Thursday, September 20, 2012

Senses Concept Map







Senses

I.       Feel

       The sense of touch can happen all over your body.  Nerve endings in the skin transmit sensations to the brain.   The fingertips and the sexual organs have the greatest concentration of nerve endings.  Cold, heat, contact, and pain are the four kinds of touch sensations.  Hairs magnify the sensitivity and act as an early warning system for the body.  

A.    Everywhere

B.    Dermis

1.           Nerve Endings

2.           Brain

II.             Sight

       The eye is like a camera.  The eyes take in light from what you are looking at and make a tiny picture of it on the back of the eyeball.  Nerves in the eye take a message to the brain of the picture.  The brain tells us what we are looking at. 

A.    Pupil

B.    Retina

1.           Lens

2.          Optic Nerve

III.    Taste

A.    Taste Buds

            Taste buds are sensory organs that are found on your tongue.  They allow you to experience tastes that are sweet, salty, sour, and bitter.  All the small bumps on your tongue are called papillae, and most of the bumps contain taste buds.  The taste buds have microscopic hairs called microvilli that send messages to the brain about how something taste.  Most people have 10,000 taste buds and they are replaced every 2 weeks.  An older person may only have about 5,000 taste buds due to taste cells not replicating. 

1.         Papilla

2.         Microvilli

B.    Nose

IV.    Smell

       The sense of smell works by vaporized odor molecules floating around in the air reaching the nostrils and dissolving in the mucus.  Underneath the mucus, in the olfactory epithelium, specialized receptor cells called olfactory receptor neurons detect the odor.  The olfactory receptor neurons transmit the information to the olfactory bulbs, which are located at the back of the nose.  The olfactory bulbs have sensory receptors that are part of the brain that send messages directly to the most primitive brain centers where they influence emotions and memories, and also to the higher centers where they modify conscious thought.   These brain centers perceive odors and provide memories to remind us about places, people or events associated with these olfactory sensations.

A.    Nostril

B.    Neuron

1.         Cilia

2.         Odor Molecule

V.     Hear

A.    Outer Ear

B.    Middle Ear

1.         Hammer bone

2.         Anvil bone

3.         Stirrup bone

C.    Inner Ear

            In the inner ear the liquid and hairs are in a curled tube called the cochlea.  The liquid and hairs move due to the bones in the middle ear vibrating when the eardrum does.  Messages move along nerves to the brain. Then the brain tells you what the sound is.  The inner ear also helps us keep our balance. The liquid in the inner ear swirls about when you move. Nerves in the inner ear tell your brain which way you are moving, which helps you to keep your balance

 



Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Teacher's Expectations Can Influence How Students Perform

      
       Alix Spiegel decided to look at expectations like how teacher’s expectations can affect the performance of the children they teach.  Harvard professor, Robert Rosenthal, was the first psychologist to systematically study this when he conducted an experiment at an elementary school south of San Francisco in 1964.  He wanted to see what would happen if teachers were told that certain kids in their class were destine to succeed.  Rosenthal took a normal IQ test and dressed it up.  He just put a cover on a standardized IQ test that said 'Harvard Test of Inflected Acquisition.'  He chose several students from each class and told the teacher that the test predicted the kids were on the verge of an intense intellectual bloom, even though these children were just selected at random.  The teachers expected for these children to be smart and the children were.  These kids IQ increased so much because the teachers had been led to expect the great gain.  Some schools now videotape classes over a period of months and get the teachers to work with a personal coach to watch these videos and give them recommendations about different behaviors to try.  Teaches were found that their beliefs had shifted way more than the beliefs of teachers given a standard informational course.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Snezana Markovic

 
Snezana Markonvic is a teacher in Serbia and even though education policies there do not allow online education for primary and secondary education she still uses technology.  Markovic and her team were recognized with first place award for creative school programs from Microsoft partners in learning in 2010 and 2012.  Markonvic says she has gotten other teachers interested in using ICT in education.  She says student’s motivation and interest in learning has increased.  Children who are not always interested in a particular subject have managed to find a way to be successful in that subject.  Markonvic tells us that you can download her papers from the "creative school" database.  Markonvic says teachers must listen to their students and hear their voice, needs, and opinions, and get everyday feedback, both formal and informal. 

Ghostery

Surprisingly I was not on the computer much this weekend.  Sunday and Monday I was on the computer some and did experience some people following me.  Every time I got on Facebook I had 4 or 5 followers.  I was also doing some school research and had 5 followers on a webpage that is a .edu page.  I left a .edu page up last night for about 30 minutes while I was eating and when I came back I had  22 followers and none of them were being blocked. 

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Nine Ways the Common Core Will Change Classroom Practice


William Schmidt found that most teachers have read and like the Common Core State Standards.  He also discovered that most math teachers believe the Common Core Standards are “pretty much the same” as the standards they are currently using.  William says that these teachers need to look close because the new standards are different in many ways.  One change is that the Standards want the teacher to focus on fewer topics and explain them in more depth.  The Common Core Standards states that all mathematics education is of the same importance.  In English Language Arts the Standards call for students to read more nonfiction.  Students will be expected to red more complex material.  Students will need to be able to demonstrate that they can listen and speak effectively.  States are starting to organize campaigns to inform teachers about the Standards and give them sample lessons dealing with the Common Core State Standards. 

facebook questions

What is this person known for?

It seems like this person is known for being happy.  She loves her life and the people in it.  This person likes to sleep a lot and play tennis.    

  

 What does this person value?
 To me it looks like this person values her friends, family, and education.  A lot of things posted on her wall are dealing with her friends and boyfriend.  She sometimes posts about school; she graduated high school in 2010, community college in 2012, and is right on track to graduate USM in 2014. 
                                          My boyfriend and part of his family about a month ago
 
                                                              Me and my sister this past summer



 
Is this person committed to the growth of others?
From looking at her profile I cannot really answer this question.  She does post happy post, tagging people in them. 


Monday, September 10, 2012

Out-of-School Settings Create Climate for New skills


Out-of-classroom environments are becoming popular due to pressure mounts for students to improve their digital-learning and 21st-century skills.  Mobil gaming is being used to reinforce school lessons through learning labs where students are creating their own multimedia projects using digital tools.  These new environments have provided more leeway for young people to purse individual interests. YouMedia and HIVE Learning Networks have led the pack to see whether the strategies and spaces for leaning have an effect on the way children are educated, relate to others, and develop greater self-awareness.  Support has increased in the past six years targeting creative programs that get children more engaged and learning in new ways rather than simply tracing basic digital and media skills.  Global Kids' digital programs incorporate a range of curricula and tools.  Global Kids' programs are designed to make youth more aware and engaged citizens.   

New technology welcomes students in Western Springs

 
Teachers are finding new ways to use technology in school due to the 30 Google Chromebooks the fifth-grade classrooms at John Laidlaw Elementary School received.  Students take advantage of Google Documents, an application that allows them to write an essay on their computer and then the teacher and other students can read and edit it online.  Klem helped get the Chromebooks to the school. She got very excited when she found out all the different Apps for Education Suite that Google provided. Klem records reading discussions to the laptops, which allows her to pic out key points the students made and allows parents to be able to hear their child participating in the discussion.  Klem tells us the best part of the new Chromebooks is that the students are so excited and motivated. 

Teaching the Common Core State Standards with media


Common Core State Standards (CCSS) allow teachers to be flexible and creative in teaching students critical skills for the 21st Century.  KQED and PBS LearningMedia's have a vast selection of digital media resources to get students engaged with compelling content, and directly align curriculum to the new standards since integrating media in all curricular areas is so strongly emphasized.  KQWD and PBS LearningMedia have a multi-platform digital library that provides multimedia and writing examples that are good to use if you are trying to follow the CCSS emphasis on students needing to read nonfiction and informational text.  CCSS requires students to read and evaluate arguments as well as write their own arguments.  KQED News has a lot of provocative issues to inspire students.  Digital fluency and media savvy are two skills CCSS stresses for students to know.  KQED provides many opportunities for students to analyze many different media formats and presentations.  KQED Just launched a program called Do Now project which encourages the online collaboration and exchange of ideas that CCSS encourages of students.        

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Educators Evaluate 'Flipped Classrooms'


Salman Khan inspired a movement called “flipped classroom”.  Flipping a classroom would mean swapping homework for class work.  Students would watch video lectures for homework and do hands-on activities in the classroom.  Educators are realizing that there are many ways to “flip” a classroom. Some teachers allow time in class for some of the videos to be watched and some teachers do not require students to watch the videos at all, they are just there if needed.  Flipping your classroom allows teachers to spend more one on one time with the students.  For the flipping your classroom concept to actually work you need to ask your students questions about the videos or make them take notes on the videos like Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams get their students to do. 

Eight problems with Common Core Standards


“The Core” is what everybody should be required to know in education.  Corporate interests, arguing that the core was being taught sloppily, came up with a behind the scenes campaign called the Common Core State Standards. Common Core was named this to hide the fact it was driven by people in Washington D.C.  Little public dialog or feedback was gathered from educators about common core, and no research, no pilot or experimental programs were executed.  The world changes every day, so we should not cling to a static strategy.  The main reason for poor student performance is being ignored due to all the attention being showered on the Common Core Standards.  Innovation is killed due to Common Core.  With Common Core everything is based on get ready for national standardized tests, tests that can’t avoid cultural bias, that can’t evaluate complex thought and can’t measure non-verbal learning. 

As K-12 classrooms go high-tech, colleges get more virtual


E-education is popping up everywhere.  Some students at private schools are being required to purchase iPads, like the kids at Cathedral High School.  Public schools are also issuing children iPads too.   1,600 students at Archibishop Mitty High School were issued iPads that they can use at school and at home.  Ipads will greatly help students in rural areas, making them able to take higher level courses that their school may not offer.  Some educators are worried children will just watch lectures, slides and memorize the information they have on their iPads.  Although many schools are starting to use iPads, don’t expect an iPad revolution overnight.  Some colleges are starting to offer free on-line classes.  It may be many years from now, but one day there will be no need for dorms and students will be able to get college degrees for free or cheap on-line.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Intro


My name is Katherine Scarbrough.  I am 20 years old and from Meadville, MS.  I am a elementary education major and love working with kids.  I hope to one day teach science.  In my free time I enjoy reading, playing tennis and spending as much time as possible with my friends, family and boyfriend.