K-12 Teaching in the 21st Century
(I'm in MOOC Heaven!)
Module 1: Create
Pinterest? How can that be used in education? There are numerous innovative ways to answer that question.
I tweaked an idea I read about in an article in Module 1 of the MOOC I am taking...and loving. I found the article in the Delicious account of the course. The article suggested using Pinterest to help ESL students learn vocabulary. What a great idea! I think it could be used for anybody learning vocabulary words. Attaching a visual image to a definition can go a long way in helping to understand the meaning of the definition, as well as how to apply that word within everyday language. I think this exercise will help learners internalize vocabulary words so that they aren't a distant list of words that one needs to memorize for a test. Going through the VERY FUN process of attaching an image, that actually may not have any direct relation to the word helps reinforce the meaning and usage of words. The exercise I gave myself was to make a Pinterest Board for my son's vocabulary words. He is in fifth grade. And, I think he'd love the assignment I created, if I do say so myself.
Each day at school, my son's teacher gives the learners a Word of the Day. They study not only primary meanings of words, but secondary ones, as well as homophones. After two weeks, they are given a spelling and definition test. A companion assignment to the test could be a Pinterest Board featuring the correct spelling of the Words of the Day, their definitions, an example sentence correctly using the word and an image that relates to the example sentence. I think that this exercise personalizes the learning process as I'm guessing that the actual search for an image to "match" the example sentence is where the learning process is kicked into high gear. The photo doesn't have to exactly "match" the definition. For example, I used a picture I had on my computer of a shark matched to the word "desist". While I was thinking of the word "desist" and perusing my photos, this spooky profile of a shark cruising for its prey struck me. I made the personal connection at that moment between the definition of "desist" and the photo of the shark. I should desist in being proximity of a hungry shark. Now the meaning of the word is internalized, not just memorized. Interesting.
Feel free to check out my Words of the Day Pinterest Board below. I hope to keep building on it.
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