Teaching Big Ideas

I've been thinking for a while now about how important it is to teach big ideas. When I speak of big ideas, I'm referring to the enduring concepts that transcend grade level and subject area. Throughout each subject area--science, math, social studies, and language arts--it's possible to take several content standards and group them into a theme-based unit, supporting the learning of a big idea (and creating a highly engaging project-based learning experience).

One of the big ideas that comes to mind is photosynthesis. It's probably not a stretch to say that most elementary educators don't give photosynthesis its due. All the way up to last year, I sure didn't. But consider all of the science concepts connected to what is easily the most important process on Earth, and its significance as a big idea becomes easy to grasp. (Don't believe me? Check out the book Eating the Sun by Oliver Morton). Consider that food chains begin with plants and they get their energy from photosynthesis. The fall leaf change occurs because leaves stop the process of photosynthesis and begin to lose their chlorophyll. Of course, this takes place because of changes in the hours of daylight which means you can teach about Earth's orbit around the sun and its effect on the seasons.

In social studies, westward expansion/progress is a theme that necessitates the teaching of several other big ideas: changes in transportation, settlement, treatment of Native Americans, exploration, the Gold Rush, Oregon Trail, etc. Because they fall under the umbrella of westward expansion, you can teach all of these concepts as part of a theme-based unit and have students create a nice project at the end.

So what are some other big ideas that you think are important to teach? Here's a list that I thought of with some of the other concepts that are connected to them:

• Scientific Inquiry (scientific method, developing experiments, identifying variables, scientific communication)
• Resources (renewable energy, fossil fuels, design process (have kids build wind turbines), earth science)
• Tessellations (polygons (interior angle measures), regular polygons, similarity, symmetry (transformations)
• Patterns & Functions
• Fractals (multiplying fractions, similarity, patterns, functions)
  
• Rivers (transportation, growth of civilizations, growth of cities & economies)

Technorati Tags: education| learning | teachers

Check out: Symmetry in Nature | Alphabet Geometry

Testing out Twitter

Where do people find the time? My newsreader is full and I can't post to my blog. So I'm giving Twitter a try. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/jtubbs. Now every time an idea comes to mind, I can tweet it! I find a link, it's on Twitter.

Take the Pi Day Challenge

"March 14th is a fantastically mathematical day.

Pi Day. Accept the challenge. The Pi Day Challenge is a series of puzzles that are logic-based. A team of logicians adapted or created these puzzles – some require research, some require mathematics, some require pure savvy. Keep in mind that for some puzzles, finding out what you are supposed to do is part of the puzzle."

Also, check out Learning about Pi from misterteacher.com.


Technorati Tags: education | learning | Pi Day

Mini-Movies for Your SmartBoard

Using Google Map Mashups for Social Studies Projects

I just assigned a social studies project to my fifth graders this week on Westward Expansion. It's a collaborative project that requires them to take the role of a character (a prospector, a settler/pioneer, or a mountain man) and describe a trip west that this character would take during the 19th century.

While researching routes, one group decided to use Google Maps to see if they could find the Oregon Trail. I thought this was a cool idea and wished that I had thought to include that web tool in the project. Since then, I've been thinking of ideas for how I would have used Google Maps with this project. Unfortunately, the power of the software I think is creating your own maps & Google requires users to create an account to do that. A Google account offers a few too many features (since it provides an email account, search history, and more) than I feel my students need.

There are however quite a few Google Maps mashups on the Internet that teachers can use in place of Google Maps itself. They also require an account, but to get one students would only need to create a fake email address and username and password. After searching through my bookmarks, I found a couple that I think would work very well in a classroom environment.

• Quikmaps allows you to perform many of the functions that Google Maps does: add markers, connected lines, and text labels. I created a map below using every function available except for scribbling. Click on the markers for descriptions.
  

I could easily envision having my students create a map for social studies. A number of topics in history would lend themselves to a similar type of map as the one above: The Underground Railroad, The Trail of Tears, Westward Expansion (trace the path of the famous wagon trails, Age of Exploration (trace routes of famous explorers like Magellan), and much more. What a cool way to integrate geography with history!

I can also see using these maps on my SmartBoard. I'm wishing I would have created one when I taught my students about the Erie Canal. An interactive map in the front of the classroom that traced the route of the canal--complete with markers--would have been extremely helpful to my students.

• Wayfaring is another Google Maps mashup that I've tried out. This one provides essentially the same features but in a different manner. After signing up, you create your maps in a series of guided steps. Whereas Quikmaps provides the tools (map in the center, markers to the side, etc.) with little guidance, on Wayfaring you must use a map editor that directs you through a series of steps to create markers and routes.
  

I prefer learning to use the mashups without the guidance and I think my students would have no problem figuring out how to use them. As a result, Quikmaps seems like a better fit for the classroom.

Technorati Tags: Google Maps | learning | Quikmaps | Wayfaring

Delivering the Presentation of Your Life

Creating effective presentations seems to be all the rage right now. Garr Reynolds and his Presentation Zen blog are incredibly popular and the Slideshare website has thousands of presentations (many of them on presentations) and a large community of users sharing them. With all the SmartBoards in classrooms now it's become very important that teachers jump on the bandwagon and learn how to create presentations that are memorable and easily understood. I've been riding the wagon for a few years now and this past February I delivered my own presentation on the topic. You can check out on Slideshare or just click through it below. Let me know what you think.

Delivering The Presentation Of Your Life

View more presentations from Jamie Tubbs. (tags: teachers education)

Technorati Tags: education | learning | presentations | Powerpoint

Check out: Mini-Movies for Your SmartBoard

Mini-Movies for Your SmartBoard

By far the most popular site on misterteacher.com is Alphabet Geometry.  The mini-movies there attract a large number of visitors.  What is a mini-movie? It's a Flash-based animation, often interactive, that lasts just a few seconds. The mini-movies on Alphabet Geometry make geometric concepts alive by showing how they relate to letters of the alphabet. 

It dawned on me the other day that the mini-movies that appear on AG are the same type of movies that SmartBoard users can insert into their Notebook files. So I decided to make the mini-movies on AG available for download so that teachers can grab them and use them offline.  They are free and as long as they are used for teaching lessons in the classroom, you can use them without restriction. 

I've been looking around the Internet for a site that offers something similar, and I have yet to find one.  Teachers Love SMART Boards has a page that links to SmartBoard Web resources, and those resources have Flash-based movies, but it appears that one must be online to use them. I can't believe that nobody has thought to provide movies that teachers can download and use without going to the Internet.

Check out the mini-movies here: Mini-movies for Your SmartBoard


Check out: Alphabet Symmetry | Symmetry in Nature | Teaching Resources

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