Final Blog Subject (Required Synthesis of Course)

Synthesis – the ability to combine parts or elements together to form a whole such as the communication of an idea or experience.

Final Blog Subject (Required Synthesis of Course)

Being critically literate means that students have developed and mastered the ability to read, analyze, critique, and question the messages inherently present within any form of text. I will integrate a form of critical literacy in my discipline by doing more hands on projects.  I am a very hands-on person.  For me the most important and most effective learning takes place when I am asking questions.  I like to dive into projects blindly see all the parts and pieces then try to fit them together and make sense out it.  It is at that point I begin to ask the right questions or the really good ones.  If I introduce design projects early on and get students thinking of all possibilities for solving a problem they will be more creative.  Then when I introduce concepts for solving those problems they will be more attentive.  In the right environment the answers will mean a lot more if they are answers to questions they are asking, instead of me giving answers in lectures to questions they don’t care about.  I plan to give some ill structured problems with many outcomes, let the students struggle and think a little then help them make sense of it by finding ways to solve the problem.  I feel the important lessons in life are learned by getting involved in what you are doing.  I want to teach my students how to find answers to any problem they face. 

By having students work in diverse groups they can learn from each other and learn to work out their problems together.  They will better learn to use oral language in working together.

Reading and writing in engineering technology serves many purposes.  Writing can help a student to synthesize what they have learned. Also if you keep a journal of what you have done and what you are trying to do, the answers will be more readily available because you will know what you are looking for and recognize it when it comes.  I will use engineering journals and reports for all engineering related projects. 

Everybody has weakness some are more obvious than others.  By working in groups to solve problems students can learn to use their strengths and over look the weaknesses.

Vocabulary is an important part of any technology program.  By introducing vocabulary a little at a time and integrating it into lessons, questions, and projects, vocabulary will be natural and make sense.

Once I know my students differentiation with problem solving in groups should work well.  Not every group needs to solve the same problem or solve it in the same way.  This will make it easier to let some advanced groups take on bigger more complex projects while others work on smaller problems.  The whole class could still be working together and all would contribute equally.

Today in this digital world, technology has added to the understanding of literacy.  Students need to sufficiently learn technology related skills, or they will be unable to decode any information they are presented with in their future.  By integrating digital literacy skills students can keep pace with an ever changing world.

Noah

Blog #4 Affective Dimensions of Writing

Affective Dimensions of Writing

Do you think of yourself as a writer?

o   I have never really thought of myself as a writer.  Because most of my writing has not been because I wanted to do it.  That being said I have written a lot of things in many ways.  Working as a design draftsmen I communicated with technical drawings, notation, and symbols.  Though these are not usual considered literary masterpieces but they communicate very specific things.  Also I have written many pages of engineering journals for record of what research I have done.  These also served as a guide when the company I worked for applied for patents and copy-write.  Quite often my engineering notes were to remind me from day to day what I had done that day and what I was going to do the next. 

·        What kinds of writing did you do recreationally as a child?

o   When I was younger I use to draw pictures of what I was thinking about.  Mostly pictures of trucks.

·        What kinds of writing do you do recreationally now (texts, Facebook status updates, emails to friends, journals, etc.)?

o   Now most of my writing is for school assignments and occasionally in my personal journal.  I also like to write and read cowboy poetry.

·        What kinds of writing assignments did you have in school that you particularly enjoyed, and why did you enjoy them?

o   Most of my writing assignments in school I did not enjoy.  I did take a class in creative writing when I was in Junior High and I liked creating my own stories.

·        What kinds of writing assignments did you have in school that you disliked, and why did you dislike them?

o   Most school assignments are writing what the professor wants.  You are never able to give your own opinion because you need a grade.  So you give the professors opinion like it was your own and hope nobody you know ever reads it.

·        How will your answers from the previous questions influence how you structure opportunities for your students to write (or otherwise express their understandings) in your discipline?

o   I feel it is much more important for students to express what they think not what I want them to think.  I will always strive for students to be creative and express their own feelings about what ever topic I assign.