LuisanaT's blog

Taking a step back from the Summer Institutes for K-12 Teachers, the three individual institutes seem to work in a spectrum of traditional to non-conventional form of educating. This order, ironically enough, is set up in the same way the institutes proceeds throughout the summer. For the first of the three, the Computer Science Institute, is the most information-fed workshop. It resembles the more habitual way of teaching in the way that its participants are suppose to work through the computer programs and programming only through example. The following institute, the Brain and Behavior, had a fair amount of

First off, I want to personally thank and commend Grobstein for taking a young college student (rising sophomore) as an intern/student/teacher for this years Summer Institute for K-12 Teachers as oppose to the typical upperclassmen. I feel as though my participation and involvement here has helped provide more diversity to the summer experience. From this internship, I have gained a lot and learned much about myself and what I want for my future. This summer has assured

This workshop, which would be more accurately called the “Learning as Inquiry” Institute, worked well in giving the participating teachers adequate access to multiple different resources to build their own lessons. Although these two weeks were beneficial to the participants in more ways than one, there are some areas where there could have been better control over the workshop. The time management skills and utilization of the interns could all have been better. The amount of effort placed preparing for the weeks to come became the biggest issue throughout the two weeks and needs to be addressed to better future Inquiry institutes.

This institute’s main goal of familiarizing K-12 teachers about neurological and behavioral situations to allow them to make useful educational implications was without a doubt, a complete success. But it is important to point out that a lot of participating teachers felt once they entered the institute is an uneven balance between the science they were learning and the educational importance they were receiving; many participants thought that there was not enough focus on what everything they have discussed on the Brain suggests for education. As the teacher conducting this institute, Grobstein, it is important that you not only encourage the new and different pedagogical tools

This years Science as Inquiry (SaI) institute so far has been a valuable experience for the participating teachers in many ways. There is a good balance of discussion and constructive work each day which thoroughly engages everyone involved and also accommodates nicely to everyone’s different interests and/or hopes of the institute.

Hello, my name is Luisana Taveras and I am an upcoming sophomore at Bryn Mawr College. This summer I am one of Professor Grobstein's interns for his Brain and Behavior Institute as well as an assistant for the remaining institutes (Computer Science Education and Science as Inquiry), critiquing the three to help get science, education, and science education less wrong. (Please help yourself to the surrounding forums found here.)

Overall, the institute functioned well in incorporating concepts of computer science to the participating teachers and adequately demonstrating various computer science skills that can be applicable for differing subjects. The weeklong program did well in introducing the participating teachers with non-conventional computer concepts and programs, giving them several tools to experiment with and potentially utilize to make a positive difference in their own classrooms. I would like to commend JD for voicing links between overlapping concepts in the different workshops and generating discussions between the teachers and want to suggest taking this one step further during the next institute.

Disclaimer: This is an exact replica of one of my final projects for my 220 Math and Science Pedagogy course last semester, which is a lesson plan I devised for a science class. I have offered to post it up on serendip and decided not to make any alterations to it as of yet. For my hope is, after my participation in the summer institute this year under Professor Grobstein, I will return to this lesson plan and make an much more profound change for its betterment. Please feel free to read this, critique it, and look forward to my second take on it at the end of this summer. Thank you.

Luisana Taveras
May 15th, 2008
Math and Science Pedagogies

Lesson Plan

In the neural system, each hemisphere of the brain corresponds to the opposite side of the body with one side being dominate. This inborn characteristic of the humans’ renders us lateralized because, for example, the dominance of the right cerebral is responsible for left- handedness and vice-versa. (1) A great majority of humans are right-handed, 85-90% while the remaining percentage is left-handed. (5) But why is there such an unequal distribution? This can be due in part by both social and consumer influences because they help finalize the handedness of a person. For the right-handed culture we live in has lead to many more individuals converting from left-handedness to right-handedness than to right-handedness to left. (16)

Introduction