Generating+&+Testing+Hypothesis

=__Generating & Testing Hypothesis __=  =Technology 1-Scaffolding through Google Documents=

Rationale: Many times students don't know where to start on an assignment or where an appropriate place to progress to. Students will often struggle for a long time just trying to figure out where to start or what they are actually suppose to do. Often a good way to get them started, and to get them interested and thinking, is to provide a framework or foundation for the assignment and where to begin. Scaffolding is a wonderful way to give students a foundation on where to begin, where to progress to, to get them inquiring about their subject, to show them how things are connected, and to finally show the big picture at the end. Scaffolding is a great way to get students thinking and asking questions about their topics and generating and testing their hypothesis focused around their topics. Google documents is a great technological tool that does a great job supporting teaching strategies such as scaffolding. Google documents allows teachers to create pages of information, questions, and ideas that students can then access and contribute to. Home pages can be created and then other pages can be created in correlation and relation to the main page. This makes for a great way to incorporate scaffolding and allow students to build off of the framework of the assignment created by the teacher. Teachers and students can make additional pages off of the main idea supporting and furthering the topic. For example, the teacher for his/her 5th grade Science class could make a scaffolding Google document that focuses on the science standard explaining the characteristics, cycles and patterns involving earth and its place in the solar system. Teachers can start with a foundation on this standard and ask questions and allow students to build off those questions, make their own theories with explanations about the questions asked or the main subject of the area, and then go surfing the internet to find information and to check their theories. Then the students can come back to the document and manipulate it to provide accurate information. The teacher can then build off the new findings and ask more questions that will force the students to engage the topic and investigate further. Scaffolding through Google documents is a great way to provide structure to the project at hand for the students and to provide them with a start to their investigations into their topics.

Resources Needed:
 * computers with internet access
 * A google document account
 * Emails of students in class

**Technology 2-Surveys through Microsoft Word 2007**



Rationale: Inquiry is crucial to the understanding and learning about a given topic. Students who make predictions about a topic, explain why they think something will happen, test their predictions, and ask why results came back the way they did will get a better understanding of a topic. Surveys are a great way for students to take a chosen topic, formulate theories, then test the theories by asking questions of others, and then examining why results came back the way they did. Surveys are an absolutely great way to generate and test hypotheses. Microsoft Word 2007 offers survey templates of all sorts for creation and use. Teachers and students can simply access their MS Word 2007 application on their computer and get access to templates of surveys available. Teachers/students can find an appropriate survey to their topic or liking and apply their questions to the form. They can then send the surveys out to fellow students or make hardcopies of the surveys to be handed out. By doing this, students will be able to save time and energy coming up with ideas on how to formulate their survey. As mentioned before, students will be able to come up with a topic, generate hypotheses, test the hypotheses, and then evaluate the ideas by gathering the surveys back and evaluating them as a group. The use of surveys from MS Word 2007 would be great for the Language Arts Research standard for 5th graders. Here, students can come up with a topic and develop a plan for gathering information by use of surveys. They can then administer the surveys and gather relevant information. With the relevant information they can then make notes of the information they gathered about their topic from the surveys. With the information gathered they can create connections and patterns from the information and come up with rationals about why questions were answered the way they were and how they compare to previous ideas. In retrospect, surveys allow students to generate hypothesis around a given topic, create questions, develop questions to test their hypotheses, make observations of the testing and results, and then relay the results of the information.

Resources Needed: >
 * Computer with internet access to get multiple surveys available through Microsoft online
 * Microsoft Office 2007

**Technology 3-Simulating Games-Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa**



Rationale: Interaction between the student and the learning process generates an environment of better learning and understanding of information. When a student can interact and see their lesson they are more likely to engage in the material and put forth the effort to understand it better. Students will begin to ask questions about the material and form their own opinions and ideas about why things happen the way they do. Simulation games are a great way for students to interact with their learning experience. The students are able to role play with the topic or material and make predictions about how the topic will react to certain situations and the environment around them. When students are able to see and interact with the learning experience, they will start to ask questions focused around the topic, generate hypotheses, and feel confident about testing their ideas about the topic in a safe and fun way. With simulation games, students will gather an understanding of the main ideas of their given topic and their predictions surrounding it. With this, simulating games allow students to test and see what ideas of theirs are right and wrong. They are able to generate ideas about why their thoughts were wrong or right and think of new hypotheses in which to focus their investigation on. Students will be able to apply patterns and connections between materials and apply them to future hypotheses around the topic. Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa is a wonderful simulation game that will cause students to generate and test their hypotheses around the ecosystem in Africa and how it affects the elements of that environment. This is a great game for students to role play and to generate questions about how things will work and why they work they way they do in that environment. Students will formulate ideas about how things will turn out if they try something new or slightly change an aspect of the area. This would be a wonderful and fun technological tool for tackling the 5th grade life sciences academic standard. Students will be able to compare changes in an organism's ecosystem/habitat that affect its survival. They can then generate and test hypotheses about changes to the ecosystem and how it could affect the environment. With this interactive simulation game, and others like it, students will get a better understanding of the learning material and the concepts of it.

Resources Needed: 
 * Computer with internet Access
 * Computer that is compatible with the system requirements of the software
 * Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa game-$19.99 each

The educational challenge for this strategy would be literacy development because the development of literacy is not limited to just reading and thinking but also includes becoming literate in the world of technology and communication. In order for students to succeed in the world today they must have a general understanding and knowledge of the technology that is available and how it can be manipulated to benefit one's needs. Students are going to be expected to be able to use certain types of technology throughout their lives from primary to secondary schooling to higher education and their careers. The only way that students are going to be able to develop this literacy, in terms of technology and communication, is to actually use the technology in the educational realm. The scaffolding teaching technique through Google documents helps to develop this literacy in technology and communication. Students are able to collaborate with others or work by themselves and create material that can be viewed by all over the internet. Students are going to be able to take the information that they are presented with on the Google document and reflect on the ideas that are presented and form ideas on how things work around a given topic. They are then going to be able to revise the material based on new information found, testing their ideas, and feedback from others. This technology is going to allow students to connect with their fellow learners and other learners, if applicable, it is going encourage student to think, test, and revise ideas presented in the material, and to collaborate with others to generate a successful hypotheses and test that hypotheses. Google documents is a wonderful technological tool that is going to help students with their development of literacy and become more familiar with technology and using it in their educational experiences and career.
 * Education Challenge: **

= Introduction < = = Cues, Questions & Advance Organizers < = =  = = Homework & Practice > = = <span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; color: black;">Identifying Similarities & Differences > = = <span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; color: black;">Nonlinguistic Representation > = = <span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; color: black;">Providing Feedback > = = <span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; color: black;">Reinforcing Effort > = = <span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; color: black;">Simulations & Games > = = <span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; color: black;">Summarizing & Notetaking > = = <span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; color: black;">Summary > = = <span style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; color: black;">Reflections > =