{"id":5121,"date":"2018-02-16T22:06:21","date_gmt":"2018-02-17T05:06:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/?p=5121"},"modified":"2018-02-18T12:27:28","modified_gmt":"2018-02-18T19:27:28","slug":"lfu-and-geography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/2018\/02\/16\/lfu-and-geography\/","title":{"rendered":"Lfu and Geography"},"content":{"rendered":"

In what ways would you teach an LfU-based activity to explore a concept in math or science? Draw on LfU and My World scholarship to support your pedagogical directions. Given its social and cognitive affordances, extend the discussion by describing how the activity and roles of the teacher and students are aligned with LfU principles.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Learning-for-use model is a pedagogical framework that was developed to \u201csupport the design of learning activities that achieve both content and process learning\u201d (Edelson, 2001). There are four main principles that were developed by Edelson with the aim \u201cof foster[ing] useful conceptual understanding [that] achieve[ed] both content and process learning\u201d (Edelson, 2001).<\/p>\n

I was working with a group of learners this past week; after they had completed their reading intervention, we played a game called ATLAS in which students have to come up with countries, capitals, and cities (I have added provinces and Territories as well). For example, I would start with naming a country, let\u2019s say Hawaii, the next person would have to come up with a country, city, capital, or province that started with an I. That student may choose Iceland (anything that started with the letter \u2018I\u2019) and the next person would have to begin their capital or country with a \u2018d\u2019 and it would go on. I have played this with many students before as it is fun and gets them learning about geography. However, this past week I was a little surprised that some of my grade six students had no idea what province we live in. I asked what province we live in and I thought that I was starting off with an easy question but I was sadly mistaken; most of the students answered that the province we live in is Canada. As I continued to ask questions about capitals, provinces, etc. all I got was blank faces.<\/p>\n

As I was reading this week\u2019s articles and questions, I had these learners in mind who almost gave me a minor heart attack. In the article \u2018Designing Google Earth Activities for Learning Earth and Environmental Science,\u2019 the authors discuss how \u201cweb-based geospatial tools such as Google Earth [and GIS and GPS] [\u2026] show great potential in promoting spatial thinking with diverse learners\u201d (Bodzin, Anastasio, and Kulo, 2014) as they allow for visualization and mapping.<\/p>\n

Keeping Lfu in mind and the three-step process:\u00a0motivation, knowledge construction, and knowledge refinement, I started go explore different GIS platforms and I discovered GeoDart which is an interactive game\/quiz creator that teachers can use to educate their students. For example, a question can pop up asking \u2018Find Chicago\u2019 and then the student would have to correctly locate on an interactive map where Chicago is. The next question might ask where is Tokyo and the student would have to find Tokyo. GeoDart enables the learner to interactively learn about geography, geology, history etc. The teacher has the ability to create customized questions based on the teaching objectives and student needs. This tool is incredibly simple to use and takes about 5 minutes to learn all the functionalities. I would definitely use this with my students and start with where they live and then zoom out from there. These students need to be able to know where they are in terms of Canada as a whole.<\/p>\n

*As a challenge (when students are ready), Earth Picker can be played by students both for general knowledge and as a geographical challenge. Earth Picker uses Google Maps to place you in random locations around the globe and then you have use landmarks, language on signs, and any other clues to figure out where you are. If you haven\u2019t already, give this is a try, it really is quite fun to play.<\/p>\n

These activities and the role of the teacher and students are aligned with Lfu principles because of the constructivism lens that students and teachers are looking and working through. The teacher is allowing his\/her students to come to their own knowledge and the students are active participants in their learning. As educators, we can support our learners in Lfu activities by making sure that the learning activities are reasonable to all of our learners and at their own level. I would not start with Earth Picker if a student did not know where they lived to begin with. It is important that learners feel safe in their knowledge building process otherwise they will feel discouraged.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.earth-picker.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Edelson, D.C. (2001). Learning-for-use: A framework for the design of technology-supported inquiry activities.\u00a0Journal of Research in Science Teaching,38<\/em>(3), 355-385.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>GeoDart game tutorial:<\/strong><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?time_continue=112&v=xTmSSKx8QLI<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In what ways would you teach an LfU-based activity to explore a concept in math or science? Draw on LfU and My World scholarship to support your pedagogical directions. Given its social and cognitive affordances, extend the discussion by describing how the activity and roles of the teacher and students are aligned with LfU principles. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16921,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1669391,1839],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-lfu","category-e-folio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16921"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5121"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5165,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5121\/revisions\/5165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}