Tech Savvy Teacher Reflection- TPAK

• What is the content you are focusing on in your science lesson?
  I am focusing on the shape of orbits, particularly the shape of the Moon's Orbit around the Earth. This is to dispel the notions that we usually have of a circular rather then spherical orbit.
  
• What is the pedagogy you are using and why is it a good fit with the content?
  I am using discovery learning. I have the children identify their misconceptions (draw the moon's orbit, what you think it looks like), then discover why their misconception is wrong (try to draw the orbit as you watch it move(, then last of all present the material in a concise manner so that they know exactly the answer we are getting at (click the label button so that you see it displayed). Sometimes when using discovery learning teachers do not wrap it up so that the student understands exactly which points are suppose to be gotten out of that.
  
• What is the technology you’ll be using and why is it a good fit with the content and pedagogy?
  I am using Celestia. This program is good because it allows students to be a bit more hands-on in a subject that usually must be just direct instruction. We cannot observe the things, thus teachers usually just lecture. Having a simulation lets the students reach out and interact with the subject more.

I apologize this was not done before I did my self report then went SHOOT, I didn't check to make sure everything is done.

Tech Savvy Teacher

Gabriela Sanchez, third grade teacher at Archive Elementary School takes her children to space, without ever leaving the classroom.

Rather then teaching my rote, Sanchez has decided to allow her students to work from their own misconceptions about the moon and how it orbits, to learn how it really moves.

Her students first form their own hypothesis about how the moon moves around the earth. They drawn on a regular piece of paper their hypothesis.

This drawing, done by Louis, shows a common misconception that many third graders have. Rather then drawing a spherical or elliptical orbit, Louis draws a circle to show the moon’s orbit.

Due to a grant from the Rotary, Archive Elementary has recently acquired a classroom set of laptop computers. Sanchez downloaded a free program called Celistia, which give kids a chance to explore the universe in a virtual setting. It includes 3D pictures of all of the planets, moons, their orbits and so forth.

Sanchez then has her students zoom in on Earth in the program.

After finding Earth students must access their prior knowledge of the moon to find it. Once they find it they must then zoom out so the can see both the Earth and the Moon.

After they fix their view like this, students start the simulation. Celistia allows users to ‘speed up’ time. Fast enough that they can see the moon as it moves through space.

While they watch this action, the students are challenged to draw how the moon is moving around the Earth.

Once they have completed their picture students are allowed to turn on a feature in Celestia which outlines the orbit which the Moon follows around the Earth. They check to see how closely their pictures have come to the reality.

Sanchez based her lesson on the third grade science standard one objective two which states that students should be able to “describe the movement of Earth and the moon and the apparent movement of other bodies through the sky.”

Stellarium

I used Stellarium in-class this last week, and was utterly fascinated by it. This is fairly sophisticated, but I can see how it could be used in a few different settings. Often, when teaching about stars, Teachers must wait for their students to be able to go home and look up, and even then they are faced with problems of clouds, smogs, etc. Stellarium gives teachers the ability to teach about the stars and have the students involved.

I think this is a remarkable program I am happily downloading onto my computer for personal use.
Stellarium Download

TPACK

TPACK has three segments.
1) Content Knowledge.
2) Pedagogical Knowledge
3) Technological Knowledge

Often teachers only combine Content and Pedagogical knowledge, but ignore the technologies available. In the scope of t his class it seems like this would only relate to the resources which would involve computers or other sophisticated technology, but I am choosing to take a broader view of technological knowledge. I would like to define technological knowledge as the tools which teachers use to teach. If a teacher is teaching about rocks, I believe it is fully applicable to use rocks within the classroom as the tools with which one studies rocks. A teacher need not be labeled as not having technological knowledge if they do not have access to advanced resources.

A successful TPACK teacher integrates all of the knowledge they have- Technological, Pedagogical and Content. They realize that students need to be taught in all of these areas and using all of these skills. Other professions (science or math majors for example) may only need two, but teachers are required to have all three.