Technology-Integration Lesson Template

Lesson Plan Template

Title/Topic: Writing Linear Equations                                               Grade level: High School       

Subject:  Geometry                                         Total Timeframe: 90 minutes (block schedule)       

Before the Lesson:

TEKS/Student Expectation/Key Understandings: 

Content TEKS:

• G.7.A – use one- and two-dimensional coordinate systems to represent points, lines, rays, line segments, and figures
• G.7.B – use slopes and equations of lines to investigate geometric relationships, including parallel lines, perpendicular lines, and special segments of triangles and other polygons
• G.7.C – derive and use formulas involving length, slope, and midpoint
• G.9.A – formulate and test conjectures about the properties of parallel and perpendicular lines based on explorations and concrete models

Related TEKS:

• A.1.D – represent relationships among quantities using concrete models, tables, graphs, diagrams, verbal descriptions, equations, and inequalities
• A.5.C – use, translate, and make connections among algebraic, tabular, graphical, or verbal descriptions of linear functions
• A.6.D – graph and write equations of lines given characteristics such as two points, a point and a slope, or a slope and y‑intercept
• A.7.A – analyze situations involving linear functions and formulate linear equations or inequalities to solve problems

Assessment Strategies:  How will you know the students learned the required tasks?

• Activote quiz – students will answer five questions to assess their procedural knowledge of writing and graphing linear equations.
• Individual blog – students will post a blog answering the lesson’s “essential question” to assess their conceptual knowledge of writing linear equations.

Vocabulary of Instruction: What vocabulary will be introduced and reviewed for this lesson?  How and when will this take place during the lesson?

• Linear equation – an equation whose graph is a line
• X-intercept – the point where a graph touches the x-axis; the y-coordinate is always zero at the x-intercept (x, 0)
• Y-intercept – the point where a graph touches the y-axis; the x-coordinate is always zero at the y-intercept (0, y)
• Slope-intercept form – a linear equation written as y = mx + b; where m = slope and b = y-intercept
• Standard form – a linear equation written as Ax + By = C

Materials/Resource/Tools: 

• Promethean IWB
• Promethean Activote devices
• Promethean ActivInspire software
• Internet access
• Compass learning odyssey website

Advance Preparation:  What needs to be done before the students arrive?

• Activote devices must be registered to IWB
• Create Compass learning assignment and assign students

During the Lesson:

Essential Question – How do I write a linear equation passing through a given point? (Take students through attached presentation)

1. Introduce and define new vocabulary
2. Demonstrate solving example problems
3. Assess procedural understanding/quiz (using activote devices)
4. Assign group work to be completed in class
5. Assign blog assignment to be completed for homework

After the Lesson:           What worked?  What did not work?  What changes need to be made before the next lesson?

Ideas for Using Podcasts in My Classroom

I teach high school geometry. Therefore, I would use video podcasting only. For example, ActivInspire software has a video capture function which will allow me to record lessons and post them as video podcasts. This will be very helpful for students that need extra help after school hours or students that miss a class for whatever reason. Also, there are several video podcasts that are already available to provide assistance to students needing additional help.

The following video podcasts are examples of how ActivInspire’s video capture function can be used to create video podcasts. However, I would explore ways of including audio in the podcasts.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/3.4-equations-of-lines

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/4.1-classifying-triangles

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/4.3-congruent-triangles

You can subscribe to this podcast at http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/hs-geometry-a

Podcasting in Education

What is Podcasting?

Podcasting in the Classroom

            Critics of podcasting, especially when used in education, argue that making “lecture” available for download will promote student absence in the classroom (Blaisdell, 2006; Bongey et al., 2006). In fact, an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education states that ‘‘…many professors remain wary of the technology… that it will lead to empty classrooms or a crutch for late-sleeping students’’ (Read 2005, p. A39).

            However, if all I do in the classroom is lecture then why not create a podcast that will allow students to listen at their convenience? As an educator, my class time can be utilized much more effectively if I did not have to lecture. Imagine your students listening to the lecture before your class meets. Every class could be entirely interactive with students actively engaged in learning rather than passively being “taught at”. Classroom time could be spent involving students in collaborative projects or activities that create a sense of ownership for their learning.

            A critic of podcasting contested that if the lecture is going to be available for podcast downloading, why then should students bother coming to class (Blaisdell, 2006)?  My challenge to this thinking is if all you do in class is lecture, why then should students bother coming to class? If critics oppose podcasting because of its effects on an antiquated method of teaching, then there are bigger problems in our education system than the absenteeism of students.

Podcast - Philosophy of Teaching

Technology-integration Lesson Design

Subject, grade level, and lesson topic

10^th grade Mathematics – Geometry

Learning goals

Students will able to write equations of linear functions in standard form and slope-intercept form.

Technology/rationale

Promethean ActivBoard Interactive Whiteboard technology*

Promethean ActivInspire software*

Promethean ActiVote Learner Response System technology*

CompassLearning Odyssey*

Blogger.com

Wikispaces.com

* this technology is presently available in my classroom

Scenario and assessment

IWB technology will be used to present the lesson. I will interact with the presentation so that the lesson is more dynamic than a simple PowerPoint presentation; this will help keep students engaged. ActiVote devices will be used for a quiz to assess students’ understanding.

Students that fail the quiz must complete a lesson module on CompassLearning Odyssey for remediation. The grade they receive will replace their failing quiz grade.

Students will post a blog entry answering the essential question of the lesson “How do I write a linear equation passing through a given point?” I will read each student’s blog to determine their level of conceptual understanding.

Students will use a wiki to work in groups and solve a single problem. I will check each group’s wiki to assess the group’s conceptual and procedural understanding writing linear equations and to see how much each student participated in the problem solving process.

Students will then post another blog sharing their solution to the problem and an explanation of how they found the solution. I will again read each blog post to determine if each student’s explanation demonstrates individual understanding.

Coming Soon

High School Geometry Technology-integration lesson design.

My hope for the technology-integration lesson design project is to create a lesson that I will use in the classroom. In fact, I hope to be able to evaluate the lesson and discuss what worked and areas of improvement. 

I have already determined to use Promethean IWB (Interactive White Board) and Activote technology, as they are presently available in my classroom. My challenge will be to integrate the Web 2.0 tools learned this semester (i.e. blogs, wikis, Google docs, etc.) into the lesson so that all students will have equitable access.

TPACK (Technoligical, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge)

What is TPACK?

This video/enhanced podcast describes TPACK--a useful conceptual model for understanding the complex interplay of professional knowledge domains during a teacher's integration of technology with classroom practice.

*for more information visit http://www.tpack.org

Personal TPACK assessment

As people, we must consider knowledge and the acquisition of knowledge to be a never ending journey of discovery. In other words, our knowledge will never be complete but it will become more complete with experience and as we continue to grow.

As educators, TPACK offers us a framework for organizing our knowledge and a tool for assessing our knowledge and identifying areas of improvement.  Personally, my greatest area of growth is needed in technological, pedagogical knowledge (TPK). That is not to say that I have no need for growth in the other areas of the TPACK framework but my understanding of integrating technology and pedagogy is the least developed, simply because I am lacking in experience in this area.

Online Surveys

Below is a sample survey created using Google Docs
      
This sample survey is a questionnaire to collect background information from students

Wikis in the Classroom

What is a Wiki?

Wikis in Education

            As the web continues to grow and more and more information becomes available online, it is essential that students can analyze and manage that information (Richardson, 2010). According to Teehan (2010):

Wikis can impose structure to the available resources to help us make some order of the chaos of the Internet. Once the relevant information is organized, then we can use higher-level thinking skills to analyze, evaluate, and synthesize the information, which is education’s ultimate goal. (p.41)

Using wikis in the classroom necessarily presumes collaboration among students and gives them a genuine opportunity to publish and share information they regard as important (Teehan, 2010). Collaboration can be understood as the process of bringing people (i.e. students) together to share and create ideas. Wikis are the instruments that can make that happen. Also, the act of publishing and sharing information online ushers students from the role of recipient to contributor by exposing their ideas to a worldwide audience. Therefore, their work becomes a “real-world, noteworthy, and grown-up endeavor” (Teehan, 2010, p. 49).

Pedagogically, learning becomes relevant to them motivates further learning of a given subject matter being studied. Also, wikis give students a natural outlet for creativity and promotes their connections with other students. Furthermore, students engage in the higher-level thinking skills of analysis and synthesis of information.

It is important to mention that although scholarly research supporting the benefits of using wikis in educational settings is insufficient, that lack of evidence is not evidence that wikis do not work (Teehan, 2010). What it does indicate is that more research is needed (Teehan, 2010). In support of using wikis in educational settings, Teehan (2010) aptly asserts, “Wikis will not guarantee perfection, but they do promise participation in the learning process” (p. 45). I agree.

Wikis in My Classroom

Believe it or not, wikis can be a very effective collaborative tool in a mathematics classroom. Seeing that wikis serve several purposes, such as resource library, collaboration tool, communication tool, organize and store files, publishing resource, etc. (Teehan, 2010), there is incredible freedom in the range of uses in the classroom. Being able to see or think beyond the typical uses of wikis in the past creates almost endless opportunities for almost any classroom and any content, even mathematics.

            I have created a resource library in my classroom. This resource library serves as an archive of class notes and assignments and makes them available to students at any time from anywhere (link to my webpage). This also serves as a communication tool to keep parents up to date with assignments the content their children are learning. Of course, I must use district provided software but the concept could easily be applied using a wiki and be equally effective.

            Many of my students do not have someone at home that can help them with their math homework. That provides a challenge when I assign homework because I am not available to help them after school hours. However, small group wikis could be used as a peer tutoring vehicle which I could monitor and even offer help when a group is stuck on a particular problem.

References:

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful Web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin press.

Teehan, K. (2010). Wikis: The Educator's Power Tool. Santa Barbara, California:

Linworth.

Educational Blogging

Blogging in the Classroom

            If used appropriately, Web 2.0 technology, namely blogs (weblogs), can be, not only, a teaching/learning resource for any classroom, at any grade level, and for any content but also an exceptionally effective strategy based on constructivist theories of teaching and learning (Loertscher & Richardson, 2010; Deng & Yuen, 2011). Students collaboratively create content and share their products with learners around the world, which then becomes a part of the wider body of knowledge about a given subject (Loertscher & Richardson, 2010; Deng & Yuen, 2011).

            Furthermore, Loertscher & Richardson (2010) outlines six practical benefits of using blogs which make them appealing to many educators. These benefits include: 1) increased student motivation from assigning work that is relevant beyond the classroom, (2) opportunities for collaborative assignments with classes across the country or across the world, (3) organized archives of completed work facilitate reflecting, referencing, and searching, (4) different learning styles are supported giving all students a “voice” to communicate thoughts and ideas thus increasing participation, (5) enhanced student knowledge in a particular subject matter, and (6) students are prepared to analyze and manage more information by developing research, organization, and synthesis skills.

            It should be noted that Deng & Yuen (2011) consider research related to blogs and pedagogy under-developed; therefore, they hypothesized four areas in education that blogs would support. The four areas they considered are self-expression, self-reflection, social interaction, and reflective dialogue. Still, Loertscher & Richardson (2010) and Deng & Yuen (2011) agree that using blogs for education are a means not of merely communicating but of connecting with others that students can learn from.

            The table below can be used as a guide to effectively utilizing blogs as instructional strategies. The goal would be to have students posting blogs at the highest level. Blogging is a “new literacy” (Richardson, 2010) for many students and therefore implies that it is a learning process. Students will need time to develop their blogging skills. It will also be necessary to consider the grade level of the students and the purpose of the blogs.

Activity	Assessment
Posting assignments	Not blogging
Journaling i.e., “This is what I did today.”	Not blogging
Posting links	Not blogging
Posting links with descriptive annotation i.e., “This site is about…”	Simple blogging depending on depth of description
Posting links with analysis that gets into the meaning of the content being linked	Simple blogging
Reflective, metacognitive writing on practice without links	Complex writing, simple blogging
Posting links with analysis and synthesis that articulate a deeper understanding or relationship to the content being linked and written with potential audience response in mind	Legitimate blogging
Extended analysis and synthesis over a longer period of time that builds on previous posts, links, and comments	Complex blogging

Note. Adapted from "Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms, third edition" by W. Richardson, 2010. Copyright 2010 Corwin press.

Blogging and Pedagogy

References

Deng, L., & Yuen, H.K. (2011). Towards a framework for educational affordances of blogs. Computers & Education, 56(2011), 441-451.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful Web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin press.