March 12 Lecture Reflection

This lecture had several great speakers. I enjoyed the diversity of disciplines that the speakers represented. From science, engineering, math, social studies and much more. The one most relevant to me was Ms. Garber's presentation was directly applicable to me as it was directed at engaging at-risk youth with science and engineering.

She touched on a lot of points that I strongly support such as including hands-on problem-based activities and programming. I enjoyed her talking about the different ways that a project can be used to integrate math, science, history and english into the same lesson. In the future, I would love to collaborate with the physics teacher to do a unit on bridges, where I can talk about choices of materials in bridges in chemistry, or doing calculations in math. I could also collaborate with the social studies and english teachers to talk about bridges in history, and how they affected societies. I enjoyed some of the resources Ms. Garber pointed to several resources such as "Building Big" to simulate forces on a bridge, and analyze the weak points. She also made a competition for students to build the most efficient and cost-effective bridge.

Also, I've avoided using twitter so far because I feel that it takes too much time, and it's just too much information all in the same place. But after hearing about the power of professional twitter chats, it's making me reconsider. I do have a twitter handle, so I think I will at least try to follow other educators and see how it goes. I value my discussion with other teaching interns in the Secondary MAC program right now. So having a twitter base of other educators that I can discuss with would be an easy way to continue that tradition of discussing with other educators.