Farewell

  This class has been a roller coaster of emotions. All of us have had so much stress throughout this entire semester, but it was all worth it because we gained a lot from all of it. We have completed project after project and become better teachers because of each one. The best part was when we went to Sacred Heart and were able to actually teach students who are the age of the ones that we want to teach, Preparing for the lessons was definitely hours upon hours of hard work and frustration, but the end product made me feel like it was worth it. My favorite part of being in the classroom was our inquiry day because the students were all so genuinely excited about the activity!

I've been introduced to countless new resources and lesson ideas that I cannot wait to implement within my own classroom one day. I absolutely loved the book trailer and the inquiry lesson, so I want to teach those lessons in the future. I also liked the stoplights that my groups used; I think if it was something that the students used in their classroom everyday, then they would take it more seriously and they'd work even more effectively.

  This class teaches you how to really work with your peers in order to come up with the best possible lessons. It also requires a lot of reflection, whether it's about your own teaching or others. No matter which way you do it, each one is incredibly helpful. Sometimes you're exhausted and it seems unnecessary, but you'd be surprised how many things you pick up on when you take a minute to sit down and think back to how the lesson went. I could go on all day about the things we've done in this class and everything I've gained from this course, but you could find evidence of that within all of my other blogposts!

I also commented on some of my peers' blog posts which you can see below. We don't only reelecton each other's teaching, but we just reflect on the class as a whole.

Emily's Blog

Kim's Blog

Kristi's Blog

Mallory's Blog

So Close to Freedom!

   I'm finally finishing up the biggest project: our e-folio! It's honestly crazy how much time I've put into creating this e-folio and making sure that it looks perfect. I'm a little bit of a perfectionist, so doing one little sub tab takes me forever! I'm really happy with the way it's coming along though so I guess all of the handwork that I've put into it is going to pay off when I see the final product! While I'm putting it together, I'm starting to notice how many things I've actually completed throughout these past 15 weeks and it's amazing! I've had to go all the way back to the beginning of the semester to find projects that I did and reflect on all of them. It's intriguing how much you realize when you reflect on your own work. I hope you check out my e-folio and enjoy it so my hard work doesn't go to waste! I'm glad that we had to create one though because now I can easily access anything from this semester at any time!

Here is the link to my e-folio!

FWE

During this course, I taught a sixth grade class two lessons: a direct instruction lesson and an inquiry-based lesson. I used diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments for each lesson. The diagnostic assessments from each lesson consisted of questions that pre-assessed what the students already knew. For example, in the direct lesson, there was a word cloud on the first slide that the students looked at and shared some of the words that they recognized. During the inquiry-based lesson, The first slide contained five questions pertaining to metamorphic rocks and the rock cycle that they had learned about during the previous class. The formative assessments for both lessons was more observation based; I walked around throughout the lesson to see how the students were doing and if there were any confusions. I had to go over to some students’ desks and help them get back on track, but they were all good for the most part. Another formative assessment I used during the direct lesson was having review slides where the students had to answer questions. I would call on one student and the rest of the class would hold up either a green or red stoplight to say whether they agreed or disagreed. The summative assessment for the direct lesson was a sheet titled “Let’s Review!” that consisted of 6 fill-in-the-blank and short answer questions. There were a few students who didn’t seem to understand what the questions were asking because they answered the questions with other words that they learned that day. One questions asks what the two types of metamorphic rocks are, which would be foliated and nonfoliated, but one student put gneiss and quartzite. Those were the rocks that were passed around for the students to look at, but the student just didn’t understand exactly what the question was asking. The summative assessment for the inquiry-based lesson was for the students to write a rock story, which they were given the rubric for. They had to pretend they were a rock and explain what happened to them as they went through the rock cycle. Below is one example of each of the summative assessments:










We discussed the three different forms of assessments in the beginning of the semester during class and we were required to read about it in our textbook. I learned from this class and my Social Studies Methods class that diagnostic assessment is basically just a pre-test or a series of questions that you can ask to determine what the students already know. For both classes, we also created a pre-test that the students took before we started so we could have an idea of what they already know. Formative assessments are informal assessments that are conducted throughout the lesson without the students even noticing, which is typically done through observations or possibly even asking the students questions again. Summative assessments are given at the end of the lesson to inform you whether or not the students learned anything from the lesson. I think that all of the ones that I chose for my lessons were extremely important and followed the guidelines of what we discussed in class, as well as what we read in our textbook. After grading the summative assessments, I was able to tell where each individual student was. The formative and diagnostic assessments showed me that I didn’t spend enough time explaining the rock cycle because many students were still very confused by it. If I had the opportunity to spend another day with this class, I would definitely ask if they had any more questions and review the rock cycle in a much slower and more detailed way.

Some of the students have severe disabilities that effect their learning, so those students had some accommodations. One student has a one-on-one aide that stayed with him at all times to help him with each assignment. There was another student that typically had a teacher by her because she struggles with things such as writing and panics easily. An adult stayed close by to make sure she stayed calm and got everything done in a timely manner. There weren’t any other areas of concern that I was notified of and the students all completed their work during each lesson. The students all loved the inquiry lesson and were able to comprehend the rock cycle much more after the activity, but there was still some confusion. The inquiry lesson required the students to go through the rock cycle using crayons, so they further developed their understanding of what actually occurs during the rock cycle. The students were able to make connections between what they were doing with the crayons and the actual rock cycle, so they were able to apply it to real-life scenarios.

Collaboration and cooperation within the classroom is absolutely crucial. I believe that students should have the opportunity to work in groups more often than not because it allows them to bounce ideas off of each other and explain things in a way that the teacher may not be able to. The students worked together during the guided practice activities in the direct instruction lesson, but for the inquiry-based lesson, they were actually put into groups. One of the guided practice activities required the students to figure out where the index cards their group had belonged on the rock cycle chart. Each group had to discuss it and problem solve, then everyone got a chance to come up to the board and place their card where the group agreed it would go. The groups for the inquiry lesson had to go to each station together and figure out what was happening at each one as a group. The students were actively engaged in each lesson and seemed to genuinely enjoy it.

Book Trailer!

   This week I finally completed my book trailer! We had to choose a trade book based on our unit plan's topic and create a trailer for it. I've never had to do something like this before, so it may not be the most well-done trailer, but I think I did good for a first time! I really like the idea of this project and I think that students would love to be able to create a book trailer. It's fun and different than what they're used to doing in school. I think that it's a great way to get students to work together collaboratively. We did ours individually, but I created a mini-lesson based off of the idea of a book trailer where I require the students to work in groups in order to create book trailers. Personally, I chose Animoto to create my trailer, but you could give students the option to use other tools such as Powtoon, Voicethread, or even film a trailer where they have the opportunity to act in it! There are so many possibilities which is one reason why I really like this project!

Here is the link to my trailer if you would like to watch it!

   My book was actually kind of a mystery because you follow the journey of this one stone and learn all about how it formed, but they don't tell you which stone it is until the end of the book. I would love to use this book in my future classroom. It even has a sample experiment and an online activity in the back of the book that I think would be great to look at with the students after reading the book. This would be an ideal book to make a trailer for and we could even do it as a whole class after we read the story. There are so many ways to incorporate trade books and book trailers into the classroom and I can't wait to do so!

Explore the News!

   For one of our assignments, we had to find 7-10 articles about Astronomy that we liked. I chose to use Newsela because I like their articles and it's easy to find good information on any topic that you want. I took all of my articles and created a glogster with them. Some of the pictures that I included where the cover pictures for the articles that I chose. I think that Astronomy is fascinating; space goes on forever and it's crazy to think that we don't necessarily know everything that's out there. I've always really liked astronomy, but I haven't learned too much about it until I got the chance to read these articles so I'm really glad this was the topic that we were asked to focus on. We used the articles to create timelines and word clouds together in groups, which I've talked about in another blog post that includes the links! Here is the link to my glogster and a picture below!

   It's absolutely crucial for teachers to stay up to date with what's going on currently in the world in case students ask any questions or try to make connections to the topic you're focusing on. When you have real-life example, it also makes the students more interested in what's going on. Kids are often easily bored when you talk about things that happened long ago, but when you share something exciting that happened recently, they're more likely to get excited. Newsela is a great place to find articles about all of the new things happening in the world whether you want to do your own research or show the students some interesting articles. I would love to use Newsela in my future classroom because the articles are short and sweet and they contain Lexile levels which is great when you're finding articles for students. You could even use Newsela articles during guided reading time and pick articles for the different Lexile level groups!

Science Fair Time!

   Originally, we were supposed to conduct our own science fair experiments and create a glogster to show to the class, but we were given a research project instead. I found some articles based on science fairs that were actually pretty interesting. I'm glad our assignment was switched to this because I think it's more beneficial for us as future teachers to learn about the importance and set-up of science fairs as opposed to creating our own projects. I think that doing projects might've been more fun, but I still enjoyed reading about science fairs. The articles really emphasized kids doing the experiments by themselves and not getting too much help from their parents. "How to Put on a Great Science Fair!" talked about how kids learn by doing and science fairs allow them to have that opportunity. The best way to encourage students' accomplishments is to recognize them, especially when it's done publicly because they feel special and important. All of the articles also discuss how crucial it is to incorporate other subjects, particularly math since you need it to record data. They also stress how teachers should be involved in the process to help the students along by assisting students when they're creating their questions then monitoring the progress weekly and showing them how to analyze their data. On top of all of that, they need to explain the importance of oral presentations to students, so they know how to communicate their findings properly. The first article that I read, How to Put on a Great Science Fair!, also discussed how teachers should have a math lesson based on comparing items quantitatively, such as ratios and fractions. The author really wants the teachers to assist their students throughout the process, even with the poster making process. Teachers can have their students make drafts of the layout of their presentation during class or for homework. One thing that I really liked about this article is how it says that successful projects show students that they can learn for themselves and that the goal of education is to teach students to teach themselves.

   The second article I read, The Value of a Science Fair, mentioned how science fairs also improve students' computer research skills, library research skills, and they learn how to use different computer programs such as spreadsheets. Younger students don't typically have long assignments, so this allows them to have that opportunity and experience what it's like to have to plan out their project. It also talks about the communication skills that children gain because they have to figure out how to explain their project in a way that impresses the judges and clearly expresses what they're trying to say. I like how this article includes how science fairs give teachers the opportunity to discuss ethical issues such as plagiarism and falsification of data. These topics are incredibly imperative for students to know and learn about early on, so they understand the importance of them. Another thing this article mentions that really caught my attention is how science fairs are great examples of active learning and the inquiry process, which aren't employed enough in classrooms. We talked a lot about inquiry throughout the course of this semester, so it seemed extremely relevant. I also agree that inquiry isn't used enough in classrooms, which is a shame because students love it.

The third article I read, Science Fairs: Teaching Students to Think like Scientists, mentioned that a misconception that students have about science is that is must be conducted in a "cookbook sequence". I like that they included this in their article because we talked a lot about misconceptions in our class as well, so it's interesting to hear the misconceptions about science fairs too. It talks about how real science is actually unpredictable and we should be teaching students that, which was also discussed in class. This article was probably my favorite out of the three; one thing I liked about it was how they talked about science fairs as a chance for students to educate the teacher and tell you their discoveries. Everyone learns better when they can teach the information to someone else instead of just learning it, so I like the idea of having students teach the information to the teacher. The article was based on one community where they have volunteers such as other science teachers, retired teachers, engineering mentors, and environmental scientists who all help students conduct their research and refine their problems. The volunteers also help the students figure out the correct steps that they should complete in order to have an accurate experiment. Their goal is to teach students how to become researchers and I love that idea. I think that more schools should have systems like this because the students seemed to enjoy it and it's a great system to have in place to help the students improve their skills.

I used three articles to conduct my research on science fairs:

How to Put on a Great Science Fair!

The Value of a Science Fair

Science Fairs: Teaching Students to Think like Scientists

RAR: Reading and Writing About Science!

   I chose to read an article that was inquiry-based and it was about a research project called RWS (Reading and Writing About Science), which you can read here. I chose this article because I wanted to learn more about inquiry-based learning since I find it interesting. The article focused more on the reading and writing behind it, but I wanted to see how to include them without overdoing it. As you can probably guess from the title, the research is about finding ways to incorporate literacy into science in order to improve students' reading and writing skills in general. They have four basic components or steps that everyone is supposed to follow: connect, organize, reflect, and extend. Connecting is what every teacher should be doing in the beginning of any lesson by figuring out what the students already know about the topic and helping them make connections between the new information and what they already know. The organize stage is where they have to put together all of the information from different sources and make sense of it. Reflecting takes place when they discuss the information with others before they begin writing and completing the assignment is where the student extends their learning.
   I actually really enjoyed reading this article; it gave me some great ideas to use in the classroom. One thing that a teacher did during the connect phase was have students' comments on a piece of chart paper that was kept up on the wall throughout the unit which was revisited and revised by the students and teacher. The article also emphasizes the use of graphic organizers, especially ones that had a similar theme to what the students are writing about. The research project used webs, linear string, falling dominoes, branching trees, and matrices in order to "match" the topic and it actually improved the students' writing tremendously. It's interesting how much the type of graphic organizer can impact student performance; I didn't even think about how important it would be to choose one that goes along with the actual topic. Here are examples of the graph organizers that they used during this research:

I found this chart really helpful and I can use it in the future when I'm teaching science!

   This article also mentions misconceptions, which we talked a lot about in class so it was cool to see that in this research. They mentioned that the reflect phase is the last opportunity to correct any science misconceptions and solidify the knowledge they gained. The writing prompts used during this project must contain five elements: focus, audience, type, purpose, and supporting details in order to assist the students with the writing process. It also helps the teachers create assignments that assess student thinking and learning better. Here is an example of a writing prompt, student response, and graphic organizer that would be used as well as the breakdown of the five elements:

Sample:

   They try to focus the writing on authentic audiences such as science magazines and younger students, which I love because I've actually used similar audiences when I taught lessons to whole classes. One time I had second graders write letters to the first graders and this year I had the students write a story that we were sending to an author. It makes the writing more realistic and interesting for them, so they enjoy writing it more. This project also included sharing writing with peers and teachers, which I've found is also something that students absolutely love participating in. The purpose of sharing the writing, according to this article, is to show students what others write and give them examples so the students can compare their work to their peers. I think this is a good idea, but it could also be bad. Students should feel proud of their work and not feel like they're stupid because they can't write as well as another student might. I think that sharing writing is important, but the soul purpose shouldn't be to have students compare their work to others. One of the struggles they encountered during this project was to develop a rubric that scored the science content and not just the general writing piece, but they were eventually able to come up with one which can be seen below: 

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Rubric:

   Overall, this project was very successful and resulted in an increase in both length and coherence of the students' writing and the performance gap between students decreased tremendously. The article included some quotes from the teachers who were involved in this project which I have below: 

• “We [teachers] realize that narrative and exposition share features. But we now prefer exposition over narrative for teaching reading and writing—it’s more concrete, and instead of teaching narrative first to students, we think that exposition should be taught first and that read/write instruction should be content-based.”
• “The instructional methods we are using in RWS clue the kids in on what the instructional format is going to be. After doing one unit, the kids know what’s coming and prepare themselves along the way. It’s creating a reflective student, not just the teacher. Students are “owning” the instruction and are motivated.”
• “Instead of just creating scaffolds for content, we’re creating scaffolds for process. We’re creating successful practice, and think that it will lead to successful large-scale assessment.”

I would love to use this program in my own classroom because it seems effective and very organized. I especially like the different types of graphic organizers that they used. The article contained all of these examples, so I think that it's be easy to implement. Reading and writing is extremely important to incorporate throughout all subjects to help students become better readers and writers, so I like this program.

Skype-a-thon!

Today in class we skyped with a teacher from Kansas for the Skype-a-thon! 

I've never used Skype before, especially not during one of my classes! It was an amazing experience that everyone seemed to genuinely have fun with. We're all so stressed out with finals and finishing up projects before the end of the semester, so it was nice to do something fun and different! We skyped with an 8th grade class in Kansas whom we've never met. During the call, we played a little game where we asked each other questions related to where the other class lives. Some of the questions we asked were, "Do you live in the Northeast? Do you experience bad weather often?" and they asked things like, "Do you live in America? Do you border the Atlantic Ocean?" There were many other questions asked, but those are a few of the ones that I remember. The kids had maps on their desks where one side has the whole world and the other just had America. Once they figured out that we live in America too, then they flipped their maps over to the America side and started crossing things out after they asked other questions. I loved the idea of doing this in a classroom; none of my teachers ever did anything like this and I think I would've had so much fun doing it. I'm in college and I still had a great time, so I'm sure it would've been even more fun in elementary or middle school! The teacher we skyped with does this kind of stuff all of the time and her students love it, so I really want to incorporate this into my future classroom!

After we each figured out where the other one lives, the teacher showed us how we would close the lesson if we were teaching it on our own one day. She had the students review which questions they asked to determine if they were good or bad questions. Bad questions would be ones that didn't really help or could have been more specific to help them figure out the answer quicker. Then she spoke to us about all of the different things that the students have done through the use of Skype and how much she loves incorporating it in her class to make memorable lessons. Her speech was honestly very inspiring and gave me so many great ideas. It was awesome to see a teacher using technology in her classroom and explaining ways to still do it even if your school doesn't have the best technology. I absolutely love the map activity and I definitely want to try it one day; I can't wait!!

At the end, we all gave each other a "high-five" before our class ended.

Projects Projects Projects

   Since we've left fieldwork, we've done two group projects and presentations. Our first project was based off of a topic that our whole group felt like they knew the least about. Multiple groups, including mine chose atmosphere. At first, I didn't think I knew anything about the atmosphere, but once we started researching it and saw everything primarily talked about the different layers of the atmosphere (troposphere, stratosphere, thermosphere, and mesosphere) I realized that I actually did know some things about the atmosphere. I remember learning about the layers numerous times throughout my years in school. The other groups talked about the layers, but they incorporated some other information; my group really only focused on the layers. Each group had to use a cool online tool to create their lesson; powtoon and glogster were used the most. Here is the link to my group's glogster and here's a picture so you can have an idea of what our presentation looked like:

We included a video and showed the first two minutes during our presentation. At the end of our lesson, we played a kahoot which can be found here.  Almost every group used a kahoot, but nobody got tired of doing it because everyone loves competing against their friends. Personally, I love using kahoot whether I'm the one playing or the one conducting the lesson. It's a fun, competitive way to see what everyone remembers, so everyone enjoys doing it and from a teacher's point of view, it's great to see students become excited about the lesson.

After that project, we worked in pairs to teach the rest of the class about different topics in astronomy. Most people were given a planet to talk about; the one my partner and I worked on was Neptune. It was so interesting to research Neptune and find out so many new things about the planet. I enjoyed watching everyone else's presentations as well because I really didn't know that much about the planets. Here is the link to our class powerpoint with everyone's information! I find science interesting, especially things like this so I loved doing this project and listening to my classmates. My partner and I created slides 23-26. 

Time to Leave

Group 4 finished teaching this week, so we are no longer going to be in fieldwork during class! In the beginning of their direct lesson, they introduced the little flags that they would be using for the students to respond to questions. One side was a smiley face giving a thumbs and the other side had a confused emoji.
 

   They did a great job explaining all of the vocabulary words to the students and even modeled some of them. For example, when they were talking about the different types of boundaries (divergent, convergent, and transform), two teachers walked past each other to show what the plates were doing to each other. One thing they did that I thought was a little different was that they had students chorally repeat definitions on review slides, as opposed to asking questions to check for understanding. I've never seen it done like that, but it might have worked for these students. Then they did some creative activities; the one that I thought was really cool was where they folded up a piece of paper and put the continents on top of it using play-doh, then squished and pulled apart the paper to show the continents drifting apart and coming back together. I thought that was an amazing activity that really helped the students because I even heard some realize what was happening and connect it to the lesson!
   The inquiry lesson was set up in stations and each station had a cool activity to go along with it. The students went around to the different stations, but they ran out of time, so the students each missed out on one station! The one that I was closest to was where they had a jar of sand that they had the students stick an index card in and shake it to show how the layers of the earth get jumbled up during an earthquake. I found that activity to be creative and a great way to show the students that concept; they all seemed to have a lot of fun doing it. In the beginning they had something up on the board, which had emojis that bounced around when the students got loud. The louder they were, the higher the balls bounced. I've never seen that tool before, so I thought it was awesome, but a group of students were getting distracted by it, so the teachers had to turn it off. I think it'd be a great tool to use on a daily basis, but since it was their first time seeing it, they got a little rowdy.

Our Time to Shine!

   This week was finally my group's turn to teach! We were all so nervous and spent numerous hours rehearsing our lessons, but it was all worth it because both lessons went pretty well; the worst part was that we ran out of time both days! The first day, we did direct instruction and after every couple of slides, we dedicated a slide to review what was on the last couple of slides to check for understanding. We created stoplights for the students to use while answering questions to say whether they agree or disagree, which everyone seemed to love. There were some students who didn't take the materials seriously, but they were effective for the most part. We broke up the two different topics by doing a guided practice activity where the students created foliated and non-foloiated rocks using clay and sequins. The students had fun with it and they were good about putting it away for the rest of the lesson, which was such a relief! We had to rush through the second part of the lesson and the guided practice for the rock cycle, so the students were all a little confused. If we would've had a couple of extra minutes to explain the cycle better, then I think the activity would've gone much smoother. We also didn't have much time left to explain the independent practice to them, but it was six simple questions about what we learned and they had their note sheets, so they were able to figure it out.

   Our inquiry lesson was cut even shorter because the students came in late, but they also had to leave early, which we didn't find out until we only had 10 minutes left. Other than our time constraints, everything went relatively smoothly. The students loved being able to go through the rock cycle using crayons. I stayed in the front of the room for a majority of the inquiry lesson because that's where we had the crayon maker plugged in. One or two students came up at a time to see that the crayon maker was melting the pieces of crayon that I put in. I asked every student that came up to me to tell me which process was happening on top (melting) and what happens when you pour the liquid into the mold (cooling), then they told me what type of rock was forming and they sat back down. The students all thought that the crayon maker was really cool and wanted their own. We ended up running out of time of course, so not every student was able to do the metamorphic stage. We also had a whole closure planned out, but we didn't have enough time to do it. I wish we would've brought more sharpeners for the students, so they could've gone through the sedimentary rock part quicker and we weren't have been so pressed for time.

   Overall, both days went relatively well and we're all so glad that we made it through the week and can finally relax, especially since we all had midterms this week too!

Learning About Rocks

   Group 2 taught their lessons this week and they did a direct instruction lesson the first day, then an inquiry lesson the second day. During the direct lesson, they used individual whiteboards for the students to write their answers down to some questions. Their PowerPoint was a little difficult to read some days because of the format of their text, but they had students read definitions off of the board. I think that if students were going to be asked to read the definitions, then they should've been written in a clearer way. Information should always be displayed easily, but especially when students are asked to read it. Other than that, the lesson went smoothly for the most part. At one point, they filled out a chart about the differences between igneous and sedimentary rocks where the teachers displayed the answers in a tiny font and just had the students copy the information. It might've been better to put up one thing, then have them list the rest on their own then share what else you had in case they missed anything. I liked the idea of having the students put the post-it on the door as they were leaving.

   The teachers started the inquiry lesson with a word cloud, which they also printed out in order for the students to be able to have a better view of it. For the activity, the students were each given play-doh and got to create their own rock (either igneous or sedimentary). Once everyone created the rock, the teachers gave each kid a popsicle stick with a number on it and they had to go to that number rock and guess which type of rock the person created. After that, the students went back to their seats and the teachers pulled out the popsicle sticks again one at a time and the students had to stand up and say which type of rock they made, then the person who guessed for that rock checked whether they were right or wrong. I loved this activity; it seemed like so much fun. The use of the popsicle sticks was an amazing idea and it worked out so well. I wish there was a way to incorporate it into my group's lesson because I thought it was such an efficient way to do the activity!

And So It Begins...

   Group 1 went this week and they chose an interesting approach for their lessons. Instead of doing a direct instruction lesson the first day and an inquiry lesson the second day, they chose to do an inquiry lesson the first day and a cooperative lesson the second day. Personally, I was very confused in the beginning because I was unaware that they weren't doing a direct lesson. The students obviously enjoyed both days because they had the opportunity to do fun activities throughout both days, but I think there should have been a direct lesson to teach the concepts first. In the beginning of the inquiry lesson, the teachers went over several vocabulary words quickly and then moved onto the activity. I think that the vocabulary should've been done slower or broken up a little bit more between the to lessons. Other than that, the first day the students were each given a mineral bag where they had to identify the different types of minerals that their bags contained, then they presented their findings and one fact about their mineral. It was a great idea for the lesson and the students definitely enjoyed the activity.
   For the cooperative lesson, the students were asked to create a poster for one of the minerals that were in their bag during the inquiry lesson. The teachers brought in cool little gems and decorations for the students to use, so the posters looked awesome! After each group completed their poster, everyone went around and voted for which poster they thought was the best one. It was set up to be like a mineral show, which one of the teachers actually said she's been to before. I think it was so cool to have a teacher share that she's personally been to one. The lesson was such a great idea and the kids had so much fun doing it. The teachers seemed much more comfortable the second day as well, so the lesson as a whole was a success.

Fish is Fish

   In class today, we did a lesson about a mystery bag. Dr. Smirnova held up a bag and made us make predictions and a hypothesis. After we had a couple of different predictions, everyone was given five seconds to squeeze the bag and try to figure out what was inside of it. We discovered that there must be some kind of squeaky toy in the bag because one item was soft and squeaked every time you squeezed it. We also thought that there might be a rattle inside because if you shook the bag, it sounded like the little beads inside of a rattle. The activity was very engaging and fun for us, so it must be even better with younger kids! We never found out what was actually in the bag, which was a bummer.
   One thing that we discussed in class that I hadn't heard before is that a hypothesis is a tentative explanation. I think that that's an interesting way to look at it and it makes sense. We also discussed how science is all about uncertainty and not exact answers. I found that concept to be weird because school always seems to demand exact answers from students, but uncertainty can be reduced by collaboration, which we also do a lot of in science classes.
   At the end of class, we watched a video of the reading of Fish is Fish. It's a children's book about a tadpole that grows to be a frog and explores the world, then goes back to the ocean to describe it to his fish friend who has a hard time picturing the things the frog describes because he has never seen them for himself. The overall idea of listening to that book was because it represents the misconceptions that students may have, especially if they're not exposed to the topics you're talking about in class. It's much easier to understand science when you can do an experiment about the topic and see what happens with your own eyes.

This is not the exact one we watched in class, but here is a reading of Fish is Fish:

All About Me

   For our second day of class, we each had to pick a different online tool to use from a list where we will all create a "Digital Me" project. The tool that I chose is called Glogster! I've used this tool before in my Social Studies Methods class and I found it really cool, but I have never created an individual project on it before, so I was excited to finally make one! I loved making my project; there are so many templates to choose from or you could even create your own from scratch. There's the option to add videos, pictures, text, graphics, and so much more! It was an excellent choice for this type of project because I was able to really find things that capture who I am through all of their different tools.
   Next class we will be presenting our "Digital Me" projects, so I really hope that everyone likes my glogster and it encourages them to use this technology in their lessons or in their future classrooms. I think it'll be interesting to learn a little bit about my classmates, while being introduced to a plethora of new technologies that I could potentially use in my future classroom!

Here is my "Digital Me" project!

My "Scientific Me" Journey

   The first time that I remember learning about science was when I was in second grade. My teacher had a poster for the life cycle of a butterfly up on the back wall in our classroom. We all gathered around her and the poster on a little rug while she explained the process of how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. After we learned about the life cycle, we were each given our own caterpillars to take care of and watch turn into butterflies, which everyone enjoyed. I've always liked science for the most part; experiments are very engaging for students and I learn better when I can actually see what I'm learning about. Science seems like the easiest subject to find ways to engage students

   I don't remember much from my elementary school years about any subject. The only other thing I can remember at the moment is putting together paper skeletons and cells in fifth grade. I've always liked projects and hands-on experiences. During middle school and high school, we were able to do actual labs, which were fun sometimes, but I remember having to do a lot of labs that involved touching gross things that I didn't enjoy. One time in fourth or fifth grade, my teacher had us dissect an owl pellet and in seventh grade we dissected a variety of animals. Those were the types of labs that I really didn't like, but they're the ones that I still remember. In college I took a science class that was almost all outdoors and I liked it much more than I expected to! Most days we were out exploring the woods or the river, instead of sitting in a classroom looking at a powerpoint. There were definitely days when we did that too, but we spent at least half of our classes outside looking at real animals and trees, as opposed to pictures. I thought that was a great class that I'll actually remember way in the future! Here's a picture of where I took my science class in college:

   As I've learned from my own experiences and looking back on how my teachers explained things to me, I know that it's crucial to engage students and provide them with real-life situations. Technology is great and allows us to do so many things within our classroom, but I think it's important to either bring in real objects that pertain to the lesson or even explore right outside of the school. Students have to apply knowledge and see how it can actually connect to their lives in order for them to grasp the information while enjoying the process. I think that I've always been successful in science, but I've been more successful in topics or classes where teachers allowed us to use actual objects and do experiments, instead of just lecturing us. When I think of science, I think of experiments, questions, and hands-on activities. If the students aren't out of their seats and working with real materials that relate to the topic, then the lesson is not being taught effectively or engaging the students. 

   I think that the activity we did in class today would be a great way to introduce students to science. We were each told to draw a picture of what we think of when we hear the word scientist. The activity opens our eyes to all of the stereotypes of what it looks like to be a scientist. It's important to explain to students that anyone can become a scientist; it's not just people who look like the pictures they drew. After the activity, we walked around and looked at what our classmates drew and it was interesting to see how similar most of them were. This activity is also a good way to see if students have any prior knowledge about science. I drew a female, but, to be honest, when we were first given the task I was going to draw a male with crazy hair. I figured most people would draw that, so I tried to do something a little bit different.

Here is the picture that I drew.