Concept Mapping Activity

Animals Cells and Plant cells Lesson plan:

I choose animals cells and plant cells as a lesson that I want to explain it to fifth - grade students.

The objectives of the lesson are:

·      The students will be able to identify the differences and similarities between animal’s cells and plant cells with aid of concept map as reflected in the chart in the textbook (page 47).

·      The students will be to create a model for animal cells and plant cells using their choices of tools based on chick list.

The procedures of the lesson:

1.     I will check students' prior knowledge about cells.

2.     Explaining that although all cells from living things share some common characteristics, cells from plants and animals have important differences.

3.     Showing students a concept map of which clarifies the difference and similarities between animal’s cells and plant cells.

4.     Ask students to apply their knowledge by making their own plant and animal "cells" as a model by using their choices of tools to understand the differences in their structures.

5.     Discussing their works together.

6.     Providing immediate feedback for students about their works.
Here is a concept map of Animals Cells and Plant cells that I will show it for students:

Week 8 Reflection

According to chapter 14 of “Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology” by Reiser and Dempsey who describe the relevance and impact of instructional technologies in the business and Industry field. Actually, I thought this reflection difficult to write compared to the previous reflections in this course because I am only familiar with one of the field of education which is relevant to my major and my future career. However, after reading chapter 18, I conclude two noteworthy ways Instructional Design/Technology has been used in business & industry that I believe could be usefully applied to my own professional work.

The most interesting method that author talk about it is “virtual teams” which refers to a group of individuals who work together from different geographic locations and rely on communication technology such as email, FAX, and video or voice conferencing services in order to collaborate. I am already seeing this in my university in my country. Studying in Saudi Arabia are separate (girls in a different building from boys) and sometimes the professor explaining a lecture to both boys and girls at the same time. The professor is in the class of boys but the girls can see the professors by screens as a live broadcast. So, those webcams on professors’ classes and every so often they connect in live video conversations with professors across the college to share ideas. I think this is very beneficial for the staff and the students. Instructional technology has also cut down on time and money because in that situation the university can save the salary for another professor to teach girls.

Moreover, there is no more paper and pencils in many exams because the question is multiple choices true and false, even match, the instructor can save time and money by using electronic correction. Further, there are many technological methods that save lots of money in a budget for schools and colleges because they use word processors which we have made things easy to edit, copy, print and more instead of using a huge amount of papers that cost money, effort, and a waste of time. Plus, Email has also opened up communication and made it easier to pass information through the schools and their districts.

One more significant way that I can apply it to my own professional work (good in education and business and industry) which is employee training? In the education field, all teachers need to training for some new technological systems, devices, and using websites. I believe that each technology has some special ways to use it. For instance, if a school has smart boards recently, I think all teachers have to attend training on how to use this technology. I suggest creating a video to guide instructors how to use the smartboard. I believe that video will be a great tool to activate using Instructional Design/Technology. By using the video the administration did not have to find a place and time to gather all the teachers in the district together to teach them to use the smart board. Also, They also did not need to spend the money to hire someone to instruct the teachers how to use the new smart board.

Google Mapping Activity

The lesson plan that I would my students creates their own maps is Animals Around Us (Habitat).

I will explain for students the term of habitat, provide different types of habitats (pictures or video), and share with the student what the animals that can live in each habitat (by using flash cards).

The objectives of the lesson are:

1- Students will be able to define the term habitat using the textbook based on page 38.

2- Students will be able to discover that forests, deserts, wetlands, and grasslands are unique and separate habitats using flash cards in 20 minutes.

3- Students will be able to Identify animals that live in four different environments using Google map by doing 3/4 correctly.

I will design an assignment as a formative assessment for students to make sure they get the desired result that is connecting the habitat with the animal that lives there.

In the end of class, I will ask students to create a Google map, which includes four different types of habitat with four different animals.

This is example of the kind of map that I ’d expect my students to create:

Wolves: forests (Shawnee National Forest)

Camels: deserts (Black Rock Desert)

Frog: wetlands (Salt Marsh Nature Center)

Zebra: grasslands (USDA Forest Service, National Forests and Grasslands in Texas)

Week 7 Reflection

According to chapter 14 of “Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology” by Reiser and Dempsey who describe a term of Human Performance Improvement which has a relatively straightforward, vision and mission, solutions for closing human performance gaps, and the similarities between Human Performance Improvement and other fields.

I conclude three significant benefits through reading this chapter, which is the meaning of Human Performance Improvement, the impact of Human Performance Improvement, and how using the ideas/concepts/principles that discussed in this chapter to apply them in my professional work in future (Education).

First of all, we have to understand the clear meaning of Human Performance Improvement which is the systematic process consist of several phases. First ,discovering and analyzing the important human performance gaps. Second, making a plan for future improvements in human performance. Third, creating a design and develop the cost-effective to close performance gaps. Fourth, implementing the interventions. Fifth, evaluating the financial and non-financial results.

Moreover, Human Performance Improvement focuses on efforts and results of people at work, school or any other institutions. Human Performance Improvement experts work with the staff of the organization to identify the root performance cause and try to identify solutions that will best close the gap in performance. This leads to developing human abilities. Higher authority of the organizations (administration in case of a school) should provide many training sessions for managers and supervisors (teachers, other workers, and students in case of a school) and make them understand about performance improvement for the benefit of the organizations. Further, there are many advantages of Human Performance Improvement which contribute to helping organizations to become better and faster at achieving their business goals and maximize the potential of organization’s systems, processes, and people to achieve extraordinary results. So, Human Performance Improvement offers for users more far-reaching and positive results than traditional recursive training efforts.

As an educator, there are a myriad of solutions that are cost-effective to improve and facilitate performance of the human that I could implement in the learning environment. For instance, the environmental factors influence the people significantly when working, and that it can benefit or lack from someone's performance.  Implementing this idea into the idea of Human Performance Improvement and Human Performance Technology leads to determining an outcome of a problem that needs to be solved. In future, I will try to focus not only on what the students get done but also pay attention and to continue to motivate them during the work process.

When I was a student in high school, I remember the administrator of the school who gives all the students their reports of grades after a midterm test. She focused on our grades (if it improved or lacked), asked students about the difficulties that they faces and caused lacking their performance, making meeting with teachers and discuss with them how to improve the student's performance based on what she heard from students (complex exam, lack formative assessment, or did not provide a feedback for students). I believe that is a great method to improve both teachers and students performance because the result will be a higher grade for student and better performance of teachers.

Subscribe to and Report an Education-focused Podcast

TED Talk is one of my favorite podcasts that I like to listen to it which offers many successful experiences.

I subscribed to TED’s education podcasts to hear from some of the brightest minds in academia today which add helpful educational information for me.

The podcast that I listen to it this week is How to fix a broken education system without any more money? By Seema Bansal.

In that podcast, Bansal talks about the schools in her hometown in India which has a problem that she wants to fix it.  Bansal mentions an interesting a story of a very large government system that has not only put itself on the path of reform but has also shown fairly spectacular results in less than three years.  She forged a path to public education reform for 15,000 schools in Haryana , India, by setting an ambitious gaol: by 2020, 80 percent of children should have grade-level knowledge. She’s looking to meet this goal by seeking reforms that will work in every school without additional resources. Moreover, Bansal and her team have found success using creative, straightforward techniques such as communicating with teachers using SMS group chats, and they already measurably improved learning and engagement in schools of her home town.

Week 6 Reflection

According to “Psychology of Learning for Instruction” by Reiser & Dempsey try to describe how to design effective learning environments and interventions in the learning process. Also, they explain how people learn by mentioning several of theories, which consider as a starter for me to explore the educational technology.

If I assume that I am trying to teach learners how to calculate and compare the unit costs (e.g., price per ounce) of various brands of the same product.  I will apply two different theories of learning, which are discussed in this chapter. For each of the two theories, I will describe the nature of the instructional activities that I would design if I were adhering to that theory as I was designing instruction.

The first theory that I would implement is a behavioral theory that focuses on three essential steps. First, I will break down the skills and information to be learned into small units. For this topic, I will begin with the zero ( the easiest problem for students’ level) and explain characteristics of a product, then how to compare with other product, and finally, how we can decide which is the best product for us. Second, I will check student's work regularly and provide feedback as well as encouragement. I will apply an activity by dividing students to two students in each group and ask them to imagine one student as a seller and another student as a buyer. I believe that when students are assigned roles as buyers and sellers and asked to strike deals, they are learning about market behavior by simulating a market. I will show students different situations of various products and ask them to compare and decide. Then, students have to share their answers together and receiving immediate feedback for each couple of students. I think the feedback is a crucial phase in the behavioral theory because if it is positive, that leads to encouraging students and giving them more reinforcements. If it is negative, that leads to focusing on the mistakes and don’t do it again. However, positive and repetition of direction are very important to keep students engaged.

The other theory that I want to apply it is constructivist theory that summarized in that people produce their knowledge based on their experiences. So, I will use a brainstorming strategy to elicit students’ previous experience by dividing students into several groups and collect their prior experiences in new topics through study groups, chats, or discussions, and have learners reflect on their learning in a blog, wiki, or Google doc. Then, they have to calculate and compare items at an online store. I will try to two major things in this theory; first, students should connect the new knowledge to their lives or previous lessons. Second, they have to participate and collaborate together to get a correct understanding of the new concept. I believe this type of learning depends on the role of instructors that is to aid the student when it comes to their own understanding of the new concept. Also, constructivist theory gives students the ability to control their learning.