Better Than a Windbag

My sophomore year at BYU I took an Astronomy class. It was a morning class held in a planetorium. It was taught by a professor that was the 16th physics professor ever hired at BYU. The man knew about fossils, because he had watched them form. He would stand at the front of the class, spout off facts, and lecture. Most of the class learned very little, got poor grades, and complained.

I hope to never become that teacher.

On my group's last post, we wrote about an activity about a technology lesson that would give us an opportunity to apply the things that we have learned thus far in this class in a fictional classroom. We were then asked the following questions:

• What is the content you’ll be using in your lesson?

• What is the pedagogy you’ll be using and why is it a good fit with the content?

• What is the technology you’ll be using and why is it a good fit with the content and pedagogy?

The content we used for the lesson came from the core curriculum. We decided to teach from 6th grade science core Standard 4, Objective 2. That objective stated, "Describe the appearance and apparent motion of groups of stars in the night sky relative to Earth and how various cultures have understood and used them."

Much of the discovery aspects of this assignment was up to the children. When I present a lesson like this in a real class I will provide the students with directions for finding the information if they need the directions. Those who do not understand the assignment or don't know where to start might receive help individually, while those who already know exactly what they want to do can work on their own at their own pace. The amount of information and sources are up to them, but I would encourage the use of Wikipedia.

We would use the Internet where we would encourage the use of Wikipedia, and the program Stellarium. Some of the project would require the students to find something in Stellarium, requiring their ability to navigate that program. That would be combined with their ability to research things on the internet. Then they would be given the Australian and New Zealand flag, and required to research things on the internet they would find on Stellarium. That task would require some problem solving and basic understanding of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The North Star task would require a similar knowledge of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and could encourage discussion.

These assignments are creative ways to combine technology with content knowledge through using a unique pedagogy that can help the students discover these concepts on their own. Having them learn on their own is lot better than an old windbag spouting off facts at the front of the room.