Productivity+Cases


 * Productivity Cases **
 * ** Art Education ** ||
 * Mr. Bill teaches the 9th grade arts education class. He teaches students about different forms of art and how these forms of art can impact their own works of art. In past years, students have to produce art that is associated with different styles. But now Mr.Bill introduces the Graphics software Photoshop to his classrooms. The students can draw the digital portrait in different forms of art, such as Charcoal, Watercolor, crayons, and so on. It can help them to easily understand how these different mediums impact one piece of their art work.


 * Standard:***

H.3.1 PROFICIENT: Analyze the effective use of symbols, elements, principles, and media in works of art, using appropriate terminology. ADVANCED: Analyze how the visual organization of a work affects the communication of ideas and suggest alternatives, using appropriate terminology. || // Standard: Kindergarden Geography K.3.1: Use words related to location, direction and distance, including ////here/there ////, ////over/under ////, ////left/right ////, ////above/below, forward/backward ////and ////between. // http://www.doe.state.in.us/standards/docs-SocialStudies/2007-SS-Grade0K.pdf || > 5th Grade Social Sciences - 5.1.5 Explain the religious, political and economic reasons for movement of people from Europe to the Americas. (Individuals, Society and Culture) > 5th Grade Language Arts - 5.4.8 Review, evaluate, and revise writing for meaning and clarity.  || http://www.doe.state.in.us/standards/docs-Language/2007-06-06-WorldLang-6-12-ModernEuropeanClassical.pdf
 * ** Early Childhood Education ** ||
 * Ms Shawn is a kindergarten teacher and she wants her students to know how to follow and give directions such as left, right, above, below and so on. Usually, in the class, she will ask the student to stand in a line and give directions by playing the game “Simon says”. For example, she will say “Simon says, turn right and walk five steps forward”, and the whole class will follow her direction. However, Ms. Shawn would like to improve the involvement of students by engaging them in paired groups and practice with each other rather than in a big group directed by the teacher. She would also like to introduce more ways to follow directions in addition to giving direction orally. What kind of technology tools you could recommend to Ms. Shawn to solve this problem?
 * ** Elementary Education ** ||
 * Mrs. Bluiec teaches 5th grade. She has noticed that her students are not retaining the information about why (Social Studies 5.1.5) Europeans moved to the Americas. Mrs. Bluiec decided that when her students read the social studies textbook, they don't gain a deep understanding of immigrants and their lives. She wants to incorporate more authentic stories so students will have a better perspective of their lives. In addition, after looking at her students ISTEP results, she noticed her students had low scores in (Language Arts 5.4.8) reviewing, evaluating, and revising writing for meaning and clarity. She has reserved the computer lab for 1 hour for 5 days for her students to do an activity that will reinforce these standards.
 * Standard:
 * ** Foreign language education ** ||
 * // Standard: // 12.3.4 (6-12 Sequence for Modern European and Classical Languages)  Compose cohesive written information using appropriate formats and more varied vocabulary and structures.

Case: Ms. Johnson teaches a high school foreign language [insert your specific language here] class. She wants her students to compose detailed written information with more varied vocabulary and structures. Usually, Ms. Johnson would assign the students a topic and ask them to write two or three paragraphs in the last 15 minutes of almost every 50 minute class. Students then were asked to revise their drafts after school and turn the new version in the next day. Ms Johnson would provide feedback to each individual by offering additional revision suggestions. Although this activity did improve the students' writing skills somehow, Ms. Johnson realized the following problems. First, some students complained that although they could easily detect spelling mistakes, they felt it's very hard to revise vocabulary and structures simply because they tended to think the drafts were good enough in those aspects. Second, Ms. Johnson felt that students' revisions were hard to trace and she didn't know where they had taken place in the drafts. Third, Ms. Johnson was overwhelmed by the workload of mistake checking and feedback providing that she was always behind the schedule of developing lesson plans and instructional materials. Moreover, student drafts went missing from time to time, which was though not a big loss, still caused some frustration. Ms. Johnson was advised to consider using computer and Internet to solve those issues but she couldn't figure out a practical plan. Can you help her? Tentative Requirements: Grouping: Individual/group Time required: long duration Resources: computer access/Internet connection, software programs, Media used: text || Mrs. Bullard teaches a grade 11 physical education class. She wants to her students to create a portfolio that shows what they have done during the class to move towards a physically active lifestyle. In the past she has required students to hand in binders that contain various materials that show their active lifestyle progress. Examples of materials often included pictures of them playing sports, photocopies of schedules from teams they are part of, and calendars showing their scheduled workout routines and when they actually did the workouts. Previous students often have the most difficulty figuring out how to organize all the materials they gather into a logical structure that gives a good picture of their physical activity lifestyle. Mrs. Bullard would like to have students share structures of their portfolio structures with her and each other early in the term so that they have a chance to get feedback on the structures and improve their final products. The structure of the portfolio will become even more important in the future since Mrs. Bullard is considering moving away from physical binders to electronic versions.  Standard: 9.3.2 Identify physical activities that contribute to the improvement of specific fitness components (i.e. cardiovascular, strength, body composition, flexibility). Example: List jogging, swimming, skipping rope, martial arts and aerobic dance as physical activities that enhance cardiovascular fitness. || Mrs. Hanseu teaches a grade 1 health education class. It's the spring and many of their students are learning to ride a bike, skateboard, and Rollerblade. She wants her students to be able to create posters about how to be safe when riding in a vehicle or participating in wheeled activities (e.g., bicycle, scooter, skateboard, all-terrain vehicle, etc.). Instead of jumping right to the final version she wants her students to think about what they want to include on the poster and plan out how to use the space on the poster. She wants groups of four students to work together on posters. When doing similar poster activities in the past she has had students create their own small versions of the posters and then pick one to work on as a group. Unfortunately students who don't have their small versions chosen for the big final version are sometimes upset. Mrs. Hanseu would like to figure out a way to gather all the small versions from a group of students and quickly put together a proposal for the big version that incorporates some elements from each of the group members. Standard: 1.8.1 Identify ways to promote health and wellness. ||
 * ** Physical and health education ** ||
 * Case 1
 * Case 2

· Level: 9-12 · Subject: English - Traditional activity to be updated with technology: Traditional Rhetoric Skills Procedure: 1. Grouping (individual / small group) 2. Time required: 3-4 lessons 3. Resources required (computer access and an internet connection) 4. Media used (audio- text) Mr. Gomez would like to update an activity which develops summarizing and discussion skills. One of the required standards for high school students is to be able to write a summary, discuss, question and interpret content and arguments presented by others. Traditionally, these activities were limited to textual interactions. Students read parts of a text book, or handouts and then responded on paper. Another traditional way to address these skills was through in class debate. Mr. Gomez liked the growth of their speaking skills when his students debated in class. However, students who missed a debate class had a very difficult time catching up, and debates also tended to cater to more aggressive speakers.
 * ** Language Arts Education ** ||
 * · Standard: SPC.1.1 Summarize a speaker’s purpose and point of view, discuss, and ask questions to draw interpretations of the speaker’s content and attitude toward the subject. [11.7.1/12.7.1] http://www.doe.in.gov/standards/docs-English/2006-06-ELA-HS-SpCom.pdf
 * Case: **

In Mr. Gomez’s classes he would like to integrate more audio and oral interaction in a way that is accessible and re-accessible for students who miss that important class. He wants a way to include opportunities for limited proficiency students to re-access as well. He is looking to technology to solve these problems, but also to provide response channels for students to speak using other channels (oral/aural instead of reading and writing). While paper and pen solutions could provide an artifact that he could use to showcase his students learning, he would like audio artifacts that he could use to round out his own teaching repertoire.

What are some solutions you might suggest to Mr. Gomez so he could find better ways to attain higher student production in these areas? || · IAS Standard Number: G.1.2; G.1.3  //G.1.2: Construct congruent segments and angles, angle bisectors, and parallel and perpendicular lines using a straight edge and compass, explaining and justifying the process used. G.1.3: Understand and use the relationships between special pairs of angles formed by parallel lines and transversals.//
 * ** Math Education ** ||
 * · Course: Geometry

Case: Ms. Reimann is teaching a college-prep Geometry course to a mix of freshman and sophomore high-school students. As they begin to learn about the properties of angles formed by the intersection of different types of lines (parallel, perpendicular, oblique) and which angles at an intersection are equal, complementary and/or supplementary, she has students create (with a ruler and a pencil) two parallel lines, and then they are to draw an oblique line that intersects both lines. Next, they are to measure each of the (eight) angles formed and - using these measurements – conjecture which angles (adjacent, vertical, alternate interior, etc) are equal, complementary or supplementary. They are asked to do this five times, with a different slope of the intersecting line each time. The problem with this activity (in her eyes) is that it takes so much time for students to draw each set of parallel lines and measure each set of angles. She wishes that there was some computer-based tool in which students could do the same thing, but save time. || Case 1 Miss Juarez is the new music teacher for all grades at Cornfield View Elementary. Her 2nd – 5th students learn to sing independently and in ensembles with increasingly mature control, breath support, posture, tone quality, and diction. She would like for her students to learn to evaluate these elements in other singers in the hopes that seeing good and bad examples of singing will help them to improve their own performance ability. She does not, however, feel that it is appropriate for such young students to critique each other in front of the class. Unfortunately, the only materials left by her predecessor have professional singers. Miss Juarez would really prefer for students to evaluate other singers at their level, or even themselves. || Standard P.1.2: Measure or determine the physical quantities including mass, charge, pressure, volume, temperature, and density of an object or unknown sample. // Add another standard about human error, rounding error, and measurement error. //
 * //** Music Education **// ||
 * Standard: X.x
 * ** Science Education ** ||
 * Subject: Physics I - Properties of Matter

Mr. Brown teaches in Physics I in high school. When he teaches the properties of matter, he wants his students to be able to measure the physical quantities of the unknown samples such as mass, volume, and temperature. Normally, he sets up separate measuring stations in the classroom for mass, volume, and temperature and using digital balance, rulers and graduated cylinders, and alcohol thermometer in each of these stations respectively. Students come to these stations, take measures of quantities of these unknown samples and note their measurements down. Mr. Brown faces two difficulties in this activity. First is that he likes to put all students measures of the same substance in a table to compare the values but since everybody has their measures on their paper, it takes time to put them together on the table. Mr. Brown does this to check their work and for students to learn about human error and measurements. As well as scientific principles and experiment. His second problem is with the alcohol temperature because the solid samples are difficult to take a precise temperature with an alcohol thermometer. The technology coordinator has recently told him that he could purchase new science technology equipment to help him with this activity. ||
 * ** Special Education ** ||
 * <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; BACKGROUND: yellow; moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial"> Standard: Science 8.2.6 - Write clear, step-by-step instructions (procedural summaries) for conducting investigations, operating something, or following a procedure. http://www.doe.state.in.us/standards/docs-Science/2006-Science-Grade08.pdf

Mrs. Bond’s eighth grade science students are learning about how to write procedural summaries, which are step-by-step instructions for conducting investigations that typically result in flow charts. She models writing a procedural summary on the white board and her students copy the format on their papers. They then choose a topic and write their own procedural summaries using the sample provided. Mrs. Bond would like to explore technology tools that would help her students create these type of flow charts more neatly and be able to share them more easily. What technology tools might offer such a solution? || USH.6. 2 Summarize the early struggle for civil rights and identify events and people associated with this struggle. (Government; Economics; Individuals, Society and Culture) Example: Executive Order 9981, Jackie Robinson and the desegregation of professional baseball (1947), Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956), the Civil Rights Act (1957), and the Little Rock school crisis (1957-1958)
 * **Social Studies** ||
 * Standard:

Mr. Perez teaches a high school US history class in Indiana. Every year, he has his students engage in a civil rights debate. The students take on different group perspectives and engage in debates (for example, Black Panthers, NAACP, KKK, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Malcolm X, Congress of Racial Equality, White Panthers, White power skinheads, Neo-nazis). The civil rights movement forced America to confront directly some enduring questions: What does it mean to be free? What is equality? What actions are justified and necessary to attain social justice? He wants his students to explore the complexity of the conflicting ideas and personalities within the movement and within the country during this time period. He would like his students to use historical documents in reasoning about these complex historical issues. Students are asked to research their group and adopt a argument based on the main issues to engage in a class-wide debate. The project takes 3-4 weeks in order to allow enough time for students to research during and after school. During class, his students look through old newspapers and articles he's collected, as well as various propaganda from various groups. His concern is that this information is limited, and does not provide students with enough to base an argument on; their arguments tend to be very superficial. Students need to organize and synthesize the information as a group.

Mr. Jackson would like to improve this activity. First of all, Mr. Jackson would like to make students' time spent researching more efficient. They often have difficulties finding information on their specific group. In addition, he'd like students to get more involved in the activity; most students have been gathering information from the materials he brings to class. In order to gain access to a wider variety of resources, he's managed to reserve the computer lab for one week so that every student has access to a computer with an internet connection for five hours. However, Mr. Jackson doesn't know how to help students conduct research online or where to begin to help students collect resources. ||