EDU 615: Foundations

This week, I have designed a series of activities designed to support each of the 8 multiple intelligences, as laid out by Howard Gardner. The 8 intelligences are not learning styles, but capacities in different spheres of intelligence such as being able to read and respond to others’ emotions, or to intuitively control ones’ body to perform skillful tasks (Gardner, n.d.). The central topic for these activities is anthropogenic sources of air pollution. This is a topic taught in high school, and the goal is for students to “explain how humans impact air quality” ("North Carolina Essential Standards: Earth/Environmental Science," 2016) after they have studied the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere. To break up the lesson into the 8 activities, I have identified 8 “everyday” sources of air pollution, and devoted a different activity to each. Depending on the given time frame for the lesson, students could be required to complete all 8 activities as learning stations, or to p...

This week, we will be exploring and applying the ideas of teacher-centered and student-centered instruction in the classroom. To do so, I will be using the topic of radioactivity, which is taught in high school chemistry classes as part of the exploration of atomic properties. Teacher-centered instruction methods are based on the teacher providing knowledge to students, and helping them retain it. Lectures are the hallmark of teacher-centricity. Student-centered instruction instead places the teacher in a facilitators role, and the student is put in an active position in the learning process. This can take many forms, including cooperative learning, project based learning, and immersive experiences ("Teaching Methods," n.d.). Part 1 To begin the exploration of radioactivity, students should have recently developed a strong understanding of atomic structure. We will begin the transition to learning about radioactivity with a lesson based on the Madeline Hunter Direct Instructi...

This week, we will be examining some Constructivist and Social Learning Strategies through a sample lesson plan exhibiting a "Flipped Classroom" approach. So, what does all that mean? Our topic for this lesson will be soil properties. This is a topic introduced midway through High School Earth & Environmental Science, after students have learned about different types of rocks, weathering and erosion. The goal of this lesson is for students to learn about basic soil composition and be able to identify soil texture (silt/sand/clay composition). To "flip" the classroom, the students will be assigned a short video to watch before class, as homework. To incorporate an element of cognitive constructivism into the video, I used EdPuzzle to add an open ended question to the beginning of the video that asks: "What do you think is the difference between dirt and soil? Is there a difference? How do you use those words differently?" The goal of this question is to...