In my field classroom last week, my students were learning about weather in their social studies unit-which is directly related to science. As a teacher, I would take this opportunity to teach cross-curriculum, pointing out how many aspects of science can be seen in other subjects, especially in social studies, and I would go more in depth about the science aspect of this. The students listened as the teacher read from the class "big book", and they heard several different terms defined, including weather and various subtopics of this, and they read a story about storms-learning about hailstorms, thunderstorms, blizzards, floods, volcanoes (wind storms), etc. The students are rather familiar with the basic weather we see here in Michigan (snow, sun, wind, fog, rain) as they live it everyday, and additionally there is a "weather chart" in the class, of which the kids record their weather observations each day. The kids were given a homework assignment last Monday from my CT to watch the weather sometime that night or the next night and try to find out what the weather would be like the rest of the week. On Wednesday, when my teacher asked if anyone did the assignment, several kids responded that it was sunny, and much to my surprise (and I was VERY impressed!), one of our students raised his hand and said "On channel 55, the weather man, he's called the meteorologist, predicted, that's when you guess, that it would be sunny today and sunny tomorrow and sunny with clouds on Friday, and today its going to be 69 degrees"--VERY detailed and impressive for a six year old kid! This brought our class into discussions about the terms meteorologist (and his job) and measuring temperatures (degrees, etc).
In social studies, the kids learned through a big book reading about such things as: mountain, plain, lake, river, ocean, natural resource, and national parks. While they didn't go very in depth with this lesson today, in was a great introduction to a lesson about landforms and the earth--sounds very fun!
Later in the month, the kids will be planting flowers that butterflies are attracted to and creating a butterfly garden, which will be a great science lesson for them that will be so engaging and fun for them-I wish I would still be around so I could see them do this, I know they will just love it!
Monday, April 21, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
*FYI--I responded to your comment about the post from the in-class activity, but in case you didn't see the response from awhile back, that post is below aways in purple font. Thanks!
This week in field placement my class continued their science/social studies unit on the earth. They learned about earth day, and how we can celebrate our earth. The students reviewed the "3R's", which they have been learning about, and talked about how recyclying is taking items to be remade into new items, that reusing is to use something over again, and reducing is to use less of something. They talked about how their families and the school recycles cans, newspapers, and plastic bags as examples, and how they reused bags, boxes, scrap paper, wood, jars, etc. The class had a discussion about how they could reduce their use of certain items, and came up with several great ideas including-turning lights off when they aren't in a room, not letting water run unnecessarily, using less paper, etc. This was a great discussion because it really encouraged inquiry from the kids and they were engaged and actively contributed to the lesson, came up with their own ideas, activated prior knowledge, and connected the lesson to real world examples-and also showed how they could connect what they learned to their own life in such simple ways. They also talked about celebrating the earth by planting trees, picking up trash, and not polluting-which are all ways that they personally can help take care of the earth. The kids enjoyed this lesson greatly. There classroom is currently decorated with hanging "earth people"-the kids made portraits of themselves from construction paper with cut out globes as their tummies-cute! The kids are also currently working on constructing/writing their own earth books, titled "Earth First!". The kids fill in the blanks with their own ideas to responses such as "I will help the earth by________" and "I will save the earth by_________".
This week in field placement my class continued their science/social studies unit on the earth. They learned about earth day, and how we can celebrate our earth. The students reviewed the "3R's", which they have been learning about, and talked about how recyclying is taking items to be remade into new items, that reusing is to use something over again, and reducing is to use less of something. They talked about how their families and the school recycles cans, newspapers, and plastic bags as examples, and how they reused bags, boxes, scrap paper, wood, jars, etc. The class had a discussion about how they could reduce their use of certain items, and came up with several great ideas including-turning lights off when they aren't in a room, not letting water run unnecessarily, using less paper, etc. This was a great discussion because it really encouraged inquiry from the kids and they were engaged and actively contributed to the lesson, came up with their own ideas, activated prior knowledge, and connected the lesson to real world examples-and also showed how they could connect what they learned to their own life in such simple ways. They also talked about celebrating the earth by planting trees, picking up trash, and not polluting-which are all ways that they personally can help take care of the earth. The kids enjoyed this lesson greatly. There classroom is currently decorated with hanging "earth people"-the kids made portraits of themselves from construction paper with cut out globes as their tummies-cute! The kids are also currently working on constructing/writing their own earth books, titled "Earth First!". The kids fill in the blanks with their own ideas to responses such as "I will help the earth by________" and "I will save the earth by_________".
Sunday, April 13, 2008
April 7 In-Class Activity
Scenario #8 from the vignettes we reviewed in class today is an activity I would not choose to use in my classroom. In this scenario, the teacher teaches a recycling unit by presenting important information about recycling to her students. Recycling is such a broad topic that can be presented in so many interesting, engaging, and applicable ways--to simply dictate the key information to the students seems like such a poor method to teach-- not to mention boring and a quick way to disinterest students in recycling (which can be made very fun and in turn, promote helping the environment if kids are positively influenced by this topic!)
This teaching method would not be meaningful for the students. Recycling is an everyday 'real life' activity-so it should be presented as such and connected to the student's lives. This lesson should be interactive and engaging, and well as inquiry-promoting. I would teach this lesson instead by asking students if they know what recycling is, and weather their families or anyone they know recycles, and if so what items do they recycle. I will then ask them how they think recycling works, and scaffold this to make sure the information is presented correctly. I would then share interesting statistics about recycling to draw interest from the class (i.e. how much money can be saved, what will happen if we don't recycle, percentage of people who do recycle, etc). I would let the students research recycling and allow them to make classroom posters to remind students to recycle things such as paper and pop cans- which we could then hang from our classroom and keep recycling bins there (or in the halls to encourage other classes to recycle), encouraging them to come up with their own recycling ideas. We could donate pop can money to a charity, which would promote giving as well. I may also do an activity where students bring in old material and recycle it to make something useful-which would be fun and allow the students to generate their own creations.
Another scenario that simply focused on rote learning and therefore I wouldn't choose to teach in my own classroom is scenario #1, which states that “You, as a teacher, are teaching a unit on space. Each day during the unit you read to the class from a chapter book about the solar system. After reading about a particular planet, you ask students to make a statement on the board for inclusions in a letter sent home to parents at the end of the day.” This is another boring, unengaging activity for students. Instead, I would allow kids to explore online individually to see what information they could find about our solar system, which we then could discuss as a whole class lesson and clear up any misconceptions. I would promote inquiry by asking them find ways in which scientists have discovered these truths about the solar system, then let them do a project where they build a model of some part of the solar system and explain how it works.
This teaching method would not be meaningful for the students. Recycling is an everyday 'real life' activity-so it should be presented as such and connected to the student's lives. This lesson should be interactive and engaging, and well as inquiry-promoting. I would teach this lesson instead by asking students if they know what recycling is, and weather their families or anyone they know recycles, and if so what items do they recycle. I will then ask them how they think recycling works, and scaffold this to make sure the information is presented correctly. I would then share interesting statistics about recycling to draw interest from the class (i.e. how much money can be saved, what will happen if we don't recycle, percentage of people who do recycle, etc). I would let the students research recycling and allow them to make classroom posters to remind students to recycle things such as paper and pop cans- which we could then hang from our classroom and keep recycling bins there (or in the halls to encourage other classes to recycle), encouraging them to come up with their own recycling ideas. We could donate pop can money to a charity, which would promote giving as well. I may also do an activity where students bring in old material and recycle it to make something useful-which would be fun and allow the students to generate their own creations.
Another scenario that simply focused on rote learning and therefore I wouldn't choose to teach in my own classroom is scenario #1, which states that “You, as a teacher, are teaching a unit on space. Each day during the unit you read to the class from a chapter book about the solar system. After reading about a particular planet, you ask students to make a statement on the board for inclusions in a letter sent home to parents at the end of the day.” This is another boring, unengaging activity for students. Instead, I would allow kids to explore online individually to see what information they could find about our solar system, which we then could discuss as a whole class lesson and clear up any misconceptions. I would promote inquiry by asking them find ways in which scientists have discovered these truths about the solar system, then let them do a project where they build a model of some part of the solar system and explain how it works.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
At my placement last week, my first graders read a story during reading about a robot that a little girl made out of junk that she had saved up and of things she gathered from the junkyard. This story related to the concept of reusing, which ties well into science for the kids as they will soon be beginning a unit about "reducing, reusing, and recycling" during science lessons. The children discovered how a little girl could use old junk to make something new and useful, as well as ways that some materials/objects can be used for different purposes.
In class last week, my field partner (from another section of TE402) taught her science lesson to the class. She taught on living vs. nonliving things. She started by reviewing the five senses (the intro lesson I had taught prior to her lesson), then discussed living things as things that can move around on their own and that need food and water, and non-living things as those which cannot/do not. I thought that this lesson was okay, but would have been better if she described living things in another way. My CT had to let the kids know that living things could also be plants, which is a huge category of living things-the kids are only in first grade, so they don't necessarily understand completely that plants need "food" as we (people) or animals do. She had the kids circle which thing was living on a worksheet-there was a picture of a crayon and a picture of a person. The kids have already learned about living vs nonliving things by other MSU seniors in the classroom, so they grasped the material easily and the lesson did go smoothly, though I thought it should have been more detailed, and more complex for the kids as they are capable and ready to learn more about this topic.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Case Study: Science Video Response
Mallory Adamson
March 31st, 2008
TE 401-Science
Videos: Case Studies in Science Education
The first video I chose to watch was of Jennie, a kindergarten teacher. The video explored her teaching methods as she designed grade-level appropriate science activities. She has taught in a suburban school for the past twenty years, so she is experienced with teaching using inquiry. Experiences in science that will be rememberable and useful in the future for her students are how she wants to teach the subject to her class, so she uses a variety of meaningful, hands on activities when teaching science. She understands that each child comes to school with a vast variety of background knowledge, which she assesses by having her students make predictions when discussing new topics in the classroom. One activity I liked that Jennie used, and may use in the future myself, was in teaching about how leaves change color and how the leaves fall and how trees change between seasons was to have her students go on a nature walk outside and collect various leaf samples. The kids categorized a huge chart in which they made associations between the leaves and organized the samples into different categories and attempted to label the leaves by tree types. This was very engaging, active and meaningful for the kids as well as relative and appropriate for the kindergarten age group. Jennie explained why leaves change, When a child gives an inaccurate observation/research, she asks the rest of the class “do you agree?” to try to get the correct answer from the students. Though it is difficult to tell a child he or she is wrong, it is important to distinguish correct answers and this was a very ‘soft’ way of doing so, so it seemed to be an appropriate method for her to use. By allowing her students to get experience making close observations, she helped them prepare for the science they will use in the future. When she met with the principal and other teachers, she realized she was taking on a lot of information to teach. I think it is very important to address all of the meaning goals, but that quality of learning is more important than the quantity of information children receive, therefore I wouldn’t try to introduce as many new concepts and topics to children so quickly, especially at such a young age when every aspect of school is a developmental task to these children.
The second video I watched was of Jean, who is a third grade teacher. The video portrayed her teaching strategies as she explored ways to teach science to diverse learners as she has several special needs students in her classroom. As she avoided science when she was a student, she now tries to make science engaging for her students, so she tries to teach in methods other than in using a textbook. One thing she exemplified throughout her teaching that I liked and will use as a teacher is that she motivated her students to learn by creating meaningful and enjoyable science activities and she truly worked to make sure her students had a solid background understanding of new topics when they were introduced, so students wouldn’t be lost as the information developed, and she made sure at the end of a topic that her students had a solid understanding of the material as well. She did this through examples, demonstrations, inquiry-based questioning and discussions. She would have the kids explain their responses with reasoning and asking meaningful questions to fill in gaps in their understanding. Multi-sensory science activities are a strategy Jean uses, which helps students learn. Concepts are introduced in several ways, such as hands-on, pictures, text, videos, etc. to help students with different needs to learn best, which I think is beneficial even in classrooms that aren’t very special needs based and learning-ability diverse, as all students learn differently. Jean also teaches her students to collect data, and look at concepts from different views, and accept other students differences and varying responses, as science is experimental and students can come up with very different conclusions. She challenges students to use inquiry by having them experiment with unknown substances, which is engaging for kids as they loved the aspect of the “mystery”, and kids had to collect and record their data and closely observe and test their data, which I thought was structurally strong and very engaging for the kids too.
The last video I watched was of Sarah, a fifth grade teacher who works to ensure her students wholly grasp core science concepts. Her pendulum activities were engaging and inquiry-based, as students were exploring on their own and able to make a vast amount of discoveries through self-exploration, which upon completion, they discuss and connect to real-life examples and explain how pendulums work. I like that she gave the kids a chance to explore on their own, because they were capable of completing tasks on their own, came up with ideas and discoveries the teacher hadn’t realized, and ultimately were more active learners and gained more from the lesson because of their freedom to explore after the teacher scaffolded the direction of their learning, which I think is an awesome teaching method. She teaches her students that there isn’t a “right” or “wrong” in science, and explorations may need to be conducted several times and various results may come about, which is also beneficial for students so they feel in control and capable of their learning. By not modifying or correcting the students experiments, the kids were able to develop their own learning which was also beneficial.
March 31st, 2008
TE 401-Science
Videos: Case Studies in Science Education
The first video I chose to watch was of Jennie, a kindergarten teacher. The video explored her teaching methods as she designed grade-level appropriate science activities. She has taught in a suburban school for the past twenty years, so she is experienced with teaching using inquiry. Experiences in science that will be rememberable and useful in the future for her students are how she wants to teach the subject to her class, so she uses a variety of meaningful, hands on activities when teaching science. She understands that each child comes to school with a vast variety of background knowledge, which she assesses by having her students make predictions when discussing new topics in the classroom. One activity I liked that Jennie used, and may use in the future myself, was in teaching about how leaves change color and how the leaves fall and how trees change between seasons was to have her students go on a nature walk outside and collect various leaf samples. The kids categorized a huge chart in which they made associations between the leaves and organized the samples into different categories and attempted to label the leaves by tree types. This was very engaging, active and meaningful for the kids as well as relative and appropriate for the kindergarten age group. Jennie explained why leaves change, When a child gives an inaccurate observation/research, she asks the rest of the class “do you agree?” to try to get the correct answer from the students. Though it is difficult to tell a child he or she is wrong, it is important to distinguish correct answers and this was a very ‘soft’ way of doing so, so it seemed to be an appropriate method for her to use. By allowing her students to get experience making close observations, she helped them prepare for the science they will use in the future. When she met with the principal and other teachers, she realized she was taking on a lot of information to teach. I think it is very important to address all of the meaning goals, but that quality of learning is more important than the quantity of information children receive, therefore I wouldn’t try to introduce as many new concepts and topics to children so quickly, especially at such a young age when every aspect of school is a developmental task to these children.
The second video I watched was of Jean, who is a third grade teacher. The video portrayed her teaching strategies as she explored ways to teach science to diverse learners as she has several special needs students in her classroom. As she avoided science when she was a student, she now tries to make science engaging for her students, so she tries to teach in methods other than in using a textbook. One thing she exemplified throughout her teaching that I liked and will use as a teacher is that she motivated her students to learn by creating meaningful and enjoyable science activities and she truly worked to make sure her students had a solid background understanding of new topics when they were introduced, so students wouldn’t be lost as the information developed, and she made sure at the end of a topic that her students had a solid understanding of the material as well. She did this through examples, demonstrations, inquiry-based questioning and discussions. She would have the kids explain their responses with reasoning and asking meaningful questions to fill in gaps in their understanding. Multi-sensory science activities are a strategy Jean uses, which helps students learn. Concepts are introduced in several ways, such as hands-on, pictures, text, videos, etc. to help students with different needs to learn best, which I think is beneficial even in classrooms that aren’t very special needs based and learning-ability diverse, as all students learn differently. Jean also teaches her students to collect data, and look at concepts from different views, and accept other students differences and varying responses, as science is experimental and students can come up with very different conclusions. She challenges students to use inquiry by having them experiment with unknown substances, which is engaging for kids as they loved the aspect of the “mystery”, and kids had to collect and record their data and closely observe and test their data, which I thought was structurally strong and very engaging for the kids too.
The last video I watched was of Sarah, a fifth grade teacher who works to ensure her students wholly grasp core science concepts. Her pendulum activities were engaging and inquiry-based, as students were exploring on their own and able to make a vast amount of discoveries through self-exploration, which upon completion, they discuss and connect to real-life examples and explain how pendulums work. I like that she gave the kids a chance to explore on their own, because they were capable of completing tasks on their own, came up with ideas and discoveries the teacher hadn’t realized, and ultimately were more active learners and gained more from the lesson because of their freedom to explore after the teacher scaffolded the direction of their learning, which I think is an awesome teaching method. She teaches her students that there isn’t a “right” or “wrong” in science, and explorations may need to be conducted several times and various results may come about, which is also beneficial for students so they feel in control and capable of their learning. By not modifying or correcting the students experiments, the kids were able to develop their own learning which was also beneficial.
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