taking the inventory of the school, I was really surprised at the limited technology in a lot of the lower grade classrooms. I really thought that computers would be more readily available for students. But, the process to use the computers seems easy enough for teachers to have access for their students. Also, in the upper grades there are enough computers in every classroom for each student, so I suppose that they are simply giving it to students when the basics of learning have been mastered.

Also surprising to me was how much our mentor teacher used technology in very subtle ways. If one wasn't looking carefully it would be easy to miss the use of the laptop to take attendance, the use of the overhead projector for morning work, ten-minute math, math problems, guided and interactive writing lessons, the use of the computer for short videos that are applicable to what the students are learning, the use of an Ipod or cd player to get students thinking about emotion or simply give them background noise while working on timely projects. She also uses technology in big ways throughout the day to show longer movies on the tv or use digital cameras to look for geometric shapes throughout the school.

Technology truly is a vital part of our educational system today and whether a school has plenty of resources or only a few, the teacher is responsible for being aware of these and using them as much as possible.

Virtual Tour Final Product

I finished the virtual tour! The link to it is:

http://sites.google.com/site/daniellemcookson/my-files

Enjoy!