Playing Catch Up!

It has been quite awhile since my last post. I'm sorry for being tardy; but I was busy with Mid-terms, assignments, sickness and moving the past few weeks! To start my group, the Teachnologists, met February 25th from 8:06 - 10:06 p.m. to start working on our group Constructivism project and continued our work on March 2nd from 7:30 - 9:30p.m. and finished it on March 8th from 8:30 to 11:51p.m. As you can see the times we met we spent a lot of time on it and I think it came out excellent. I have to say it is always a pleasure to meet with my group and we do not come across any problems unless it is technical and we always find a way to fix it or work around it.

To answer Dr. S questions; The 5E Lesson Plan is aligned with the inquiry process by how it has the students investigate the situation they are given. For example; my group decided on having students look outside and draw what they saw and then try to identify it. Afterward students would look at four house plants and see the difference and similarities, students were teaching and learning on their own. The teacher was merely a guide. If; I were a principal I would encourage teachers to use the 5E Lesson Plan - Constructivism format; but I would not have them do it daily. It is quite time consuming and takes a lot of preparation. Also the teacher has to be prepared to let the students teach themselves and stand on the side observing them; but also making sure they are not getting side tracked and are focused on the topic. The teacher also would need good classroom management techniques and make sure the class is not getting too loud, there should be some existence of order in the classroom. My group addressed these concerns by making a graph of the advantages and disadvantages of Constructivism by using Gliffy.

Unfortunately; because some teachers lack the classroom management skills and lack the time or desire to make an inquiry lesson, they tend to fall back to the traditional Behavioral Model/Direct Instruction which; is boring for the students to have the same type of format daily. I believe this is another reason why Information-Processing/Inquiry and Social Interactive (Cooperative) methods are pushed aside because incorporating these newer, creative forms of learning takes patience, time and a desire to teach it. These are Web 2.0 features because of today's technology is about accessing and publishing information on the internet as well as working together in groups online or offline in in the classroom.