5

I did not find this chapter to be as useful to me as the previous chapters. The use of Mindtools in the classroom seems to be directed more towards middle and high school students than elementary school students.

Right now, the only Mindtool that I plan to use in my classroom are concept maps, as discussed in the previous journal entry. I like the idea of creating a class concept map throughout the entire school year. It allows students to continuously review and evaluate their learning, and it allows them to see the connections among various content areas.

Spreadsheets can be used with upper elementary students. There are several benefits of using spreadsheets. For instance, collecting data and creating visual representations of the data helps students recognize the relationships and patterns created by the information.

Spex Classic, a "simple children's educational software," [http://www.aspexsoftware.com/spex_charts.htm] is a great resource to use to introduce students to spreadsheets. Students are given a budget to design a room and are able to see the effects of choosing different furniture and prices in the graphs and spreadsheet. The spreadsheet shows the type of furniture chosen for the room design, the price of each piece of furniture, and the total cost. If furniture are added or removed from the room design or if a price is changed, this is displayed in the spreadsheet, as well. The program allows students to experience spreadsheets in a practical way where they can see how spreadsheets are applicable to real life. Note: The program uses English pounds; however, the conversion of English pounds to its U.S. equivalent can be included in a math lesson.

Idea to modify the project for my classroom: The teacher and students can bring in advertisements from various stores (furniture galleries, Macy's, Target, Wal-Mart, etc), and they can furnish their own bedrooms using a budget. Students can be given a list of items that they must include in their rooms, such as a bed and dresser, and students will be able to choose what fun items they want to include in their rooms, such as a computer or board games. Students will be expected to compare prices of the same type of item at different stores to find the best deal. Microsoft Excel can be used to display this information, just as the information is displayed using the spreadsheet and graphs in Spex Classic.

The purpose of Mindtools is to promote students' critical thinking and problem solving skills; however, I am not comfortable incorporating them in my classroom, with the exceptions being concept maps and spreadsheets. I had the most difficulty following the "Modeling Systems with Systems Dynamics Tools" and "Modeling Thinking with Expert Systems" sections. This information is new to me, and the examples offered in the textbook did not help me to better understand the information. For example, I did not know where to begin when looking at the systems model of the sun on page 87. There is too much information, and I felt overwhelmed just looking at it. Once reviewed in class, I hope I will have a better understanding of these Mindtools.

Notes

- Mindtools

- Engage different types of thinking

- Build models of different phenomena (model domain knowledge--the content that students learn in schools--helps students better comprehend & remember what they are learning)

- Build models of problems

- Modeling Knowledge w/ Concept Maps

- Concept maps- ideas connected by links (statements of relationships)

- Identifying important concepts, arranging those concepts spatially, identifying relationships among those concepts, labeling the nature of the relationships among those concepts

- Students learn more from constructing their own maps than by studying teacher-produced maps

- Modeling Problems w/ Spreadsheets

- Spreadsheets have 3 primary functions: (1) storing, (2) calculating, (3) presenting information

- Used to model phenomena in 4 ways: computational reasoning tools for analyzing data, mathematics comprehension, visualization, simulation modeling tools

- Modeling Thinking w/ Expert Systems

- Expert systems = computer programs designed to simulate expert reasoning to facilitate decision making for various problems

- When students try to learn something well enough to be an expert, they engage in deeper-level thinking

- Students can use expert systems to reflect on and model their own thinking processes (cognitive simulations)

- Why Build Models w/ Mindtools?

- Model building is a natural cognitive phenomenon--When encountering unknown phenomena, humans construct personal theories about those phenomena that are represented as models

- Modeling is constructivist--constructing personal representations of experienced phenomena

- Modeling supports cognitive skills--hypothesis testing, conjecturing, inferring

- When students construct models, they own the knowledge

- Modeling supports the development of epistemic beliefs (what motivates our efforts to make sense of the world)

Overview

- Use of computers as Mindtools for building models of meaning

- How Mindtools (Concept maps, Systems modeling tools, Spreadsheets, Expert systems, Databases) can be used to build a model (domain knowledge, systems, problems, thinking processes, experiences)