Parents & Teachers
Welcome Grown-Ups!
Thank you for trusting Janet’s Planet as a resource for your children. Janet’s Planet wants your children not to be passive, but rather active learners. I believe what the physicist Rutherford said is true, “Science is a way of looking at the world and asking questions.” Janet’s Planet invites girls and boys to ask questions to ensure that critical thinking is reinforced. At the core of Janet’s Planet there is a message that inspires lifelong learning and scientific literacy. The world of Janet’s Planet is filled with creativity and rich interactions. Our goal is to strategically design our programs in a way that educates and inspires scientific inquiry. Each program is grounded in educational research to ensure that we do more than just entertain.
The mission of Janet’s Planet is to work, engage and build with raw materials; and we are not talking about aluminum, steel or titanium. We are talking about the raw material of minds… young minds, brilliant minds, and future scientific and engineering minds.
With all my heart, I feel that unless we tap and fuel the scientific potential of our youth, the next generation of inventors, scientists and space explorers are in danger of not coming into being in numbers great enough to impact the needs of the global community.
Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Janet’s Planet seeks to bring to light the wonderful creativity that is an integral part of science.
Here at Janet’s Planet we recognize that there is a critical void in early science education and math literacy skills. Research shows that early elementary age groups are the most effective and appropriate developmental stages for introducing basic science and math concepts.
Janet’s Planet science curriculum mission is to provide an important foundation for the development of critical thinking skills – a key component to a child’s success in life!
The expert team of educators, writers, scientists, and media specialists works to ensure that Janet’s Planet delivers a dynamic, focused, fun learning experience for children to learn about the world around them.
Thanks for visiting Janet’s Planet. Come back often as we promise to do our best to bring the universe to your children and students!
Cosmic Peace to All!
*For more information, please email Janet at janet@janetsplanet.com or call our headquaters, 615-415-9785.
JP's EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES
The following principles and research guides the use of multi-media and the formal of all Janet’s Planet programs.
The Three Types of Learning
There is more than one type of learning. A committee of colleges, led by Benjamin Bloom, identified three domains of educational activities:
-
Cognitive: Mental skills (knowledge)
-
Affective: Growth in feeling or emotional areas (attitude)
-
Psychomotor: Manual or physical skills (skills)
Effective Questioning Promotes Critical
- Thinking and Understanding:
In 1956, Benjamin Bloom headed a group of educational psychologists who developed a classification of level of intellectual behavior important in learning. Bloom found that over 95% of the test questions students encounter require them to think only at the lowest possible level.. the recall of information. Bloom identified six levels within the cognitive domain, from the simple recall or recognition of facts, as the lowest level, through increasingly more complex and abstract mental levels, to the highest order, which is classified as evaluation. Verb examples that represent intellectual activity on each level are listed here.
-
Knowledge: Arrange, define, duplicate, label, list, memorize, name, order, recognize, relate, recall, repeat, and reproduce state.
-
Comprehension: Classify, describe, discuss, explain, express, identify, indicate, locate, recognize, report, restate, review, select, translate.
-
Application: Apply, choose, demonstrate, dramatize, employ, illustrate, interpret, operate, practice, schedule, sketch, solve, use, and write.
-
Analysis: Analyze, appraise, calculate, categorize, compare, contrast, criticize, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine, experiment, question, and test.
-
Synthesis: Arrange, assemble, collect, compose, construct, create, design, develop, formulate, manage, organize, plan, prepare, propose, set up, and write.
-
Evaluation: Appraise, argue, assess, attach, choose compare, defend estimate, judge, predict, rate, core, select, support, value, evaluate.
Qualitative & Quantifiable Benefits
Qualitative and Quantifiable Benefits on student learning when using Janet’s Planet presentation
Quantitative: Janet promotes curiosity, creativity, and enjoyment in learning. Her multiple approaches in the presentations of ideas/concepts representing multiple intelligences/learning styles, adds to a positive classroom environment. Her interactive, cooperative approach to learning leads to more motivated and engaged student learning.
Qualitative: The methodology, which Janet uses when covering material / objectives in Janet’s Planet shows, is also influenced by research about how to enhance student achievement.
a) Follows National Standards and State Standards so there are specific objective for teachers to measure
b) Janet’s Planet is meant to be used as a supplement to teacher’s instruction, not as a substitute for the teacher doing direct instruction, but it allows the teacher to focus more on formative assessment while Janet does the presentation of material and the teacher checks for understanding. (Based on research on interactive video methods and hypermedia incorporation, pages 228 and 229)
c) Research by Mayer (1989) was concerned with searching for principles of multimedia design that enhanced science outcomes. HE found it was very important for teachers to help students connect verbal explanations to visual ones. Having both allows more appropriate visual and verbal models to be built and retained.
d) Janet models good questioning which research shows leads to improved comprehension, learning and memory of material. Janet’s Planet curriculum can/will include ways for teachers to monitor questioning in order to provide feedback and formative assessment of student learning. We know questioning techniques will personalize feedback to students and have on-going formative assessment enhance achievement.
* Visible Learning is a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement.