I watched the Bird Rap Video and noticed the following strengths and weaknesses. The teacher presented the songbird project and called on various students seeing what they knew about birds. The teacher explained that the students would be divided into groups. One group was gong to work on the computers while the other group found resources. This ensured everyone in the class was busy since there were not enough computers for everyone to use at once even though they were working this project with a partner. The teacher put an excel spreadsheet on the overhead and using a computer proceeded to explain how to fill it out with the information they were going to find. She then used the overhead to show the students how to use trackstar on the internet and the sites they could use that had information about birds. The overhead is a great tool so students can follow along. The teacher then went on to discuss with the class about citing properly information obtained from a website. Instruction was presented to the class about how to present to the group and after they completed their presentation she reviewed the 2 Rubik’s and told them they could go back and add to their presentation if they felt they needed to.
I felt the teacher presented the information well and using the overhead was a benefit to the student. I did think there was a large amount of information given at once and she went from one part of the project to another without ensuring everyone understood the part she had just covered. The only other weakness was the presentations. The teacher let the students sit and stand behind the laptop and read from the screen. I feel she should have worked with the students more on their presentations since their actual projects looked excellent.
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One of the reasons I chose this video for us to view is because it incorporates so many technologies – and I think the teacher does an exceptional job integrating them. There is always room for improvement (as with all of us!), but overall, I think this video does a great job of showcasing how technologies can make a potentially dry topic more engaging. And quite frankly, I admire anyone who’s willing to have his/her teaching recorded and critiqued.
ReplyDeleteOne area I’d like to point out is the practice of students teaching students. When implemented well, it can be a great way to empower students. But I feel that before we can ask students to teach each other we need to teach them how to teach. And we need to be confident that they understand the skills they’ll be passing on to others – otherwise, we can end up with a version of the game ‘telephone’ where the content can become filtered and twisted. So I’d encourage you to take the time to model for the students how you want them to teach (not just tell them what they should teach) and have guidelines in place to make sure they themselves understand the content well enough to teach their classmates.
I only wish I could promise that you’ll have such great technologies available in your future schools…