Reflection 17

Planning a unit and lesson takes time but the way that I would approach is the same way when creating a webquest. The first thing is looking for ideas as to what is the theme of the unit; in the webquest I used Cells. Once the theme is selected I begin to find out what is that I want the students to learn from the theme; in the webquest that I did I wanted them to learn not only what cells are but the impacts that they have on our everyday life. After the theme was chosen, the subjects that will be used in the unit would be selected. Then find out how long it would take to teach the unit. With the use of technology the internet is full of good resources; online field trips, activities, etc. that can be used when thinking about what to use in the unit.
The hardest part of planning a unit is picking a theme and what you want each student to learn, after that everything else is easy. The rest requires that the teacher has good planning skill and also a good prior knowledge activity, so that the teacher knows where each student is at. Homework should be used to reinforce what the student has learned; also transition from subject to subject should be smooth. The activities that are selected or created should be based on the skill that students have and also teamwork would be used. This is how I have approach when making a unit plan based on how the experience that I had when making a webquest.

Reflection 16

Jerome Bruner was very influenced by many writers including Lev Vygotsky, which eventually led to his intrapersonal focus on the lack of attention that was given to political and social context. As he continued his work he became an important part to the cognitive revolution, which led to his 1996 book called “The Culture of Education.” Now when looking at his work there were certain points that not only began to influence how Social Studies were taught in school but education all together. The way that education should be seen is as process. The process is based on four themes: role of structure in learning by making it central to learning, readiness for learning, analytical and intuitive thinking, and motives for learning. When looking at the first theme, Bruner want for education to be view as a structure instead of just mastering facts and techniques. Second theme focuses on how schools spend more time on what are important areas that should be taught so that it won’t be too difficult for students to learn, this is where the spiral curriculum comes in so that education should be used to revisit basic ideas and continue to build on them until the student has fully understands. In the third theme Bruner states that analytical and intuitive thinking are neglected because of the lack of conditioning. And the fourth theme is about getting the student to participate in the process so that he/she begins to think for him/herself and not so much in getting him/her to commit to education. Bruner believes that culture should be a part of education because it is through culture that the minds are shaped because it not only shapes the world but also us.