Image obtained from: http:www'sethwhite'orgimagespalmer2004palmer sceneryantarctica 4'jpg

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Building Better InstructionPondering
Penguins other themes

• Susan Bowdoin
• MSET 365
• 2/11/2006

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• Listen to teachers as they plan their instruction
  and youll often hear them talk about doing
  topics
• doing apples in September
• doing pumpkins in October
• doing the 50 states
• doing fractions or multiplication
• doing Shakespeare
• doing the Revolutionary War

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But what does doing these topics mean?

• Completing worksheets
• Filling in coloring dot-to-dot pages
• Decorating bulletin boards with student-generated
  thematic material
• Eating thematic snacks
• Singing thematic songs
• Reading chapters in a textbook
• Giving a fact-based oral presentation
• Writing a paper on the collected facts

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But what about Blooms?

• Worksheets
• Coloring pages
• Bulletin boards
• Snacks
• Songs
• Fact sheets
• Reading, writing about, and presenting facts

• Some of these activities are fun, others are
  necessary, but they focus primarily on lower
  levels of Blooms taxonomy.

Why not use these topics or themes to push
students to think at higher levels?
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A real story

• A group of Kindergarten teachers were excitedly
  preparing for their January theme.
• They were doing penguins.

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• The teachers had been encouraged by the school
  principal to use technology with their students,
  so they went to their computer lab assistant and
  asked her to find web sites with printable
  penguin coloring sheets for their students.

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• After hearing this request, the computer lab
  assistant thought,
• Theres got to be a better use of instructional
  time and computer equipment.
• What can I do?

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• She thought about the skills that primary
  students were expected to master. Among these
  were
• learning how to ask good questions
• learning to take turns
• using complete sentences to communicate with
  others
• comparing and contrasting two similar things

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• She did some searching online and discovered that
  several zoos in the United States had penguin
  keepers with email addresses posted on their web
  sites.

http//www.stlzoo.org/yourvisit/hourspricesdirecti
ons.htm
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• She contacted the penguin keepers from three zoos
  to see if they would be willing to correspond
  with the primary students.
• The response from the keepers at the Chicago Zoo
  was even better than shed hoped.

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• Not only were they willing to correspond with the
  students, they suggested setting up a video
  conference so that the students could actually
  ask their questions while hearing and seeing the
  keepers responses!

http//www.biocomp.net/adbcam.jpg
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• The teachers and students worked for a week to
  prepare for the video conference.
• Teachers asked,
• What do you already know about penguins?

Hey, thats asking for prior knowledge!
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• Students made lists of what they already knew and
  what they wanted to know.
• Then they helped to write questions and practiced
  asking them in front of their peers.

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• On the day of the video conference all of the
  primary classes gathered in the library. A
  projector was set up so that all of the students
  could see the video image of the penguin keepers
  in Chicago.

http//hepweb.rl.ac.uk/ppep/exhibits/Projector/pro
jector_picture.gif
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• Students took turns going to the front, standing
  in front of the camera, and asking their
  questions.
• The Chicago penguin keepers responded immediately
  with answers and additional information which
  teachers recorded.

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• To connect the penguin investigation to something
  that would be more meaningful to students in New
  Mexico, the teachers brought in a guest speaker
  on roadrunners. Students used the same process
  to prepare for the guest speaker.

Southwest landscape image obtained 2/11/2006
1131 PM from http//www.cibolaoutpost.com/images
/moon-L.jpg
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• Students then used Venn diagrams to compare the
  birds.
• The teachers asked questions like
• What similarities do you see between the birds?
  What differences do you see?
• Are the birds more alike or more different?
• Which bird is best suited to where it lives?

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Now you compare

• Lesson 1 Theme-based activities including
  worksheets, coloring sheets, snacks, songs, and
  learning factual information on penguins.
• Lesson 2 Inquiry-based investigation of penguins
  including fiction and non-fiction, discussion
  with subject matter experts, analysis of
  information collected and comparison with a
  locally known bird.

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In which lesson are higher levels of Blooms
Taxonomy addressed?In which lesson are learners
actively engaged in asking questions and
discovering answers?
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What role does technology play in the two lessons?
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Lesson 1

• Falls short because
• focus on lower level thinking skills
• no stated goals or objectives or connection to
  Standards. Why do students need to know about
  penguins?
• weak use of technology

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Lesson 2

• does a better job of focusing students on higher
  level thinking skills.
• much stronger use of technology to support the
  learning process.
• Still falls short because
• there are no stated goals or objectives (though
  primary outcomes were considered in the lesson
  design.)

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A well-constructed lesson

• is standards-driven
• is focused by stated objectives/outcomes for what
  students will learn
• contains a concrete plan for how student learning
  will be assessed

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Objectives include

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Sample Objectives
After participating in a video conference and a
local presentation, students will be able to

• analyze Venn Diagrams to compare and contrast
  penguins and roadrunners.
• describe two similarities and two differences
  between penguins and roadrunners.
• determine which bird is best suited for survival
  in its environment.

Audience Behavior Conditions Degree
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Your turn!

• Create an objective for one of the following
• adding double-digit numbers
• learning the geographic regions of the United
  States
• conjugating French verbs
• writing complete sentences
• explaining the scientific process