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Early years foundation stage (EYFS) statutory framework

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The standards that school and childcare providers must meet for the learning, development and care of children from birth to 5.

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The national curriculum for England to be taught in all local-authority-maintained schools.

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The traditional course of teaching in a classroom requires a board for the teacher to demonstrate. Role playing within the virtual classroom is another way of creating awareness and interest on various issues.

Andrey_Popov/Shutterstock.com

The Worth Of A Virtual Classroom: How Does It Help Modern Learners?

Teaching and learning are a fast changing form. Technology has opened doors of learning wide, and as a result the classroom, the learners, and the instructors are all changed beings today. It cannot be denied that learners today differ in competence and motivation levels at all learning platforms, be it a classroom or an eLearning module. The exposure to newer technologies has led to a gap between the levels of teaching or instruction that a learner expects and what the instructor is able to impart. In such an environment it becomes difficult to attract and sustain the learner's interest in the subject matter. Traditional classroom teaching requires a board for the teachers to demonstrate. Other teaching aids like charts, graphs, or flash cards are also used. Keeping these time tested dictates in mind, the virtual classroom has been created, using the internet or intranet as the link. This "classroom" is similar to a traditional classroom of schools and colleges. The difference is in its methodology of imparting the same course of teaching; while the teacher probably still uses a board (a digital whiteboard, in this case), he or she has the choice of using a number of aids to make the lesson more lively and interactive.

1. Audiovisuals are extensively used to invite attention of students and retain it for long.
This platform allows the teacher to access various graphic tools which helps demonstrate in a manner that speaks more than "just words". In a matter of seconds, numbers can be depicted in different kinds of charts and graphs. Color coding might be a simple enough application, but it also encourages retention by providing a visual stimulation in the form of color.

2. Interaction is key.
Most of the virtual classroom sessions are web-based, and thus a two-way interaction is also made possible in real-time. Just as in an actual classroom, the teacher and the students can engage in question-answer sessions. Debates can be conducted, as can various other forms of interactive learning tools like role-playing.

3. Internet itself is a huge repository of knowledge.
Instead of simply stating examples or case studies, they can be explored through the internet. And since the target audience, the students, spend maximum hours browsing internet, it is a territory they feel most at ease in. It is almost like they are not doing it as a part of their curriculum but for fun. And so, the students who might not actively participate in any discussion in a classroom maybe surprisingly vocal in an online poll or discussion board. A simple role-changing -of the classroom to an online community, the teacher to the moderator, and the students to the participants- can work wonders.

4. Effective role playing is encouraged.
Role playing within the virtual classroom is another way of creating awareness and interest on various issues. The rules of the role play are laid out and a demo is run to show how it works. The audience is then invited to participate in a similar exercise. The art of negotiation is taught when classroom is split into the management, the union and workers. Roles are interchanged for different sessions, to understand the nuances of each role - its demands and limitations. Another skill that is fruitfully learnt by effective role playing is that of business communication. The class is split into different groups of people, who communicate within an organization and a dialogue is run amongst them. The tone and format of communication, within the boundaries of organizational hierarchy, are thus experienced.

5. Plenty of feedback tools.
At the beginning of the session it is a good idea to familiarize users to find emoticons and feedback tools provided in the virtual classroom. For example, emoticons like laughter, applause, agree and disagree icons are very popular among all learner groups. Learners should be given the opportunity to try them out and instructors can use them too to lighten the mood. Instructions can be given to use the emoticons prudently - the laughter emotion when something is funny, or the applause button when a statement is particularly exciting.

Keeping in mind the diktat that one never ceases to learn, as eLearning developers we have to continue to learn more about modern learners and work towards creating stronger, as well as more effective platforms of technology-enabled learning.

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5 Teaching Techniques In The Virtual Classroom - eLearning Industry

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The traditional course of teaching in a classroom requires a board for the teacher to demonstrate. Role playing within the virtual classroom is another way of creating awareness and interest on various issues. Andrey_Popov/Shutterstock.com Teaching and learning are a fast changing form.

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Using QR Codes in the Classroom to Enhance Learning

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Have you used QR Codes in the classroom yet? Here are a few easy ideas that will get you started using QR Codes in your classroom.

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Might be useful for digital technologies

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Free Online QR Code Generator to make your own QR Codes. Supports Dynamic Codes, Tracking, Analytics, Free text, vCards and more.

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Althought american website she offers good activities that can be useful when learning about the main subjects of the curriculum.

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Students investigate vertebrates and invertebrates with this engaging, hands-on science activity to determine the purpose of the backbone.

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What are concept maps?

Concept maps are visual representations of information. They can take the form of charts, graphic organizers, tables, flowcharts, Venn Diagrams, timelines, or T-charts. Concept maps are especially useful for students who learn better visually, although they can benefit any type of learner. They are a powerful study strategy because they help you see the big picture: by starting with higher-level concepts, concept maps help you chunk information based on meaningful connections. In other words, knowing the big picture makes details more significant and easier to remember.

Concept maps work very well for classes or content that have visual elements or in times when it is important to see and understand relationships between different things. They can also be used to analyze information and compare and contrast.

Making and using concept maps

Making one is simple. There is no right or wrong way to make a concept map. The one key step is to focus on the ways ideas are linked to each other. For a few ideas on how to get started, take out a sheet of paper and try following the steps below:

Identify a concept.

From memory, try creating a graphic organizer related to this concept. Starting from memory is an excellent way to assess what you already understand and what you need to review.

Go through lecture notes, readings and any other resources you have to fill in any gaps.

Focus on how concepts are related to each other.

Your completed concept map is a great study tool. Try the following steps when studying:

Elaborate (out loud or in writing) each part of the map.

List related examples, where applicable, for sections of the map.

Re-create your concept map without looking at the original, talking through each section as you do.

Examples of concept maps

Example 1: This example illustrates the similarities and differences between two ideas, such as Series and Parallel Circuits. Notice the similarities are in the intersection of the 2 circles.

Example 2: This example illustrates the relationship between ideas that are part of a process, such as a Food Chain.

Example 3: This example illustrates the relationship between a main idea, such as climate change, and supporting details.

Example 4: Outlining is a less visual form of concept mapping, but it might be the one you're most familiar with. Outlining by starting with high-level course concepts and then drilling down to fill in details is a great way to determine what you know (and what you don't know) when you're studying. Creating an outline to start your studying will allow you to assess your knowledge base and figure out what gaps you need to fill in. You can type your outline or create a handwritten, color-coded one as seen in Example 5.

Additional study strategies

A concept map is one tool that you can use to study effectively, but there are many other effective study strategies. Check out these resources and experiment with a few other strategies to pair with concept mapping.

Make an appointment with an academic coach to practice using concept maps, make a study plan, or discuss any academic issue.

Attend a workshop on study strategies to learn about more options, get some practice, and talk with a coach.

How can technology help?

You can create virtual concept maps using applications like Mindomo, TheBrain, and Miro. You may be interested in features that allow you to:

Connect links, embed documents and media, and integrate notes into your concept maps

Search across maps for keywords

See your concept maps from multiple perspectives

Convert maps into checklists and outlines

Incorporate photos of your hand-written mapping

Testimonials

Learn more about how a Writing Center coach uses TheBrain to create concept maps in our blog post, TheBrain and Zotero: Tech for Research Efficiency.

Works consulted

Holschuh, J. and Nist, S. (2000). Active learning: Strategies for college success. Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License.
You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Learning Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

If you enjoy using our handouts, we appreciate contributions of acknowledgement.
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What are concept maps? Concept maps are visual representations of information. They can take the form of charts, graphic organizers, tables, flowcharts, Venn Diagrams, timelines, or T-charts. Concept maps are especially useful for students who learn better visually, although they ... Read more

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Children's ideas about the solar system and the chaos in learning science

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Findings from a quasi‐experimental study of children's ideas about the solar system and how these ideas changed in response to a 10‐week intervention period of formal astronomy teaching at a single p...

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Used in TMA04

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Journal Information

Tables of contents for recent issues of Mind are available at http://www3.oup.co.uk/mind/contents . Authorized users may be able to access the full text articles at this site. Mind has long been the leading journal in philosophy. For well over 100 years it has presented the best of cutting edge thought in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of logic, and philosophy of mind.

Publisher Information

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. OUP is the world's largest university press with the widest global presence. It currently publishes more than 6,000 new publications a year, has offices in around fifty countries, and employs more than 5,500 people worldwide. It has become familiar to millions through a diverse publishing program that includes scholarly works in all academic disciplines, bibles, music, school and college textbooks, business books, dictionaries and reference books, and academic journals.

Note: This article is a review of another work, such as a book, film, musical composition, etc. The original work is not included in the purchase of this review.

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Journal Information Tables of contents for recent issues of Mind are available at http://www3.oup.co.uk/mind/contents . Authorized users may be able to access the full text articles at this site. Mind has long been the leading journal in philosophy.

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Shows info on photosynthesis

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For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about licensing content on this page, please contact ngimagecollection@natgeo.com for more information and to obtain a license. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please visit our FAQ page.

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Shows me how to plan a science lesson effectively and what is taught in the curriculum.

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Needed on hand just in case

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Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research, fourth edition (2018)

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This extensively revised, expanded and updated fourth edition of BERA’s Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research is designed to support educational researchers in conducting research to the…

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Brilliant website children could use to help learn about the moons and the universe.

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A lot of moons or no moons at all?

We on Earth have just one moon, but some planets have dozens of them. Others don't have any. Which planets have moons, and which don't?

Let's go in order from the Sun.

Mercury and Venus

Up first are Mercury and Venus. Neither of them has a moon.

Because Mercury is so close to the Sun and its gravity, it wouldn't be able to hold on to its own moon. Any moon would most likely crash into Mercury or maybe go into orbit around the Sun and eventually get pulled into it.

Why Venus doesn't have a moon is a mystery for scientists to solve.

Earth (That's us!)

Up next is Earth, and of course we have one moon.

Mars

Mars has two moons. Their names are Phobos and Deimos. Don't you wish our moon had a cool name like that?

Jupiter

Next are the giant outer planets. They have lots of moons. Jupiter, for instance, has 79 known moons!

The most well-known of Jupiter's moons are Io (pronounced eye-oh), Europa, and Callisto. Jupiter also has the biggest moon in our solar system, Ganymede.

These moons are so big you can see them with just a pair of binoculars.

Saturn

Saturn has 53 moons that have been named. Saturn also has 29 moons awaiting confirmation. They're unconfirmed because we're waiting to get more information about them. If all of these moons get confirmed, Saturn will have 82 moons. And that's not counting Saturn's beautiful rings.

Saturn's moons have great names like Mimas, Enceladus, and Tethys. One of these moons, named Titan, even has its own atmosphere, which is very unusual for a moon.

Uranus and Neptune

Uranus has 27 moons that we know of. Some of them are half made of ice.

Lastly, Neptune has 14 named moons. One of Neptune's moons, Triton, is as big as dwarf planet Pluto.

To learn more about the moons in our solar system, visit the NASA Solar System Exploration moons page.

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We on Earth have just one moon, but some planets have dozens of them. Others don't have any. Which planets have moons, and which don't? Let's go in order from the Sun. Up first are Mercury and Venus. Neither of them has a moon.

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Used when looking into plants and evolving my previous knowledge.

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Imagine walking out into a crop field or pasture. What do you notice? Perhaps you see amber waves of grain out to the horizon or hear the leaves rustling in a cool breeze. But would you ever think about what's beneath your feet? What lurks in that hidden world, and why does it matter to you?

As you look at all the growth aboveground, you might consider that just as much plant mass is invested in roots. In fact, in the springtime, 1 acre of grassland or pasture may have about 1,000 pounds of standing shoot mass aboveground but as much as 3,500 pounds of roots below ground, in the top foot of soil.
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Roots' Role

Plants are like a factory, using energy from sunlight to produce sugar in their leaves that provides the carbon backbones for making all the other molecules required for life. In order to build more leaves with their green chlorophyll, plants need to send their roots out into the soil to forage for water and mineral nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. These nutrients are required for making proteins, like chlorophyll, and to fuel the molecular energy system in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Also, DNA itself requires phosphorus. Once a new leaf is built, water from the soil is taken up by the roots and eventually evaporates from the leaves. Essentially, the whole plant is acting like a straw, with the tips of the roots taking up water from the soil.

Improved Root Design

When pondering how to optimize root systems, we have to think carefully. More roots are not always better. Roots are built from the carbon gained during photosynthesis, meaning they represent a construction cost. All those roots also require carbon for normal operations such as respiration, which is the maintenance cost.

Therefore, optimizing root systems requires both engineering and economic principles about how to efficiently explore soil with as few roots as possible. In fact, many human factories use this marginal value theorem from economics to decide which parts of the factory to invest in, always maximizing the investment's profit per unit cost.

Designing better roots is an important avenue for helping people. With better roots, we can increase yield, reduce fertilizer use and pollution, and promote soil health.

In basic research and breeding programs at the Noble Research Institute, we consider aspects of root system architecture including root angles, number of axial roots, lateral root branching density and root diameters. We use image-based plant measurement, or phenotyping, among many other approaches.

Benefits of Better Roots

However, roots don't matter only to the plant. In fact, roots are central to soil health, which ultimately relies on the photosynthetic abilities of plants to provide food to the entire ecosystem. As roots explore, they release sugars, organic acids and other compounds into the soil during the exudation process. Through this process and others, soil around the roots becomes a special place called the rhizosphere (rhizo means root in Greek). These organic compounds can promote beneficial soil microbes, such as bacteria and fungi, and inhibit plant pathogens. Beneficial soil microbes increase carbon and nutrient cycling in the soil, ultimately benefiting plants.

As roots die, the entire organ becomes dinner for the microbial community along with other soil creatures like worms and insects. All these root-derived inputs are fundamental to creating and storing soil carbon and are a driving force for soil health, as increased soil carbon allows for better water infiltration and storage in pastures and fields.

Designing better roots is an important avenue for helping people. With better roots, we can increase yield, reduce fertilizer use and pollution, and promote soil health. At the Noble Research Institute, we are screening natural diversity for root traits in several crop and pasture species; with the creation of new knowledge, we will include these traits in breeding programs to release new cultivars with improved root systems.

So, the next time you're outside admiring the beauty aboveground, don't forget there is an equally beautiful and complex world under your feet.

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Why Roots Matter to Soil, Plants and You

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Imagine walking out into a crop field or pasture. What do you notice? Perhaps you see amber waves of grain out to the horizon or hear the leaves rustling in a cool breeze. But would you ever think about what's beneath your feet? What lurks in that hidden world, and why does it matter to you?

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Saved because they simplify learning so I can understand it. I have used during TMA01 whilst looking into plants and space.

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Use BBC Bitesize to help with your homework, revision and learning from KS1 to GCSE. Find free videos, step-by-step guides, activities and quizzes.