Ecology 207

Call it by whatever name you want, but here are my positive ramblings of what we're doing in science, in Ecology 207. I'm calling it learning design, although this term may not be 100% true to the known pedagogical concept, but it fits perfectly here. Plus, since when do I ever operate in a fixed pedagogical box? Ha! Whatever is best for my students!

For the first conscious time in my teaching career, the students, with guidance, designed how they would learn and present content on ecosystems. I introduced some basic ecological terms including "ecosystems". Together we looked for a list of ecosystems. From there the question was, "how are we going to learn about these ecosystems?"

I took notes (see below) as they shared lots of ideas for how they would learn about these ecosystems. I displayed the notes in a word document as I typed them. I used an LCD projector and screen.  We also discussed how they would show what they learned. I typed these up as well. Together we came up with the "directions" for the project, learning some new vocabulary along the way.
We eventually made our way to Powerpoint to display the project information.

Our technology is EXTREMELY limited in the classroom, but we've been rotating on the computer. A colleague was kind enough to donate her classroom computer to our classroom. That makes two desktops.

Throughout the school year I've been showing them how to do Internet research, showing them how to determine if we could rely on the websites or not. I've also instructed them to check a few sites to verify the information they are reading is accurate, if there was any doubt.

In addition to Internet research, there were science text books that I borrowed from a vacant classroom. Wow! Actual books!! Together we navigated through tables of contents and indexes.

It doesn't end there. The learning experience continued with me showing them how to do Powerpoint presentations. Each day or so I'd show them little things and let them go play around with it and learn some more on their own. A few kids have become the teachers when pairs of students would go on and try to navigate through the application.

There are NO words that can really capture how I feel about this whole learning experience!! It's been great! They are learning quite a bit! They are reading, researching, using digital tools, learning ecology content, navigating  what it means to work collaboratively (for those who chose to work with a teammate, this was also a choice), etc. etc. etc.

They will present their research however they desire. Some are choosing Powerpoint. Others are choosing posters, written summaries, poster board displays, mini-lectures, whatever they desire!

They set a due date for March 9th. We shall see!! Stay tuned.
By the way, ALL of it has been and will be done in class! This is purposeful.

Notes from class: