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“I
thought reflection was not fun but that is what makes me think a lot
and is really important because some quite [sic] kids need to say
there idia's [sic]. I thought it was good to do that.”
— 6th grade student (not
pictured)
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KnowledgeContext's Curriculum Advisor, Addie Holsing, teaches and when she is
on vacation she reads pedagogy. Addie made sure that every lesson in our
curriculum is designed to engage student
interest, teach them a strategy, and make sure they reflect on what they have
learned so they can recognize why it will be of value in their lives. As
a teacher of 40 years, Addie also made sure that the lessons are presented in
a way that makes the teacher's job easier. The structure common to every
lesson is shown below.
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Essential Question
Except in the Introduction, this is one of the ICE-9 Essential Questions
(e.g. What is technology?), and keeps the teachers and students focused each
day.
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Hook Stories
The Hook Stories engage students and connects the essential question to the
students’ knowledge and experience. The hook is suggested in the form of brief stories that
foreshadows the lesson. The
suggested stories can be replaced by the teacher to reflect current events.
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Strategy
The strategy is used in the day’s activity and is useful beyond the
classroom for understanding and evaluating technology.
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Activity
The class Activity gives students guided practice in the strategy taught in
the lesson, or the activity gives students a way to inductively learn the
day’s lesson. It is doing something that helps students answer the
Focus Question.
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Sharing
Group or whole class Sharing reviews the ideas formed during the class, shares
products produced, and pinpoints strategies used that were successful during
the class.
The sharing demonstrates that the teacher’s objective for the day was
met.
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Reflection
Key to
learning is ample time to consider what one has just learned, why it might be
important, and how one will use it to achieve goals. Reflection questions
conclude each lesson and a wrap-up reflection concludes the ICE-9 program.
Processing/Reflection in a personal journal internalizes the ideas generated
in the class and gets the useful strategies into long term memory.
Given time to reflect on useful strategies, students learn to think smarter so
they can take in more knowledge. Allowing time for students to put acquired knowledge
into context gives them an opportunity to construct their own meaning from the
knowledge.
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Estimated Times
The stopwatch symbol, found throughout the lessons, indicates estimated
time in minutes required for a lesson or section of a lesson. No
exact times can be predicted because of variations in environment,
classrooms, teachers, students, and just chance. The numbers shown
are averages, but do not represent an ideal. Teachers may choose
to spend much more time on an area that ties into other subject areas
and sparks student interest. Or, they may spend less time on an
area students immediately grasp. |
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