Capstone for Things 8-14

Capstone Reflection for Things 8-14

A number of these technology applications will immediately fit into and be used in my classroom. One application that really stands out is the Prezi presentation package. The one-page graphic organization format is very powerful in conveying a cohesive packaged idea, where the various strands and tie-ins are readily apparent – giving the student an immediate visual overview of what’s included and how it ties together. The mapping process is extremely flexible, allowing you to visit and re-visit concepts. Just the process of mapping the items lets you organize your thoughts, forcing the presenter to put together a cohesive package rather than a stream of consciousness. On the flip[ side, the one page organization lets the presenter put together a stream of consciousness, random thoughts and even a little bit of chaos – ensuring that you can immediately include thoughts and ideas to be revisited, improved and logically mapped when you are ready to put the presentation together.

Even the presentation mode helps.  It is an eye-catching process as the presentation winds its way through the field of thoughts and concepts with the ability to highlight even the smallest point in a manner that will help the students visualize and internalize what you are presenting.

I can envision using this to teach a proof – organizing the thoughts that occur randomly into individual little units and then tying them together as a finished whole.

There are a few features lacking – like having items fill in spots as you talk about them (like the listing of items in a proof), but there is much that this program has to offer.

The next application that I see myself integrating into the classroom is Quizlet – the flashcard program. I use a Jeopardy template for reviews, but can see where the flashcards would be useful and different – and available at home for students to look at on their own. The cards are easy to set up, the quizzes are easy to use – I just need to put a couple of sets together to get the feel of the program.

The flashcards force you to be succinct and precise to capsulate the concept and present it for review. This not only helps the student remember it more easily, but also helps you consider how you present and discuss various concepts – and how much it takes to break things down into bite-size learning bits.

A third tool I envision using in the classroom is the National Library for Learning Manipulatives.  This site has quite a few math concepts incorporated into individual packages suitable for showing to an entire class or for signing up for the computer lab and having students explore the concepts and manipulatives on their own. A number of the manipulatives that I tried will require at least some teaching and/or discussion of what is being show to get the full effect of the exercise and to totally understand what is happening. This makes it possible to also tie the concept together with the course material to reinforce the learning process, provide additional exposure to the material and leverage the hands-on experience.

Using these technology applications will help to address a cross-section of the nine Marzano effective learning strategies:

The most significant is that I will be using a lot of nonlinguistic representations – the flashcards, prezi presentations and the manipulatives all include a lot of images that directly relate to the subject matter.  Since we already do quite a bit of work linguistically in the classroom, these resources will serve to broaden the students’ exposure to the material and provide an alternative way to learn and retain the concepts.

The flashcards will help provide cues focusing on what is important to remember and providing the mental link to that knowledge. Prezi will provide some of the means to use advance organizing to preview concepts and link it to prior knowledge.

The flashcards will also help in pointing out the similarities and differences in various concepts – one example would be in the determination of congruent triangles – exploring the differences and similarities of SSS, SAS, ASA Congruence Postulates and the AAS Congruence Theorem. This is especially true because the concepts are displayed graphically – allowing  visual interpretation of the relationships and the naming of the Postulate/Theorem involved.

I put together a lesson using the Prezi tool to show the concepts involved with the Perpendicular Bisector Theorem. Two sections deals with prior knowledge – one ties it to previous lessons in Geometry, the other ties it to the Pythagorean Theorem learned in middle school.

The lesson helps students meet some of the G2.3 Michigan Curriculum Standards”

G.2.3.1 Proving triangles are congruent (SSS, SAS, ASA, AAS, and HL)

G1.2.5 Solving multistep problems and constructing proofs about the properties of medians, altitudes, perpendicular bisectors to the sides of a triangle and the angle bisectors of a triangle.

Perpendicular lines are found in many of the objects that we work with in geometry.  Students need to use this information in proofs and in problem solving. They have to know how the use of perpendicular lines generates right angles and right triangles – including isosceles triangles. Also, perpendicular lines are used to create parallel lines.

All of the proofs are multistep problems – some more so than others. As proofs get more complicated (starting towards the end of Chapter 4), the steps involved in solving the problems become more complicated.