VI.+Communication+Principle


 * 6. COMMUNICATION PRINCIPLE **


 * //6.1 Candidates understand the role of language in teaching and learning. //**

In EDU 498 we discussed language as a role in teaching and learning. Larson and Marsh (2005) have said, “if learning is a mutually constituted social, cultural, and historical process that is mediated by language and interaction, then the context (both material and social) needs to foster this process...children are key in constructing the learning; children are not ‘constructed’ in some linear way by teachers...conceiving of literacy as a social practice that looks at what people do with literacy in their everyday lives and by actively using those practices in the classroom” (102-3). Language is one of the oldest forms of understanding used between humans. Gee (2004) says, “literacy (written language) is too new a process historically to have had the evolutionary time required to have become "wired" into our human genetic structure. Written language is, at the very best, 6,000 to 10,000 years old - too short a time to have gained biological support. Furthermore, written language was invented by only a few cultures and only a few times, unlike oral language, which has existed for all human cultures for long enough to have become part of our human biological inheritance” (11). However, there is a difference between cultures, and this difference creates a divide in power relations that is the result of cultural diversity and dominant culture. It is important for a teacher to learn about their students’ culture and incorporate these understandings in their planning in order to have the material learned in the classroom be effectively used and applicable to students lives, as well as to provide contexts were the student will feel comfortable and able to contribute to and access the knowledge of the class (Takaki, 1993; Giroux, 1992; Kumashiro, 2000). "Access is not just about getting access to powerful forms of language; it is also about access to audiences, to platforms, to modes of distribution such as publication, to influential networks (Janks, 2010, 133)."

 In order for students to contribute, teachers need to facilitate discussions that establish meaningful connections to student lives and classroom experiences. Lankshear and Knobel (2006) identify the importance of meaning making by stating that, "being literate involves much more than simply knowing how to operate the language system. The cultural and critical facets of knowledge integral to being literate are considerable...making meaning is knowledge intensive, and much of the knowledge that school-based learning is required to develop and mobilize is knowledge involved in meaning making” (17). This process of meaning making can take several forms of communication, which include interactive-dialogic, interactive-authoritative, non-interactive-dialogic, and non-interactive-authoritative approaches (Mortimer & Scott, 2003). Most of my lesson planning and instruction included interactive-dialogic and interactive-authoritative appraoches to communication. These approaches required the development of questioning skills to facilitate discussion. This is an area of development for me still, but I have shown progress over my teaching as well as a commitment to continue to improve (6.1a). I have scripted out lessons and written planning notes out in order to improve my preparation for class discussions (6.1b).

//**6.2 Candidates are familiar with and proficient in a wide variety of modes and vehicles for communication that can support learning and inquiry for all students. **//

 There are a wide variety of modes and vehicles for communicating with students. During the Get Real! Science camp we had our students develop their own blogs to upload images from their investigation and involve themselves in reflective dialogue about their experience, understandings, and process of investigating (6.2a). I have personally been engaged in my own blog that I share with other members of my cohort and include discussions and resources surrounding teaching, physics and astronomy, professional development, reflections, and entertainment (6.2b). These blogs are a form of web 2.0 that allow “peer-to-peer modes of organizing the collaborative engagement of communities in shared projects; this means that users can now communicate and engage directly with one another on a global scale, entirely bypassing traditional producers and distributors of information” (Bruns, 2006, 14).

 Technology is another form of communication that supports learning and inquiry. Flick and Bell (2000) say, “activities involving technology should make appropriate connections to student experiences and promote student-centered, inquiry-based learning” (41). For example, I used an elmo in one of my lessons as a pre-lab to showcase the construction of a circuit and the measurement of current in that circuit using a multimeter (6.2c). Students working with a partner or individually followed my process of building the circuit with the projection of the elmo to build their own circuits and then measure the current in that circuit using a multimeter (6.2d). I have also incorporated the use of motion detectors and Vernier LabPro software in a lesson on free fall and terminal velocity (6.2e), which extended students use with that technology from kinematics lesson (6.2f). These lessons had students graph velocity versus time, and distance versus time graphs to understand the motion of objects.

 Another mode of communication is through modeling. “Scientific models represent ideas - ideas of how the natural world is structured or how it operates” (Windschitl, 2007, 4). Models allow students to develop their understandings of scientific phenomena by organizing observations and adding hypotheses and arguments to those observations to explain the interactions. “Students should also learn to talk about the framework of their existing knowledge as a model - recognizing that models are not “copies of reality”, that a model is tentative, can contain unseen entities or processes, that there can be multiple forms of models for the same phenomenon, and that models help generate ideas” (Windschitl, 2007, 4). In my classes at Wilson Commencement, my paired placement partner and I had our students recreate heliocentric and geocentric models of the solar system. Students role-played the planets and moved in the orbits that the models suggested, allowing them to see how the heliocentric orbits work much better than the geocentric orbits (6.2g).

 The use of video and pictures is another communicative tool. During Get Real! Science camp we allowed our students to take video and pictures of their investigation in order to capture what they felt was important science and evidence for their investigation. One student wanted to take video of our creation of blog sites, which he felt was important because of the question we had the students answer (6.2h). I cannot find his blog at this time, but I have a draft of his answer that shows evidence that the students completed this assignment (6.2i). Students also used video during a laboratory investigation on momentum, in order to measure the velocity of air pucks on an air table (6.2j). This was used as a visual technology to slow-down the images and analyze the collisions created in order to develop a deeper understanding of the conservation of momentum.


 * //6.3 Candidates are able to use effectively a variety of modes of communication to make ideas accessible to all students and foster inquiry. //**

 During my student teaching placements my lessons would be designed to include a general sequence of learning. This sequence began with demonstrations or hands-on laboratory activity that allowed students to experience science first. In all cases the demonstrations and laboratory activities worked towards identifying student misconceptions and stimulating questions and evaluations for future discussions and investigations. Demonstrations were often accompanied with a predict, observe, explain (POE) worksheet. These demonstrations were done in front of the entire class and included students offering their predictions, observations, and explanations to the entire class (6.3a). Laboratory investigations, as well as, demonstrations were followed mostly by a class discussion that was accompanied by powerpoint presentations. These powerpoints included focus questions that asked about the concepts in the activities students just experienced and understanding the context of those activities. An example of a powerful powerpoint that followed a laboratory investigation was my lesson on conservation of charge in electric circuits (6.3b). In this powerpoint I included student laboratory results across all three General Physics classes. The purpose of this was to educate on the nature of science and the collaboration of information that scientists participate in to understand scientific phenomena. Students discovered that their results were generally the same across all investigations and evaluated that the charge was the same going into each circuit element as the charge coming out of each circuit element.

//**6.4 Candidates construct curriculum activities that incorporate oral, written, visual, and electronic texts as tools for interaction and communication across multiple contexts, and that facilitate all students’ critical analysis of such texts. **//

 During my innovative unit I developed several activities that incorporated students using oral, written, visual, and electronic texts for communication. Electronic texts were used during the Ohm Zone simulation, where students were asked to build series and parallel circuits on a circuit board and then measure the voltage and current across each circuit element, derive a mathematical equation for the voltage and current across the entire circuit, and observe what happens when a light bulb was removed from the circuit (6.4a). Written texts were used all over the place, specifically in laboratory worksheets that asked inquiry-based questions. A perfect example of this is the introduction to electric circuits activity, which asks student to identify each component of a circuit and its importance for the circuit (6.4b). The incorporation of oral texts was made through class discussion facilitated with powerpoints after each lesson activity. Visual texts were included, such as the use of an elmo to display the proper use of multimeter in measuring current in an electric circuit (6.4c) and asking students to draw circuit diagrams from pictures and vice versa (6.4d).

 I also constructed these curriculum texts during STARS. Students used video conferencing software to communicate across sites about their research design and results (6.4e). Students also presented their results at a community event at the University of Rochester, where the students work was displayed through station activities that the students ran themselves (6.4f) and the showcasing of video footage of them (6.4g). Students kept science journals, where they placed observations and reflections about the science investigation (6.4h). Students were also able to create a visual representation of their data in the form of a graph that includes plant growth on the y-axis and pH for the chemical dilutions they watered their plants with on the x-axis (6.4i).

[|2009.12_-_Communication_Observation_Occhino2_-_Turkett.JPG] || Michael Occhino Observations Jim Davidson Observations || [|2010.03.11_-_Electric_Current_23_-_Turkett.JPG] [|2010.03.11_-_Electric_Current_17_-_Turkett.JPG] || Elmo Pictures || [|2010.03.11_-_Electric_Current_25_-_Turkett.JPG] || Students using multimeters || [|IMG_0904.JPG] || Terminal Velocity pictures || [|IMG_0875.JPG] [|IMG_0881.JPG] [|IMG_0883.JPG] || Kinematics pictures || [|IMG_1060.JPG] [|IMG_1061.JPG] || Heliocentric and geocentric human models || [|IMG_0934.JPG] || Conservation of momentum lab pictures || [|DSC07617.JPG] [|DSC07618.JPG] [|DSC07621.JPG] || STARS scientific journals ||
 * **EVIDENCE #** || **EMBEDDED OR LINKED OBJECT** || **DESCRIPTION** ||
 * 6.1a || [|2009.12_-_Communication_Observation_Occhino1_-_Turkett.JPG]
 * 6.1b || [|2009.12_-_Circular_Motion_Notes_and_Questions_-_Turkett.JPG] || Scripted Lesson Plans ||
 * 6.2a || [|20090729-EDU486Raeshawn] || Get Real! Science Camp blog making video ||
 * 6.2b || [|Upsidaisium] || My blog ||
 * 6.2c || [|2010.03.11_-_Electric_Current_24_-_Turkett.JPG]
 * 6.2d || [|2010.03.11_-_Electric_Current_13_-_Turkett.JPG]
 * 6.2e || [|IMG_0916.JPG]
 * 6.2f || [|IMG_0869.JPG]
 * 6.2g || [|IMG_1057.JPG]
 * 6.2h || Reference evidence 6.2a || Get Real! Science camp blog making video ||
 * 6.2i || [[file:raeshawn robinson blog.doc]] || Raeshawn's blog post draft ||
 * 6.2j || [|IMG_0936.JPG]
 * 6.3a || [[file:20091116_POE-Inertia(Newton)_Turkett.doc]] || Inertia POE ||
 * 6.3b || [[file:2010 - Conservation of Charge - Turkett.ppt]] || Conservation of charge powerpoint ||
 * 6.4a || [[file:2010.03.25 - OhmZone - Turkett.doc]] || Ohm Zone simulation ||
 * 6.4b || [[file:2010.03.09 - IntroCircutis Lab - Turkett.doc]] || Introduction to circuits lab ||
 * 6.4c || Reference evidence 6.2c || Elmo pictures ||
 * 6.4d || [|2010.03.24 - Circuit Diagrams Assessment - Turkett.doc] || Circuit Digrams Assessment ||
 * 6.4e || [|DSC07459.JPG] || STARS video conferencing ||
 * 6.4f || [|DSC07652.JPG] || STARS presentation ||
 * 6.4g || [|STARS Blue Team Video] || STARS video ||
 * 6.4h || [|DSC07616.JPG]
 * 6.4i || [|DSC07626.JPG] || STARS graphs ||


 * //References//**

Bruns, A. (2008). The key characteristics of produsage. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage, pp.9-36. New York: Peter Lang.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Flick, L., & Bell, R. (2000). Preparing tomorrow’s science teachers to use technology: Guidelines for science educators. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 1(1), 39-60.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Gee, J. (2004). Situated language and learning: A critique of traditional schooling. New York: Routledge.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Giroux, H. (1992). Border crossings: Cultural workers and the politics of education, pp. 230-250. New York: Routledge.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Janks, H. (2010). Literacy and Power. New York: Routledge.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Kumashiro, K. (2000). Toward a theory of anti-oppressive education. Review of Educational Research, 70(1), 25-53.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Lankshear, C. & Knobel, M. (2006). New literacies: Everyday practices and classroom learning. Philadelphia: Open University Press.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Larson, J. & Marsh, J. (2005). Making literacy real: Theories and practices for learning and teaching. Sage: London.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Mortimer, E., & Scott, P. (2003). Capturing and characterizing the talk of school science. Meaning Making in Secondary Science Classrooms, pp.24-46. Berkshire, GBR: McGraw-Hill Education.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Takaki, R. (1993). Multiculturalism: Battleground or meeting ground? Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 530, 109-121.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Windschitl, M. (in press). What is inquiry? A framework for thinking about scientific practice in the classroom. National Science Foundation monograph.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">home