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How Can Playing With a Motion Detector Help Children Learn to Write Clear Sequential Directions?
Hogan, K. (2007). How can playing with a motion detector help children learn to write clear sequential directions? In D. Roberts, C. Bove, and E. van Zee (Eds.) Teacher research: Stories of learning and growing (pp. 2-9). Arlington, VA: National Science Teachers Association Press.
In this assignment, students were asked to simply reflect (just employing an after-reading strategy) about what they had read.
Assignment
Write a reflection that includes: What is something interesting you learned from reading this article? Why might learning sequential directions be important for children to learn? How might you use this idea for yourself, or for your own classroom some day? Explain!
Student Responses
| XXXXXXXXX | Post-Reading |
|---|---|
| Student 1 | This article was very interesting. First, I would have thought that these students would have been too young to understand motion detectors, however, they were able to use them and understand what they were doing with them. They were able to relate the line graphs they made with the motion detectors to real life situations and look at other students graphs to see how they did their line graphs. The motion detectors help students with sequential direction because they have to put events in order to make the right graph. This also helps them when using sequential words like, first, second, next, lastly and finally. I think this would be a great experiment for the students in my future classroom. It would allow them to have fun and play with cars. At the same time, they would be learning about force, position over time, velocity over time and acceleration over time. They would also learn about sequential events. |
| Student 2 | What is something interesting you learned from reading this article? This wasn’t really something that I learned, but I thought that it was a neat idea to have the children first write out their directions and then try them out to see if they actually worked, or needed more information. I feel like that’s a fun hands on kind of thing. Why might learning sequential directions be important for children to learn? Because giving directions is something that they have to do everyday. When the teacher gives directions in class or parents at home. Therefore by learning how to do it themselves, it could help them follow these directions better. How might you use this idea for yourself, or for your own classroom some day? Explain! Like I mentioned before I really like the idea of showing the children how if information is left out, you cant accomplish what you are trying to accomplish. Then having them try to write down directions without trying it, and then trying it too see if they left out any small details. That sounds like something I would like to do even know. |
| Student 3 | I really like the idea that you need to teach to the student. Each person learns differently so it is important to know how your students learn so you can better teach them. Because of this difference in learning, I think it is very interesting that this teacher decided to use motion detectors to help all students learn. I don’t know if I would have thought of doing that on my own, though it really seemed to work for this class. When you are able to teach to all your students using only this device, by all means, use it!Sequential directions are important for students because they will be using directions their whole lives. We see this importance by the standards that teachers are required to teach. This stresses the importance of order words, such as first, next, then and last. These are used not only in real life but all throughout school. The sooner they are able to use sequential directions, the clearer their directions for anything will be in the future.I might use this idea in my future classroom one day because it helps incorporate many different kinds of learners in my lessons. This will also be exciting for about any kid you have in your classroom. Using the motion detectors can get the kids involved and excited, and this is as much as any teacher can ask for. When students are excited about something this is when real learning happens because they want to see what happens next. If this is all it takes to get my students involved and excited, it is definitely worth it. |
| Student 4 | I found it very interesting that this first grade class was doing the same thing that we were doing in our class, with working with motion detectors and figuring out how to read the graphs. It is interesting how she is using this with such young children but I like how she is not focusing on the x-axis and y-axis at the beginning or even really getting into line graph. She just wants the children to enjoy playing with the motion detectors and try to figure out how the graph does certain things. I like how the children discussed each other’s graphs and then would try and figure out what they had to do in front of the motion detector to get their graph to look like that. I really liked how the children began to understand line graphs by actively participating in the activity. It is really good how she had the students draw a picture of their graph and then incorporated literature by having the children write a sentence to explain what they did to make the graph. This allows children to explain what they saw and what they did while working on writing and drawing the graph. I enjoyed seeing how she worked on having the children write clear sequential directions first with directions such as how to get from one room to the next. Then she switched to writing directions of the motion detector so that they could explain exactly step by step how they made the graph so that someone else could make the same graph if they wanted too. This whole activity with motion detectors is such a good one with so many different things involved in it which are good for development. This is not something I would have guessed to do with a first grade class but now that I see it is possible to do it with children that young if you just separate the steps making it much easier for them to understand. This is something that I would really enjoy doing with my young class someday because I can see how much fun those children had along with how much they progressed through the whole activity. |
| Student 5 | I thought it was very interesting that the article was based off of Mrs. Roberts working with a first grade class. After using the motion detectors in class I would not think to use them with children so young. It was interesting to me to see that the use of motion detectors can be done with young students in a successful way. I thought it was very interesting how the students were connecting their line graphs to real life things and comparing and contrasting their graphs with other students. I also found it interesting to hear about the progression the students went through. They were first playing around and gradually began to understand position vs. time graphs. Learning sequential directions is part of our everyday life. Children need to know the sequential direction of reading a book, looking at a recipe, reading a graph, looking at a map, etc. Learning sequential direction allows children to learn specifics that they are able to apply not only to science, but to their everyday life as well. I will use this idea with my classroom one day by allowing them to experiment with motion detectors. I now know that these can successfully be used with younger children. I will run through the process with my students the same as Mrs. Roberts did, as well as how we did in class. I feel that it is important to incorporate writing into this assignment. I would have the children draw and explain their findings and compare and contrast what they have found with other students’ findings in the class. After using the motion detectors I would give the students an assignment to assess their ability to give specific directions from one place to another. I agree with the article in that motion detectors are not needed for children to learn about graphs and directions, but they are a fun way to engage the children and have them learn successfully through exploration. |
| Student 6 | I thought that it was interesting that the teacher made reference to the cultural diversity of her students. I wonder how she accommodated the ELLs for writing directions? Did the children have access to the vocabulary for giving directions? This would be important for their future success in science and in writing English.I thought that she made an excellent point about engagement for the class. This activity was interesting for them to explore and they were really brainstorming and experimenting with the motion detectors. I think that this helped her to engage the students in writing as they could visualize what they were writing about. There used to be a great clown act on Sesame Street where children directed “Mr. Noodle” to do a task such as reading a book, getting into bed etc. and he followed exactly what he was told to do without prior knowledge such as holding the book backwards or upside down. This showed how to give more precise or descriptive directions as in this lesson. I learned from this article how something that seems relatively simple needs a little thought to break down exactly what the learning objectives are. By looking at giving direction words the teacher could channel the student towards more meaningful interpretation of graphs with motion detectors.It is important for children to learn about sequential directions to make sense of an ordered world and to help them make sense of disorder in the world. Directions are used in so many things from instruction manuals to recipes. Children need to be able to follow directions, but also to be able to order their own thoughts by learning how to break things down into steps. An example would be telling children to tidy their bedrooms which can be an overwhelming task, but if broken down into 1) pick up toys, 2) pick up clothes, 3) pick up litter etc. it becomes a more realistic goal.I think that I would use many hands-on activities to stimulate writing ideas and directions. For younger children they could make something creative with recycled materials or lego etc. and have them first describe to a partner then come up with an instruction manual on how to build their creation. My son is now using Lego design by me where he makes his own creation on the website. Following this he could write down the sequence of steps that he followed and have another child build from his directions. This is also reinforces the science concept of being able to replicate an experiment. |
