Friday, July 20, 2012

Week 4: Spreadsheets and Podcasting

Standard 4 Instructional Strategies: A teacher must understand and use a variety of instructional strategies to encourage student development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills.

Brief Description of Evidence Provided

Spreadsheets:
          Spreadsheets are commonly used in a Mathematics classroom. However, it is a very useful tool that could be utilized in all content areas. Spreadsheets are capable of creating data, collecting information and transforming it into bars and graphs, understanding numbers and formulas and so forth. In addition to this, spreadsheets would be a great tool to use in a(n) English/Language Arts class.

            As a future ELA teacher, I would use spreadsheets in a classroom to help inventory books and novels. Moreover, I think it is also a great idea to use spreadsheets to help students with vocabulary words. Furthermore, I would utilize spreadsheets to collect information from texts read in class and try some compare and contrast with it. There are so many ways an ELA teacher could use spreadsheets to help her or him with classroom lessons and activities. Students will gain much knowledge and life-long skills from this experience.

            Spreadsheets being used today are more advanced compared to what it was when it first came out. Because spreadsheets are commonly used for school, work and other purposes, it is a good idea for teachers or educators understand how this tool works. By being familiar with spreadsheets, teachers could utilize it as a great tool to help students gain a new skill. For example, students may use spreadsheets in Math class, but if they were to use it for other learning targets in an ELA class, students will be more fluent with this tool and further help them in the future. 
Podcasting:
           Podcasting is a great tool to utilize in a classroom setting. As a future secondary ELA teacher, I could see this tool as being helpful with my lessons or activities. First of all, I think it would be a fun tool to introduce young learners, especially young adults, to help them in an ELA class. Podcasting takes good practice to understand its useful as well as knowing how to explain its application. So a teacher using podcasting as a way of learning in a classroom should be familiar with it in order to deliver a learned skill that is beneficial to students.
            In an ELA classroom, I could use podcasting in many ways to help my students. For instance, students could use it to record their voices when reading texts or literature. Moreover, because screenplay is a big part of what I want to teach also, I think it would be a good idea to have students practice recording their voices as a particular character or be animated. Furthermore, I could utilize podcasting as a tool for students to practice language. I work with many ELLs, and one of their biggest challenges is correct pronunciation of the English language. Students would be able to use podcasting in many ways to help them in my ELA classroom.
            On the other hand, it would be a good idea to put instructions on hard copied paper, too. Some students could follow through with verbal instructions, but some students understand instructions better if they could visually see step-by-step directions. In addition to this, creating a rubric for the purpose of using podcasting in an ELA is a must. Students should always know what they are learning and why it is important to learn it. In other words, students should understand the rationale behind a lesson or activity.
            Overall, I believe using podcasting as a classroom tool to help students build knowledge and gain skills is a great idea. Students growing up in this generation are familiar with this term and maybe use it on a daily basis, and if they were to be able to use it for a learning purpose, it would be a fun way for students to learn. Students would be able to express the art of literature creatively in so many ways.   
Reflection on How the Evidence Demonstrates My Competence in Meeting the Standards

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