Lesson Outline March 16, 1998

Table of Contents

  1. [Introduction]
  2. [Assignments]: Chapter 10-11
  3. [Materials and Ideas]:
  4. [Discussion of Readings]: Chapter 10-11
  5. [Activity 1]: designing more water activities
  6. [Activity 2]: vee mapping
  7. [Activity 3]: preparing images for the web
  8. [Important links]

 

Introduction:

  1. Presenting your curriculum packages at the end of the course (Mar 23, Mar 30). Who is presenting when?
  2. Course evaluations.
  3. Perry: submit your materials for the water unit.
  4. Water curriculum contributions
    1. Feb 2: Alisha [All the Water in the World], Karin [Egg float]
    2. Feb 9: Dawn and Polly [Acids and bases]
    3. Feb 16: Michael, Rosy [Erosion]
    4. Feb 23: Sean ["Cleaning Water"], Tara [Watershed]
    5. Mar 2: Glenda [Safe water], Perry []
    6. MR: [Evaporation/ Condensation]
    7. [Temperature-dependence of Volume of Water]
    8. Tara, Perry, Polly: [Concept map 1]
    9. Michael et al.: [Concept map 2]
    10. Water curriculum ([IRPs Water Grade 4])
    11. MR: [Thermal expansion]

 

 

 

 

 

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Assignments:

Assignment 1: Read Chapter 10-11 (Designing communities. Participating is learning); send your comments and reaction to email list.

 

 

 

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Materials and Ideas:

  1. [Glenda's lesson]

 

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Discussion: Readings:

  1. Open responses from ED-E445 students to
    1. Designing kowledge-building communities.
    2. Designing for designing, authentic problem solving.
  2. Discussion Designing:
    1. Why is it important to have a coherence of activities rather than jumping back and forth between cute but disconnected activities? (Which teachers sometimes do to "keep children's interest") (GROUP: provide listing on newsprint sheets)
    2. How do you balance the individual and social construction of scientific knowledge and re-construction of canonical scientific knowledge?.

 

 

 

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Activity 1: Designing more activities for the water curriculum

  1. As a class, design the concept map to be used with our grade 4 water curriculum
  2. In groups of two, design one activity to be included in our water curriculum to be added to the activities that we have so far. Most importantly, include productive questions that can get students and teacher to spin off into doing series of activities beginning with your own.

 

 

 

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Activity 2: Vee mapping: Understanding helicopters (experiment)

Introduction. The epistemological vee as a scaffold for open inquiry. Components of the vee.

As a class, find out as much as you can about the flight patterns and flight characteristics of home-made helicopters. Report your findings in vee-map format. Go through the following stages.

  1. Explore the helicopters
  2. As a class, identify individual research problems
  3. In each group, research a different question
  4. Conduct the experiment and report it in vee format
  5. Get together as a class, report your findings
  6. Make a summary statement about what you found out, future questions to ask

 

 

 

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Activity 3: Preparation of images for web publication. Other computer applications.

  1. Claris Home page
    1. HTML pages and images; location of images.
    2. Size of image files, speed of loading, buttons
    3. Linking and link editor
  2. Image formats
    1. GIF and JPG/JPEG: <&emdash; TIFF, PICT, . . . . .
    2. Graphic, paint programs and converters
    3. Copying from graphic program to converter
  3. Image sources
    1. Graphic programs (ADOBE Photoshop, ALDUS Freehand, . . .)
    2. Scanners
    3. Video camera
    4. (Photo) Camera

Examples:

Figure 1: Shot with video camera and captured using Apple Video Player.

 

 

Figure 2: To cut down on loading time, you can put your images on a separate page, or leave them in GIF, JPG format. Index them to be loaded when the user wants it. [Tools]

 

Computer applications: MathCAD.

Students' applications and webpages.

 

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Important links:

[IRPs Science K-7]
[Science Education Associations]
[ AltaVista: Advanced Query] (Searching the net)

 

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