So What?

Lee, J., & Zentall, S. S. (2012). Reading motivational differences among groups: Reading disability (RD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), RD+ADHD, and typical    comparison. Learning & Individual Differences, 22(6), 778-785.

Purpose of the article: The purpose of Lee and Zentall’s article was to assess the reading motivation among students with reading disabilities, without disabilities, and with/without ADHD.

What was studied/discussed: This study analyzed the motivation of 133 students between 2^nd and 5^th grade levels. Lee and Zentall analyzed a correlation between motivation and students with reading disabilities and those without reading disabilities.

Important Terms: Reading disabilities, ADHD, Reading motivation

Results: Lee and Zentall’s results were that students with combined reading disabilities and ADHD had lower verbal and full cognitive ability scores than the ADHD and non disability groups. Students with reading disabilities also had lower scores than the non disability group. Lee and Zentall found that all the students in their study had low self-efficacy and low motivation. “For students with reading disabilities, group effects of lower intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, and greater work avoidance than students without disabilities was documented across grade levels (pg 783.)”

 

So What? Every teacher will teach a student with ADHD or a student with reading disabilities during their career. Learning about students’ motivations can help a teacher connect with students to potentially ensure learning is taking place. This article provides insight into reading motivations to a specific group of students with disabilities and can be helpful to teachers. I have found myself trying to motivate my students to study more and be more active in their learning and have often found little change in them. I found it really interesting and I thought about how I could use knowledge from this article to scaffold reading assignments to my students with ADHD.  How can I as a teacher motivate students who lack the motivation for the readings? I love the use of inquiry in my classroom. It is a vital, driving factor in science as a subject and when a student gets on a topic they are interested in I try and answer questions they have or nudge them towards doing research on their own to expand their knowledge, even if it has little to do with the lesson for the day. Like this assignment if I could assign more inquiry based assignments where students read and research concepts that interest them in science they may be more motivated to read. If they have that connection with a concept wouldn’t they be more interested in learning about it more in depth? I would hope that this would solve issues I have with motivation in my class, but even when we are covering concepts they all find interesting there was still little motivation to do readings or study. Would group readings make the assignments more accessible to students with ADHD? I believe it might. The few group readings I have used in class have had surprising success. Stronger readers were paired with weaker readers and I saw both students reading and actively working instead of the weaker reader relying on the stronger reader to complete the assignment.

Skeletal System Text Set Collection

Websites

Biodigitalhuman

Grades 7-12+

Biodigitalhuman.com has a full 3D human body where you can dissect the body and create cross sections, create labels for quizzes, zoom in and rotate body parts to see things easier. This site even has a quiz engine where students can test their knowledge of the human body. This is a free site, but it does require that you sign up for the service. This is a wonderful site that could be used by grades past 7^th grade. You may be able to use it for earlier grades in demos, but in order for students to use this site by themselves I would not go younger than that. I would use when teaching students about the human body and show them how the skeletal system works in combination with other organ systems.

https://www.biodigitalhuman.com/home/

Hillendale Health

Grades 5-12+

This site is great for student’s young as fifth grade. It has a lot of great information on how many bones are in the human body, how each bone was named, what the bones are made, etc. It has a lot of great diagrams of various bone structures and cross sections. This site also has a basic quiz for students to practice and assess their knowledge. I would use this site in addition to other materials I give them.

http://hes.ucfsd.org/gclaypo/skelweb/skel01.html

Inner Body

Grades 8-12+

This site is really good for older students. I like that this site allows you to choose which organ system you want to focus on and then has anatomy terms for students to highlight and read more information on. It also has a diagram of the organ system with various green focal points. When the cursor highlights the green point it gives the student the full name of the bone and which bones it connects to. I would use this as a supplemental material for students to use on their own or in a project.

http://www.innerbody.com/image/skelfov.html

Skeletal System

Grades 8-12+

This is a wonderful website that has a lot of wonderful pictures. This website would be useful for additional pictures of various bones and ways to see the skeletal system. It has the bones separated between upper and lower limbs as well as the vertebral and thoracic bones. I would use this with older students as younger ones would just look at the pictures.

https://homes.bio.psu.edu/faculty/strauss/anatomy/skel/skeletal.htm

NeoK12

Grades 7-12+

This website does not have a lot of new information. However, it does have a lot of videos, quizzes, pictures, and even games for students to see and play. This could work with younger students if structured properly.

http://www.neok12.com/Skeletal-System.htm

Games

Learn the skeletal system/ label the bones

Grades 5-12+

This is a fun online game where students can create a skeletal system or label the bones. I found the games to be pretty fun. Older students would see it as a review type activity, while younger students would see it as a game. The controls are simple and the results seem to be great for the ages.

http://www.abcya.com/skeletal_system.htm

Skeletal System Game

Grades 5-12+

This is a simple game where students click and drag bone structure names to their corresponding pictures on a skeleton. It would be useful when used as a review for older students and as an activity for younger students. When you get an answer right it makes a jingle and a little fairy flies in with a sign saying you were right. It also makes a negative buzz when you get an answer incorrect.

http://www.softschools.com/science/human_body/skeletal_system/

Skeletal System

Grades 8-12+

This game is amazing. You press start and a timer starts. Then the game tells you which bones on a skeletal system diagram you are supposed to identify. It will give you hints if you get the answers wrong. The game keeps track of you correct percentage and your time. At the end of the game, when you correctly identify all the skeletal parts the timer stops and it ranks your skills with others around the world. Overall, I found this game extremely fun and I wanted to keep playing to increase my time and score.

http://www.purposegames.com/game/1009

Whack-A-Bone

Grades 7-12+

This is a fun game that has students build various bone collections. I built an arm using the various bones in the arms. It is timed and also keeps track of your score. Once you reach 80% score on one part of the game you unlock other areas and you can keep playing. I found this game to be a lot of fun. I would use this with students who know what the bones are and their relative position in the human body.

http://anatomyarcade.com/games/WAB/WAB.html

Skeletal System Jigsaw puzzle

Grades3-12+

This is a fun game for visual learners who love puzzles. You rearrange puzzle pieces until you complete the puzzle. The pieces are jumbled up very nicely in a way that requires the person to think and even rotate pieces on occasion. The skeletal system diagram also has the names of the bones so students can use that to determine where pieces should go.

http://anatomyarcade.com/games/jigsaws/SkeletalJigsaw/skeletalJigsaw.html

Books

Bones: our skeletal system

Grades 5-12

This is a wonderful book for younger students and ELL students. There are a lot of wonderful pictures and some good information. I would use this with lower grades and ELL students. I really like this book and it serves as an excellent introduction to the skeletal system to younger students.

Simon, S. (2000). Bones: Our skeletal system. New York: Morrow Junior Books.

The muscular system manual, the skeletal muscles of the human body

Grades 7-12+

I really like this book. It can be good for younger students, but it should probably accompany an activity. Older students would benefit the most from this book as it has a lot of information, but also has a lot of pictures regarding various skeletal structures and functions.

Muscolino, J. E. (2010). The muscular system manual, the skeletal muscles of the human body. Mosby.

Video

The Skeletal System: Skeletal Joints

Grades 8-12+

This is a great video for older students. It is a vodcast on the skeletal system and focuses on joints. There is a lot of information in the video, but it would be very effective with guided notes to go along with the video. It has video for visual learners and audio for auditory learners.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWRV4WZrzDs&feature=endscreen&NR=1

The Skeletal System

Grades 9-12+

This video would be best used with high school students. The content is wonderful, but may be too advanced for middle school students. The author also has a vast number of videos on various other scientific concepts such as photosynthesis and Hardy Weinberg problems. This is a good video that would be great with guided notes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPrxQkjjExI

Bill Nye the Science Guy – “Bones In My Body”

Grades 3-12+

This is a fun video/song that is catchy and includes a lot of information that can be good for all student levels. High school students may find it cheesy but will enjoy it as much as younger students. This was a lot of fun and catchy! Did I mention I found it fun and catchy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1abT50xXyk

Reflection 11: Assessments

In today’s education more and more focus and effort is put into student assessments. Therefore, teachers need to be mindful about the various state assessments given to their students and develop strategies to prepare students for those assessments. I found Bean, Baldwin, and Readence’s chapter on test preparation strategies to be very useful. The Mirror Assessment strategy, that utilizes practicing examinations in a format that is similar or reflects what students will encounter on the state assessment, I feel that this is a very utilized strategy. I remember teachers using a similar strategy when I was a student in middle school and high school. I did find the term “testwiseness” to be a little concerning. It’s not that I disagree with the definitions and skills Bean, Baldwin, and Readence associate with the word. It is that I do not believe that some of my students have those abilities. Then I thought of how I could strengthen or teach students those skills such as “apply logic, common sense, and good organization in test taking situations (PG 71.)”

A think aloud may be a fun activity to try and teach these skills to my students. In a think aloud I would model my thinking as I go through various test scenarios I believe my students could benefit from seeing how various people with more test taking experience tackle various questions that they would see. This does not have to be limited to a reading assessment, but could be applied to all core subjects and even more elective subjects. I was not a strong test taker when I was younger, it was not until I was older that I began to succeed in assessments. When I was a student, I would have loved the chance to hear how a teacher thinks through a question and how they come to a solution to the problem. Teachers need to prepare their students in order for them to succeed, not only in their class and in whatever important state assessment they may be taking, but also in life.

Reflection 10

Vocabulary is essential to every subject in education. It is essential that students learn vocabulary in order to make connections and learn about more complicated concepts. Vocabulary is the crucial first step required for learning and deep understanding. If students do not understand the vocabulary they can often make misconceptions about whole concepts. The list group label vocabulary strategy seems like it would be useful to introduce a concept or new vocabulary to a students. Someone lists all the words they can think are related to the concept, and then group the words into groups that have something in common. At the end of the activity, students come up with a label for each group. I like how students categorize words into groups so they can make associations between vocabulary words they believe have commonalities. However, I foresee some problems some of my students might make during this activity. Therefore, the teacher needs to go over the vocabulary words so students do not develop misconceptions amongst the vocabulary words.

Overall, I found Allen’s chapter 3 quite enjoyable. I loved all of the concept maps they used and I found myself thinking on which ones I could use effectively in the unit I am currently teaching in Biology. There are a lot of wonderful concept maps/ graphic organizers and Allen provides enough on each one for readers to figure out by themselves how it is used and when it should be used in a classroom, without specifically telling when to do so. However, I would have liked to hear more on each one. While there is just enough information to provide the reader a basic understanding of the concept maps and the activities around them I would have liked more information as most of the specific strategies outlined in the chapter are discussed in a small paragraph.

Reflection 9 Tierney and Readance

I found Tierney and Readance’s chapter to be extremely helpful.  I found the seven vocabulary strategies they outlined to be very promising. They mention how to utilize each strategy and when it should be implemented which is greatly appreciated and makes it easier to use. However, I especially liked that they had comments and cautions about each strategy. That way a teacher would know what they need to lookout for during the activity and how they should structure the strategies to ensure student learning and efficiency.

I really liked the Contextual redefinition vocabulary strategy. Teachers read the text and select unfamiliar words, the teacher writes a sentence “so that the students have appropriate clues to each word’s meaning (pg 312.) This way students can try and determine the vocabulary definition by themselves which would promote a deeper connection to the definition than if a teacher just gave them the information.  Students need to provide definitions to the words and then try to come to a consensus with their peers on what they believe the definition is. The teacher then provides the word in the appropriate context so that students can see how the word is used. This allows students to mentally change their definition of the vocabulary word. The last stage of the contextual redefinition vocabulary strategy is for a student, or students, to verify their hypothesized definitions.

Overall, I thought this chapter had a lot of good strategies for teachers to use. I could use any of these in my science classes. Vocabulary is something that is important to all subjects in education and students need the skills to determine what words mean. In my experience by the time students reach 9^th grade often students still lack the skills to deduce the definitions of words. We have a word wall that is split into academic vocabulary words and subject vocabulary words. Often we give them the definitions or ask questions to try and get them to figure out the definitions. I think I may try some of the strategies listed in this chapter to use on the word wall for words students do not know.

Web Resource Review #2

 

Ecology.com is a wonderful website that has a lot of information and is easy for students to use. I would recommend using this site with students in middle schools and high schools. It has sections that would be more acceptable for elementary school students; however I have not observed much success with that age range and having the necessary computer skills to perform some of the actions. Those skills can be taught but would take time away from teaching. This website has numerous sections devoted to a wide variety of topics seen in ecology such as earth, air, and water ecology as well as sections devoted to green energy, human impact, and species. Each section has wonderful articles to provide students with general content knowledge but also allow them to see how scientists are researching these topics in real world scenarios. This website also has wonderful videos in a section called Ecology TV. I would use this website as an additional source of information for my students. Many have expressed interests in many of these topics, and while I would love to cover them we just do not have the time right now, and this would be a wonderful site for them to conduct research on their own time. Perhaps this could be used for the class required enrichment assignments.

One negative I saw on the website is that it includes a forum page. Typically I do not mind websites with forum pages, but for an educational website it may lead to some misunderstandings if students read those posts as opposed to reading the content on the pages and in the articles. This website is also free! However, it also has a site store in which they sell various products that promote living an ecologically friendly lifestyle as well as some random gadgets. Overall, this is a wonderful website that can really expose students to wonderful articles about real life science research in ecology.

 

Ecology.com

Reflection 8

I found Mark Bauerlein and Neil Howe’s discussion on the millennial to be extremely interesting yet also disconcerning. I found this discussion interesting because it offers some insight into how the current teenagers think. But should we as a society compare the teenagers of today to the teenagers of previous generations? I say no. How could we effectively compare various generations of teens when their lives and experiences are so vastly different. Comparing various generations educational prowess is utterly ridiculous. Mark Bauerlain states that the students today, with so many advantages (such as the internet), result in lower academic achievement than those students from earlier generations (Bauerlein & Howe, 2008.) So many changes have occurred in the content covered in schools and the educational theories regarding education that it would be impractical to even attempt such ridiculous comparisons. The negatives Bauerlein uses as his argument can be from a number of different reasons. Education has changed a lot since many generations were in a classroom. Now many teachers have staggering amounts of standards they need to address in such a small time frame that they can do little more than focus solely on those standards and essentially teach to the test. If it is not on the state mandated exam often it is not taught. I, for instance, have 47 different standards I have to teach in biology, and with the state EOC being so important to each student’s grade I focus a lot of my effort on getting through those standards so they can be prepared. I want to teach my students content that they may not normally see in state standards but I have so much I need to cover that I have to wait to teach that content until after the EOC. Neil Howe on the other side of the issue argues that the Millennials will be the next great generation. I believe that this generation has the ability to become great. Just like every generation before there is the potential to be greater than the last generation, but it’s what students do with that potential is up to them.

Bauerlein, M. & Howe, N. (2008). The Millennials: The Dumbest Generation or the Next Great Generation? Retrieved October 24, 2012