Fifth Week - Strategies

10th August

This is the fourth week and time is ahead of us. How time goes by so fast~

In this week lecture, we learned about some of the strategies that is use in the teaching of science.

There are 7 strategies:-

1) MBL-computer-based laboratory - utilizes a computer, a data collection interface, electronic probes, and graphing software, allowing students to collect, graph, and analyze data in real-time. This real-time atmosphere allows students to attend to and process important details in each experiment.

2) Drill and Practice - is a structured, repetitive review of previously learned concepts to a predetermined level of mastery.

3) Tutorials - Interactive class taught by a tutor to students at university or college, individually or in small groups; Of or pertaining to a tutor; belonging to, or exercised by, a tutor

4) Simulations - The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system.

5) Problem-solving - is a mental process and is part of the larger problem process that includes problem finding and problem shaping.

6) Educational Games - are games that have been specifically designed to teach people about a certain subject, expand concepts, reinforce development, understand an historical event or culture, or assist them in learning a skill as they play.

7)Informational retrieval - is a type of question where students solve the problems and answering the question by retrieved the information that they have learned.

These strategies is use in 3 learning approach which are the cognitive, behaviourist and constructivist.

I believe that teacher can use these strategies to teach and reinforce students learning as a whole and rounded as these strategies is applies in each angle. in other words, i believe that these startegies help students in every angle namely kinesthatic, audio, visual.

Third week (4th Week)

The topic for this week lecture is ' Learning Theories'. There are 3 learning theories:-

1) Behavourism

2) Cognitism

3) Constructivism

We have learned these theories in our previous semester that is for Children Language Acquisition as well as Child Psychology. This week, we have to look into this learning theories in science education. I believe that learning theories is crucial in determining of what teacher or educator stands for. For me, this theories helps us to make the right approach in tackling our young learner to learn science.

This ' school Of thought' give us the overview of how children learn, where in this field, Science concept. Yes, there many ways to teach them but whether it is suitable or successful will depend on how we view the learning theories. For example, constructivist approach focus on more hands on activity and independent learning. Using this approach, a teacher should let the students to think and figure out the answer or the concept on their own. This can develop the students critical and creative thinking. However, we would find some con's in using this approach which for example the students may not have the existing schemata that she or he can relate to with the new schemata (concept) that bring into their brain.Therefore, I believe we should have the knowledge of this learning theories before we can really use it in the teaching and learning process.

Next, in groups, we were required to find any science educational websites that use this learning theories as its approach. This is one of the site that we found using the direct instruction method (behaviorist) :-

http://www.tryscience.org/

Have a look and try it yourself.

Till next class.......

2nd Week : Where are we?

29th July 2010

The class were held in different location this week which is at the Multimedia Room in Block A. The atmosphere was different as it was very comfortable because we have the chance to sit together in a round table. Before we go on with the lesson, we discussed about the research article that we supposed to find for the first assignment (as many of us especially me still confused with such articles).

This week lesson was about the history of technology.one of the example is technology. There were also some common terminologies that we learn such as Bytes and FTP. After the power point presentation, we were to discuss in our group about two thing which is ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & VIRTUAL REALITY.

Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the area of computer science focusing on creating machines that can engage on behaviors that humans consider intelligent. The ability to create intelligent machines has intrigued humans since ancient times, and today with the advent of the computer and 50 years of research into AI programming techniques, the dream of smart machines is becoming a reality. Researchers are creating systems which can mimic human thought, understand speech, beat the best human chess player, and countless other feats never before possible.

How can we use Artificial Intelligent in Education?

I believe AI has a very profound implication in the education field for young learner as well as for educator. There are ways that teacher can use AI in teaching and learning process. one of the example is ;-

1) intelligent tutoring system

- The software tracks students' work, tailoring feedback and hints along the way. By collecting information on a particular student's performance, the software can make inferences about strengths and weaknesses, and can suggest additional work. It is like a synthetic interactive tutor that is tutoring the students. Advantage is when the artificial tutor can give full attention to every student in a class where is quite difficult for teachers to do alike.

Virtual Reality

An artificial reality that projects the user into a 3D space generated by the computer. A virtual reality system uses stereoscopic goggles that provide the 3D imagery and some sort of tracking device, which may be the goggles themselves for tracking head and body movement, or a "data glove" that tracks hand movements. The glove lets you point to and manipulate computer-generated objects displayed on tiny monitors inside the goggles.

This definition is retrieved from

http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=virtual+reality&i=53945,00.asp

you can refer to this site for the History, Pro's and Con's as well as some features that Virtual Reality is to offer http://www.bilawchuk.com/mark/future.html

How can we use virtual reality in education?A 1997 report to the National Science Foundation stated that "VR improves learning by providing the learners with new, direct experiences of phenomena they could not have experienced before, either in direct interaction with the real world or using other technologies."

Students gather information from the World Wide Web for reports or use e-mail and chat rooms to work on projects with other students in distant parts of the country or the world. Sometimes they post the finished projects on Web sites of their own. Some students take complete classes online from "virtual schools.
One example of a school virtual reality program is called Touch the Sky—Touch the Universe. It uses an interactive 3-D model of the solar system to help students learn about astronomy. Students fly a virtual spaceship through the model, looking at it from different viewpoints. They watch eclipses and changes of phase as the planets and moons move through their orbits. They can zoom in on individual planets, moons, asteroids, and comets to study them more closely. When they touch a planet or other astronomical object with the mouse pointer, the program shows information about the object, such as its size and the time it takes to complete its orbit. Students can speed up or slow down the movement of the system and find out how these changes affect the movement of particular planets or moons.

Read more: http://www.scienceclarified.com/scitech/Virtual-Reality/The-Virtual-Classroom-Virtual-Reality-in-Training-and-Education.html#ixzz0wl6P55fQ

Based on this reading, I believe that technologies play an important role in improving our eduction system along with /together with the immerge of 21st century generation.