LESSON 13: TEACHING WITH VISUAL SYMBOLS

                        Visual symbols will be made meaningful if we can use them as summaries of our own direct experiences or our own rich indirect experiences..A little can stand for a lot. These lesson i learned that from an experience of real world experience we proceed to a world of symbols, Visual symbols includes drawings, cartoons, strip drawings, diagrams, formulas, charts, graphs, maps, globes. Like a picture, a graph and all other visual symbols, are worth a thousand words. The proper use of visual symbols will contribute to optimum learning.
                      Visual symbols come in many forms-drawing, cartoons, strip drawing(comic strip), diagram, map, chart, graph. For these visual symbols to be at your finger tips, you ought to be skilled at making them. The collection, preparation and use of these various visual symbols depend to a great extent on your own resourcefulness and creativity. They may be used in different ways and in different phases of the lesson depending on your purpose. If you use them skillfully, your classroom may turn into a beehive of busy students.
                      You may not realize it. But with visual symbols alone, you have an array of teaching materials to choose from. If you decide and commit yourself to using one visual symbol for every lesson, you will keep your teaching crispy and fresh. Only that this requires more preparation and more learning on your part. You must learn how to draw, sketch, make diagrams, graphs, the charts and some diagrams. you have to know what software to use and of course how to manipulate the computer.

Lesson 12- The Power of Film, Video and TV in the Classroom

 

Lesson 12- The Power of Film, Video and TV in the Classroom

On average, children watch over twenty-five hours of television per week. This alarming statistic is not surprising, especially to educators who often compete with television for the students' time and attention. Granted, Christian educators must battle the negative effects of this medium. However, they should also recognize its positive effects and enlist videos as an imposing ally in the cause of Christian education.

Films are powerful communicators because a person remembers five times more of what he hears and sees (as opposed to what he only hears). The visual element gives the motion picture its special impact; and the bigger the image, the greater the impact. Yet the visual element is often neglected when people show videos. The VHS video format provides a convenient and economical means for distribution, but the effectiveness of video depends greatly on how it is used. Each viewer must be able to hear and see the video in order for it to communicate.

Lesson 11- Making the Most of Community Resources and Field Trips

Lesson 11- Making the Most of Community Resources and Field Trips

If I were asked to quickly list some instructional tools for teachers, I'd rattle off questioning strategies, concept mapping, and computers—but I doubt that field trips would pop into my mind. Many educators don't take field trips seriously because we associate them with fun. They also have their drawbacks: They're costly, logistically involved, extravagant with time, and contain an element of uncertainty. No wonder kids like them so much. Most teachers still take at least one field trip each year

 

Justifying Field Trips

 

Field trips without obvious academic content can be hard to sell to administrators focused on test scores. To obtain approval, most teachers try to justify field trips by citing standards and curriculum goals. Nevertheless, the trips often get tacked onto the back end of the school year, the assumption being that they are unlikely to directly support the reading and math skills that show up on yearly standardized achievement tests.

Field trips offer, however, a crucial advantage: They can bring balance to the curriculum. The most popular destinations—museums, zoos, outdoor venues, and performances—have a natural fit with science, history, and the arts, subjects that have been marginalized by our current focus on basic skills.

Moreover, musical and theatrical performances provide opportunities that many students would not otherwise have to watch talented people demonstrate their arts. When I taught 2nd grade, we attended the free concerts that the local symphony orchestra performed during the day for schoolchildren. Most of our schools regularly take field trips to the community college, where students attend free plays. Performance field trips not only have the potential to develop aesthetic appreciation in students, but they can also develop background knowledge and oral vocabulary, which improve reading comprehension (Torgeson, 1998).

 

Funding Field Trips

 

When it comes to resource allocation, field trips are not a priority for districts. Few field trips are included in school budgets, so most funds often come from parents (Anderson, Kisiel, & Storksdieck, 2006). The biggest contributors, besides individual families, are site-based parent organizations that often pay for the entire field trip, transportation, or scholarships for students whose families cannot afford the fees.

Many local grant programs fund field trips, so an Internet search and a simple grant proposal can be worthwhile. For example, one of our local quarries paid to bus a group of earth science students out for a site visit because the management saw it as a way to create goodwill in the community. A few organizations, such as Target, have grant programs specifically designed to fund field trips (Target, n.d.).

Educational field trips may be developed by each school to provide a variety of experiences and enhance the student's educational opportunities. Although field trips are adjunct to the instructional program, each is a learning activity and bears a direct relationship to the normal school experience.

For optimum student benefit, each field trip must be well planned beforehand and thoroughly evaluated after completion. The teacher or sponsor in charge of the group is responsible for the activity just as if it were conducted at school. All students within the class or school group must be given the opportunity to participate in the field trip.

This procedure has been developed to assist schools in planning and conducting educational field trips and travel to school-oriented activities off campus. The overall objective is to facilitate optimum learning experiences through educational field trips and school-sponsored student travel to approved activities.

FIELD TRIPS AND OTHER STUDENT TRAVEL

The Board recognizes that field trips, when used for teaching and learning integral to the curriculum, are an educationally sound and important ingredient in the instructional program of the schools. Properly planned and executed field trips should:

	A.	supplement and enrich classroom procedures by providing learning experiences in an environment outside the schools;
	B.	arouse new interests among students;
	C.	help students relate school experiences to the reality of the world outside of school;
	D.	bring the resources of the community - natural, artistic, industrial, commercial, governmental, educational - within the student's learning experience;
	E.	afford students the opportunity to study and explore real situations and processes in their actual environment.

For purposes of this procedure, a field trip shall be defined as any planned journey for one or more students away from District premises, which is under the supervision of an instructional staff member and an integral part of a course of study.

Other student travel shall be defined as any planned, student-travel activity that is approved as part of the District's total educational program.

The Superintendent shall prepare administrative procedures for the operation of both field and other District-sponsored trips, including athletic trips, which shall ensure:

	A.	the safety and well-being of students;
	B.	parental permission is sought and obtained before any student leaves the District on a trip;
	C.	each trip is properly planned, and if a field trip, is integrated with the curriculum, evaluated, and followed up by appropriate activities which enhance its usefulness;
	D.	the effectiveness of field trip activities is judged in terms of demonstrated learning outcomes;
	E.	each trip is properly monitored and supervised;
	F.	student behavior while on all field trips complies with the Student Code of Conduct and on all other rules, policies, and procedures set forth by schools;
	G.	a copy of each student's Emergency Medical Authorization Form is in the possession of the staff member in charge.

Lesson 10- Demonstrations in Teaching

A demonstration is a teaching method used with both large and small groups. Demonstrations become more effective when verbalization accompanies them. For example, in a half demonstration-half lecture, an explanation accompanies the actions performed. It is a generally accepted learning theory that the greater the degree of active participation and sensory involvement by the learner, the more effective learning will be.

Advantages (Newby, Stepich, Lehman, & Russell, 1996, p. 48)

Demonstrations....

·         Utilize several senses; students can see, hear, and possibly experience an actual event

·         Stimulate interest

·         Present ideas and concepts more clearly

·         Provide direct experiences

·         Reinforce learning

Disadvantages (Kozma, Belle, Williams, 1978, p. 343)

Demonstrations...

·         May fail

·         May limit participation

·         May limit audience/client input

·         Require pre-preparation

Tips: (Chernoff, 1994, p. 17-20)

1. Know your audience

·         How much experience or knowledge do they have?

·         Are you teaching them a new technique or sharing basic information?

2. Set your objectives

• Review your lesson plan for your objectives.
• What do you expect the learner to be able to do following your demonstration?

3. Plan your preparation time

• Plan for the time it takes to shop for groceries and to prepare props
• Make a list of ingredients, utensils, or props needed
• Test equipment, recipes, methods etc. ahead of time

4. Plan your recipes/activities

·         Choose uncomplicated recipes with few ingredients

·         Consider the amount of pre-preparation required

·         Be aware of the cost of ingredients

·         Do you need a full recipe? How long does it take?

·         Do you need to prepare a recipe in advance?

·         Practice recipe or activity

Source:  Training Curriculum, Family Nutrition Program, Purdue University

Cooperative Extension, 2001.

5. Involve your audience/client

·         Ask for a volunteer to stir, chop, and assist with other preparation

·         Involve the audience in activities or demonstrations where possible

6. Be prepared for various room arrangements

·         Do you need an electric skillet? Burner? Extension Cord?

·         You may need to be flexible, go prepared for a variety of settings

·         Exclude distractions (close the door, turn off the radio/TV)

7. Help your audience/client to see what you are doing

·         Use trays and clear containers

·         Arrange the room so everyone can see (If a large group, may need to be in a semicircle.)

·         Face your audience as much as possible

8. Provide handouts to support what you say

·         Typed copies of recipes used

·         Review the key points of the demonstration

9. Be organized

·         Have everything for one recipe on a single tray

·         Place ingredients in a logical order and label (name, quantity)

·         Work in one direction

·         Dovetail various tasks

<!--[if !supportLists]-->·         <!--[endif]-->Plan for serving procedure & clean up (serving utensils, dish cloths, waste containers, etc.)

10. Follow food safety precautions

·         Remind participants to wash hands before handling food

·         Keep foods out of the Danger Zone

<!--[endif]-->      Demonstrations are an effective method for teaching concepts and problem-solving procedures. A good demonstration should lead to increased attentiveness, learning, and performance

Lesson 9: Teaching with Dramatized Experiences

One of the common problems in teaching is the uninterested of the students to learn and listen to the teacher's discussion. One way to remedy this is by dramatization. In this way, the learners get involved in away that they will participate in an interactive and fun way.

 

 This also makes the audience(learners) understand easily what is the idea being conveyed as what they have seen on the dramatization being presented. 

 

 This give a greater impact on the understanding of the  audience because the audience just not know but also feels the idea being conveyed. For teachers, it is important for them to analyze the appropriate instructional materials to used having a mastery on it. Examples of dramatization are role play, pantomine, puppet, pageant etc.

LESSON 8: Teaching with Contrived Experiences

LESSON 8: Teaching with Contrived Experiences

Contrived experiences are those which are designed and arranged closely resembling direct experiences. It is not always possible to let a student have a direct experience of all things; some contrivances such as laboratory experiments, working models, etc. are very useful. Contrary to belief, contrived experiences are usually better than direct experiences. This is because models are made less complex, see-through as also easier and safer to operate.

We make use of representative models or mock ups of reality for practical reasons and so that we can make the real-life accessible to the students’ perception and understanding. For instance, a mock up of Apollo, the capsule for exploration of the moon, enabled the North American Aviation Co. to study the problem of lunar flight.

Recall how you were taught how to read time. Your teacher might have used a mocked clock. Those whose hands you could turn to set the time you were instructed to set.

Examples:

·         Drama and role-playing

·         Demonstrations

·         Field Trips

·         Exhibits and Models

·         Motion Pictured and Video

·         Visual Symbols

·         Verbal Symbols

Why do we use them?

·         Having the original is impossible

·         It is the most effective and appropriate way to portray the idea

·         It can justify the cost purchased

·         It can stimulate to further learning

My Application:

If we need a direct purpose experiences, we must consider ourselves to the one who are the most knowledgeable among all. We must consider our self to be the presenter of our product.... 
                                                                                                                              roldan acolicol

Lesson 7 Direct Purposeful Experience and Beyond

Lesson 7 Direct Purposeful Experience and Beyond

The lesson is all about the foundation of all aspects of purposes in learning, that our senses bring from which we construct ideas, concepts, analysis and all learning abilities.

We learn that through our senses we can learn more skills in a higher level of thinking of the purposeful events that may build presentation and performing the activities. To be able to attain the goal attainment, we should be direct and purposeful of want we aim to achieved and through the experiences.

As a student now I might be priorities my studies, it's hard to be a working student but to be purposeful of this experiences I grab this opportunities to have a good destination of my life

Lesson 6 Using and Evaluating Instructional Materials

As future educators, it is really important for us to use instructional materials. Furthermore, we also need to make sure that the instructional material we used is appropriate for our objective and can serve its purpose for the optimum learning experience of our students.

There are some guidelines for us to select the right materials for our lesson. These are as follows:

- the material must give a true picture of the ideas they present

- contribute to the attainment of our learning objective

- be appropriate to the age, intelligence and experience of the learners

- be in good and satisfactory condition

- provide for a teacher's guide

- help develop the critical and creative thinking powers of students

- be worth the time, expense and effort involved
We should also put in mind that we don't just select a material for our lesson but we also need to know how to use them properly. To ensure effective use of our selected instructional material, we need to remember