My TIG welding presentation and what I took away from it?

Reflection on the assignment;

Guns, explosions, and action heroes. These are what interests the young “uns” now days, and we have to keep up to afford them the best possible education.

As I laid out my presentation I worried about many of the same things Eva brought up. I also had an answer for a few of them. I was a little discouraged by my fellow students, not defending the choices they made in their presentations? While I agreed with many of Eva’s decisions, being human and being different I didn’t agree with them all.

Surrounding myself with professionals who are among the best is of course a no brainer. I also placed two explanatory photos from the internet that I didn’t take much time to explain. I did counter with the fact that if I had more time I would have covered them better, but I knew the parameters going in and I applaud Eva for calling me out on that. DAMN I thought I could slip that by!

Going forward I would have to be able to explain my content to the students so they could understand the material or at least have a grasp after my presentation. I feel that to work within that, I would actually have to scale back the content and discuss what was left more thoroughly.

Smaller lessons wouldn’t cover as much material but what is covered would be more thorough.

Over all when placed in context with what the rest of the class did, I feel that my presentation was within the parameters set by the rest of the class? OF COURSE we could have all failed spectacularly together and are currently no wiser of the outcome.

The lesson itself taught me a lot more than just how to TIG weld. Like has been said so many times before it’s about the journey and not the destination. Laying out a google slides presentation was an experience and I will tend to use this more often in the future. I also regularly bring in industry experts to the classroom to explain their products and techniques to the students.

Many in the class will remember me telling Eva that I had this entire experience laid out before I ever took a picture or turned on a welder. I ultimately had a lesson plan for my adventure and had a complete presentation before I even started.

As always thanks for reading and have a nice day.

Webquests or digital story telling.

The idea of an article on what the classroom may do, or be capable of achieving is fascinating to me.

I think that the subject that would be the most exciting for the students would be rigging and lifting. This is where we are trained to use the big cranes and lifting devices that we see on the Discovery Channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqhhHZPbBLI

The nice part of this is they can say that they may have seen this already and a teacher can counter with, “Well I have worked with the setup and lifts with that very crane.”

Of course we have only drawn them in at this point. We will have to set the hook!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rC23KUMTyM

Again in my case, I can tell them that I have worked with this crane and there is no reason to believe that they can’t also. If they have been paying attention and they believe that you are not lying to them then they will start to wonder what they would have to do to get into this field.

WELL first you need to be able to signal a crane effectively and safely within the rules set forward by OSHA. A short film about the crane signals with stop action to discuss the signals will act as a participation event for the students.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyiXez8jkSs

If we can follow up this portion with a set of unmarked signals for the students to identify and quickly switch to written prompts for them to signal to the instructor. A power point would take care of this inserted into the digital presentation.

Now we need to show them how to actually lift something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOywZb4n-Q8

While the video is running they will be passing around the slings and chokers that they will have to use. About a 10 minute break to model these principles will help the students with what they have observed. I would use a countdown clock to impose a limit so the students realize we are covering this within a time parameter.

Then the part comes where we throw some math at them and a collective groan is exhaled from the masses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I90pjRYXoA

Finally we can supply the students with a worksheet and a blog access to this lesson, and they can answer a small handful of relevant questions due for the following day/class.

Honestly they would enjoy this right up until the assignment of the home work!

As always have a nice day and thanks for reading my ramblings.

 

 

 

 

 

Flipping the classroom

 

Article

http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/blended-flipped-learning/five-ways-to-motivate-unprepared-students-in-the-flipped-classroom/

I find the idea of motivating the students a real world concern. It plays towards what most of us have to deal with every day. This is an area that we all need help in from time to time.

Now let’s deal with the article. I am going to deal with the points as the writer laid them out.

While a conversation seems like good idea, there are students that won’t open up to you ever.  I do like the idea however, about letting them know that they are not an unnoticed or invisible student. I frequently tell my students that they are going to develop their voice, and be heard, and heard from in my class.

The idea of adjusting the pre-class assignment is a touchy subject with me. I don’t want to teach to the lowest common denominator, but it also has to be within the capabilities of the general classroom. If the entire class is falling behind then an adjustment may be necessary, but if it is just one or two then other methods will have to stand in.

I absolutely love the idea of proceeding as planned. With students who used to habitually miss test days, I solved that problem by only allowing rewrites after school hours. VOILA, no more problems!

Now onto the idea of a participation grade, UMMMM, seems like a lot of extra work for me and it could muddle up the classroom. I certainly wouldn’t discourage a teacher from this method but………. I am not sure I would implement it?

Would the idea of a “Punishment Corner” work? I mean really, that is what it would be seen as. An example of singling out the student for possible ridicule? Is this the replacement for the yard stick across the knuckles? You may notice that this wouldn’t be embraced by me. I have after all attended a real corporal punishment school.

You will also notice that I tend to focus on the negatives of most policies or ideas. Please don’t judge me on that, as I am only playing Devil’s advocate. The idea of removing the stress from the class room and getting on with the business of “getting on “appeals to me.

Thanks for reading my musings and please comment.

Student centered approaches

article

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2013/10/is_curiosity_enough_to_fuel_learning.html

The idea of an absentee teacher is quite intriguing. We have been taught with the old methods of a lecture based education for so long that the idea is hard for me to wrap my head around. The article stated that the children were left to their own devices and ultimately learned a good amount about molecular biology.
Absent from this article was the ages of the students and their previous learning history. Earlier articles concerning prisoners of war found that something as simple as a copy of readers digest was memorized by the entire prisoner population, word for word. Are the students learning here because of that same circumstance? The computer left behind for them was an intriguing piece of technology that of course they were going to be interested in, and try to figure out. With only these articles on said device what else were they going to learn? It was kind of cruel to not include a game of solitaire at least?
Our students with a myriad of tech devices at their disposal are not going to be as fascinated by the “Coke Can” that fell from the sky as these children were. The Indian students had received what to them, were a challenge and an adventure. I don’t think we could “FOOL” our students the same way, at least not to that same extent.
Looking at the other side of this for a second, I do believe that they can and will learn when left to their own devices. I frequently will teach one or two willing students and have them teach their peers. This actually does allow for better learning in most cases, as they value their peers opinions and comments on them more so than mine.
Without supervision from a teacher or adult figure the “Lord of the Flies” situation would seem more likely to me.
What do you THINK? Please comment.

learn

Just to follow through I am set up and have to ask a question based on the reading of one of the several articles that I have to choose from.

Student centered approach’s

How far should student centered learning go?

First blog post

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