TED Video

1)How does (or does this) video apply to our teaching and learning?

- I most definitely think this applies to our teaching and learning. This video emphasizes just how smart kids are and how fast they can learn. For example, my sister got my brother-in-law an iPad for Christmas. Two hours later, my 4 yr old niece was showing him how to use it! Their brains are just so brilliant. It also shows how technology can aide learning in schools. My elementary wasn't fortunate enough to have a lot of technology in our school, but I do remember going to the computer lab and learning to type with the Mavis Beacon games. What I learned way back then has stayed with me and probably will forever. 

One thing that particularly stood out to me in the video was when he said "children will learn what they want to learn". I completely agree with him. We can't really force children to learn things. They have to want to learn to actually learn the material. I think this applies to all ages, actually, not just children. 
Another thing that stood out to me was his teaching at Gateshead. He said that the only reason the children remembered the answers to the test was because they had to discuss with each other. He said a single child to a computer will not learn. This emphasizes the importance of group work in the classroom. 

2)One aspect of the video I found interesting was the "granny cloud".  This uses the broader community as a part of education.  Was their any community involvement in your K-12 education? Do you think the broader community should be involved?  How can/should this happen? 

-The community was not involved in my K-12 education.I definitely think the community should be involved with the education of their children. After all, it is the future of the community that is being educated. I think it would give the children a sense of belonging when they are supported by the community. I like the idea of people in the community teaching the students. Maybe every once in a while, the teacher could bring in a guest speaker to speak about his or her job or hobby or something. It is always nice to have a fresh face in front of the class for a while and I feel that the kids would enjoy learning from a different person once in a while. 

3)Comment on his use of technology and how technology features in your learning and potential future teaching.

-I like the way he makes the children figure out the computers. He doesn't baby them, he just completely leaves and lets them figure them out. This encourages critical thinking skills in children. I also like that he used Skype to help teach the kids. I would like to think that I will be teaching in a place that will have the resources to do this. I want to integrate technology in my classroom because I can see how more advanced today's children are as a result of technology in the home. I like to think that it aids learning if used in the right way. I also think, though, that there is a nice balance between learning for yourself and finding answers online.
Technology plays a huge role in my education. It is the primary way that I communicate with my teachers and classmates. There are so many resources online now that if I don't understand a topic that I am studying, I can just Google it and something pops up that can help explain it! :)

~*Creativity

What is your "definition" of creativity?
To me, creativity is being able to think outside the box, to not look at things the conventional way. It is being original and being able to create something that no one else can. Like the article, creativity is a "new and unexpected solution". I believe that creativity helps the mind think better, because it allows for the mind to go in many different directions. 


Why do you think creativity is important?
I believe creativity is important because it aids learning so much. It brings to life something that could originally be boring. It also helps with learning. The article had scientific evidence that it indeed aids learning.  In addition to an Education major, I am a Music major. Creativity is SO important in music. Music is boring without the creativity of a player. It is so interesting to hear and see the different ways people create versions of the same pieces.


Can you think of a time when you were most creative?
My tuba professor always tells us that to make music interesting to us and also the people we are performing for, we must put a story to the piece we are playing, and then play it according to the story. This has brought out a lot of my creativity. I have never really thought of myself as creative, but when I am preparing a piece to perform, I have to be super creative to think about what the piece sounds like and what sounds like is going on. It helps bring out my creative side for sure!


How does creativity mesh with the Harwood Activity Model for Inquiry?
Creativity meshes with the Harwood Activity Model for Inquiry in the way that the model allows one to go back and forth and form new questions. It allows for creativity of the mind. The Scientific Method that I used to use wouldn't allow for the mind to wander. It didn't let one be creative in the process. You had to follow the process and once the process was done, your experiment was over. It never allowed for more questions to be asked or anything creative. This model allows for anything to happen next. It has an infinite amount of ways to go, which allows for creativity. 


What can we do to foster creativity in ourselves and others (like our classmates or future students)?
I liked the article suggestions that we should find that nice balance between thinking creatively and discipline. We should allow our students to think creatively, but not let it get out of control. We should stay away from imitation teaching. Ken Robinson also says that we should stay away from benign advice, such as "Don't do music, you'll never be a musician. Don't do art, you won't be an artist." This hinders children's creativity. I think creativity needs practice just as much as everything else. We should try creating new things, whether it is a new sewing project, a picture on the computer done by art, or a new recipe. We should strengthen our minds with this practice, so we will always have a bit of creativeness in us.  


Do you know any really creative people - what are they like?
The most creative person I know is my sister-in-law. She is an Elementary Music Teacher and is always coming up with new ways to teach music to her kids. She always has the best music programs. She has a bunch of home-made art in her home, and is usually working on a new project. She also comes up with the most creative presents for birthdays, Christmas, etc. She is also one of the smartest people I know. She loves to learn and loves to help others learn. 

Personally, I love both the video and the blog and the ideas contained in each. It is true that more and more, students of this era are forced to learn a certain amount of things in a certain amount of time, which never allows the mind to wander, and those that do let their minds wander are automatically deemed the naughty child that can't sit still and interrupts class. I have never really thought about the way many teachers teach now and it being "imitation teaching", but now that I look back on the opportunities that I have had to teach, I see that I have done this exact thing. I expected the kids to be quiet and be attentive to everything I said and did. I see now that the children were probably just trying to get a new idea across, but couldn't. 

SBG Sheet Analysis

You can discuss and provide examples of social, historical, and cultural influences on science and visa versa.

I can't really see a parallel between out experiment and social, historical, or cultural influences. Maybe that we had a question that we wanted answered and we did an experiment to try to answer that question?

You can create analogies between science process and every day experiences and find connections across disciplines.You can deal with the frustration of creating/executing a research project and develop a positive attitude required to complete inquiry projects.

We definitely had frustration throughout the course of this experiment, but I feel that we dealt with it well. At first, we had a really hard time trying to decide what our experiment should be. We thought of a lot of cool experiments, but then we had to sit back and think about how we could carry it out, and then wold have to start over. Once we figured out an experiment to do , we had some trouble with how we would measure the wax without making a huge mess, or by getting it accurately measured. Overall though, I think we all maintained a positive attitude through the whole experiment.

You can examine/analyze the inquiry process using Harwood’s Activity Model for Inquiry and/or the Understanding Science flow chart. 

We used Harwood's Activity Model for Inquiry during our whole experiment. I really, really liked that this model allows you to go  through all of the points multiple times until your experiment is fulfilled, because I think we all know that no experiment is done by going through the Scientific Process step by step. There will always be trial and errors. I love that you do not have to go through a specific process with specific steps, like the one I always used for science fair projects. 

You can identify dependent and independent variables and develop experiments that require controlling variables. 

The variables in our experiment were pretty easy to identify. Our control was an unscented candle. Independent variables would be the different scents, and also the time we allowed the candles to burn. The dependent variable in our experiment would be the amount of wax produced at the end of the time we burned the candles.

Be able to clearly communicate to others.
Our group communicated fairly well. In the beginning, we had let each other know what scent of candle we each were going to bring, so we didn't end up with two of the same kind. We also communicated during the experiment, such as letting each other know how much time we had left or working together to pour the wax into a Dixie cup before the wax dried. 

Interpret and manipulate data in a variety of formats, such as technical drawings, graphs, tables, charts and, maps to analyze results and derive and defend conclusions using evidence.
We organized our data into a graph that showed the weight of the amounts of wax related to the burn time. We made it easy to interpret the results.

 

You can generate testable questions and design experimental procedures that are reliable, reproducible, and executable.
We had some problems with this at first, with the whole "testable questions" part. We would get really good ideas, but then couldn't think of a way to test it. As far as designing an experiment that was reliable, reproducible, and executable, I think we succeeded pretty well, I mean we were able to carry out the experiment! We probably could have gotten better measuring devices, and better candles, but overall, I think our experiment was reliable. 

You can collect accurate data on the natural world including observations using your senses and numeric data of length, mass and time. 
We weighed each candle before burning it, weighed the Dixie cup before pouring the melted wax into it, timed the burn time, and then put them into a chart. 

You understand the definition of science, theory, law, hypothesis, and experiment (you can find definition of these on the Understanding Science website) and how they relate to each other.
Science is a huge body of knowledge and also an ongoing process. Theory is a group of ideas that are used to explain something. Hypothesis is what a person proposes the outcome of the experiment will be. An experiment is the test that is done to answer the original question. It produces some sort of data that can be measured.  

You  know that science involves developing an understanding of the world through posing and answering questions.
The purpose of our experiment was to develop an understanding about scent of candles and if that had an effect on burn time. We didn't really answer that question, but it did bring up many other ones that we would have liked to be answered sometime, such as "Does color affect burn time?", or "Does size affect burn time?".

Know that scientific ideas are subject to change yet durable and that science cannot provide answers to all questions.
I agree with this. It is important to know that while science can answer many questions we have, those answers and not definite and may change if/when science advances further. Life could get pretty boring if all the questions were already answered!