LESSON 1

EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY

Objective:

What is Educational Technology?

What is the importance of educational technology in education?

What is Education Technology?

            To understand the meaning of educational technology, it may be good to begin with the meaning of technology. The word “technology” comes from the Greek word techne which means craft or art. Based on the etymology of the word “technology”, the term educational technology, therefore, refers to the art or craft of responding to our educational needs.

            Many people think that technology refers only to machines such as computers, tv, videos, and the like. All these form part of technology but educational technology is all these and more! Technology is not jut machines. It is a “planned, systematic method of working to achieve planned outcomes – a process not a product. Technology is the applied side of scientific development. “(Dale, 1969) Technology also refers to any valid and reliable process or procedure that is derived from basic research using the scientific method.” (http://en.wikipedia.org?wiki/Educational_technology//Perspective and meaning) Technology refers to “all the ways people use their inventions and discoveries to satisfy the

needs and desires.” (The World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 19) So, educational technology refers to how people used their inventions and discoveries to satisfy their educational needs and desires, i.e. learning.

            Educational technology is “a complex, integrated process involving people, procedures, ideas, devices, and organization for analyzing problems and devising, implementing, evaluating, and managing solutions to those problems, involved in all aspects of human learning.” (Association for Educational Communications and Technology, 1977. The definition of educational technology: A summary. In the definition of educational technology, 1-16, Washington D.C.: AECT.)

            Educational technology “consist of the designs and environments that engage learners … and reliable technique or method for engaging learning such as cognitive learning strategies and critical thinking skills.” (David II. Jonassen, et al 1999.)

            Educational technology is a theory about how problems in human learning are solved. (David H. Jonassen, Kyle L. Pook, Brent G, Wilson, 1999). As a theory, educational technology has an “integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed events.”

            Educational technology is a field study which is concerned with the practice of using educational methods and resources for the ultimate goal of facilitating the learning process. (Lucido and Borabo, 1977)  As a field it operates within the total field of education.

            Educational technology is a profession like teaching. It is made up of organized effort to implement the theory. Intellectual technique, and practical application of educational technology. (David H. Jonassen, et al 1999)

            From the definitions of educational technology given above, we can say that educational technology is a very broad term. It is the application of scientific findings in our method, process or procedure of working in the field of education in order to effect learning. It embraces curriculum and instructional design, learning environment, theories of teaching-learning. It is also a field study and a profession. It is the used of all human inventions for teachers to realize their mission to teach in order that students learn.

            There are other terms that are associated with educational technology. We come across terms like technology in education, instructional technology and technology integration in education books, educational media. Are they synonymous with educational technology?

            Technology in education is “the application of technology to any of those processes involved in operating the institutions which house the educational enterprise. It includes the application of technology to food, health, finance, scheduling, grade, reporting, and other processes which support educations within institutions.” (David H. Jonassen, et al, 1999).

            Instructional technology is a part of educational technology. Instructional technology refers to those aspects of educational technology that “are concerned with instruction as contrasted t designs and operations of educational instructions. Instructional technology is a systematic way of designing, carrying out, and evaluating the total process of learning and teaching in terms of specific objectives.” (Lucido and Borabo, 1997).

            Technology integration means using “learning technologies to introduce, reinforce, supplement and extend skills.” (Williams, ed. 2000). Like instructional technology, it is a part of educational technology. Technology integration is part and parcel of instructional technology, which in turn is a part of educational technology.

            Educational media are channels or avenues or instruments of communication. Examples are books, magazines, newspapers, radio, television, and internet. These media also serve educational purposes.

LESSON 2

TECHNOLOGY BOON OR BANE?

Objectives:

What is Boon and Bane?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of boon and bane?

            Technology is a blessing for man. With technology, there is a lot that we can do which we could not do then. With cell phones, webcam, you will be closer to someone miles and miles away, so far yet so close! That is your felling when you talk through a cell phone to a beloved who is far away from home. Just think of the many human lives saved because of speedy notifications via cell phones. Just think of how your teaching and learning have become more novel, stimulating, exciting and engaging with the use of multimedia in the classroom. With your tv, you can watch events as they happen all over the globe. President Ramos had a lively interaction with his audience in Tacloban in his tele-address without disrupting his work schedule in Manila, etc, etc.

            However, when not used properly, technology becomes a detriment to learning and development. It can destroy relationships. Think of a husband who is glued to tv unmindful of his wife seeking his attention. This may eventually erode marital relationship. Think of the student who surfs the Internet for pornographic scenes. He will have trouble with his development. The abuse and misuse of the Internet will have far reaching unfavorable effects on his moral life. The teacher who schedules class tv viewing for the whole hour to free herself from a one-hour teaching and so can engage in “tsismis”, likewise will not benefit from technology. Neither will her class truly benefit from the whole period of tv viewing.

In education, technology is bane when;

·         The learner is made to accept as Gospel truth information they get from the Internet.

·         The learner surf the Internet for pornography.

·         The learner has an uncritical mind on images floating on televisions and computers that represent modernity and progress.

·         The tv makes the learner a mere spectator not an active participant in the drama of life.

·         The learner gets glued to his computer for computer-assisted instruction unmindful of the world and so fails to develop the ability to relate to other.

·         We make used of Internet to do character assassination of people whom we hardly like.

·         Because of our cell phone, we spend most of our time in the classroom or in our workplace texting.

·         We use overuse and abuse tv or film viewing as a strategy to kill time.

Let’s go back to the question asked at the beginning of this lesson. Is technology boon or bane to education? It depends on how we use technology. If we use it to help our students and teachers become caring, relating, thinking, reflecting and analyzing and felling beings, then it is a boon, a blessing. But if we abuse and misuse it and so contribute to our own ruin and down fall and those of other persons, it becomes a bane or a curse.

LESSON 3

The Roles of Educational Technology in Learning

Objective:

    What are the roles of educational technology in learning?

From the traditional point of view, technology serves as source and presenter of knowledge. It is assumed that “knowledge is embedded in the technology (e.g. the content presented by films and tv programs or the teaching sequence in programmed instruction) and the technology presents that knowledge to the student (David H. Jonasssen, et al, 1999).

            Technology like computers is seen as a productivity tool. The popularity of word processing, databases, spreadsheets, graphic programs and desktop publishing in the 1980’s points to this productive role of educational technology.

            With the eruption of the INTERNET to the mid 90s, communication and multimedia have dominated the role of technology in the classroom for the past few years.

            From the constructivist point of view, educational technology serves as learning tools that learners learn with. It engages learners in “active, constructive, intentional, authentic, and cooperative learning. It provides opportunities for technology and learner interaction for meaningful learning. In this case, technology will not be mere delivery vehicle for content. Rather it is used as facilitator of thinking and knowledge construction.

            From a constructivist perspective, the following are roles of technology in learning: (Jonassen, et al 1999)

·         Technology as tools to support knowledge construction:

·         for representing learners’ ideas, understanding and beliefs.

·         for producing organized, multimedia knowledge bases by learners.

·         Technology as information vehicles for exploring knowledge to support learning-by-constructing:

·         for accessing needed information.

·         for comparing perspectives, beliefs and world views.

·         Technology as context to support learning-by-doing:

·         for representing and simulating meaningful real-world problems, situations and context.

·         for representing beliefs, perspective, arguments, and stories of others.

·         for defining a safe, controllable problem space for student thinking.

·         Technology as a social medium to support learning by conversing:

·         for collaborating with others.

·         for discussing, arguing, and building consensus among members of a community.

·         for supporting discourse among knowledge-building communities.

·         Technology as intellectual partner (Jonassen 1996) to support learning-by-reflecting:

-           for helping learners to articulate and represent what they know.

-           for reflecting on what they have learned and how they came to know it.

-           for supporting learners ‘internal negotiations and meaning making.

-           for constructing personal representations of meaning.

-           for supporting mindful thinking.

            Whether used from the traditional or constructivist point of view, when used effectively, research indicates that technology not only “increases students’ learning, understanding and achievement but also augments motivation to learn, encourages and collaborative learning and supports the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills” (Scharter and Fagnano, 1999). Russell and Sorge (1999) also claims that the proper implementation of technology in the classroom gives students more “control of their own learning and… tends to move classrooms from teacher-dominated environments to ones that are more learner-centered. The use of technology in the classroom enables the teacher to do differentiated instruction considering the divergence of students’ readiness levels, interest, multiple intelligences, and learning styles. Technology also helps students become lifelong learners.

LESSON 4

SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO LEARNING

Objective:

What is a systematic or system’s approach to teaching?

            As depicted in the chart, the focus of systematic instructional planning is the student. Instruction begins with the definition of instructional objectives that consider the students’ needs, interest and readiness. On the bases of these objectives, the teacher selects the appropriate teaching methods to be used and, in turn, based on the teaching method selected, the appropriate learning experiences and appropriate materials, equipment and facilities will also be selected.

            The used of learning materials, equipment and facilities necessitates assigning the appropriate personnel to assist the teacher and defining the role of any personnel involved in the preparation, setting and returning of these learning resources. (In some school settings, there is a custodian/librarian who takes care of the learning resources and/or technician who operates the equipment while teacher facilities.) the effective use of learning resources is dependent on the expertise of the teacher, the motivation level or responsiveness, and the involvement of the students in the learning process. With the instructional objective in mind, the teacher implements planned instruction with the use of the selected teaching method, learning activities, and learning materials with the help of the other personnel whose role has been defined by the teacher.

            Will the teacher use direct instruction or indirect instruction? Will he/she teach using the deductive of the inductive approach? It depends on his/her instructional objectives, nature of the subject matter, readiness of students and the expertise of the teacher himself or herself.

            Examples of learning activities that the teacher can choose from, depending on his/her instructional objective, nature of the lesson content, readiness of the students, are reading, writing, interviewing, reporting or doing presentation, discussing, thinking, reflecting, dramatizing, creating judging and evaluating.

            Some examples of learning resources for instructional use are textbooks, workbooks, programmed materials, computer, television programs, flat pictures, slides and transparencies, maps, charts, cartoons, posters, models, mock ups, flannel board materials, chalkboard, real objects and the like.

            After instruction, teacher evaluates the outcome of instruction. From the evaluation results, teacher comes to know if the instructional objective was attained. If the instructional objective was attained, teacher process to the next lesson going through the same cycle once more. If instructional objective was not attained, then teacher diagnoses what was not learned and finds out why it was not learned in order to introduce a remedial measure for improved student performance and attainment of instructional objective.

LESSON 5

THE CONE OF EXPERIENCE

Objective:

What is the Cone of Experience?

What are the differences of each kind of experiences in teaching?

            The Cone of Experience is a visual model, a pictorial device that presents bands of experience arrange according to degree of abstraction and not degree of difficulty. The farther you go from the bottom of the cone, the more abstract the experience becomes.

            Dale (1969) asserts that:

           

The pattern of the bands of experience is not difficulty but degree of abstraction-the amount of immediate sensory participation that is involved. A still photograph of a tree is not more difficult          to understand that a dramatization of Hamlet. It is simply in itself a less concrete teaching            material than the dramatization. (Dale, 1969)

            Dale further explains that “the individual bands of the Cone of Experience stands for experiences that re fluid, extensive, and continually interact.” (Dale, 1969) it should not be taken literally in its simplified forms. The different kinds of sensory aid often overlap and sometimes blend into one another. Motion pictures can be silent or they can combine sight and sound. Students merely view a demonstration or they may view it then participate in it.

           

            Does the Cone of Experience mean that all teaching and learning must move systematically from base to pinnacle, from direct purposeful experiences to verbal symbols? Dale (1969) categorically says:

            …No. We continually shuttle back and forth among various kinds of experiences. Everyday each    of us acquires new concrete experiences – through walking on street, gardening, dramatics, and    endless other means. Such learning by doing, such pleasurable return to the concrete is natural   throughout our lives – and at every each level. On the other hand, both the older child and he      young pupil make abstraction everyday and may need help in doing this well.                                                                            

In our teaching, then, we do not always begin with direct experience at the base of Cone.     Rather, we begin with the kind of experience that is the most appropriate to the needs and abilities of particular learner in a particular learning situation. Then, of course, we vary this experience with many other types of learning activities. (Dale, 1969)

            One kind of sensory experience is not necessary more educational useful than another. Sensory are mixed experiences and interrelated. When students listen to you as you give your lecture, they do not just have an auditory experience. They also have visual experience in the sense that they are “reading” your facial expressions and bodily gestures.

            We face some risk when we overemphasize the amount of direct experience to learn a concept. Too much reliance on concrete experience may actually obstruct the process of meaningful generalization. The best will be striking a balance between concrete and abstract, direct participation and symbolic expression for the learning that will continue throughout life.

            It is true that the older a person is, the more abstract his concepts are likely to be. This can be attributed to physical maturation, more vivid experiences and sometimes greater motivation for learner. But an older student does not live purely in this world of abstract ideas just as a child does not live only in the world of sensory experience. Both old and young shuttle in a world of the concrete and the abstract.

            What are these bands of experience in Dale’s Cone of Experience? It is best to look back at the Cone itself. But let us expound on each of them starting with the most direct.

            Direct purposeful experiences – These are first hand experiences which serves as the foundation of our learning. We built up our reservoir of meaningful information and ideas though seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling. In the context of the teaching-learning process, it is learning by doing. If I want my student to learn how to focus a compound light microscope, I will let him focus one, of course, after I showed him how.

            Contrived Experiences – In here, we make use of a representative models or mock ups of reality for practical reasons and so that we can make the real-life accessible to the students’ perceptions and understanding. For instance a mock up of Apollo, the capsule for the exploration of the moon, enabled the North American Aviation Co. to study the problem of lunar flight.

            Remember how you were taught to tell time? Your teacher may have used a mock up, a clock whose hands you could turn to set the time you were instructed to set.

            Dramatized experiences – By dramatization, we can participate in a reconstructed experience, even though the original event is far removed us in time. We relive the outbreak of the Philippine revolution by acting out the role of characteristic in a drama.

            Demonstration – It is a visualized explanation of an important fact, idea or process by the use of photographs, drawings, films, displays, or guided motions. It is showing how things are done. A teacher in Physical Education shows the class how to dance tango.

            Study trips – These are excursions and visits conducted to observe an event that is unavailable within the classroom.

            Exhibits – These are displays to e seen by spectators. They may consist of working models arranged meaningfully or photographs with models, charts, and posters. Sometimes exhibits are “for your eyes only”. There are some exhibits, however, that include sensory experiences where spectators are allowed to touch or manipulate models displayed.

            Television and motion pictures – Television and motion pictures can reconstruct the reality of the past so effectively that were made to feel we are there. The unique value of the messages communicated by film and television lies in their feeling of realism, their emphasis on persons and personality, their organized presentation, and their ability to select, dramatized, highlight, and clarify.

            Still pictures, Recording, Radio – These are visual and auditory devices may be used by an individual or a group. Still pictures lack the sound and motion of a sound film. The radio broadcast of an actual event may often be likened to a televised broadcast minus its visual dimension.

            Visual symbols – They are no longer realistic reproduction of physical things for these are highly, abstract representations. Examples are charts, graphs, maps, and diagrams.

            Verbal symbols – They are not like the objects or ideas for which they stand. They usually do not contain visual clues to their meaning. Written words fall under this category. It may be a word for a concrete object (book), an idea (freedom of speech), a scientific principle (the principle of balance), a formula (e=mc )

            What are the implications of the Cone of Experience in the teaching-learning process?

1.      We do not use only one medium of communication in isolation. Rather we use many instructional materials to help the student conceptualize his experience.

2.      We avoid teaching directly at the symbol level of though without adequate foundation of the concrete. Students’ concepts will lack deep roots in direct experience. Dale cautions us when he said; “These rootless experiences will not have the generative power to produce additional concepts and will not enable the learner to deal with the new situations that he faces.” (Dale, 1969)

3.      When teaching, we don’t get stuck in the concrete. Let us strive to bring our students to the symbolic or abstract level to develop their higher order thinking skills.

LESSON 6

Using and Evaluating Instructional Materials

Objective:

What is an instructional material?

What is the importance of fieltrip?

            One of the instructional materials used to attain instructional objectives is field trip.

            It is not enough to bring the class out for a field trip and make them observe anything or anything or use other instructional materials for no preparation and clear lesson at all. Perhaps this is what happened to the field trip joined in by Linus, that’s why he seems not able to cite something specific that he learned from the field trip.

            For an effective use of instructional materials such as field trip, there are guidelines that ought to be observed, first of all, in their selection and second, in their use.

Selection of Materials            

            The following guide questions express standards to consider in the selection of instructional materials:

·         Do the materials give a true picture of the ideas they present? To avoid misconceptions, it is always good to ask when the material was produced.

·         Do the materials contribute meaningful content to the topic under study? Does the material help you achieve the instructional objective?

·         Is the material appropriate for the age, intelligence, and experience of the learners?

·         Is the physical condition of the material satisfactory? An example, is a photograph properly mounted?

·         Is there a teacher’s guide to provide a briefing for effective use? The chance that the instructional material will be used to maximum and to the optimum is increased with a teacher’s guide.

·         Can the materials in question help to make students better thinkers and develop their critical faculties? With exposure to mass media, it is highly important that we maintain and strengthen our rational powers.

·         Is the material worth the time, expense and effort involved? A field trip, for instance, requires much time, effort, and money. Is it more effective than any other less expensive and less demanding instructional material that can take its place? Or is there a better substitute?

                                                 P – Prepare yourself

                                                 P – Prepare your student

                                                 P – Present the material

                                                 F – Follow up

The Proper Use of Materials

            You may have selected your instructional material well. This is no guarantee that the instructional material will be effectively utilized. It is one thing to select, a good instructional material, it is another thing to use it well.

            To ensure effective use of instructional material, Hayden Smith and Thomas Nagel, (1972) book authors on Instructional Media, advise us to abide by the acronym PPPF.

            Prepare yourself. You know your lesson objective and what you expect from the class after the session and why you have selected such particular instructional material. You have a plan on how you will proceed, what question to ask, how you will evaluate learning and how you will tie loose ends before the bell rings.

            Present your students. Set class expectations and learning goals. It is sound practice to give them guide questions for them to be able to answer during the discussion. Motivate them and keep them interested and engaged.

            Present the material under the best possible conditions. Many teachers are guilty of the R.O.G Syndrome. This is means “running out of gas” which usually results from poor planning. (Smith, 1972) Using media and materials, especially if they are mechanical in nature, often requires rehearsal and a carefully planned performance. Wise are you if you try the materials ahead of your class use to avoid a fiasco.

            Follow up. Remember that you use instructional material to achieve an objective, not to kill time, nor to give yourself break, neither to merely entertain the class. You use the instructional for the attainment of a lesson objective. Your use of the instructional material is not the end in itself. It is a means to an end, the attainment of a learning objective. So, there is need to follow up to find out if objective was attained or not.

LESSON 7

Direct, Purposeful Experiences and Beyond

Objective:

What is the direct, purposeful experience?

What are the disadvantages of direct experiences?

            What ever skills or concepts we have did not come out of the blue. We spend hours doing the activity by ourselves in order to acquire the skill. The same thing is through with the (4) narrators above. They learned the skills by doing. The Graduate School Professor had to do the computer task to learn the skill. The Secretary learned from here mistake and repeatedly doing the task correctly enable her to master the skill. The Grade IV pupil got a clear concept of the size of the elephant and giraffe. For the Grade VI teacher, the statistical concepts of positive and negative discrimination indices become fully understood only after the actual experience of item analysis. All these experiences point to the need to use, whenever we can, direct, purposeful experiences in the teaching-learning process.

            What are referred to as direct, purposeful experiences?

These are our concrete and firsthand experiences that make up the foundation of our learning. These are the rich experiences that our senses bring from which we construct the ideas, the concepts, the generalizations that give meaning and order to our lives. (Dale, 1969). They are sensory experiences.

            These direct activities maybe preparing meals, making a piece of furniture, doing powerpoint presentation, performing a laboratory experiment, delivering a speech, taking s trip, or making a piece of furniture.

            In contrast, indirect experiences are experiences of others…people that we observe, read or hear about. They are not our own self-experiences but still experiences in the sense that we see, read and hear about them. They are nit firsthand but rather vicarious experiences.

            Climbing a mountain is a firsthand, direct experience. Seeing it done in films or reading about it is a vicarious, substitute experience. It is clear, therefore, that we can approach the world of realty directly through the senses and in directly with reduced sensory experience. For example we can make bake black forest cake or see it done in the tv or read about it.

            Why are these direct experiences described to be purposeful? Purposeful because the experiences are not purely mechanical. They are not a matter of going through the motion. These are not “mere sensory excitation”. They are experiences that are internalized in the sense that these experiences involve the asking of question that have significant in the life of the person undergoing the direct experience.

            They are also described as purposeful because these experiences are undergone in relation to a purpose, i.e. learning. Why do we want our students to have a direct experience in conducting an experiment in the laboratory? It is done in relation to a certain learning objective.

            Where should these direct, purposeful experiences lead us to? The title of this Lesson “Direct, Purposeful Experiences and Beyond” implies that these direct experiences must not be the period or the end. We must be brought to a higher plane. The higher plane referred to here is the level of generalization and abstraction.

            The Grade IV pupil’s zoo experience of the elephant and giraffe as given in the ACTIVITY phase of the lesson enables him to understand clearly and visualized correctly an elephant and a giraffe upon reading or hearing the words “elephant” and “giraffe”. The Cone of Experience implies that we move from the concrete to the abstract (and from the abstract to the concrete as well.) direct experiences serve as the foundation of concept formation, generalization and abstraction. John Dewey (1969) has made this fundamental point succinctly:

             An ounce of experience is better than a ton of theory because it is only in experience that any theory has vital and verifiable significance. An experience, a very humble experience, is capable of generating and carrying any amount of theory (or intellectual content), but a theory apart from an experience cannot be definitely grasped as a theory. It tends to become a mere verbal formula, a set of catchwords used to render thinking, or genuine theorizing unnecessary and impossible.

            If direct, purposeful experiences or firsthand sensory experiences make us learn concepts and skills effectively, what does this imply to the teaching learning process? First, let us give our students opportunities to learn by doing. Let us immerse our students in the world of experience. Second, let us make use of real things us instructional materials for as long as we can. Third, let us help the students develop the five senses to the full to heighten their sensitivity to the world. Fourth, let us guide our students so that they can draw meaning from their firsthand experiences and elevate their level of thinking. As mentioned in lesson 5, let us not be tempted to get stuck to the concrete and fail to bring up our students’ to the higher level of thinking process.

LESSON 8

Teaching with Contrived Experiences

Objectives:

What are contrived experiences?

What are varied types of contrived experiences?

Why do we used contrived experiences?

The model of the atom, the globe, the planetarium, the simulated election process and the preserved specimen fall under contrived experiences, the second band of experiences in Dale’s Cone of Experience.

What are contrived experiences? These are “edited” copies of reality and are used as substitute for real things when it is not practical or not possible to bring or do the real thing in the classroom. These contrived experiences are designed to simulate to real-life situations.

The atom, the planetarium are classified as models. A model is a “reproduction of a real thing in a small scale, or large scale, or exact size-but made of synthetic materials. It is a substitute for a real thing which may or may not be operational.” (Brown, et al, 1969)

The planetarium may also be considered a mock up. A mock up is “an arrangement of a real device or associated devices, displayed in such a way that representation of reality is created. The mock up may be simplified in order to emphasize certain features. It may be an economical reproduction of a complicated or costly device, to be observed for learning purposes. Usually, it is a prepared substitute for a real thing; sometimes it is a giant enlargement. (Brown, 1969). The planetarium is an example of a mock up, in the sense that the order or the arrangement of the planets is shown and the real processes of the planets’ rotation on their axis and the revolution of the planets around the sun are displayed. A mock up is a special model where the parts of a model are singled out, heightened and magnified in order to focus on that part or process under study. The planetarium involves a model of each of the planet and the sun but it focuses on the processes of the planets’ rotation and revolution and so is also considered a mock up.

            The preserved specimens fall under specimens and objects. A specimen is any individual or item considered typical of a group, class or whole. Objects may also include artifacts displayed in a museum or objects displayed in exhibits or preserved insect specimens in science.

            The school election process described above is a form of simulation. Simulation is a “representation of a manageable real event in which the learner is an active participant engaged in learning a behavior or in applying previously acquired skills or knowledge.” (Orlich, et al, 1994). In addition to the election of class and school officers given above, other examples of these are fire and earthquake drills which schools usually conduct. Organizers of earthquake and fire drills create a situation highly similar to the real situation when a building is on fire or when an earthquake happens.

            Another instructional material included in contrived experiences is game. Is there a difference between a game and a simulation? Games are played to win while simulations need not have a winner. Simulations seem to be more easily applied to the study of issues rather than to processes.

            Why do we make use of contrived experiences? We use models, mock ups, specimens and objects to: 1) overcome limitations of space and time, 2) to “edit” reality for us to be able to suggested that similarly, you could select some classic quote, for example, the opening paragraph from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles’ Dickens, “It was the best of time, it was the worst of times” and ask the students to stimulate a plot, a story line, characters and location. Use the current year. How closely do you think the students might parallel Dickens? After the simulation, A Tale of Two Cities could be read both for knowledge and for comparison to the student outlines.

Games

            Games are used for any of these purposes: 1) to practice and/or refine knowledge/skills already acquired, 2) to identify gaps or weakness in knowledge or skills, 3) to serve as a summation or review, and 4) to develop new relationships among concepts and principles.

            If you want a class that is fully alive, think of how you can integrate native games in your lessons. Refers to Science and Mathematics of Toys, a sourcebook for Teachers, published and printed by the Institute for Science and Mathematics Education Development of the University of the Philippines.

            Here is a game that you can play at the beginning of the year, the Human Intelligence Hunt. Armstrong (1994) suggests that you use this when you are introducing Multiple Intelligence Theory at the beginning of the year. How is it played?

            Each student receives a list of task like those below. On your signal, students take the task sheet along with a pen or pencil and find other students in the room who can do the tasks listed. There are three basic rules:

1.      Students must actually perform the task listed, not simply say they can do them.

2.      Once a student performs a task to the hunter’s satisfaction, he or she should initial the bank space next to the appropriate task on the hunter’s task sheet.

3.      “Hunters” can ask a person to perform only one task;

LESSON 9

Teaching with Dramatized Experiences

Objective:

What is dramatized experience?

What are the advantages of using the dramatized experiences in teaching?

What are the uses of different kinds of dramatized experiences?

            Something dramatic is something that is stirring or affecting or moving. A dramatic entrance is something that catches and holds our attention and has an emotional impact. If our teaching is dramatic, our students get attracted, interested and affected. If they are affected and moved by what we taught, we will most likely leave an impact on them. So, why can we be dramatic all the time?

            Dramatized experiences can range from the formal plays, pageants to less formal tableau, pantomime, puppets and role playing.

            Plays depict life, character, or culture or a combination of all three. They offer excellent opportunities to portray vividly important ideas about life. Pageants are usually community dramas that are based on local history, presented by local actors. An example is a historical pageant that traces the growth of a school. Play and pantomime require much time for preparation and so cannot be part of everyday classroom program.   

            Pantomime and tableaux, when compared to a play and a pageant, are less demanding in terms of labor, time and preparation. These are purely visual experiences. A pantomime is the “art of conveying a story through bodily movements only”. (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary). It’s effect on the audience depends on the movements of the actors. A tableau (a French word which means pictures) is a picture like scene composed of people against a background. A tableau is often used to celebrate Independence Day, Christmas, and United Nations Day.

            Dale (1996) claims that puppets, unlike the regular stage play, can present ideas with extreme simplicity – without elaborate scenery or costume yet effectively.

            As an instructional device, the puppet show can involve the entire group of students – as speakers of parts, manipulators of the figures, and makers of the puppets.

Types of Puppet

            Puppets come in different kinds. These are the most common:

·         Shadow Puppets – flat black silhouette made from lightweight cardboard and shown behind a screen.

·         Rod Puppets – flat cut out figures tacked to a stick, with one or more movable parts, and operated from below the stage level by the wire rods or lender sticks.

·         Hand Puppets – the puppet’s head is operated by the forefinger of the puppeteer, the little finger and thumb being used to animate the puppet hands.

·         Glove-and-finger puppets – make use of old gloves to which small costumed figure are attached.

·         Marionettes – flexible, jointed puppets operated by strings or wires attached to a cross bar and maneuvered from directly above the stage.

What principles must be observed in choosing a puppet play for teaching? Dale, (1996) quoting from the Puppeteers of America offers many suggestions, among which are the following:

·         Do not use puppets for plays that can be done just as well or better by other dramatic means.

·         Puppets plays must be based on action rather than on words.

·         Keep the plays short.

·         Do not omit the possibilities of music and dancing as part of the puppet show.

·         Adapt the puppet show to the age, background, and tastes of the students.

            Another form of dramatized experience is role-playing. Role-playing is an unrehearsed, unrehearsed and spontaneous dramatization of a “let’s pretend” situation where assigned participants are absorbed by their own roles in the situation described by the teacher.

·         How is role-playing done? It can be done by describing a situation which would create different viewpoints on an issue and then asking the students to play the roles of the individual involved. Any kind of conflict situation, real or potential, is useful for role-playing or any situation in which real feelings are concealed. Consider situations in school, at home, on the playground, at work, in government. The role-playing has to be followed by a discussion. Among the questions that may be ask are:

·         How did you, as actors, feel? Would you act/think that way in real life?

·         As observers, would you agree with what the actors said or did?

·         Any lessons learned?

LESSON 10

Demonstration in Teaching

Objectives:

To be to define what does the demonstration means?

To be able to identify how should demonstration be done to make it work?

In a demonstration of a new product, the speaker show the product, tells all the good things about the product to promote it in order to convince that the product is worth buying.

            In the activist’ demonstration, the activists air their grievances and publicly denounce the acts of a person or of an institution, like government, against whom they are demonstrating.

            When a Master teacher is asked to do demonstration teaching on a teaching strategy, she shows to the audience how to use a teaching strategy effectively.

            In all three instances of demonstration, there is an audience, a process of speaking, and a process of showing a product or a method of proofs to convince the audience to buy the product, use the strategy or rally behind their cause.

            What then is a demonstration? Webster’s International Dictionary defines it as “a public showing and emphasizing of the salient merits, utility, efficiency, etc, of an article or product…” In teaching it is showing how a thing is done and emphasizing of the salient merits, utility, efficiency of a concept, a method or a process or an attitude.

            What guiding principles must we observe in using demonstration as a teaching-learning experience? Edgar Dale (1969) gives at least three:

1.      Establish Rapport. Greet your audience. Make them feel at ease by your warmth and sincerity. Stimulate their interest by making your demonstration and yourself interesting. Sustain their attention.

2.      Avoid the COIK fallacy (Clear Only If Known). What is this fallacy? It is the assumption that what is clear to the expert demonstrator is also clearly known to the person for whom the message is intended. To avoid the fallacy, it is best for the expert demonstrator to assume that his audience knows nothing or a little about what he is intending to demonstrate for him to be very thorough, clear and detailed in his demonstration even to a point of facing the risk of being repetitive.

3.      What for key points. What are key points? Dale (1996) says, “They are the ones at which an error is likely to be made, the places at which many people stumble and where the knacks and tricks of the trade are especially important”. The good demonstrator recognizes possible stumbling blocks to learners and highlights them in some way. What are usually highlighted are the “don’t’s” of a process or a strategy.

To ensure that the demonstration work, we ought to plan and prepare very well before we conduct the demonstration. In planning and preparing for demonstration, Brown (1969) suggests methodical procedures by the following questions:

1.      What are our objectives?

2.       How does your class stand with respect to these objectives. This is to determine entry knowledge and skills of your student.

3.      Is there a better way to achieve your ends? If there is a more effective way to attain your purpose, the replace the demonstration method with the more effective one.

4.      Do you have access to all necessary materials and equipment to make the demonstration? Have a checklist of necessary equipment and material. This may include written materials.

5.      Are you familiar with the sequence and content of the proposed demonstration? Outline the steps and rehearse you demonstration.

6.      Are the time limits realistic?

            You have planned and rehearse your demonstration, your materials and equipment are ready, you have prepared your students, then you can proceed to the demonstration itself. Dale (1969) gives several points to observe:

1.      Set the tone for communication. Get and keep your audience’s interest.

2.      Keep your demonstration simple.

3.      Do not wander from the main ideas.

4.      Check to see that your demonstration is being understood. Watch your audience for sings of bewilderment, boredom or disagreement.

5.      Do not hurry your demonstration. Asking questions to check understanding can serve as a “brake”.

6.      Do not drag out the demonstration. Interesting things are never dragged out. They create their own tempo.

7.      Summarize as you go along and provide a concluding summary. Use the chalkboard, the overhead projector, charts, diagrams, power point and whatever other materials are appropriate to synthesize your demonstration.

8.      Hand out written materials at the conclusion.

What questions can you ask to evaluate your classroom demonstration? Dale (1969) enumerates:

·         Was your demonstration adequately and skillfully prepared? Did you select demonstrable skills or ideas? Were the desired behavioral outcomes clear?

·         Did you follow the step-by-step plan?

·         Did you make use of additional materials appropriate to your purposes chalkboard, felt board, pictures, charts, diagram, models, overhead transparencies, or slides?

·         Was the demonstration itself correct?

·         Was your explanation simple enough so that most of the students understood it easily?

·         Did you keep checking to see that all your students were concentrating on what you were doing?

·         Could every person see and hear? If a skill was demonstrated for imitation, was it presented from the physical point of view of the learner?

·         Did you help your students do their own generalization?

·         Did you take enough time to demonstrate the key points?

·         Did you review and summarize the key points?

·         Did your students participate in what you were doing by asking thoughtful questions at the appropriate time?

·          Did your evaluation of student learning indicate that your demonstration achieve its purpose?

LESSON 11

Making the Most of Community Resources and Field Trips

Objective:

What is fieldtrip?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of fieldtrips?

What is the use of community resources in teaching?

            The teachers’ comments given above indicate failure of the field trips conducted. This is definitely the consequences of no planning or if ever there is, panning was done poorly.

            What procedures must be followed to avoid the failed study trips described above? Let’s plan. Planning field trips includes these steps: 1) preliminary teaching by the teacher, 2) preplanning with others going on the trip, and 3) taking the field trip itself, and 4) post-field trip follow up activities.

            For preliminary planning by the teacher, Brown (1969) proposes the following:

·         Make preliminary contacts, a tour on final arrangements with the place to be visited.

·         Make final arrangements with the school principal about the details of the trip: time, schedule, transportation arrangements, finances, and permission slips from parents.

·         Make a tentative route plan, subject to later alternation based on class planning and objectives.

·         Try to work out mutually satisfactory arrangements with other teachers if the trip will conflict with their classes.

·         Prepare preliminary lists of questions or other materials which will be helpful in planning with the students.

·         Preplanning with joining the trip.

·         Discuss the objectives of the trip and write them down. The main objectives should be included in the permit slip given to parents and should be consulted later when the trip is evaluated.

·         Prepare a list of questions to send ahead to the guide of the study trip.

·         Define safety and behavior standards for the journey there and for the field trip site itself.

·         Discuss and decide on the ways to document the trip. Everyone is expected to take notes.

·         List specific objects to be seen on their way to the site, on the site of the field trip and on their way home from the site.

·         Discuss appropriate dress. Comfortable shoes for walking are important.

·         Before the trip, use of a variety of learning materials in order to give each student a background for the trip. For example, by viewing a film, a slide set, or a still picture unit dealing with housing standards and conditionings, a class maybe better prepared to learn through a visit to an actual slum area.

Preplanning with Others Joining the Trip

            Other people accompanying the group need to be oriented on the objectives, route, behavior, standards required of everyone so they can help enforce these standards. These may be parents who will assist teachers and/or school administrator staff.

Taking the Field Trip

·         Distribute route map of places to be observed.

·         Upon arriving at the destination, teacher should check the group and introduce the guide.

·         Special effort should be made to ensure that:

·         The trip keeps to the time schedule.

·         The students have the opportunity to obtain answers to questions.

·         The group participants courteously in the entire trip.

·         The guide sticks closely to the list of questions.

Evaluating Field Trip

            These are questions we can ask after the fieldtrip to evaluate the field trip we just have.

·         Could the same benefits be achieved by other materials? Was it worth by the time, effort, and perhaps, extra money?

·         Were there any unexpected problems which could be foreseen another time? Were these due to guides, students, poor planning or unexpected trip conditions?

·         Were new interest developed?

·         Should the trip recommended to other classes studying similar topics?

Educational Benefits Derived from a Field Trip

            Field trips can be fun and educational when they are well executed. They offer us a number of educational benefits:

1.      The acquisition of lasting concepts and change in attitudes are rooted on concrete and rich experiences.

2.      Field trips bring us to the world beyond the classroom. The real-world connection is more work but the benefits of broadening teaching beyond textbooks far outweigh the little bit of time it takes from a teacher’s schedule.

3.      Field trips have a wide range of application. It is not meant only for children. It is for adults also. It is not only meant for the social science subjects. It is for all other subjects as well.

4.      It can bring a lot of realization which may lead to changes in attitudes and insights. Field trips “can nurture curiosity; build a zest for new experiences, and a sense of wonder.” (Dale, 1969). Here are some realization students had after joining a field trip to the following places:

·         A school for the blind “I’m glad, I’m blind. What can we do to prevent blindness?”

·         An automobile factory: “More and more factory work is automated. How will we have three working days and four days off the job? What will people do with their time?”

·         A museum: “There is so much to be known and I know so little!”

Disadvantages of Field Trip

            These educational benefits can compensate for the drawbacks of field trips, some of which are: 10 it is costly, 2) it is involves logistics, 3) it is extravagant with time, and 4) contains an element of uncertainty.

Community Resources

            A field trip may be a visit a scenic spot or to a historical place. What community resources can we use for learning?

            These can be persons and places in the community. For persons, let us not go too far. Let us begin with the parents of our students. Many of them can be resource speakers in their fields of expertise. A dentist may be invited to talk to the children on how to care for their teeth. A journalist may serve as resource speaker on the parts of a newspaper and how to write an editorial. A dynamic teacher will find a way to have a record of parents’ names, contact number, occupation, and other pertineny data she needs.                     

            There are other people in the community who can be excellent resource speakers. A senior citizens and a war veteran in the community may be invited to class for an interview on a topic of which he is expert, say for example, his memories of World War II. A barangay captain may be asked on what the barangay intends to o to curb the rampant alcoholism among the youth in the community.

            As the places to visit, popular destinations are museums, zoos, botanical gardens, historical places, places of exhibits, scenic sports. Performances like a play, a concert, and

            Public libraries and private libraries (some private schools, colleges and universities allow outsiders to research in their libraries on special arrangements) can also be community learning resources. Maybe classes are not brought to these libraries for a field trip but students can go there for research and learning.

LESSON 12

The Power of Film, Video and TV in the Classroom

Objective:

Why are the films, video and tv powerful in the classroom?

What are the advantages of tv, video and film in teaching?

What are the some disadvantages or limitations of the use of tv?

            The film, the video and the tv are indeed very powerful. Dale (1969) says, they can

·         Transmit a wide range of audio visual materials, including still pictures, film, objects, specimens and drama.

·         Bring models of excellence to the viewer. We can see and heat the excellent scientist like John Glenn, the excellent speakers and Master teachers who lecture and demonstrate a teaching method for professional development of teachers.

·         Bring the world of reality to the home and to the classroom through a “live” broadcast or as mediated through film or videotape. Not all of us have the opportunity to see life underneath the sea. But with tv, we are able to see life at the bottom of the sea right there in our sala or bedroom through Discovery Channel, for example.

·         Make us see and hear for ourselves world events as they happen. With a sense of helplessness, we witnessed the fire that engulfed homes in San Diego, California last year as it happened through tv. When the strong earthquake shook Baguio, Agoo, Dagupan and Nueva Ecija, Philippines on July 16, 1990, the aftermath of the earthquake was shown live in tv.

·         Be the most believable news source.

·         Make some programs understandable and appealing to a wide variety of age and educational level. Literate and illiterate, young and old – all benefit from the common experiences that the tv transmits.

·         Become a great equalizer of educational opportunity because programs can be presented over national and regional networks.

·         Provide us with sounds and sights not easily available even to the viewer of a real event through long shots, close ups, zoom shots, magnification and split screen made possible by the tv camera. Afraid of the mammoth crowd every time. Baguio celebrates the Panagbenga (Flower Festival). I prefer to stay home and watch it in tv. With the versatile camera. I can have more close up view than those watching it from Session Road.

·         Can give opportunity to teachers to view themselves while they teach for purposes of self-improvement. – Teachers can’t view themselves while they teach but with video cam and tv they can view themselves while they teach after.

·         Can be both instructive and enjoyable. – With sights and sounds and motion, tv is much more enjoyable.

While the film, video and tv can do much, they have their own limitations, too.

·         Television and films is one-way communication device consequently, they encourage passivity. Today, however, we talk about and work on interactive classrooms for effective learning is an active process and so the learner must be actively engaged. Go back to # 1 in the Activity phase of the lesson. Any comment?

·         The small screen size puts television at a disadvantage when compared with the possible size of projected motion pictures, for example. With new technology, how is this remedied?

·         Excessive tv viewing works against the development of the child’s ability to visualize and to be creative and imaginative, skills that are needed in problem solving. (http://www..publicschoolreview.com/articles/21)

·         There is much violence in tv. This is the irrefutable conclusion, “viewing violence increases violence”. (American Psychological Association Youth Commission)

Basic Procedures in the Use of TV as a Supplementary Enrichment

            For enrichment of the lesson with the use of tv, we have to do the following:

·         Prepare the classroom. (If your school has a permanent viewing room, the classroom preparatory work will be less for you.)

·         Darken the room. Remember that complete darkness is not advisable for tv viewing. Your students may need to take down notes while viewing.

·         The students should not be seated too near nor too far from the tv. No student should be farther from the set than the number of feet that the picture represents in inches. A 24-inch set means no student farther than 24 feet from the set. (Dale, 1969)

·         Pre-viewing Activities

·         Set goals and expectations. Why are you viewing the tv? What is expected of your students? State clearly.

·         Link the tv lesson with past lesson and / or with your students’ experiences for integration and relevance.

·         Set the rules while viewing. Will you allow them to take down notes? Or are you providing them with notes afterward?

·         Point out the key points they need to focus on. It helps if you give them guide questions which become the foci of post-viewing discussion. Omit this, if you are using an interactive video and the resource speaker himself/herself gives the questions for interactive discussion in the process of viewing.

·         Viewing

·         Don’t interrupt viewing by inserting cautions and announcement you forgot to give during the pre-viewing stage. It disrupts and dampens interest.

·         Just make sure sights and sounds are clear. You were supposed to have checked on these when you did your pre-viewing.

·         Post-viewing

·         To make them feel at ease begin by asking the following questions:

1)      What do you like best in the film?

2)      What part of the film makes you wonder? Doubt?

3)      Does the film remind you of something or someone?

4)      What questions are you asking about the film? (Write them down. You have not to end the class without answering them to make your students feel that everyone and everything matter. Nothing or nobody is taken for granted.)

·         Go to the question you raised at the pre-viewing stage. Engaged the students in the discussion of answers. Check for understanding.

·         Tackle questions raised by the students at the initial stage of the post-viewing discussion. Involve the rest of the class. If questions cannot be answered, not even you can answer them, motivate the class to do further reading on the topic and share their answers the next meeting. You will not be exempted from the assignment.

·         Ask what the student learned. Find out how they can apply what they learned. Several techniques can be used for this purpose. A simple yet effective technique is the completion of unfinished sentence. E.g. From this film I learned_____. I can apply the lesson I learned in/by______.

·         Summarize what was learned. You may include whatever transpired in the class discussions in the summary but don’t forget to base your summary on your lesson objectives.

LESSON 13

Teaching with Visual Symbols

Objective:

What is teaching with visual symbols?

What are examples of visual symbols?

            Your experience of the words and the graphs convinces you that a graph is easier to understand than the words of a paragraph. A graph is “worth a thousand words”. A graph and any visual symbol for that matter such as drawings, cartoons, strip drawings, diagrams, and maps are worth a thousand words. They are more clearly understood than mere words. Let us learn more about each of them and find out where they can be used n our lessons.

A.DRAWINGS

A drawing may not be the real thing but better to have a concrete visual aid than nothing. To avoid confusion, it is good that are drawing correctly represents the real thing.

            One essential skill that a teacher ought to possess in order to be understood is drawing. It helps you a lot if you are capable of doing simple freehand sketching. You will find out that as you lecture you need to illustrate on the chalk board. So, better start learning how to draw. The only way to learn it is to do the sketching yourself and devote some time to it. There is no nothing so difficult that is not made easy when we spend at least forty hours learning and mastering it.

B. CARTOONS

            Another useful visual symbol that can bring novelty to our teaching is the cartoon. A first-rate cartoon tells its story metaphorically. The perfect cartoon needs no caption. The less the artist depends on words, the more effective the symbolism. The symbolism conveys the message.

Source of Cartoons

            You can easily collect cartoons for instruction. They appear often in newspapers and magazines. In class, you can give it to individual study or project it by an opaque projector. Depending on themes for the week or the month, you can display these cartoons on the bulletin board. One creative teacher arranged for a “cartoon of the month” and displayed and changed her display every end of the month.

Sketching Cartoon

·         Start with simple shapes and add details. Note changes in expression.

·         Side view starts with same basic shapes.

·         Most cartoon figures are about four heads tall. Keep them simple.

Where to use Cartoons in Instruction

            You can also use this as a springboard for a lesson or a concluding activity. It depends on your purpose.

RBEC Competency

            Go back to the RBEC. Which can be taught with the use of a cartoon? Come up with a cartoon for a particular lesson.

C. STRIP DRAWINGS

            These are commonly called comics or comic strip. Dale (1969) asserts that a more accurate term is strips that are educational and entertaining at the same time.

TYPES OF DIAGRAM

            Find out what these other diagrams are. You may need them as you teach and as you go about your other teaching-related tasks.

·         Affinity Diagram – used to cluster complex apparent unrelated data into natural and meaningful groups.

·         Tree Diagram – used to chart out, increasing detail, the various tasks that must be accomplished to complete a project or achieve a specific objective.

·         Fishbone Diagram – it is so called cause-and-effect diagram. It is a structured form of brainstorming that graphically shows the relationship of possible causes and sub-causes directly related to an identified effect / problem. It is most commonly used to analyze work-related problems.

E. CHARTS

            A chart is a diagrammatic representation of relationships among individuals within an organization. We can have a: 1) time chart, 2) tree or stream chart, 3) flow chart, 4)organizational chart, 5) comparison and contrast chart, 6) pareto chart and 7) run chart or trend chart.

Examples of Chart

·         Time Chart – is a tabular time chart that presents data in ordinal sequence.

·         Tree or steam Chart – depicts development, growth and change by beginning with a single course (the trunk) which spreads out into many branches; or by beginning with the many tributaries which then converge into a single channel.

·         Flow Chart – is a visual way of charting or showing a process from being to end. It is a means of problems.

·         Organizational Chart – shows how one part of the organization relates to other parts of the organization.

·         Comparison and Contrast Chart – used to show similarities and differences between two things.

·         Pareto Chart – is a type of bar chart, prioritized in descending order of magnitude or importance from left to right. It shows at a glance which factors are occurring most.

·         Gannt Chart – is an activity time chart.

RBEC Competency

·         Find out which of these charts are appropriate for any lesson in the RBEC or for any teaching-related task.

F. GRAPHS

There are several types of graphs. They are: 1) circle or pie graph, 2) bar graph, 3) pictorial graph 4) line graph.

·         Pie or Circle Graph – recommend for showing parts of whole.

·         Bar Graph – used in comparing the magnitude of similar items at different ties or seeing relative sizes of the parts of a whole.

·         Pictorial Graph – makes use of picture symbols.

·         Graphic Organizers – you meet several organizers in your subject, Principles of Teaching. Here is another graphic organizer, or information organizer.

RBEC Competency

            In which lesson can you use each of these graphs?

G. MAPS

            A map is a “presentation of the surface of the earth or some part of it …” (Dale, 1969)

Kinds of Map

·         Physical Map – combines in a single projection data like altitude, temperature, rainfall, precipitation, vegetation, and soil.

·         Relief Map – has three dimensional representations and show contours of the physical data of the earth or part of the earth.

·         Commercial or Economic Map – also called product or industrial map since they show land areas in relation to the economy.

·         Political Map – gives detailed information about country, provinces, cities and towns, roads and highways. Oceans, rivers and lakes are the main features of most political maps.

Map Languages

·         Scale – shows how much of the actual earth’s surface is represented by a given measurement on a map. The scale must be shown so that the map reader can use the distances and areas shown on the map measuring or figuring out the real distances and areas on the earth’s surface. On some maps, scale is shown graphically. In others the scale is expressed in words and figures. e.g. 1 inch = 15 statute miles.

·         Symbols – usually a map has a legend that explains what each symbols means. Some symbols represent highways, railroads, mountains, lakes and plains.

·         Color – the different colors of the map are part of the map language. What colors represent the bodies of water? What about contours of the earth and railroads, highways and other cultural features? Get a physical map and study it.

·         Geographic Grids – the entire system of these grid lines are called grid lines. These grid lines are called meridians.

LESSON 14

MAXIMIZING the USE of the OVERHEAD PRO MAXIMIZING the USE of the OVERHEAD PROJECTOR and the CHALKBOARD JECTOR and the CHALKBOARD

Objectives:

What techniques can help us maximize the use of the overhead projector and the chalkboard?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of overhead projector?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the chalkboard?

The Chalkboard

            Except in extremely deprived classroom, every classroom has a chalkboard. In fact, a school may have no computer, radio, tv, etc, but it will always have a chalkboard. So why not make optimum use of what we have, the chalkboard? The following practices of dedicated professional teachers may help us in the effective use of the chalkboard:

1.      Write clearly and legibly on the board. Take note that there are children in the last rows.

2.      It helps if you have a hard copy of your chalkboard diagram or outline. That helps you to visualize the diagram or outline you like to appear on the chalkboard. That clean diagram and organized outline must match what you do on the chalkboard.

3.      Don’t crowd your notes on the board. By overcrowding your board work, your students may fail to see the key ideas. They may not see the trees because of the forest.

4.      Make use of colored chalk to highlight key points. Color will also make your board work more appealing. I witnessed one good teacher who had no other visual aid except herself, the chalkboard and her colored chalk.

5.      Do not turn your back to your class while you write on the chalkboard. Write side view as you talk. Don’t lose your eye contact with your class.

6.      For the sake of order and clarity, write from the left side of the board going right.

7.      If you teach the Grades and you think the lines on the chalkboard are needed for writing exercise, then provide the lines for your board.

8.      Look at your board work from all corners of the room to test if pupils from all sides of the room can read your board work.

9.      If there is glare on the chalkboard at certain times of the day, a curtain in the window may solve the problem.

10.  If you need to replace you chalkboard or if you are having a new classroom with new chalkboard suggest to carpenter to mount the chalkboard a little concave from left to right to avoid glare for the pupils benefit.

11.  If you need to have a board work in advance or that need to be saved for tomorrow’s use (say a quiz or a sophisticated diagram), write “Please Save” and over the same with a curtain.

12.  Make full use of the chalkboard. It may be traditional educational technology but it serves its purpose very well when used correctly.

Here are some more chalkboard technique, from James w. brown (1969).

CHALKBOARD TECHNIQUE

A.     Sharpen your chalk to get good line quality.

B.     Stand with your elbow high. Move along as you write.

C.     Use dots as “aiming points.” This keeps writing level.

D.     Make all writing or printing between 2 and 4 inches high for legibility.

E.      When using colored chalk, use soft chalk so that it can be erased easily.

The Overhead Projector (OHP)

            There are other kinds of projectors like opaque projector and slide projector. The overhead projector seems more available in schools. It has a lot of advantages. Brown (1969) cites the following:

·         The projector itself is simple to operate.

·         The overhead projector is used in the front of the room by the instructor, who has complete control of the sequence, timing, and manipulation of his material.

·         Facing his class and observing students reactions, the instructor can guide his audience, control its attention, and regulate the flow of information in the presentation.

·         The projected image behind the instructor can be as large as necessary for all in the audience to see; it is clear and bright, even in fairly well-lighted rooms.

·         Since the transparency, as it is placed in the projector, is seen by the instructor exactly as students see it on the screen, he may point, write, or otherwise make indications upon it to facilitate communication.

·         The stage (projector surface) of the projector is large (10 by 10 inches), thus allowing the teacher to write information with ease or to show prepared transparencies. Is work appears immediately on the screen.

·         It is especially easy for teachers and students to create their in materials for used in the overhead projector.

·         An increasing number of high-quality commercial transparencies.

Let’s learn how to use it properly so we also minimize its use in the classroom. Brown (1969) gives us several techniques:

Overhead Projection Techniques

            Among the outstanding attributes of overhead projection are the many techniques that can be used to present information and control the sequence of the presentation. As you plan your own transparencies, keep in mind these features of overhead projection:

·         You can show pictures and diagrams, using a pointer on the transparency to direct attention to a detail. The silhouette of you pointer will show in motion in the screen.

·         You can use a felt pen or wax-based pencil to add details or to make points in the transparency during projection. The marks of water-based pens and pencils can be removed with a soft cloth so that the transparency can be reused.

·         You can control the rate of presenting information by covering a transparency with a sheet of paper or cardboard (opaque material) and then exposing data as you are ready to discuss each point. This is known as the progressive disclosure technique.

·         You can superimpose additional transparency sheets as a overlays on a base transparency so as to separate processes and complex ideas into elements and present them in step-by-step order.

·         You can show three-dimensional objects from the stage of the projector ­­­­in silhouette if the object is opaque, or in color if an object is made of transparent color plastic.

·         You can move overlays back and forth across the base on order to rearrange elements of diagrams or problems.

·         For special purposes you can simulate motion in parts of a transparency by using the effects of polarized light. To do this, set a Polariod glass spinner over the projector lens and attach a special plastic element to parts a transparency for which motion is desired.

·         You can simultaneously project on an adjacent screen over visual materials, usually slides or motion pictures, which illustrate or apply the generalizations shown on a transparency.

Other reminders on the effective use of the OHP are:

·         Stand off to one side of the OHP while you face the students.

·         Don’t talk to the screen. Face the students when you talk, not the screen.

·         Place the OHP to your right, if you are right handed, and to your left, if you are left handed.

·         Place the OHP on a table low enough so that it does not block you or the screen.

·         Have the top of the screen tilted forward towards the OHP to prevent the “keystone effect” (where the top of the screen is larger than the bottom).

·         Avoid the mistake of including too much detail on each image. A simple layout makes an effective slide. If an audience needs to be given details, provide handouts to be studied later.

·         Avoid large tables of figures. Come up with graphics presentation.

·         Don’t read the text on your slide. Your audience can read.

·         Avoid too much text. Rely sparingly on printed text. Come up with more graphs, charts, diagrams or pictures.

·         Your presentation must be readable from afar.

·         Simple use of color can add effective emphasis.

We can learn from the experiences from others. Brown (1969) enumerates effective practices. Let’s learn from them.

·         In primary grades, simple object like keys, leaves, and cutout paper shapes can be placed directly on the projector to stimulate children’s imagination and encourage discussion.

·         In English composition lessons, student themes or writing exercises can be reproduced in film by means of the heat or photo copy process. The teacher and students can analyze the writing for style and grammar as each example is projected.

·         In arithmetic, blank sheets of acetate and grease pencils can be given to selected students. Have them prepare solutions to homework problems so the class may evaluate and discuss their results.

·         In geometry and trigonometry, two and three \-dimensional diagrams can be built up gradually with carefully prepared transparencies involving color and separate overlays. Geometric theorems and complicated problems can be separated into single components and presented systemically. In other mathematical and technical subjects, plastic objects like some rulers and compasses can be shown to a group and discussed.

·         In physical education and team training, plays and game procedures may be analyzed through the use of plastic or opaque moving symbols on a transparency which shows the court or field design.

·         In homeroom activities, the secretary can use a cellophane roll (accompanying most projectors) or blank acetate sheets in write nominations, lists, motion for all to see and react to.

·         In a primary reading class, a picture-transfer transparency can be made from a magazine picture. Project this transparency and ask the class to identify major items shown. Then place a clear piece of acetate over the picture and’ with a felt pen, write the name of each item identified. Later remove the picture and discuss the moves that remain on the screen.

·         In art classes, a teacher can sketch on clear plastic with a felt pen. The entire class sees the results. Similarly, transparent water colors, colored plastic shapes, finger paint, inks, or grease pencil may be used.

·         In science, iron filings dusted on a clear plastic sheet over a permanent magnet can be projected clearly to illustrate lines of force. Leaves, with chlorophyll removed, can be projected to show veins and the general leaf pattern. Clear glass Petri dish can be placed on the projector platform and used to show chemical reactions when changing colors reveal interactions of translucent fluids.

·         In social studies, all types of maps can be enlarged after accurate but easy presentation. Overlays show key facts about particular regions

§  In many classes, testing and evaluation materials can be used with a large group. Test items written on slides can be projected for the entire class.

·         The “progressive disclosure” technique mentioned previously can be achieved by (1) placing a sheet of paper over the transparency and moving it down to expose succeeding lines of type, (2) attaching strips of opaque paper to the sides of the mask in order to cover portions of the transparency image, or (3) placing over the transparency an opaque sheet containing a cutout slit which exposes lines or copy area in sequential order as it is moved down or across the copy.

The overlaying technique to do progressive disclosure is illustrated below.

·         After making a sketch of the content for the transparency, decide which parts will be the base and which will be used for each overlay.

·         Prepare a master drawing for each separate part.

·         In two corners on each master, make register marks that match marks previously put on the sketch. This will ensure proper registration of each overlay.

·         Prepare the transparency from each master.

LESSON 15

Project-based Learning and Multimedia: What it is?

Objective:

What is Project-based Multimedia Learning?

What are the elements of Project-based Multimedia Learning?

Why use of Project-based Multimedia Learning?

What are the disadvantages of the use of Project-based Multimedia Learning?

            A class that effectively employs project-based multimedia learning is highly animated and actively engaged. Together with other students, every student is absorbed in a task in line with the goals and objectives made clear at the start. Time has wings. It flies so fast that students don’t feel the passing of time. Teacher does not just stay in the front of the class lecturing. She monitors students as they work. Student consults her for guidance and comments. She does not impose her will on students. With her guidance, she allows students to make decisions for themselves. She has more time for those students in need of greater help and attention. By going around, she can sense if students are on the right track and if the goals and expectations set at the start are not set aside but remain to be the governing factor behind every activity. The students’ intellectual power are very much challenged as they read, research for basic information and as they analyze and organize these bits of information. Much of their technical skills learned from their computer courses and creativity and imagination are demanded when the students produce multimedia presentation by using multimedia produce by others.

            A question that may be asked at the point is: won’t the content be sacrificed? I don’t think so. This project-based multimedia learning is most of all anchored on the cure curriculum this means that project-based multimedia learning addresses the basic knowledge and skills all students are expected to acquire as laid down in the minimum competencies of the basic education curriculum.

            Let us know more about project-based multimedia learning in the paragraphs that follows.

            Project-based multimedia learning is a teaching method in which students “acquire new knowledge and skills in the course of designing, planning and producing multimedia product.” (Simkins, et at, 2002.)

Dimensions of Project-Based Multimedia Learning

            Project-based multimedia learning has seven key dimensions: core curriculum, real world connection, extended time frame, student decision making, collaboration, assessment, and multimedia. Simkins (2002) explains each of them briefly.

            Core Curriculum. At the foundation of any unit of this type is clear setoff learning goals drawn for whatever curriculum or set of standards is in use. We use the term core to emphasize that project-based multimedia learning should address the basic knowledge and skills all students are expected to acquire, and should not simple be an enrichment or extra-credit activity for a special few. Often, these projects lend themselves well to multidisciplinary or cross-curricular approaches

Real-World Connection. It seeks to connect students’ work in school with the wider world in which students live. You may design the feature in to a project by means of the content chosen, the types of activities, the types of products, or in other ways.

Extended Time Frame. A good project is not a one-shot lesson: It extends over a significant period of time. The actual length of a project may vary of the age of the students and the nature of the project. It may be days, weeks, or months.

            Student Decision Making. In project-based multimedia learning students have a say. Teachers look carefully at what decisions have to be made and divide them into “teachers” and “students” beads on a clear rationale. For example, a teacher might limit students to a single authoring program to minimize complications that might arise where students are allowed to use any software they chose. And yet she can also give students considerable leeway in determining what substantive content would be included in their projects.

            Collaboration. We define collaboration as working together jointly to accomplish a common intellectual purpose in a manner superior to what might have been accomplished working alone. Students may work in pairs or in teams of as many as five or six. Whole-class collaborations are also possible. The goal is for each student involved to make a separate contribution to the final work and for the whole to be greater than the sum of the parts.

            Assessment. Regardless of the teaching method used, data must be gathered on what students must learn. When using project-based multimedia learning, teachers face additional assessment challenges because multimedia products by themselves do not represent a whole picture of student learning. Students are gaining content information, becoming better team members, solving problems, and making choices about new information to show in their presentation. We consider assessment to have three different roles in the project-based multimedia context:

·         Activities are developing expectations:

·         Activities for improving the media products: and

·         Activities for compiling and disseminating evidence of learning:

Multimedia. In multimedia projects, students do not learn simply by “using” multimedia produce by others; they learn by creating it by themselves, the development of such programs as Hyperstudio, Kid Pix, and Netscape Composer has made it possible for students of all ages to become a authors of multimedia content. As student design and research there projects, instead of gathering only written notes, they also gather-and create-pictures, video clips, recordings and other media objects that will later serves as the raw material for their final product.

The Black Plague Project was exemplary in terms of the seven (7) dimensions given in the foregoing paragraphs. It addressed the standards set by the state and districts (in our case, by the Department of Education through the Re-structured Basic Educational Curriculum) in social studies, sciences, and technology.

Why use project-based multimedia learning? Because it is “value added” for your teaching it is a powerful motivator as proven in the classes of Teacher Nachielle and Teacher Nicolle described above. It actively engages students in the learning task. Students are likewise engaged in the production of multimedia production.

What can be some limitation of the use of project-based multimedia learning strategy?

One limitation that we see is the need of an extended period of time. You need time to orient the students on what are expected of them, guidelines, goals and objectives of the project, and more so for your students to gather and organize their data, work on their presentation and the like. This strategy requires technical skills on your part and on the part of your students.

LESSON 16

Using the Project-based Learning Multimedia as a Teaching-Learning Strategy

Objective:

What are the steps involved in the used of project-based multimedia learning?

            Goals and objectives are always the starting points of planning. When we plan a multi media learning project as a teaching strategy we begin by clarifying our goals and objectives. From the list of objectives and content found in the RBEC, we select which ones will lend themselves to a project-based multimedia learning strategy. Since this strategy requires much time, we need to be realistic in the amount of time we have to spend as seen against time available or run the risk of failure and disappointment afterwards.

            Another important thing is to determine the resources available- from the library materials, community resources both material and human, Internet, news media – since this project calls for multimedia. To trim down time devoted to a multi-media project, Simkins et al (2002) suggest the following:

·         Use technology student already know.

·         Use time outside of class where ever possible.

·         Assigns skills practice as homework.

·         Use “special classes (like art or music) as extra time.

·         Let students composed text and select and prepare graphics and sounds as they plan.

Consider the possibility of your student doing original researches themselves. Let us make clear to our students our policy on decision making and collaboration for smooth working relations. Finally we must have a plan on how we are going to evaluate learning.

            So you have decided on the objectives and content with which to use the project-based multimedia strategy and have determined resources available. What are you going to do next? Simkins, et al (2002) suggest the following:

BEFORE THE PROJECT STARTS

1.      Create project description and mile stones. Put in a nutshell what your project is all about. Describe your project in forty (40) words or less. Include your instructional goals and objectives. Include the project components students will be responsible for and due date. Set deadlines. By writing a brief abstract of your project, you have a full grasp of the essence of your project and that your focus will not get detailed.

2.      Work with real-world connections. If you have people outside the classroom involved as clients or assessors (evaluators) work with them to make an appropriate schedule and include their ideas to activities.

3.      Prepare resources. Seek the assistance of your librarian or school media specialist.

4.      Prepare software and peripherals such as microphones. Ask the help of your technical people.

5.      Organize computer files. Finding files eats most of your time if you are not organized. Naming files and folders after their file type and section title helps to keep things organized and makes it easier to merge elements later on.

6.      Prepare the classroom organize books, printer paper and any other resources so students can assess them independently. Make room in the bulletin boards for hanging printouts of student work, schedules, and organizational charts.

INTRODUCING THE PROJECT (ONE OR TWO DAYS)

            Help the students develop a “big picture to understand the work ahead. Make clear what they will be making, who their audience will be and what you expect them to learn and demonstrate in terms of the RBEC.

1.      Review project documents. You can ask students to work with the project documents you have produced. Encourage tour students to ask questions to the project to clarify what you have written.

2.      Perform pre-assessments. Your students can write pre-assessment question based on your learning goals to further clarify expectations.

3.      Perform relevant activities. You can show students anything you can find that is similar to what they will be producing such as a Web site or your own mini project you did to learn the technology. You can also brainstorm for topics, organizational ideas, and design ideas.

4.      Group students. Form small students from three to five students per group. Here are some grouping strategies.

·         By topic interest.

·         By student talent and expertise – This works for a balance of talents and skills in the groups.

·         Randomly – This fine to enable them to develop the skills to work with others.

5.      Organized materials. Give each group a folder that stays in the classroom. All their group work such as storyboards, journals, and research notes goes in that folder.

LEARNING THE TECHNOLOGY (ONE TO THREE DAYS)

            Give a chance for the students to work whatever software and technology they will be using. If some students are already familiar with the tools and processes ask them to help you train the others. If students are new to multimedia, then begin them lessons that involve using the different media types. Remember, you and your students are co-learners and you both learn as you go.

PRELIMENANARY REASEARH AND PLANNING (THREE DAYS TO THREE WEEKS, DEPENDING ON PROJECT SIZE)

            At this stage, students should immerse themselves in the content or subject matter they need to understand to create their presentations. Students will engage in relevant experiences or conduct research to collect information and gather ideas. Field trips, teacher-guided lessons, student research, interviews, observation, and questioning are all activities that might occur during this stage.    

            Students can tag and collect information they think might be valuable for their presentations: compelling photographs, quotes, sounds, and other media they encounter in their research. During field trips, they can take photographs for their presentations. Students can keep lessons of URLs (uniform resource locators or Web addresses) and content of Web sites they find. This is a good time to emphasize fair-use and plagiarism issues, as well as the importance of crediting sources.

CONCEPT DESIGN AND STORYBOARDING (THREE TO FIVE DAYS)

            After collecting initial information, hold a brainstorming session where the whole class or a subgroup defines a tentative approach to the subjects and discusses some preliminary design ideas. Now that the students know something about the subject matter, what do they want to say? How best they can address their clients or audience’s needs interests? What is the primary message, and how they organize their information to present it?

            Now is the time to talk about organizing a presentation to make it useful to the audience. Your students probably have a quite a bit of experience with how Web sites are usually organized and can tell stories of interfaces that caused difficulties.

            As a class or in groups, sketch out your over all designs for the presentation. Then have groups created their storyboards.

            A storyboard is a paper-and-pencil sketch of the entire presentation, screen by screen or, in the case of video, shot by shot. Each pane of the storyboard shows what text, images, sounds, motion and interactivity buttons will go on the screen and how they will be arranged. There should be no design. This is a quick sketch time spent making it beautiful is time wasted. The panes are with lines in show how the presentation flows. For example, a home page with six buttons for six topics connects to six topic screens from each buttons. See appendix a for Butterfly Project Storyboard.

Requiring a storyboard a natural check-in point for you and gives your students an opportunity to plan ahead. Then, when other questions arise, the flow chart or storyboard becomes a concrete reference point for what to do next.

Here are a few design tips to keep in mind throughout storyboarding and production:

·         Use scanned, handmade artwork to make a project look personal and to manage scare technology sources. Student artwork is unmatched as a way to assure a project has heart. Keep clip art or stamps to a minimum-they make a presentation look canned.

·         Keep navigation – the way users of your presentation will get from one screen to the next – consistent throughout the whole presentation. “Black” and “Next” buttons, if you have them, should appear at the same time on each screen (for example, the lower right corner). Always include the way to get to the home page or the beginning of the presentation.

·         Organize information similarly throughout to users can find what they are looking for.

·         Care for collaboration. Check in for groups to make sure they are collaborating successfully and that conflict is not derailing their productivity.

·         Organize manageable steps. Break down the project’s steps into manageable daily components considering that the project requires comparatively more time to succeed.

·         Check and assess often. This is to ensure that mistakes are seen early enough and therefore can be corrected before the final product is produced.

ASSESSING, TESTING, AND FINALIZING PRESENTATIONS (ONE TO THREE WEEKS)

            There are two kinds of testing to think about functional testing and user testing. Functional means trying all the buttons, taking all the possible path through the presentation, checking of errors missing images and the like User testing means using the presentation to members of the target audience and finding out if they can successfully navigate it and understand it. For example, if your target audience is younger students, users testing would include watching those students go through the presentation and making sure the text is appropriate for their reading level.

            Assessment means critical evaluation of your presentation. Ideally this comes from more than source. Possible assessors include your students, you, members of your target audience, content experts, and design experts,

            The key idea about testing and assessing is this: You have to do it while students still have time to fix the problems they find, or students will find the enterprise pointless and demoralizing. And they will be right.

            After assessment and testing, your student will be revising and making a “release candidate,” a version everyone thinks is just about perfect. The release candidate is tested further, and at this stage no new content or features are added. Only things like crashes, mortifying factual errors or offensive materials, and typos are fixed. After a round of fixes, you make a new release candidate and test it. This process continues until the deadline. If you’re out of time, you’re out of time, so stop! The last release candidate becomes the final version, which you post, copy, archive or deliver as appropriate. If there are serious problems with the final version and you have a client or real-world audience, just add a “read me” file or page that warns the users about these problems and (if you know) explains how they might be fixed.

           

CONCLUDING ACTIVITIES (ONE TO THREE DAYS)

            Allow time for students to present and show off their hard work. You and they will be proud to what they have done and will want to make share it with others. Concluding activities make a memorable project even more present.

            Often there is an obvious, authentic concluding activity related to your real-world connection. You will present to your target audience and celebrate your accomplishment. You can also think about scheduling your project so the end coincided with the school event, such as Parents’ Night or a year-end party. You can organize an exhibition day or a multimedia fair with other teachers where the school views all the multimedia projects for the semester. (See Chapter 9 for more about multimedia fairs.) You might also consider submitting the project to a multimedia competition.

            Remember to take time to review the ups and downs of the project to the students and anyone else who participated. Take notes on suggestions for things to do differently next year.

LESSON 17

ASSESSMENT in a CONSTRUCTIVIST, TECHNOLOGY-SUPPORTED LEARNING

Objective:

                Which form of assessment fits a constructivist technology-supported learning environment?

From the conversation we gather that some students:

·         memorize very much for the test

·         fit their style of test preparation to the kind of test and

·         study only for passing score and a passing grade

The questions we raise are: “Is it really bad to memorize for the test?” and “is it not good to study for a score and for a grade?” The answer to the both questions is a NO. It is not bad to memorize for the test. Examinees even take in Memory Plus food supplement to increase their power to memorize. Neither is it bad to study for scores and grade. However, we should go beyond memorizing for tests and we should not study only for passing score and a passing grade.

In a constructivist classroom, learning transcends memorization of facts. It is putting these isolated facts together, form concepts and construct meaning from them. It is connecting the integration of these facts and concepts to daily life. It is seeing the relevance of these facts and concepts to what we value and treasure in life. If this is what learning is from the eyes of the constructivist, then definitely, the pure memorization (sometimes without understanding) done for a mere recall test does not jibe with such belief.

What then is the assessment practice that will be congruent with the constructivist’s thinking? It is a higher level form of assessment that will require the display of the basic skills of writing and speaking, computing and the more complex skills of applying concepts learned, analyzing, integrating and creating, critiquing and evaluating and the social skills of working with others. Such higher level form of assessment will call for alternative forms of assessment. The traditional paper-and-pencil test will prove to be inadequate to measure basic skills integrated with higher-order-thinking skills and social skills.

Authentic Assessment is most appropriate for the constructivist classroom. (You will learn more about authentic assessment in your two subjects on assessment.) Authentic assessment measure collective abilities, written and oral expression skills, analytical skills, manipulative skills, (like computer skills) integration, creativity, and ability to work collaboratively.

In authentic assessment, students perform real world “authentic’. It is an assessment of a process or a product. That is why authentic assessment includes performance or product assessment. The performance is a reliable measure of skills learned and the product are acquisition of skills. These performance and product are assessed. Again the mere paper-and-pencil test cannot evaluate these. So what do we need? We need to observe and evaluate and, to do it more objectively, with the aid of a scoring rubric. (You will be taught how to make a scoring rubric in your assessment courses.) For now it may be sufficient to see a sample of a scoring rubric to get an idea of what it is about and to see its place in assessment.

MULTIMEDIA PROJECT and PERFORMANCE RUBRIC

	4	3	2	1
Organizer	Student presents information in a logical, interesting sequence that the audience can follow.	Student present information in a logical sequence that the audience can follow.	Audience has difficulty following presentation because students does not consistently use a logical sequence	Audience cannot understand presentation because there is no sequence of information.
Subject Knowledge	Student demonstrates full knowledge (more than required) by answering all class questions with explanations and elaboration.	Student is at ease and provides expected answers to all questions but fails to elaborate.	Student is uncomfortable with information and is able to answer only rudimentary question.	Student does not have graphs of information; student cannot answer questions  about subject.
Graphics	Student’s graphics explain and reinforce screen text and presentation.	Student’s graphics relate to text and presentation.	Student occasionally uses graphics that rarely support text and presentation.	Student uses superfluous graphics or no graphics.
Mechanics	Presentation has no misspelling or grammatical errors.	Presentation has no more than two misspellings and/or grammatical errors.	Presentation has three misspellings and/or grammatical errors.	Student’s presentation has four or more spelling errors and/or grammatical errors.
Eye Contact	Student maintains eye contact with audience, seldom returning to notes.	Student maintains eye contact most of the time but frequently returns to notes.	Student occasionally uses eye contact but still reads most of reports.
Elocution	Student uses a clear voice and correct, precise pronunciation of terms so that all audience members can hear presentation.	Student’s voice is clear. Student pronounces most words correctly. Most audience members can hear presentation.	Student’s voice is low. Student incorrectly pronounces terms. Audience members have difficulty hearing    presentation.	Student mumbles, incorrectly pronounces terms, and speaks too quietly for students in the back of class to hear.

·         You and your students may develop a rubric. It can be a collaborative effort for both of you – teacher and student – in line with the practice of self-assessment, which is highly favored and encouraged. In fact with scoring rubric, standards are clearly set at the beginning for you and your students and with that rubric your students can assess their own progress. In this case, the much of the fear for tests gets dispelled. Assessment is accepted as a natural and normal part of the learning process. There are no more secrets on how the students will be tested, what kind of questions will be asked. The students themselves know how their progress gets assessed.

            Assessment in technology-supported environment necessarily includes display of skillful and creative use of technologies, old and recent, because that is what is naturally expected of us in the real world, a technology-dominated world. In this present world, we need to be computer literate and fluent or we get lost or become helpless. These technology and integrative skills are demonstrated when our students present answers they have found to two or more assigned problems or present the group project they have worked on for a purpose with the use of various technologies. These presentations need performance-based assessment or product assessment. It is a direct assessment. We do not test their computer and creative skills, their analytical and integrative skills by way of a multiple-choice-type of test or test their computer skills alone. Instead, we measure their computer skills directly in an authentic or real-life setting. Where do they need to use their computer skills in life? That becomes the natural setting of the test in computer skills.

            A technology-supported classroom maximizes the use of old and new technology. Students are expected to demonstrate learning with the use of both old and new technology. For instance, students may use transparencies and OHP to demonstrate the learned skill of topic presentation or may choose to use powerpoint presentation. To assess their manipulative skill, we conduct direct assessment with the help of a scoring rubric. From the eyes of a constructivist learning is an “active, constructive, intentional, authentic and cooperative process, so should the ways in which we assess learners and criteria that we use to evaluate them. Obviously the traditional paper-and-pencil that cannot assess this type of learning. If we believe that the ways that we assess learning should change, so we also need to rethink the ways that evaluate learning, asserts Jonassen (1999)

            How then should we evaluate learning? Definitely, the paper-and-pencil test won’t fit. If it is the meaning and interpretations of experiences that individual students and groups construct that we have to evaluate, there will be different answers and there may not be one right answer. So what we assess should be the process that occurs. Assess learning as it is occurring. This is process or performance assessment. How do we assess if our students have learned the constructivist’s way of thinking, behaving and living? The rubric for understanding and improving meaningful environments may give you an idea?

Rubric for Understanding and Improving Meaningful Environments

Assessing  Activity To what the extent does the environment you have created promote manipulation of real-world objects and observations based on these activities? Learning Interaction with Real-World Objects ·         Little of the learner’s time is spent engaged with tools and objects found outside school. ·         Learners are often engaged in activities involving tools and objects found outside school. Observation and Reflection ·         Students rarely think about or record the results of actions taken during activities. ·         Students often stop and think about the activities in which they are engaged. ·         Students share frequent observation about their activity with peers and interested adults. Learning Interactions ·         Students manipulated none of the variables or controls in environment. ·         Students manipulated some variables and controls in environment. ·         Students manipulated all or nearly all variables/controls in environment. Tool Use ·         Students used no cognitive tools. ·         Students used some cognitive tools to support explorations/manipulations. ·         Students used nearly all cognitive tools effectively. Assessing Construction To what extent does the environment you have created cause learners to perceive puzzling dissonance and form mental models to explain the incongruity? Dissonance/Puzzling ·         Students engaged in learning activities because activities are required, rather than being an intrinsic interest. ·         Learners frequently seem to be operating based on a sincere curiosity about the topic of study. ·         Learners are consistently striving to resolve disparity between observed and on a sincere desire to know. Constructing Mental Models and Making Meaning ·         Learners rarely create their own understandings of how things work. ·         Learners are often expected to make sense of new experiences and develop theories. ·         Learners routinely wrestle with new experiences, becoming experts at identifying and solving problems. Assessing Cooperation To what extent does the environment you have created promote meaningful interaction among students and between students and experts outside of school? To what extents are learners develop skills related to social negotiation in learning to accept and share responsibility? Interaction Among Learners ·         Little of the learners’ time is spent gainfully engaged with other students. ·         Learners are often immersed in activities in which collaboration with peer results in success. Interaction with People Outside of School ·         Little of the learners’ time is spent gainfully engaged with experts outside of school. ·         Learners are often involved in activities in which there is significant outside of school. Social Negotiation ·         Little evidence that learners work together to develop shared understanding of tasks or of solution strategies. ·         Learners are often observed in the process of coming to agreement on the nature of problems and on best courses of action. ·         Learners collaborate with ease. Negotiations become almost invisible, yet the ideas of all team members are valued. Acceptance and Distribution of Roles and Responsibility ·         Roles and responsibilities are shifted infrequently; most capable learners accept more responsibility than the less capable. ·         Roles and responsibilities are shifted often; and such changes are accepted by both the most and least capable. ·         Students make their own decisions concerning roles and responsibilities, freely giving and accepting assistance as necessary. Assessing Authenticity Complexity ·         The tasks learners face have been designed for schools (i.e.’ separated into “subjects” and developed to simplify learning). ·         The tasks learners face are embedded in theme-based units that cross disciplines and present issues in context. ·         Students accept challenges as they exist in real world using languages, math, science, and technologies to. Accomplish important tasks. High-Order Thinking ·         A large percentage of what is expected is memorization. Students are rarely asked to evaluate, synthesize, or create. ·         Students are often asked to develop ideas and solutions, often in groups, and demonstrate the abilities to create and lesson. ·         Learners routinely generate hypothesis, conduct investigations, assess results, and make predictions. Recognizing Problems ·         Students are not expected to be problem finders, but are instead expected to be able to solve occasional well-structured problems. ·         Students occasionally face ill-structured challenges and are expected to refine their problem as well as solve it. ·         Students frequently face ill-structured challenges and develop proficiency in identifying and defining problems. “Right Answer” ·         The “problems” presented to learners tend to have “right answers,” “correct” solutions that the students are expected to eventually reach. ·         The problems presented are new to the learners, and generally involve complex solutions of varying quality, rather than “right answers.” Assessing Intentionality To what extent does the environment you have created cause learners to pursue important, well-articulated goals to which they are intrinsically committed? To what extent can learners explain their activity in terms of how the activities relate to the attainment of their goals? Goals Directedness ·         Learners are often pursuing activities that have little to the attainment of specified goals. ·         Learners are generally engaged in activities that contribute to do with the attainment of specified goals. Setting Own Goals ·         Learning goals are provided by the educators. ·         Learners are sometimes involved in the establishment of learning goals. ·         Learners are routinely responsible for developing goals. Regulating Own Learning ·         Learners’ progress is monitored by others. ·         Learners are involved as partners in monitoring and reporting progress toward goals. ·         Learners are responsible for monitoring and reporting progress toward goals.

LESSON 18

ROLES AND FUNCTIONS OF AN EDUCATIONAL MEDIA CENTER

Objective:

What is Educational Media Center?

What are the roles and functions does an EMC perform to serve the teaching-learning process?

What are the elements must an EMC have for it to effectively function as one?

                                    An EMC is a facility designed for the housing and utilization of all educational media within the school. It is a basic requirement of the school to render quality service. It is not independent of the school. Rather, any part of the human body, it is a unit in the school that cooperates with other units or department that help the school fulfill its mission and realize its vision by living up to the school’s philosophy and aims. It is serves a myriad of roles, among which are: 1) center of resources, 2) laboratory for learning, 3) agent of teaching, 4) service agency, 5) coordinating agency 6) recreational reading center, and 7) a stepping stone to other resources of the community.

                                    An EMC renders various kinds of services. Its services boil down to improving the teaching-learning process by making it more interactive, collaborative, interesting and authentic.

                                    What must an EMC have to be a functional EMC?

                                    The evaluation questions for a functional EMC (Lucio & Borabo, 1997) give the following elements.

1.      The institutional media services.

·         Is the administration committed to a media program?

·         Is the program of media services administrated by a media specialist through media center?

·         Is the center operating at the same level as other major institutional services of the school?

·         Are there clearly defined policies, procedures, and plans for short, medium and long term coverage?

·         Is the center provided with appropriate facilities, finances (a regular budget) and staff (both technical and clerical)

·         Is the center capable of giving media and/or educational media technology advises/assistance to the faculty?

2.      Media and Instruction

·         Are the faculty encouraged to use media as an integral part of instruction?

·         Are classroom equipped and/or adapted for the best possible use of educational media.

·         Is the media center accessible to all classroom and lecture/conference rooms?

·         Is there educational media technology information dissemination?

·         Is there a proper cooperation between faculty and the professional media staff in the planning, developing, and using media for instructions?

·         In particular, are faculty members assisted by the media center staff in analyzing teaching needs and in designing, selecting and using educational media to meet these needs?  

·         Is there an adequate storing, filing and retrieval/borrowing system for instructional hardware and software/materials?

·         Is the center capable of technical operations relating to technical assistance, equipment repair and cleaning, continuous upgrading of facilities?

·         Is there a capability for production of graphics, audio, visual and other media materials for instruction?

3.      Classroom Facilities

·         Are classroom designed for and provided with essential facilities for effective use of educational media?

·         Specifically, are classroom equipped for full light control, electrical outlets, appropriate ventilation and media operations space?

·         Are classroom equipped with a bulletin board, chalkboard, projection screen, map rails, etc. for instruction using media?

4.      Media Program

·         Are their clear-cut administration policies on the media program?

·         Is there an adequate source/system of funding?

·         Is there a personnel, consultants and clerical staff?