TECHNOLOGY AND LEADERSHIP
During my second year, I decided to attend the MAET program overseas in Galway, Ireland. I had the opportunity to work with a group of educators and create the 7th annual Global Resources in Education and Technology Conference or GREAT14. During GREAT14, I presented on the topic of Cyber Bullying. A colleague and I collaborated to find research-based tips that teachers could bring back and implement in their classroom right away. In addition, we facilitated a discussion that included educators from all over the world. It was an amazing experience to work with educators with different backgrounds and to be part of the production of a conference and be a presenter of a session.
Click here to view the website for the conference and click here to view information from the session I presented.
Click here to view the website for the conference and click here to view information from the session I presented.
LEARNING IN SCHOOL AND OTHER SETTINGS
Throughout the summer, our focus was on solving problems of practice. In my own classroom, students struggle with the idea of density. Students can easily plug in information to a formula to find density, but they struggle with explaining density, explaining how volume and mass change, and applying the idea of density to explain the impact of temperature on changes in density. Using my knowledge of content and pedagogy, I attempted to solve this problem by implementing technology to enhance the learning of my students. To view my solution to my problem of practice, please click here.
APPROACHES TO EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
To get a better understanding of people's understanding about maps, my group and I set out to interview a large group of people. Our goal was to understand if there was a misconception about the size of the continents and where this misconception originated. Originally, we believed that the use of flat maps in classrooms caused this misconception. Even though many interviewees chose the same map, each person's ordering of the continents were inconsistent. This led us to conclude two new hypothesizes including having a narrow view of the world and how a person learns about the world in school. Please view my group's findings here.