November 2016 – UWS BA ePDPs

My personal response to Room

I used to read for pleasure a lot when I was younger, but as I’ve grown I tended to stray away from reading for pleasure. The texts that I tend to read nowadays is texts that been referred to in my university course, majority of them based on education within young children. I have many … Continue reading My personal response to Room →

I used to read for pleasure a lot when I was younger, but as I’ve grown I tended to stray away from reading for pleasure. The texts that I tend to read nowadays is texts that been referred to in my university course, majority of them based on education within young children. I have many types of fiction before, I would one common factor of them all is there is romance within all the stories.

I enjoyed reading Room very much as the story was very gripping and profoundly affecting on myself as a reader. Emma Donoghue’s is able to capture the language and innocent observations of a 5 year-old child, in a traumatising situation, superbly. I enjoyed the relationship between Ma and Jack, and Ma’s efforts to educate Jack in their constricted surroundings, such as building up his lexicon through word games. I very much enjoyed seeing the author’s emotional intelligence that was seen through Ma’s love for and protectiveness over Jack and willing to do anything to save him from the harm that she has endured for so many years. The suspense within the story was very interesting and kept me gripped. Donoghue was able to create a story both disturbing and enjoyable to read.

I would recommend the story to anyone as I feel the book has a lot to offer. People who enjoy suspense-filled novels would be gripped to this story, and also other who enjoy heart-felt stories that make you appreciate about things in your own life, such as your family, would like reading Room also.

Reading Room challenged me as a reader to understand the language of the narrator and understand his point of view of a child within the story. It also challenged me in putting myself in the position of Ma and thinking about what I would do in her role; this was quite difficult for me to do as their situation was very disturbing and almost imaginable to be in. Room helped my reading skills as I was able to read language that was not accurate written English and yet understand what the narrator meant. Room has encouraged me to read more novels as I had forgotten how much I enjoyed reading fiction, also because novels pose strong issues within their stories. For example Room was involved the issues of rape, abduction and child endangerment.

I did not previously consider fiction to be a good use of text within academic study, however after studying Room I see how useful it can be. Jack’s narration and his examples of language helped me understand language acquisition and development in more effective way.

24.11.16

General Log Literacy and Numeracy Log Integrated Arts – Observed Lesson One Integrated Arts – Observed Lesson Two

General Log

Literacy and Numeracy Log

Integrated Arts – Observed Lesson One

Integrated Arts – Observed Lesson Two

17.11.16

General Log Literacy and Numeracy Log Integrated Art – Task One

General Log

Literacy and Numeracy Log

Integrated Art – Task One

Week 1 – (20/9/16)

In our first session we started with an excercise which proved that everyone can draw and too say ‘I can’t draw’ is not acceptable. We then continued on to look at Art work from pupils from all stages of primary school. This demonstarted ways in which art can be crossed over into different sections of the curriculum. This helped to highlight the different creative processes and capabilities as age progressed. Evidently as the age progressed the work became more structured, uniform like and less imaginative.

Work within the early stage of primary school (primary 1-3) appeared to be more colourful and imaginative. Drawing at this age allows a child to communicate when they have not yet learned how to write and so is a way to express their ideas and feelings. An example of an early stage piece of art work is shown below.

Energy

The energy sessions were useful in establishing the importance of integrating technologies in an interdisciplinary approach as Education Scotland (n.d) highlight the lack of this across all subjects and across all stages of the school, therefore not all children are receiving benefits such as becoming “informed, skilled, thoughtful, adaptable and enterprising citizens.” (Scottish Government, 2016). Our wind turbine debate helped me to have a broad and deep understanding and appreciation of both sides of the argument. Prior to this, I was strongly for the use of wind turbines, however this debate introduced arguments against which changed my way of thinking as I never knew too much wind can cause wind turbines to malfunction and stop working, therefore hindering its usefulness. I also realised how much disturbance wind turbines cause to the natural habitat and wildlife as they may be constructed in areas of natural beauty and may cause harm to wildlife if they topple over. Having a debate like this in the classroom would help children to “develop understanding of the role and impact of technologies in changing and influencing societies” and “become informed consumers and producers who have an appreciation of the merits and impacts of products and services.” (Scottish Government, 2016).

Furthermore, creating a wind turbine, anemometer and a kite helped to put my thinking into a child’s perspective as issues and challenges arose that would be similar, if not amplified, in the classroom. Scottish Government (2016) outline a number of skills that are developed with such activities, the most important being: problem solving skills, planning and organisational skills, skills in using equipment, discussion and debate, making connections between specialist skills developed within learning and skills for work, and evaluating products. The main issues discovered were the distribution of roles amongst each task were found to be insufficient which left some team members not contributing and therefore not gaining the aforementioned benefits. These activities would also heavily rely on favourable weather conditions, as children may find it disheartening that their model does not work only because of insufficient wind. I think the most important lesson these activities present is allowing children to evaluate their model, which forces them to reflect on the way they worked together, possible improvements and what went wrong in the process.

Regarding impacts on my views, lifestyle and practice, it is important to teach technologies as it emphasises the sustainable aspect of education. Through technologies, children will acquire an understanding of the need to build a sustainable future that is here for future generations to appreciate. “It’s about making thinks work now and in the future. Valuing the world we live in, working with each other, not against, to build a safer, healthier world.” (Griffin, 2002) The previous activities would help children to see what current solutions have been invented and how they have the potential to further this and improve current solutions so that they are present now and in the future which makes it sustainable.

Additionally, it is important I continue to keep up-to-date on current and new inventions in the technological world so as to keep my lessons relevant and so that children are aware of the newest discoveries towards a sustainable lifestyle. It is also important that I expand my knowledge on other aspects such as energy and renewable fuels.

References

Education Scotland (n.d) Building Society: Young People’s Experiences and Outcomes In The Technologies [Module Resource] Available: http://moodle.uws.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/816786/mod_resource/content/1/TechnologiesImpactReport__tcm4-850866.pdf [Accessed: 19 November 2016].

Griffin, D et al (2002) Teaching for a Sustainable Future: embedding sustainable development education in the initial teacher training curriculum Centre for Cross Curricular Initiatives.

Scottish Government (2016) Curriculum for Excellence: Technologies, Principles and Practice. [Online] Available: http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/images/technologies_principles_practice_tcm4-540109.pdf [Accessed: 19 November 2016]

Energy PDP

This week we learned about the different forms of energy that sustain our lives from the varying types of renewable energies to fossil fuels. The main focus on the inputs […]

ENERGY – LEARNING LOG

During our energy input, we discussed fossil fuels and the different ways in which we use them in today’s society i.e. coal, oil and gas. Before this input, I was aware of what fossil fuels are but never really thought of how much we rely on them on a day to day basis in terms of our petrol for cars and when we cook our meals etc. It has been predicted that these fuels we depend on so heavily, will not be around forever and are rapidly diminishing. As our lifestyles are changing and becoming more industrialised, we are burning more and more fossil fuels and releasing more fumes into the air, causing global warming. “Temperatures have already increased by nearly 1° in the past 100 years and are projected to rise more quickly over the next hundred years”. As a result of this, we have to find different ways of generating energy in terms of electricity, powering our vehicles and making materials. We spoke about Wave Power Scotland, and the ways in which it is helping to change the way in which we produce our energy. The Scottish Government has set ambitious targets for electricity generation from wave and tidal resources to contribute to its target of securing 100% of Scotland’s electricity requirements from renewable sources by 2020. Following on from this, we had an in class debate about wind energy and if we were for it or against it. Some of the pros that came up during the debate was that it can provide lots of jobs for those who build them and design them etc., it can be a nice addition to the landscape, and most importantly they can produce energy without burning fuel. However, the other side to the debate stated that it can look unpleasant in the landscape and can kill wildlife i.e. birds in the sky etc. During Andrews session, we looked at different activities involving electricity and energy and we discussed ways in which we could use these in the classroom. We followed some notes on circuits and how to light the lightbulb, and we also looked at ways solar power can trigger energy and other resources such as water etc. This was very useful as it isn’t something I was particularly interested in before and I know that if I was to teach this prior to this input, the outcome would not be half as beneficial as it would be now. I also learned that it is important to check your experiments before doing them with the kids. It is necessary to check that everything works and that all the materials are correct in order for your lesson to be successful.

Learning Log: Energy

During the inputs on energy it was good to get a quick refresher on the different types of energy and the different areas within those types that you might focus […]

During the inputs on energy it was good to get a quick refresher on the different types of energy and the different areas within those types that you might focus on within a primary setting. Obviously renewable energy makes a fantastic topic in the primary environment not just because it comes with great opportunities for more hands on learning through school trips to places such as wind farms or as we saw today through getting pupils to create their own examples of wind turbines or anemometers.

From what we were shown in the lectures I can definitely see myself doing a debate with a class in the future on the advantages and disadvantages of a renewable energy source. In case of the workshop we looked into wind power and it worked really well as a way to encourage us to learn more in depth knowledge on wind energy through readings and to then come together with our peers to share our findings before final presenting our research int he form of a debate. This could be a very useful activity to do with pupils as it builds on their note taking skills as the write down key information, gets them to use their negotiation skills to decide who is doing what task and who should present before finally allowing them to use presenting skills and build on their debating skills in a debate at the end of the session. In a class room environment this is also a fantastic way to bring in lots of cross curricular learning as pupils could create posters to display their information create models that would help them demonstrate or understand facts or perhaps write up a report of how they felt the debate went and the pros and cons for each side.

Through the science workshop we were also able to see some very useful and interesting ways to use energy to bring some interesting experiments into the classroom from classic circuit activities to a rather interesting experiment involving an electromagnet. I think pupils would engage very well with these task particularly the problem solving aspect of working with the circuits and while they would enjoy building the correct circuit to get the required result I think they would find equally interesting getting to experiment with the different components.

Final the more practical input on create and building items such as the anemometer was useful as it allowed me to see what problems pupils could encounter when engaging with those sort of task and see how disappointing it could be for them if they spent all that time building a kite and then it wasn’t windy or the straws weren’t strong enough so their creation would just fall apart in the wind. I also allowed me to see some really easy ways of using the topic of energy to bring some really creative and engaging activities into the class room and to allow pupils to have a more meaningful way of gaining measurement and team work skills.

Learning Log- Energy

During last weeks input we had an introduction to energy and the importance of renewable energy. We learned about hydro electric power, solar power and wind power. We had a debate over the whether wind turbines are actually good for the environment. I found this to be very useful for making up my own opinion on wind energy as there were a lot of point that I had not considered before. however I think this type of activity could be quite difficult to do with children because they would get distracted and not stay on task when being told to research the information required.

In today’s input we learned about ways we could teach energy in a practical, hands-on way through various activities. In groups we carried out three different tasks; creating our own anemometer, a kite and a pinwheel. When carrying out these tasks we faced many challenges, such as the straws for the anemometer not being strong enough to stay straight and hold carry the cups, the cups not being durable and splitting when trying to pierce a hole in them, the binbag for kite being to flimsy to cut with scissors etc. These are all thing that you would have to test out before you presented the tasks to children to do themselves.

There were also many teaching implications that would have to be taken into consideration. Many of the tools we used today were sharp and could potentially be quite dangerous if used in the wrong way, therefore the children would have to be given a safety talk before being given the sharp scissors, hack saw, pins, stapler etc. The would also have to be supervised during the activities. It would also be important to allocate specific roles to children, such as a time keeper, a quality checker, a facilitator etc as when we carried out these tasks as a group ourselves there wasn’t always a job for everyone to do, or one person would take charge of everything.

Personally I feel that it is important that children have a good understanding of the importance of renewable energy, as we will soon run out of fossil fuels and must find alternative resources to overcome this issue. Children are the next generation that will be far more greatly affected by this than we will.

Learning Log: Energy

In the energy input of this module, we first learned about the importance of renewable energy. Previous to this input, I was already aware of the rapidly dissipating levels of fossil fuels and also how bad they were for the environment, therefore it is important to have renewable energy. Going through the lecture, I was quite shocked to realise the amount of things that actually contained fossil fuels.

Renewable energy is very important as it allows us to sustain ourselves without using fossil fuels. Examples of this are: solar power, wave power and wind turbines.

We focused on wind turbines and had a debate on the pros and cons of them: it was very interesting but probably not an activity I would carry on in to a classroom setting as I feel that primary children would not be able to work in groups as big as we did.

The practical workshops last week and today were very interesting and provided a good insight of different activities that could be done within a classroom.

I believe that learning about renewable energy is vital for children today as it is going to become increasingly more common in their lifetimes and may one day have to entirely rely on it-so it is important that they understand what it means and how it all works.