11-25-08 - Science Fair Judging

Wow. What a wonderful experience. There were so many great projects. I was assigned to judge some of the eighth grade projects. In the categories that I judged, we had some amazing projects. While talking to the students, I felt a little dumb. These students know so much information on their topics and did some amazing experiments; most of the time the information was well beyond my knowledge of the topic. I just hope that their work, that goes way beyond the expectations, does not discourage other students to participate in the science fair. I believe that this is such a great experience for students, and I would hate for them to get discouraged by the exceptional work of others. Many of the other projects were also very good, but they get less attention because of the amazing work of others. I am grateful that I was able to have this experience. I really enjoyed myself and the students taught me a lot about the topics of their projects. There were a wide variety of projects, and all had their own interesting twist. It was also great to see these students’ excitement about science.

11-24-08 - 5 Assessments Blog

According to the Assessments in Elementary and Middle School Science PowerPoint presentation created by Dr. Cathy Mariotti-Ezrailson (2008), five assessment types include pre-test, post-test, formative assessment, summative assessment, and alternative assessment. Here is how I might use these assessments when teaching science. I would use a pre-test at the start of a unit to evaluate my students’ prior knowledge, so that I know what things I need to cover and to what extent they need to be covered. I would then give the same test at the end of the unit as a post-test. This will allow me to assess whether or not I successfully taught the students what I wanted to teach them. I would not use this pre/post-test on every unit, but it would be very helpful with units that are usually difficult for students or that have a lot of misconceptions. I would use formative assessments in a number of ways in my classroom. I would have the students participate in oral questioning, completing homework assignments, and journaling about their learning. Each of these processes will provide me with information about my students’ progress and help me plan for future lessons. I also feel that a summative assessment will be necessary. I will most likely vary my summative assessments. Some may be traditional paper/pencil test, while others may be the fifth type of assessment that I am going to talk about, alternative assessments. The alternative assessment that I see myself implementing in my science class is performance-based assessment. I will find task for my students to create that will require them to use their knowledge on the subject to compete the task.

Mariotti-Ezrailson, C. (2008). Assessments in Elementary and Middle School Science. The University of South Dakota.

11-20-08 - Final Lesson Plan assigned

Today in class we discussed our final lesson plan. This lesson plan is very interesting. Each group has a different grade in which to plan a measurement lesson for. The groups must communicate with each other so that the lessons hook on to the grade above and the grade below. Along with discussing the requirement, we set-up our groups, grade levels, topics, and hooks to the other grade levels. The class time we were allowed was very helpful so that we could communicate with member of the other groups. Judging from our initial planning that we did in class, I believe that these lessons are going to be really cool. It will be fun to listen to the presentations and see how the learning has progressed through the grades. Also we are learning a great skill, by having to hook the lessons. As a teacher, you should also be trying to hook your lessons to something the students already learned or to something the students are going to learn in the future.

11-18-08 - Due Dates Extended

Due to some unfortunate circumstanced class did not meet today. As a result, the due dates for our lesson plans and the quiz over chapters 1-3 in our Seamless Assessment book were extended. But, by the time I had gotten the notice, my lesson plan was already submitted and I only had one question left on the quiz. Thus, I really did not use the extension. Also as a result of not meeting, the presentation on our lessons plans was canceled. My partner and I were already prepared for our presentation, so it was a little disappointing, but I am also very okay with not having to present.

11-13-08 - Lesson Plan #2 Work Day

Today was a work day for our second lesson plan. This was great for a couple of reasons. First of all, I know we are all feeling overwhelmed write now, so some time to work together on the lesson during class was really appreciated. Secondly, I really liked having the opportunity to have Dr. E answer questions as we worked. It always seems like I have so many questions. My partner and I got a very good start on the lesson during class and we were able to continue working after class until we had completed the project. It feels really great to have one thing done. Thanks Dr. E for the work day!!!!

11-6-08 - The 5 E Model

The first few minutes of class were spent talking about where this class is going to go in the next 6 weeks and what is all going to be required of us. We received an updated schedule that includes the major assignments and quizzes that we still have to do and when they are going to be due. This little half sheet of pager was really appreciated by me! With my busy schedule this semester and with all the assignments that I have to keep straight from all of my classes, it is nice to be able to see the plan for the rest of the semester so that I can find ways to best manage my time between all of my commitments.

We then moved into a short lecture and then a lab activity regarding the 5 E Model. Lecture focused on how to apply the 5 E model to assessment. Then we did a lab activity, but the goal of the lab was for us to create a performance assessment for the lab using the 5 E model. This lab turned out to be a little more difficult that I first thought. We were given minimal directions for the lab activity and were assigned add to those directions however we wanted to make our assessment. After figuring out how to do this, the task did not seem that bad, but I know that I will still need some practice creating assessment like this if I want to become proficient at it.

11-4-08 - Presentations, Assessment, and 5 E Model

In class today, we finished up our mid-term presentations. First we had a presentation on the four seasons, and then we got to go outside and shoot off our bottle rockets from a presentation on the 28th. Shooting off the rockets was really fun, and since we had to take turns shooting them off, we got to discover some of the variables that affected the results. The biggest discovery was that to get the rocket to shoot higher, you had to make sure that the cork was really tight, but this also delayed the take off. After finishing our presentations, we moved into lecture on assessment. A lot of good information was presented during this lecture, but a lot of it is also information that we are talking about in my Educational Assessment course. I guess it is nice to see the same information show up in different contexts.

Another activity I did outside of class is read the web link on the 5 E Model. This model is a constructivist instructional model consisting of 5 steps: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. In the Engage stage, students make connections and the students focus on instructional tasks. During the Explore stage, students get to directly be involved with phenomena and materials. Students get to communicate what is learned and terminology is introduced in the Explain stage. The Elaborate stage allows for students to expand the concept, connect it to related concepts, and then apply it to the real world. Finally during the Evaluate stage, an on-going process of checking understanding of concepts and knowledge is occurring.

10-30-08 - Another Day of Presentations

Our third day of presentations was just as impressive as the first two days. I must say, we have a number of people who will be great teachers in our class. There has not been one presentation yet that I have not found interesting. Today’s presentations covered Newton’s Law, taste buds, tornadoes, solid/liquids, and light/heat sources. Today’s presenters did a very nice job and were very prepared. I must say that I am really enjoying these presentations and that I am getting some neat ideas to use in the future.

10-28-08 - More Lesson Plan Presentations

Today our lesson plans continued, but due to some technical difficulties at the beginning of the class, we did not get as many in as planned. All the groups needed the projector for their presentations, and at the beginning of the class it did not want to work. After a lot of persistence, we did get it to work, but with this delay and the traditional beginning of class question session we lost about a half an hour of presentation time. This experience can now serve as an example of how we need to be flexible in our classrooms, especially when we are working with technology.

The groups that did present did a very good job. Lesson that we saw today included Mixture using Elephant Toothpaste, Oil and Water with an Environmental Emphasis, Oblick, and Bottle Rockets. All these activities were really fun. I had never seen the Elephant Toothpaste activity before, so it was great to see a new idea. Also, due to time constraints, each individual group did not get to shoot off their bottle rockets, but we were told we will get to do this. I am really looking forward to that activity. I am also looking forward to seeing the rest of the presentations, because everyone has such great ideas.

10-23-08 - Mid-term Lesson Plan Presentations

Today we started presenting our Mid-term Lesson Plans. All the lessons were so good. Everyone had such fun activities to do and the topics covered a number of areas of science. Topics covered in the lessons today included: mixtures, habitats, sinking/floating, oil and water reactions, and living and non-living things. Each lesson took just a little different approach and they were all unique in some way. There were also some very neat videos used in the lessons.

Today, my partner and I presented our lesson on sinking/floating. I thought that the lesson went very well. I feel that we were very prepared and were well organized so things ran very smoothly in the short time we had to do the activity. My only regrets are that we did not have enough time to have the class create science journal entries and that we did not discuss the results. I think that this would have been a neat thing for them to do and it would have allowed them to see the comprehensiveness of our lesson.

10-21-08 - Ready, Set, Science Chapers 5 & 6 and Leaping Eggs

A majority of class time was spent discussing Chapter 5 and 6 in our Ready, Set, Science textbook and discussing the corresponding Reading Guide. Topics discussed in these chapters included talk moves, talk format, productive classroom talk, modeling/representations, and learning progressions. Not only did we discuss what the topics were, we also applied the topics to experiences we have had in the classroom. As a result of our discussion, I felt I got a better understanding of the concepts and I was more prepared for the quiz I completed after class on these two chapters.

The other major activity we did in class was a simple activity we could do with our students that would allow us to cover many science topic. This activity was titled “The Leaping Egg (or Ping Pong Ball).” This was a very simple activity in which we tried to blow a ping pong ball from a funnel inside a plastic cup into another plastic cup. This was a fun and challenging activity and by answering the questions given regarding the activity we were able to think about a number of concepts that were present in this activity. Our class discussion revealed that this experiment touched on the ideas of force, angle and direction of air flow, and pressure. It also allowed us to think about variables that might affect the results (i.e. changes in the amount of air force applied).

10-16-08 - Internet Activities Involving Safety

Today, class was in one of the computer labs. We did a couple of activities using the computer that we could have our students use. The first activity was an online safety scavenger hunt called “Staying Safe Online.” We went to the website and followed the links provided to answer questions regarding online safety for kids. I thought it was really cool that the safety tips were provided by the characters of Disney’s Doug. I think that it is a great idea to have characters that children recognize from a TV show present safety tips. But, is Doug still popular with kids today? The second activity was a web site containing a number of different types of safety including bicycle safety, animal safety, fire safety, and many more. You could click on each individual link or navigate from page to page on each individual page. This site was easy to move thought and it provided some nice animations while still keeping the page design simple. After looking at the different links, we were assigned to comment on a few of our favorite links or safety tips.

Now one may ask, “What does this have to do with science?” And really it does not have anything to do with science. But, it is important to teach children about safety both in everyday life and in the science classroom. A logical progression of instruction may be to start talking about safety in everyday life so students can understand the importance of safety and then move to instruction on safety in the science lab. Also, a science teacher may want to use the internet in his or her classroom so an activity teaching about online safety would be very appropriate to use.

10-14-08 - Science Stories and Discrepant Events

Today in class we discussed the requirements for our Midterm Project. One requirement regards science stories, so we spent some time learning what science stories were and how they fit into our project. This was a great thing to spend some time with, because there were some unclear parts to this requirement. And actually, during the course of the class, the requirement changed. This change is meant to make the project easier, but it also caused some frustration for me. Just as I thought I totally understood the assignment, I was confused again. But by the end of class, I got back on track. After all of this discussion, we were allowed some class time to work on our projects. It is nice to have class time to work on group projects, because we all have such busy schedules. At the conclusion of class, I felt that my partner and I have a really good start to our project.

After class, I checked out a web link that Dr. E gave us. This site talked about using discrepant events to teach science. Discrepant events are useful because they engage the students’ thinking power by forcing them to re-evaluate their beliefs. Thinking back on my own experiences in science classes, the activities that involved discrepant events were the ones that I enjoyed the most. I would think that the same would hold true for my future students. After reading this article, I really look forward to using discrepant events in my classroom.

10-9-08 - Integrating the Internet Wonders of Science

Today’s out of class assignment was to explore the following web site: www.cyberbee.com. Wow, what a web site. One could spend a lot of time on this web site. I think that this web site is kind of a gateway to resources and activities on the web. There are so many resources, I think you could find an activity for anything that you would want to teach and many of the resources are conducive to the use of technology in the classroom. One link that I really liked was the Access Excellence link. From this link I found a movie investigation about sneezing as well as a link to the Bill Nye web site. The Bill Nye site was really neat, and I really liked the home demo section. Another link that I found was to a Wonders of Science Treasure Hunt. On this site, students are asked questions about science that they are suppose to find the answer to on the web. There are even hints about which sites they should look at. These are just a few of the interesting links that I found, and I am sure that there are tons more that I did not explore.

10-7-09 - Mirror Writing

Before we got to the activity for the day, we spend some much needed time discussing assignments and making sure we were all on the same page. Our class seems to struggle keeping everything straight, but it is hard to keep up when either the instructor or students miss class. Another factor that I believe influenced this problem is that fact that we are not use to using D2L as the main source for finding class assignment; we are much more comfortable having a paper schedule in front of us with every assignment and the due date explicitly explained. I’m not saying one way is better than the other; it just is harder for some of us to adjust to a new way of doing things. But, isn’t this kind of like dealing with children’s misconceptions with science. We also took a couple of minutes to discuss judging the science fair.

Moving onto today’s activity, we did an investigation on learning and memory. In this investigation, we were to write our names and symbols by looking into a mirror instead of at the pencil. This was a very difficult thing to do. I found that it was much easier to do if you didn’t look at the mirror or the pencil when you wrote, but that is kind of defeating the purpose of this lab. I think that the real purpose of this lab was to pay attention to how we learned how to adapt to writing in the mirror. But because of our long discussion, we ran out of time to really discuss this activity and what we learned from doing it.

10-2-08 - Black Box Activity

After discussing Chapter 3 in Ready, Set, Science, we did the Black Box Activity using the placemat form from the FOSS set. First we read about conceptual and physical models from the FOSS book. Then we split a sheet of paper into one centered rectangle with four individual spots for each group member to write in. Then we each individually investigated what we thought was in the four black boxes that our group received. After individually making predictions, we discussed our findings as a group and came to one combined group answer. Our group decided that there was a sphere (marble) in each box and that they varied in size. We predicted that Box D had the biggest marble followed in descending order by Box A, Box C, and Box B. As it turned out, we were really off course with our prediction. All the boxes did contain a marble, but they were all the same size. Different cardboard shapes placed in the boxes caused the differences. Box A had a triangle in the bottom left corner; Box B had a square in the bottom center; Box C had two squares in a stair-step shape in the bottom left corner; Box D had a triangle with the right side of the box as the base of the triangle. This was a really neat activity, but the best part was the placemat activity format. This is a nice way to approach group work and I had never seen this done before.

9-30-08 - Ready, Set, Science Chapter 3 & 4

Today, class was online only. Our assignment was to complete the Module 2 Reading Guide that covered chapters 3 and 4 in the Ready, Set, Sciences textbook. Chapter 3 covered information about the knowledge that children have as they enter school and how that knowledge changes and develops as they continue through school. Chapter 4 discusses how we should use the core concepts as the basis of our instruction. Both chapters contain a lot of useful information as well as how science instruction should differ from practices currently in use. The biggest ideas that I took from my reading as well as competing the reading guide are that students’ misconceptions are important steps in their development and they do not necessarily need to be addressed right away and that your science curriculum should be based on just a few core concepts that will be developed over time.

9-26-08 - The Amazing Food Detective

I spent some time checking out “The Amazing Food Detective” web site linked in D2L. Wow, what a neat site for kids to explore nutrition and exercise! This website is simple to use so it could be used with young children. I did feel though that the site kind of lead you to the correct choices, making it difficult to explore which choices are right or wrong. Thus, there is not much intelligence needed. This might be okay if we use this web site simply to supplement instruction, because the information provided in the narrative is very good. I would also like to note that I really liked the multi-cultural presence on the web site.

9-25-08 - Web Seminar

Instead of meeting at our regular class time, we participated in a Web Seminar. The seminar was titled “Celebrating Astronomy: A Star’s Story” and our teacher was one of the presenters. Going into the seminar, I was a little concerned, because I had never done something like this before and I did not know what to expect. But, the concept of a web seminar is great. I really thought it was cool to have this live time discussion with people around the country (and Australia too). I thought it was neat to have so much interaction in the form of chats, white board markings, and the use of other tools such as the pooling feature and emotion icons.

As far as the content of the seminar, the seminar covered topics such as how stars are formed, information about the star life cycle or stages, how to classify stars, what happens when a star dies, and resources that we can use to help us use this information in a classroom. As far as providing more details about the content, I am afraid that I can not do that. I have had very little instruction in astronomy, meaning I really did not have much background on this topic going into the seminar. As a result, I felt that most of the information was going right over my head. When they asked for questions, I did not even know where to start asking questions. I am hoping that the resources given can help me get a better understanding of the topic so I can successfully teach my future students about astronomy.

9-23-08 - The Acid Test

Today we did another lab dealing with Food and Nutrition. This lab investigated the acidity of foods. There were many steps to this lab. First, we tested what would happen when we mixed vinegar and baking soda in a cup. Then, we tested this same reaction in a bottle. When doing the experiment in a bottle we could witness the gas (carbon dioxide) the reaction was producing. Other variations to this test were mixing water and baking soda as well as testing a 50-50 water and vinegar mixture’s reaction with baking soda. Then the experiment took a different turn. We started to test what fruit juice and fruit pieces would do when mixed with baking soda. The fruit used included oranges, limes, pink grapefruit, and white grape fruit. Our group found the lime juice to be the most acidic. We ran out of time to test the fruit pieces.

From doing this lab, I learned some things about doing labs in a classroom. First of all, I learned that prepared lab directions are not always very clear. Our group was especially confused with the directions on testing the fruit pieces. Thus is might be necessary as the teacher to prepare clear directions for labs yourself. Another lesson learned in class that I would like to remember is to always double the time you think it will take to prepare for a lab, because it can take longer than you expect it to.

9-18-08 – Interaction, Collaboration, and Technology

Today we got to do an activity that included interaction, collaboration, and technology. To complete this activity, we got into groups of three with one computer per group. We then went on the Foss web site that runs in conjunction with the Foss Kits we have in the classroom. We were asked to collaborate with the members of our group to plan a meal that met required calorie and fat intake amounts. This was a fun activity to, but it also proved to be harder than we thought. It took my group quite a few attempts to successfully plan an adequate meal. We also completed a few nutrition worksheets from the Foss Kits. All this time, we were also taking time to discuss our findings as a class.

This was a wonderful example of how to integrate interaction, collaboration, and technology into a lesson. I believe that it is important to include these characteristics in some of your lessons because these characteristics are part children’s learning styles today. Many kids are so use to using the computer and being in social situations due to society's practices, so we really need to build on these strengths and allow the students to use them.

9-16-08 - Safety

After a short PowerPoint on Chapter 2 focusing on the 4 Learning Strands and their importance, we did an activity on a very important part of science – safety. This activity involved creating a game to use to help students learn about safety. The game had already been created for us, but we were able to add our own creative touches to the game board. I got really into this part, so I did not have time to play the game in class. But after reading through the directions, the game sounds really fun. Along with the game we received a few other aids to use in the classroom when talking about safety.

I think that the idea of using a game to help students learn about safety in the science lab is such a great idea. I can only imagine how much more effective this interactive method is compared to just having the students read the safety rules and sign an agreement or to have them watch a video and take a multiple choice or true/false quiz over the content. Safety is so important! I believe that it is critical for the students to really learn this information. If playing a game is the best way to do that, I am all for it.

9-11-08 – Introduction to Ready, Set Science

Today was a very informational day. We started out with an introduction PowerPoint presentation to the textbook that we are going to be using this semester. This presentation really helped me see a few things that I will need to work on during this class. Some of these things include making sure that I know some of the big and sometimes misleading terms, making sure that I am using all of the terminology in the correct form, and making sure that I am persistent in everything that I do. We also had a much needed tutorial on Desire to Learn and on Blogging.

But, the best part of the day was an activity involving chocolate. We did an activity investigating volume/surface area ratio. From this investigation I learned that a sphere vase can hold more chocolate kisses than a cylinder vase. This is definitely one lesson that this chocolate lover will remember.

9-9-o8 – Temperature Probe Response Time

This was a very interesting lab today. The lab itself was quite simple, but figuring out how to use the LabQuest was a task in itself. Although, after we figured out how to run the specific task that we needed, it was actually quite simple. The biggest problem my group had was figuring out that the directions on the lab sheet were for the TI-84 calculator and not for the LabQuest.

In this lab, we found that it took the temperature probe 49 seconds to respond to the change in temperature from the cup of ice water to the cup of hot water. When discussing the lab at the end of class, we found that ours differed from some of the others’ results by quite a few seconds. But, there were also a few who had very similar results. There were obviously different variables being used between the groups. Also, I wonder if the response time would have been different if we had gone from the hot water to the cold water.