Talk:Simulations for Inquiry Course

You're creating a very interesting mini-course.

Re. objectives -- Jianwei Zhang 09:50, 22 November 2008 (EST)

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
Understand what simulations are
Understand why simulations can be used for student inquiry
Generate list of possible difficulties and learning supports when using simulations
Demonstrate how the use of simulations promotes inquiry

Tom, unit 1 is not reflected in your list of course-level objectives. You may want to add an objective statement about inquiry learning.

The last objective on your list: "Demonstrate how the use of simulations promotes inquiry" might be rephrased to highlight what the teacher can do to facilitate simulation-based inquiry and help student deal with the difficulties.

Some Comments on Your Course -- Ccwhirley 14:12, 4 December 2008 (EST)

Tom, Wow! You did a fantastic job. Your course objectives were very clear and the progression of your activities within each unit was great. I was very fascinated by your course because your work was very reminiscent of the WISE approach. Your work made thinking visible by allowing students to reflect on their experiences. You made science accessible by providing links to resources and using images to establish a connection. You helped students construct knowledge from each other by creating group activities where they solved problems together. Lastly, you prompted life long learning by providing activities that allowed students to get the full experience. I enjoyed the experience I got from the build a star simulation. Not only was it fun and interactive, but it taught me a lot.

You did a wonderful job. Everything was very thorough. The only question I have is about your discussion area. Where is it? You referred to it and I couldn’t find it.

Oh, one last thing. I wanted to tell you how to center your images. You have this rectangle that appears around all of your images that is very distracting. To center them, go to the edit page. In front of your html code for the image, put a whole bunch of colons, side by side, until your image is in the spot where you want it. That will remove the rectangular box. It should look like:

Re: Some Comments on Your Course -- Tcutonilli 10:40, 5 December 2008 (EST)

Thanks for the suggestions and comments!! I must admit, after reading your mini-course, It gave me an idea how to do the discussion page. Also, thanks for the suggestion on how to center my images - somehow I missed how to do that. It does look much better now that I have fixed it.

Thanks a bunch!!