Introduction:

How do we learn to be better teachers? Some people think it's a natural skill, some people think anyone can teach, and in a recent movie J. Lo's role reiterates an all too common notion of educators by saying "those that can't do teach." I've always believed those that do best, teach. A good teacher bases his/her practice using the guidance of experts from a number of fields that include content-based experts, pedagogical experts, researchers, and national and state developed standards.

New evidence that explains how people learn was published by the National Research Council in 2000. They identified three important practices, two of which we will implement in this project. First, teachers have to know what students already know. They need to understand their prior knowledge to provide the metaphors that will link new learning to what students already know and believe. Secondly, we learn from others and our interactions with others. As future teachers it is important for you to know how to provide experiences that will help reveal your student's prior knowledge and to turn information into understanding by dialoguing with others.

Task:

In this project you will learn how to create an autobiographical newspaper about yourself. You will receive classroom instruction, see models and learn how to provide feedback to these models in a group of peers. You will learn how to take and include a digital picture of yourself, make your newsletter visually attractive and have an opportunity to let your peers and professors know something about you. In Teachers' Workplace, you will enter your group's collection to share your work and provide each other with feedback. We don't curb grades so you are not in competition with each other; you are in collaboration with each other. You will be helping each other create a better assignment. Professors Morris and Lathem will actually grade your products.

Technology Standards:

National mandates have  required that all K-12 students meet national technology criteria by 2005 or states and schools are at risk of losing federal funding.

National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) have identified the technology skills that a general student, pre-service teacher, student teacher, and first year teacher should know and be able to demonstrate in a quickly changing technological world..

Standards: The technology standards addressed in this activity using the NETS-T General Preparation Performance include:

NETS-T General Preparation Performance

Some Additional Skills you will learn:

• You also will be learning how to be a visually literate person so when you create documents with text and graphics you will know how to best present them for understanding and retention of your audience.
• You will also learn why knowing about your students' prior knowledge is essential to good teaching.
• You will develop practice in learning how to provide and receive feedback from your peers to improve upon your assignment.
• You will learn ways to apply what you've learned in this activity to practical classroom environments.

Activities:

Using Microsoft Word you will create a newspaper about yourself. These will later be uploaded to your professional portfolio. You will be graded upon your Visual Literacy Skills (see Rubric), The Content You Provide (see Rubric), your ability to use Word to create a News Paper, and your basic computer skills. To look at models of News Papers and the grades they would receive, check out:Models and Benchmarks.

Final Copies are to be placed in TWP drop folder called AUTOBIOdropbox and printed in color to hand in during class. We also recommend that you place a copy in your personal collection and portolio folder.

Assessment:

• Visual Literacy (Rubric)
• Content (Rubric)
• Technology Operations (Rubric)
• Microsoft Word Skills (Rubric)

Due Date: 2/15/05