My philosophy of effective science teaching includes using numerous ways of teaching in order to reach the diverse group of learners that I will have in my future classroom. I believe that everybody learns differently, so in order to help reach all of my future students, I want to provide them with both hands on and minds on activities. I believe that providing students with different methods of inquiry, and providing numerous experiences for students are essential to giving them an enthusiastic and meaningful science education. In my kindergarten field placement, students were given these kinds of meaningful science experiences, and I believe that these experiences in combination with my cooperating teacher’s enthusiasm provided the students with a good base for the rest of their science education. In my future classroom I hope to offer my students meaningful science experiences through inquiry in a way that engages the students and allows them to apply what they learned to their everyday lives.
I really like the idea of the Inquiry and Application Instructional Model (I-AIM) because I think it offers students necessary experiences and thinking processes that can be applied to all disciplines of science. Inquiry through experiences, patterns and explanations (EPE) is a broad process that does three important things. Experiences in the material world allow students to make observations and gather data that can later help them find patterns. Once patterns are found as a result of experiences, scientific laws and generalizations are formed that later leads to explanations that help students make sense and understand what they experienced. Teachers can help further the EPE framework through the five E’s which include engaging students, having them explore, explaining, elaborating and evaluating. Although it was not explicitly said, this instructional model is something that I saw being used in my field placement.
My cooperating teacher gave her students many experiences, allowed them to look for patterns and found explanations with her students. She would engage the students by getting their attention by either creating new experiences for them, or by asking the students about their prior experiences. I will use a lesson that she taught about recycling to demonstrate how my cooperating teacher used the I-AIM model in her classroom. When she taught this lesson, she first engaged the students by asking them about their prior experiences. Do they recycle at home? She also drew upon prior experiences that she knew they had about sorting. Sorting is necessary in order to be able to recycle, and the students had talked about sorting the previous week in class. So, from the beginning, all of the students had some prior experience to relate to because as a class they had already talked about ways to sort. From the beginning of this lesson, the students were engaged. She provided the students with the problem/question of what would happen if we ran out of resources? Through this she explained that it is important not to waste, and to recycle so that we can reuse some of the things that we have. Next, she briefly lectured about the differences in the recycling symbols, and passed around different containers for the students to look at. They were able to find the recycling symbols and know what to look for when they are at home. Through this exploration of looking at the symbols, they were able to see the evidence that these symbols exist, and see how easy it is to look for these symbols and recycle at their own homes. My cooperating teacher explained why it is important to recycle, and was able to relate this lesson to the student’s own lives. This was relateable to their own lives because they can recycle both at home and at school by recycle paper and plastics. This was something that the students could actually apply to their own lives, and continue to explore and ask questions about outside of the lesson that was taught. This is a simple example of how even at the young kindergarten level; teachers can get students excited about science. This is something that I hope to do for my future students. I want to give them plenty of opportunity to explore through hands on experiences and show them how they can connect science to their everyday lives and the world around them.
Something that I think is important to consider when teaching science is that all students have different ways of learning. Due to this, I want to provide my students with different ways of exploring, and I want to use different forms of assessment. I do think that there are times when a more lecture-based, didactic approach is necessary to reach students, or to at least give them some of the scientific generalizations that they need. I believe that this is more important at an older level, probably starting in upper elementary school. I believe that students do need some sort of structured, lectured based learning so that they can make sense of future explorations and hands on experiences that they may have. Students can apply what they learned from a lecture to what they are doing in an experiment. However, I realize that some students might learn better through their hands on experiences, which is why I want to be able to give my students both hands on and minds on experiences through both lecture and hands on activities. I think that hands on activities are especially important for ESL students, and as a teacher I want to always provide my ESL students, and students with special needs, with the same amount of quality education that non ESL students receive. I also think that it is important to be diverse when assessing students. For example, teachers can assess students in different ways ranging from discussion, having them draw pictures, sometimes having them create a project, or sometimes having them write an explanation. Students learn and express what they know differently, so in my future classroom I want to provide all my students with different options for expressing what they know.
Other things to consider besides special needs and language when thinking about diverse groups of learners are their conceptions, their cultural resources. When thinking about how to go about teaching a lesson, consider what your students already know about a topic, their general conceptions or notions about science, and how they tend to express their knowledge. Another source is their cultural resources. What funds of knowledge do they already have from their home life? What skills, abilities, ideas and practices do students bring from home that you can apply to the classroom? Also, what kinds of youth genres do students have? What do children do to explore in their own unique way? How do all young students, regardless of background, like to explore in the same kinds of ways? To answer these questions teachers can observe students and how they interact together during “free time,” have class discussions where teachers learn about student’s experiences and ideas, interview students and even go on home visits or participate in community events when possible.
Another issue that teachers face when it comes to teaching science is the fear that they, as the teacher do not know enough about science, or a specific topic that they are going to be teaching. Yes, I do think that this can be scary, but it is also something that I think is very manageable. I think that it is important, like Anderson suggests, to first clarify your own understanding, describe knowledge and practices at the student’s level, and to describe your purposes as a teacher in terms of student’s learning. Teachers can educate themselves before teaching a lesson, but if questions arise that you as a teacher to do have an answer to, I think this is a great learner opportunity for both students and teacher. Together, students and teachers can go through the inquiry process and try to come up with explanations to questions. Another thing that I think is important for teachers to consider for both themselves and for students is the anti-deficit perspective. I think it is important to try and understand student learning and achievement in science from the strengths students bring to the classroom. This can also be true for teachers and how they teach science. If you can understand your own strengths as a teacher and as a science learner, you will more successfully teach your students to do the same. As a teacher, I think that it will be important to recognize strengths that my students have, and then try to tailor science lessons to encourage those strengths.
Science can be a fun and exciting subject to teach, where students discover things about themselves, how they learn, and how the world around them functions. In order to give students the best science education possible, what I think is most important is giving them opportunities, and encouraging them to inquire. Have students ask questions. These questions can be questions for themselves, their classmates or for the teacher. Then inquire and try to find explanations to these questions through gathering data. A great way to do this is to have students keep journals. Journals can be individual, or group journals, but nonetheless, journals should be a place where students keep their ideas and ask questions about the world around them. Journals are a place for students to keep their data and then later try to make sense of that data. As a teacher, I want to use inquiry as the basis for my science teaching. I want my student to wonder. Wonder about the world around them and then try and gather data, and then use that data to try and answer their questions. I want to engage my students by inviting them to express themselves, having them share their ideas and sparking a curiosity so that they want to learn. I want to have my students explore and “mess around” with hands on materials and with their ideas. I want them to have different ways to go about solving a problem and I want them to do this through observation, recording, comparing, and sharing. I want my students to be able to explain concepts and findings in their own words so that I know these findings make sense to them. I want my students to be able to elaborate on their ideas and experiences by using scientific terms and by making connections to former and future experiences. Through evaluation I want my students to demonstrate what they understand, share with others, ask new questions, and most of all apply what they have learned, discovered and wondered about to their everyday lives. Overall, I hope to provide my future students with inquiry based science learning in a fun and exciting environment where they are comfortable asking questions and then trying to answer those questions.

Previous comments I have made

Comment on Kelly's blog from "Week 11"

Your lesson sounds like it went really well, and it seems like you incorporated a lot of the EPE framework into your lesson. Even though it was a social studies lesson, it still reminds me much about what we have been talking in science in terms of different approaches of teaching. The topic was new to your students, however you still used their experiences in economics to help them related the idea. You considered the problem that the students had not yet learned about the concept of supply and demand, and then called upon previous experiences to help them connect it to what they learned in your lesson, and see a pattern. The students saw the pattern that when demand is higher, so is the price, and when the supply is lower, the price is higher. The different groups that you split them up into provided the students with opportunities to collect and analyze patterns, rather than just giving them one example. When you gave the scenerio of the hurricane destroying the crop, it allowed students to share ideas about different shorts of explanations of what would happen in a case like this. This lesson shows how we can use models such as the 5 E’s, EPE and NSES Inquiry in a cross-curricular way!



From April 1 on Karen's blog

Wow! This day/week seems like it was very valuable and meaningful for the students in your placement class. This lesson actually reminds me a lot of the “Inquiry Begins with Looking Closely” article. The article discusses the usefullness in keeping a journal of observations “for children to share their wonders, or unanswered questions, about obersvations” (p5). The students in your placement had this same sort of opportunity. In the article, the “wonder journal” is a class journal, but I can still see the similarity in your student’s journals because they shared as a class after they had done individual work. However, I definitely agree that it would have been beneficial for the students to “generate questions about what they were seeing and explore possible answers to those questions through discussion.” It almost seems like the lesson was half complete. Do you know if they did this the next day when they were at the nature center? Did they keep a journal all week? Also, I really like the idea of the students going on a science field trip. I think that especially for science, field trips can make learning much more meaningful because students get hands-on experiences in an environment where what they are learning about is actually happening! I think this is a much than the students being in a classroom and rote learning facts about birds, or simply looking at pictures of birds. There is plenty of opportunity for incorporating the 5 E’s into a field trip like this.

Field Placement April 8th/Comments

I have no post about Field Placement from April 8th because the students were on Spring break. Also, I have made comments on some of my classmates blogs for days when I have not seen science taught in my placement.

Field Placement 4/15/2008

I did not see science today in my placement because there was an assembly during the time science is normally taught. The last science that I saw in placement was the unit on the characteristics of living things, and as far as I know, they are still working on this unit. My CT was telling me about how pretty soon they will be doing a unit where they watch a caterpillar turn into a butterfly. Eventually they release the butterfly outside on the playground at the end of the unit. My CT was showing me pictures of this today from last year, and it seemed like a very cool lesson/unit. I think when the students do this; they will be very engaged and excited about the unit because they will be watching the caterpillar go through the stages of turning into a butterfly. I think this will be very meaningful for the students, and give them a sense of ownership over their learning. In one of the videos that I watched about teaching science online, the teacher made a comment that it is important to give students proof of what they are learning. I think that when my CT does this unit, it will do just that. It is not enough to just tell students “a caterpillar turns into a butterfly.” Instead, the students will see this process, and have proof that this is really true when they watch their own class caterpillar go through the process of turning into a butterfly.

Inquiry for All Children

When I think about the article “Inquiry for All Children,” I can see how it relates to my field placement which is in a very ethnically diverse classroom. A quote from the article that I think is very important to consider is when the authors discuss “science for all.” “Being different carries liabilities. The price of being different may be exclusion from social groups at school and prejudiced treatment from those who appear not to be different. Cultural differences can contribute to the difficulties and problems of schoolchildren. The principles of cultural diversity and equity can help us meet the needs of all children” (Kruger & Sutton, 2001). I think that these issues are very important to consider when teaching not only science, but all subject areas. My placement class is made up of African American, Caucasian, Hispanic and Asian students, so this classroom is a place where “differences” must be considered. Reflecting upon my experience in this classroom this entire year, I have not seen prejudice, which is a very positive thing! My concern however is that this might be because the students are so young, and do not yet thing about these prejudices. The good this however is that because the students are so young and probably do not yet consider prejudice, we as future teachers can use this opportunity to teach students to be accepting of others.
One sort of difference that I have seen in terms of science is students prior knowledge. It seems like the same students have had more experiences than others. For example, the same few students have had experience recycling as have had first hand experiences planting seeds at home. This could be for a number of reasons including economic reasons, parental knowledge of these science topics, or maybe even cultural differences and beliefs. What I think is important though, is to make sure as a future teacher that I give all of my students these experiences at school. I am happy that as of right now at the kindergarten level, I have not seen girls lacking in interest compared to the males in the class. I hope this is something that continues as these students continue their education. Certain female students who might come from strong, culturally traditional homes, might be discouraged to take an interest in science at home. I think that it is important to be respectful of these differences, but to provide plenty of science learning opportunities in the classroom for students who may not get them outside of school. Also, from the videos last week and from the “Inquiry for All Children” article, I agree that it is important to give ESL students many different kinds of experiences, especially hands on, so that if they do not understand something one way, hopefully they will understand it in another way. Probably the most important thing that I remember from this article about ESL students is “I do and I understand.” “All three learning approaches- hearing, seeing, and doing-are important, especially when all five senses are stimulated. Combined approaches provide better opportunities for understanding than a single approach” (Martin, 240.)

Teaching Scenarios

One of the teaching scenarios that I would not teach is number 8: "You, as teacher, teach a recycling unit by presenting important information about recycling to your students." I think that this is a good basis for a unit, but that it needs much more! I would most likely begin a unit on recycling with a lecture about the importance of recycling, and why we recycle. However, I would not just stop there after presenting the important information. I would ask students to inquire about what would happen if we did not recycle. How can they recycle at home? We could also set up a recycling program within the classroom. I would definitely bring in various items and show students which ones can and cannot be recycled. I would get the students actively engaged by starting a recycling program in the classroom. I would ask students to go home and find out how they recycle in their own homes. I would use this vignette as a basis, but I would expand on it greatly!

A second teaching scenario that I would not teach is number 16: "You, as a teacher, design a science unit around the question "What's in our drinking water?" Again, this is a good start, but there is no real inquiry here. There are many things that could be done with this unit. I would have the students doing lots of inquiry such as what are the effects of pollution to our drinking water? Where do we get our drinking water from? What is safe and unsafe drinking water? Again, I might begin with a lecture about what is in drinking water, but I would have the students doing lots of research on their own/discussion about what is safe and unsafe drinking water. I would try to set up a field trip to a local water plant as well. Especially the local "dirty" water plant. I remember going as a student to the Detroit Water plant and seeing how much waste was in the water. I remember being almost scared by this, but it taught me the importance of keeping our environment clean because I saw how much waste was in the water. Very memorable (and smelly) experience that I would like to one day share with my future students.

Reflections on Small Group Presentations

I liked Monday’s class where we did small group presentations. I was in the “Inquiry” group, and I think being held accountable for having to teach the article to the class helped me in my reading. It forced me to think about what I found important in the article, and not just skim over it without really thinking about it. I like how we only had a short time to put our presentations together. Practice in putting presentations together quickly is one of the valuable experiences I think we can have as future teachers. I know in the future, I will be forced to put presentations together quickly, yet I do not have much experience with this. So, I really enjoyed our experience in class last week because it showed me that I/we can be creative, and teach a valuable lesson in a short amount of time. I think that it worked well having half the class read one article, and the other half of the class read another article. Truthfully, I did not read the Duckworth chapters as closely as I read the Inquiry article, and I think that this had some benefits and some negative aspects. What I found helpful about not reading the Duckworth article as closely is that I probably learned more about the article than I did about the Inquiry article (obviously because I did not read it as closely.) I was more engaged about learning the material in Duckworth than I was when the other Inquiry group presented. When the other Inquiry group presented, I was more interested in examining how they approached teaching the article. It was very interesting to see how a group who read the same article, and had the same amount of time to come up with how to present it, presented in such a different way. What I learned from all of the groups was the importance of keeping an audience engaged through activity.

I think the main reason you gave us this assignment was to show us that even in a small amount of time, it is possible to come up with some very engaging presentations. This is something we will be doing probably on a daily basis in our future careers, so it is important for us to get some practice doing this! Also, I think you did this to almost put us in “your shoes,” or in the shoes of a teacher. We were able to see how important it is to understand what we will be teaching in the future. It showed us that we must be prepared for what we are going to be teaching our students. It was interesting presenting because you could tell as a presenter who did and did not read the articles in the “audience.” I think this is where the importance of engaging activities comes in, because they can get students interested in the material.

Field Day 9

Last Tuesday I taught my science lesson and it turned out to be a very valuable learning experience for me! The lesson I was supposed to teach was on roots, stems, and leaves. The objective was for the kindergarten students to be able to identify and observe roots, stems and leaves. To begin the lesson, I lead a whole group discussion with the students on the carpet. They looked at big book pictures of roots, stems and leaves, and we discussed the function of these three main parts. Students came up and pointed to the roots, stems, and leaves on the different pictures. The goal of this was for them to see that although different kinds of green plants may look different, they all have these three main parts. We also talked about how trees are plants. Many students had the misconception that a tree was not a plant because it is so big. They associated plants with smaller plants such as flowers that one would see in their yard or at a park. When I asked the question “are trees plants,” many of the students said no. So we discussed how trees are plants, because they too have roots, stems and leaves. After the whole-group discussion, the students went to their tables which had plants, pictures and seeds on them. I had three different kinds of plants, pictures and seeds for the students to observe. They used hand lenses to observe the plants, and I walked around and talked to the students about what they were looking at. Due to the cost factor, only three of the five tables had plants, all had lima bean seeds, and two of the tables had pictures. I rotated the plants and pictures so that all of the students would be able to look at them. The pictures were taken on my cousins farm and clearly showed the roots, stems, and leaves of a cucumber plant. I wanted to give the students a variety of visuals to look at. I had one clover leaf plant, one African violet plant and one hyacinth plant. While the students were observing and discussing the plants, pictures and seeds, they were also drawing a picture of a plant and circling the roots, stems and leaves one the plant as an assessment. I had the students circle the three parts in different colors in order to see if they knew what the three different parts are. One misconception that I found a lot of students had was that they drew a picture of a flower and circled the petals as leaves. This was a good learning experience for me, because next time I will know to address this misconception. My CT watched my lesson and then had to leave; the substitute was also in the room watching my lesson. She suggested that next time since the kids are only in kindergarten, draw the pictures on the board with the students while they are drawing the same picture at their seats and circle the parts together etc. Overall, I thought my lesson went fairly well, I would do things different in the future such as have enough plants for each table (although expensive) and address more misconceptions.

Field Day 8

There was no school on Tuesday where I have placement, and my schedule does not allow me to go in any other day during the week.

Field Day 7

Today in placement instead of my CT doing a lesson, my other classmates and I who are apart of the same activity sequence did our science talk with the class that we will be teaching our lessons to in March. Each of our lessons incorporates plants, so we asked t he students what they knew about plants. We told them that there were no right or wrong answers, and that we just wanted to discuss what they knew about plants. The students were fairly talkative in the discussion, and had some good ideas. After the discussion, we passed out plain paper and the students drew a picture of what they thought the life cycle of a plant was.
During the discussion we heard many words such as “roots, dirt, leaves, flowers, trees, water and sun.” Some of the students knew that a plant grows from a seed. So the students had some ideas that were very close to what we will be teaching. However, there were also many misconceptions such as that trees are not plants, and that you give apple trees apple juice to grow. Overall, I thought it was a good discussion that will help guide us when writing our full lesson plans and when teaching our lessons to the class. There were a variety of pictures drawn, ranging from single pictures of flowers, to pictures labeled with number “1,” “2,” “3” with first a picture of a seed, and then a picture of a plant progressively growing.
My CT did not teach a science lesson today because we did this instead, and I did not get a chance to discuss with her what else they are doing for science this week. There is no class the Tuesday after Spring break at my placement. I might go into the classroom one day over Spring break because I will be in the area, but if not the next time I am in my placement is when I teach my lesson!

Field Day 6

Last Tuesday was the 100^th day of school in my field placement! The students did not have specific science lesson today, but the activities they did incorporated science, and showed me how as a teacher you can incorporate fun learning activities into celebrations! The students each brought in 100 items of whatever they wanted (for example 100 M&Ms, 100 Cheerios etc.) They sat in a circle and dumped their 100 things into a large bucket. Then, the students went to their tables and my CT and I gave each student a scoop of the now mixed up assortment of 100 items and put it on mat that they had each made with 10 boxes on it. The students had to sort their items so all of the cereal was in one pile, all the M&Ms were in one pile etc. Students who finished quickly went on to sort their already classified piles by color, shape, size, etc. The students really enjoyed doing this activity, and even though it was not a direct science lesson, it still helped to enhance their skills on sorting and classification, which can be applied to science lessons such as recycling. Having students work on these skills will be beneficial to other aspects of science, and will help them be able to thoroughly analyze, sort, classify and make sense of observations or data that they may come across in future science lessons. I think today’s activities can be applied to benchmarks such as: SCI I.1.E.5 Develop Strategies and skills for information gathering and problem solving. SCI I.1.E.6 Construct charts and graphs and prepare summaries of observations. If there was more time, students could have possibly made graphs of how many items of a certain color they had, or a certain shape for example. Placement this week taught me that there are other things that a teacher can do to include science, or math into a lesson while still celebrating special days with students.

Field Day 5

I did not see any science in placement last week because the Gingerbread Man ran away! The majority of the day was centered around the story the Gingerbread Man, and when they would have had normally been doing science, the students were looking thoughout the building for the Gingerbread Man. I was trying to think of some sort of science activity that could go along with this if I ever did a Gingerbread Man unit in my future classroom. I can’t really think of much, but you could do something where you make predictions of where the Gingerbread Man might have run away to, and collected evidence on it etc. Since I did not see much science today, I thought I’d use this space to talk about some of my CT’s classroom management rules: I noticed a behavior chart in the corner of the room. The chart has everybody’s name on it under columns for green, yellow, blue, orange and red. Green is not being in any trouble (a smiley face,) yellow is a verbal warning, blue is 5 minutes off student choice time, orange is 10 minutes off of student choice time, and red is 15 minutes off students choice time and parent is notified. The students have precedures for walking down the hall (hand on the hip, one on the lip) so that they are quite in the hallway and they sit “criss-cross apple sauce” on the carpet. I think these little things remind them to not be disruptive.

Inquiry

Questions for inquiry are important on both the part of the student and the teacher. In order for inquiry to take place, students and teachers must make observations, ask questions, study what is known, investigate, gather, analyze, and interpret data, propose answers, explanations, and predictions, and share results (NSES 134.) This is important because it allows students to take a deeper look into what they are studying and come up with/understand the reasoning behind scientific knowledge. Questions for inquiry are important because it goes beyond memorizing facts by allowing one to investigate and understand meaning. This is important because students can then use this knowledge, make sense of it, and apply it to their everyday lives. Inquiry allows one to try and find answers, rather than just memorizing answers. Inquiry is important for teachers because it allows them to develop both long-term and short-term goals for their students. Inquiry is also a way to get all students involved because it allows for students to develop ways that they can participate fully in science learning. Inquiry is important because it allows learners to engage in scientifically oriented questions, it gives priority to evidence, allows students to put together explanations, and it allows students to relect on their scientific understanding through communication. Helping students develop meaningful questions will allow them to answer their questions in a meaningful way, based on understanding through inquiry.
1. How do ancient animal fossils provide evidence about extinct life in a certain area?
2. What do plant fossils tell us about a habitat of a certain area?

Field Day 4- 5 Senses

This week in placement the students did a science lesson about the 5 senses. My CT used what I guess could be compared to a mnemonic device in order to help the students remember the 5 senses. She had them take their hand and put their thumb by their ear for hearing, their index finger by their eyes for sight, their middle finger by their nose for smell, their ring finger by their lips for taste and their pinky by their mouth for taste. I thought this was a really good way for the students to be able to remember the 5 senses, and they all seemed to understand what the senses are by using this trick. My CT explained what each of the five senses are and what we used them for, and then the students did an activity where they searched through magazines for images that could represent the five senses. They had to cut the pictures out and glue them to a poster. The students seemed to enjoy this activity, and it made them think hard. When I was walking around talking to different students, it was interesting to hear them explain why they chose a certain picture. I think it was helpful to them when I asked “why did you pick that picture for __ sense?” Then they would explain why they chose a certain picture and it allowed them to check their own understanding and see if the picture they chose was really representative of the sense they picked it for.
Another thing I thought about today was how my CT always wears a lab coat for the science lesson. Thinking back to last weeks readings, I think this is a very good image for the students to see. My CT is a female without “crazy hair, crazy glasses etc,” so it gives the students an image of a scientist that is very different from the “mad scientist” that is often depicted.

#3 Light and Shadow

To know if a student understands a benchmark, I would like to see the student demonstrate their knowledge to me. Students can do this by explaining in their own words what they learned from a specific benchmark. If a student can re-explain a concept, I think it gives a good indication as to whether or not they understand a concept. Another way of knowing if a student understands a benchmark would be to have the student apply what was taught to their own lives. This would let the teacher know if the student can make sense of what was supossed to be learned and actually apply it in a relevant way that is meaningful. By applying a benchmark to their own life, a student would have to take what he or she knows and then “do it.” The students would have to take the key concepts and apply them to a real-world context. We can help students to do this by having a positive and ethusiastic attitude towards science, and by giving students pre-tests in order to help clear student’s misconceptions.

Field Day 3 Reduce, Reuse, Recylce!

Today’s science lesson was on recycling! To begin the lesson, my CT activated the student’s prior knowledge by discussing sorting which they talked about yesterday. They discussed that you can sort by color, shape, size, feel and taste. This lead to a discussion about how it is necessary to be able to sort so in order to recycle. My CT had a garbage can, a recycling bin and a recycling container for paper only for the students to see. She explained what goes in each of the different containers and why. She brought to their attention the symbol with three arrows that represents something that can be recycled. My CT told the students that they should always look for this symbol before they throw empty containers or bottles away in the garbage. She passed different bottles around and the students got to find the symbol on them so that they would know what to look for at home. My CT related this lesson to their daily lives by reminding them to always look for the symbol before throwing a container away at home. She had containers that the students would recognize such as milk cartons and apple juice containers. A few days ago they watched a Magic School Bus episode about recycling. The students saw how plastic can be melted down to make plastic capsules and how paper can be recycled so that less trees have to be cut down. My CT explained to students that they should recycle newspaper in the recycling bin, and paper in the recycle box for paper only. She pointed out that although these are separate bins, they both have the recycle symbol on it. She also gave the example of how the students often do activities in class which reuses the newspaper. Again, she was relating recycling to their daily lives so that the students could see the importance of it and how it is relevant to them. She concluded the lesson by reading the book Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
The students seemed to drift off a bit during this lesson, and I think this is because there were no hands on activity for them to do. They did seem to enjoy the book, and they were interested when the containers were being passed around, but I feel like they were more interested in last week’s science lesson when they were able to participate more actively. I think this lesson was done in a way that really showed the students how reduce, reuse, recycle can be applied to their lives which is really good because I think this sort of thing gets them interested in science!

Field Day 2

Today in placement the students had a science lesson on sorting. To begin the lesson, my CT talked about how in the last science lesson the students watched an episode of the Magic School Bus about recycling. They discussed how in order to recycle; one must be able to sort. They then practiced this on a sand table! There were magnetic letters in the sand table, and the students had to try and figure out how to get the letters out of the sand. The CT had a small plastic shovel and tried to sort the letters using the shovel. They discussed how you could use a shovel to try and get the letters out, but that the shovel really wasn’t the best tool to use. The students and my CT talked about how a colander or magnets might be more useful. There was a discussion about how using either a colander or a magnet would be a more productive way of sorting the letters out of the sand. My CT showed the students out these tools worked. She explained to the kindergarteners that the sand would not stick to the magnets, but that the letters would. The students then had a chance to come up and help sort the letters themselves! Each of the students had a chance to get some hands on time experiementing with the tools. After each student had a chance, my CT counted the number of letters that they as a class had sorted out of the sand. Twenty-four letters had been sorted, which meant two more were still somewhere burried in the sand. The students crowded around the table and excitedly watched as my CT used a magnet to find the last two letters.
This seemed to be a really fun lesson for the kindergarteners to watch and participate in. They were interested in learning about sorting, and they were excited about the hands on part where they each had the opportunity to use the tools. The next lesson they do is going to be about sorting as well. They will be practing sorting magnetic objects verses non-magnetic objects. I think the students will be equally enthusiastic about this next lesson as they were about today’s lesson. When I was talking to my CT today, she said that because there isn’t too much time for science everyday, she always tries to have some sort of hands-on activity in order to get the students interested and paying attention.

A Private Universe

I was not too surprised about the video “A Private Universe.” I had heard about this video before in SME 301, but it was still a little surprising to hear Harvard graduates having such large misconceptions about something that is taught in grade school. I think one of the biggest reasons for misconceptions such as why there are phases of the moon and about weather is because teachers assume that students already know certain things coming into a class. An astronomy professor at Harvard probably never felt compelled to teach the phases of the moon because it was assummed that the students would have learned about the phases way before being admitted to such a prestigious school. I know that before taking SME 301, I would have given the same sort of answer! As a future teacher, this video showed me how difficult it can be to correct a student’s misconception. Students have ideas in their head, and they are hard to change because the students think of these ideas as facts. Because of this, I think it would be important to give students a pre-test before starting a new unit in order to see what they do and do not know. This way, you could address the misconception from the beginning, and start focusing on the unit and what is now known to be correct.

First Field Experience

I will be in my field placement for 5 hours on Tuesdays, where I will be able to see science and social studies being taught in the after noon. I am placed in a kindergarten classroom, and the way that my CT and the other Kindergarten teacher teach science and social studies is by splitting up who teaches each subject in the afternoon. Therefore, everyother week I will be watching either a full science, or a full social studies lesson. On the weeks were I do not see the science lesson, there might be a science station at centers, or my CT might do a small science lesson at the end of the day if they didn’t get to it earlier. This past week, I saw the social studies lesson, but I had some time to talk to my CT about the science. She said that the unit they are currently working on is about recycling. The students are learning about how to/the importance of “reduce, reuse, recycle.” They will also be practicing separating different items into categories. For example, they will need to separate plastics from metals. To do this, my CT will have items such as plastic and metal hairpins mixed together, and the students will have to separate them. They will talk about different ways of doing this, such as using a magnet to grab the metal with. The students did not do this activity this week, but my CT said that the will be doing this activity, or one similair, in the near future. The students watched an episode of the magic school bus in class this week that had to do with recycling. My CT was teaching the other kindgarten class science this week, and I went with the class I am placed with to watch the social studies.