Week of August 24th, 2009
The first day of classes went well, to say the least. The students
seemed to pick up on Jen’s enthusiasm for science right away. Seeing as
the class starts at 8 am, it took some of the students more time to warm up
to the idea of getting up and moving around so early! Today, the students
participated in a “science phobia’ walk where they were to reflect on their
ideas and preconceived notions of teaching science and the science
instruction they have had in the past. A lot of the students commented how
they like science classes when they are hands on and interactive
processes – perfect for what we are trying to accomplish! We talked about
the concept of how students love for science trails off, more or less when
they enter high school. My thoughts are slightly biased in the fact that I
have always had a love for science. This concept is important to think
about as I enter my future profession as a teacher. I need to constantly be
finding ways to engage my students, and make science both fun at the
same time a beneficial learning experience. From watching the students
unfold this week I realized that students like hands on and acting like kids!
When the activities were interactive and in groups the students seemed
more interested in participating willingly.
As a future educator, I need to turn curious minds on early in
student’s lives – but more importantly find ways to keep them turned on as
they go through elementary and middle school. Planning many hands on
tasks seems like a great place to start! After the ‘phobia’ walk, the students
participated in the “Nature of Science” activity. This was another interactive
activity. They were given only so many puzzle pieces and were asked to
find out what they think the whole puzzle might look like when completed.
The students made hypotheses based on the information they had been
given. As in most scientific research, more information is discovered as
time passes; the students were then asked to pick out more puzzle pieces
and see if their hypotheses changed or stayed the same based on this new
evidence. The concept that was pulled from this activity was the fact that
scientists don’t always have the answers and there isn’t ever a ‘finishing’
point. More information brings about more theories, more theories can be
proven wrong, hypotheses will be re-worked time and time again before
anyone will ever get it ‘right’ – (if there is such a thing). Another major
concept that we touched on was the fact that the scientific method isn’t a
linear process. Ideas and hypotheses change over time and don’t form in a
systematic order. The concepts that were addressed this week I feel very
confident in my understanding.
I believe the role of a teacher is very important in a science
classroom. Taking for instance the reactions I heard from the first day of
class alone. At the end of class I already heard people commenting on
how great of a professor Jen was and how they knew this was going to be
a fun class. The fact that Jen had that much of an impression on the
students from the get go is something that I hope will occur in my future
classrooms as well. The role of the teacher in a science classroom isn’t to
be the ‘know all to end all’ person. They are their students ‘peer’ and
should work alongside their students – not cramming facts and information
into their brains. The teachers role is to find ways for students to lift the
content off the page of a text book and bring it to life in a way that makes
sense to each and every one of their students. During the activity Jen and I
didn’t provide all of the answers, rather we stepped back and asked guiding
questions to probe the students thinking process. This is a much more
effective process than giving students the answers when they ask for them.
Good teachers need to make students search and continually learning. A
good teacher should themselves be a life-long learner. My learning won’t
stop when I exit the confines of Winona State, I will constantly be finding
and researching new information to better my own knowledge as well as
my teaching strategies. Jen doesn’t use a text book. In this day and age,
there is so much information at our fingertips that is available to us at the
click of a button. An important role in teaching effectively is to guide your
students to find out where the best and accurate information can be found
by providing resources. When we did the leaf collection, rather than
looking the answers up in a book, Jen provided an interactive website for
the students to click through while identifying their leaves. The students
seemed to like this much more – as it was more visually appealing to them.
Another important concept that was addressed throughout this week
was when we become future teachers, the using of our community as a lab.
There is so much information and amazing stuff you can learn by utilizing
the things that surround you. There is no need to plan an expensive trip to
a cave to go and look at rocks. All you need to do is take a step outside –
science is all around us! When we did this in class the students seemed
more interested in the content as well as excited to find out new information
about the world around them. They seemed to grasp the concepts we
were trying to explain more when they could relate it to something that was
concrete as well. They were able to touch and manipulate the leaves and
compare them to other ones around the area. I would believe that this
would be the same, if not more important for our younger children in our
elementary classes in the future.
Week of August 31, 2009
This week started out quite slow in the sense that the students were
quieter when Monday arrived, but it was amazing to see the transformation
by the time we reached day three! During this week the students worked
on their leaf identifications on Monday, watched a video about the ‘Birth of
Earth on Wednesday, and worked with more classification of the Solar
System on Friday. The broad concept of classification, I realized this week
is crucial for students to grasp the concept of. Science is all about
classification, and sometimes we take that for granted. While working on
the leaf identification project this week, I noticed that the students looked to
me as if I knew all the answers. To tell you the truth, my confidence in leaf
identification dates back to my sophomore biology class – so I knew about
as much as they did! I was amazed at how much I learned from the
students in a short amount of time. Although they looked to me to validate
their answers, I would pose more questions in hopes that my question
would lead them to find more information to better their hypothesis of what
the leaf might actually be. Students in my future classroom might do the
same exact thing, and to be honest I’m sure I won’t have the answers 99%
of the time. The important thing to do is to channel those questions and
encourage children to find out more about their topic of interest. I as a
teacher, of course will lead them to reliable sources to continue their
search, and encourage them to share their new found information with the
class. We need to celebrate creative minds, and falling back on ‘I don’t
know…” just doesn’t cut it.
On Wednesday of this week, we watched a video on the creation of
the Earth. The students seemed to have enjoyed it, as I had already
known/seen a lot of this same information in Jenn’s GEO 130 class last
semester. It is important for the students to know how we got here! So
much can be learned from studying the early biology, chemistry and
geology of the Earth. It is important to lay groundwork for everything else
in the course, so what better way to do it than to start from where it all
began! Watching the video again made me realize that even though I
might know the ‘general’ background of a topic, it never hurts to watch
something again and re-learn the information to help fill in the gaps. I felt
rather confident with the information that was presented, as it was still
rather fresh in my memory from last semester. It was easy for me, after
watching the movie, to really engage in the student’s questions and begin
to answer them. Some of them were ‘way out their’ questions – and Jenn
did the best she could to answer them and help the students find places to
find the answer on their own. I realized sometimes this week that students
would pose a question, I knew the answers, but it was hard for me to
sometimes put what I wanted to say into words. This is an important
concept when it comes to my future classroom. I may understand the
concept myself, but that doesn’t mean that my students will after I explain
it. I need to find various ways to present information, rather than just the
way that I have learned it.
Friday of the week truly astonished me! The students really grabbed
hold of the amazing information that was provided in the movie. Some
were shocked, some were scared, others were unshaken. The fact of the
matter is that such an amazing topic caused so many different emotions for
the students at once. To see the students so enthused about finding out
more about the formation of our planets and the moon really made Jenn
and I happy. The questions kept coming and coming, and it was really
important that Jenn didn’t cut any of the students off, or make them feel like
their ideas where crazy. She took each question in and made sure that
each student in the class had at least a basic knowledge of the answer. I
am always amazed at the way that Jenn relates to the students. When
explaining concepts, she has one of the best methods I have seen to this
date. Instead of ‘barking’ out information to the students she finds
interesting ways, such as story-telling to make something that might seem
rather dull, a fascinating and engaging topic. I hope that my same passion
shows through in my future classroom as much as hers does! The best
thing is, is that the students feed off of this positive energy. I saw such a
turn-around today in the fact that the kids were searching deeper for
answers, and more engaged than they have been before.
We also did an activity today that focused on more classification. The
students were handed out cards that had characteristics of 30 different
planetary bodies. Without giving the students the names of the bodies,
they were to look at the data on the card and categorize them into a way
that made sense to them. The students approached the situation from
various angles, and it was really interesting to see how they arose at their
answers. No one group ended up with the same list, and this was a good
thing! The students were asking great questions, and thinking really hard
about what this information told them about our solar system. I felt rather
confident in the information that was being presented about the solar
system because we had learned most of this in Jenn’s class last semester.
I found it a lot easier to interact with the groups in this inquiry based
activity. When I worked with them, I wouldn’t give them the answers, but
provide them with another path to venture down that might help in their
categorization. I might have thrown the groups off at times, but my
information served a purpose, and that was to get the students thinking
down more than one path.
During these activities, Jenn and I surveyed the room. We would
walk up to a group and ask them to explain their through process before we
posed anymore questions. By allowing the children to explain their data
first, they could provide and un-biased opinion of what they thought.
Sometimes, as soon as a teacher says something, students assume it’s the
‘word’ and there is no other way to think about it. We would then pose
questions, and have groups analyze what other groups were doing during
the process. We encouraged the students that they were on the right track,
and this kept them motivated and searching for the ‘right’ answer. A lot of
the students were quite overwhelmed when they first got the cards, but as
they looked at the ‘whole picture’ of the situation and related it to the
smaller parts, they were able to understand and grasp the concept a lot
better. One thing that really helped the students in this activity was the fact
that Jenn didn’t just give them a list of all of the data. I think that if she
would have, this would have scared them off and made the task seem
anything but possible. Instead, she made fun and interactive manipulative
cards that the students could move and organize based on their ideas.
This made the daunting task of finding out what all of these unknown items
were much more bearable and fun. Instead of just introducing the
planetary bodies to the students, and their names, the students were forced
to answer their own questions by looking at the data.
Another important concept that we touched base on during this
activity was the fact that politics and emotion play a crucial role in most
science issues. Take for instance the debate over Pluto. Today, instead of
just telling the students that ‘Pluto isn’t a planet –because the IAU said so,’
they had the opportunity to categorize it where they deemed it be the
correct classification and find out for themselves. This is a great way for
students to form their own understandings of a big concept rather than just
having someone tell you how it is. This activity was something that Jenn
has never done before, and she didn’t exactly know how it was going to
pan out. We were both surprised at how well the students did with the
activity as soon as they understood what exactly it was they were trying to
accomplish. As future educators, we can’t be afraid to do an activity and
have it fail. If we do that, it’s as if we doubt our students before we even
give them a chance to prove themselves. I need to remember as a future
teacher that even if an activity doesn’t go as planned, something beneficial
can always be learned from the experience. When I was in high school, we
did a lab that lasted over a month. When we came to the end of our
experiment, the results we found had nothing to do with what we were
trying to prove. This ‘mishap’ was truly magical, in the sense that it allowed
us to probe deeper into the idea of why it didn’t work. Science is based on
failure, and failure brings about change.
The students this week turned in their first four lessons for their
resource collections. I believe it is such a good idea for the students to
start submerging themselves in the massive amounts of science content
that is out on the web for them. It’s not to go without being said that the
children also need to learn how to find good and reliable sources, but
making this collection of lessons is helping them to do just that. In doing
this, when their in their future classroom, they will know where to find great
activities and valid information, instead of scrambling to try and throw a
meaningless activity together last minute. We noticed this week that some
of the students were still having trouble with their observation/describing
skills. Jamie and I offered up some activity ideas that might help the
students next week, so we’ll see how this goes! I can only hope that next
week the students will be as open and willing as they were today!
Week of September 7th
The first day of class this week consisted of a discussion of the solar
system activity we conducted on the previous Friday. During class, the
students were invited to share out their answers and findings to their solar
system classification. They were able to compare answers, argue with one
another on their findings as well as come to a general conclusion of how
these planetary bodies should be sorted. I noticed that during the large
group discussion that Jenn didn’t tell a group they were right or wrong,
rather she took down all the information and waited to start sorting through
it until everyone had a chance to voice their opinion. I think this is very
important as a teacher. Even though we know the ‘right’ answer,
sometimes the wrong ones make us start to question our knowledge of
what is ‘right.’ We need to encourage all of our children to share out their
ideas, no matter how ‘off’ they might be – they might add a valuable piece
to the discussion. This inquiry based learning activity forced the students
to create their own opinions and definitions of science content, which in
turn made it more meaningful to them as they could tie a more personal
and concrete experience to the learning itself. I could tell by the end of the
discussion that some students still hadn’t grasped the concept of the solar
system fully. I think that some students would have benefited from a more
‘visually appealing’ diagram of the solar system. We had found out the
next day that this is what Dr. Bates had done for her class, as it seemed to
have helped aid their knowledge gain. Friday in class we drew out a
diagram for the students to put in their notes and I really think it helped
them to grasp the concepts better. Students don’t all learn the same; we
know that, this is why it is so important to find different ways to present
information. As a teacher, you can’t just assume because you understand
something to be a ‘simple’ topic that your students will feel the same. Good
teachers make sure to review information even after activities are
concluded. In doing this, students will be able to apply their previous
knowledge to the new content they are learning as well as work out any last
minute misunderstandings.
The next activity the students participated in was called ‘Millions of
Billions.’ In this activity, the students were to calculate the distances of a
million different objects (toothpicks, paperclips, elephants, people, etc.) The
important thing about this activity was that the students had to find not only
what the number values were, but they had to find a way to take the data
they calculated and convert it into something that a young elementary
student would be able to visualize. Teachers throw the numbers ‘millions’
and ‘billions’ around without some of their students ever being able to
conceptualize how much these numbers actually are. Using this activity
helps take these ‘big’ numbers and turn them into something more feasible
for younger students to understand. I found myself, after revealing the
answers that I was even surprised as to some of the distances and
amounts of time it would take to reach a million, and a billion. This project
tied directly into connection the big numbers we use in distances in the
solar system as well as the geologic time scale, which is where we were
headed next.
I feel confident in my understanding of the geologic/biologic history of
Earth, so I was quite excited about the next project. The students were
instructed to create their own timeline of important events in their lives. In
doing this, they were forced to come up with a proper scale, as well as
making a more personal connection with the concept that was being
covered. This small scale and informal project served as an introduction to
the bigger project that was to follow. Having an activity beforehand that
your students can ‘practice’ more or less will help to ensure that they grasp
a well-rounded understanding of the topic before diving right in. After the
students created their own personal timeline they made their very own
geologic time scale on a 5 meter piece of paper. The night before class,
Jamie and I took the time to make our very own examples to use in class.
While doing this, I was still surprised by the difficulty in grasping the vast
amount of time that passed before humans evolved on Earth. The tape
served as a visual representation at just how spread out all of these events
is in the history of the Earth. It’s a good idea as a future teacher to always
have an example ready for your students. This really helped when the
students were hung up on how they wanted to organize their data. You
want your students to know however, that just because you did it one way,
that there isn’t another right way to do it as well. The thing that Jenn did
that I really liked about this activity was that she didn’t really give much of
an introduction. The children were handed the dates and had to work
together with their partner to find out how to start plotting these things on
their timeline using a reasonable scale so that all fit on the strip of paper.
The students had a hard time dealing with the millions of years ‘ago’ they
wanted to plot them as years like they are used to doing in most cases.
The counting backward thing tripped some of the students up at first, but
after they talked it through with Jenn and me they were able to understand
the concept more. It was cool to see how the students approached the
same project differently. Due to the fact that they weren’t giving strict
guidelines, many different systems of plotting the information emerged.
Some groups got a hold of it right off the bat, while others were more
meticulous with their calculations and hadn’t gotten much done before the
end of class.
The students will be continuing to work on this project on Monday.
Another thing that is very important when working with timeline type
activities, is to make sure the students understand what these dates and
events mean. Jenn, at the end of class assigned the pair of students the
task of dividing up these events and researching information on what they
mean to the field of biology and geology. They were instructed to find two
sentences to explain what happened at each event and be able to explain
them to their partner upon returning. The fact that the work was divided up
as well provides an opportunity for the students to teach one another the
information they became an expert on. I always liked having to explain
information I learned to other people because it helps me to make sure I
understand it as much as I think I do – and sometimes I am quite wrong.
It’s one thing to understand information for yourself, but when you’re
responsible for the learning of another individual, you better hope you have
multiple ways to explain it!! I learned that from working with the students in
this class especially. I would try to explain something the way I had
learned it, and some of them would look at me with blank stares –
eventually I have to find another way to alter the way I am presenting the
information to the students. It can be quite difficult but I’m still learning 
Week of September 14th
In looking back at the week, it feels like Monday was so long
ago! During the first class of the week, the students finished up working on
their timelines with their partners. When they had all finished, Jen had
them hang them up on the wall, matching up the start and ending points of
the timeline. Jen used this technique as a means to check the student’s
answers, as well as a visual to start discussing the important topics in
Earth’s history. The students seemed to engage more in the discussion,
when they could compare something that they personally created to what
was being said. If a problem or discrepancy in timelines arose, the children
could look to their notes and the others timelines to check and see where
they went wrong. Not only was this a good discussion mechanism, but the
timeline also can be something that these students can carry with them and
use in their future classroom someday. I think all too many times in
college, professors sit and lecture at us until we’re blue in the face, and the
truth is, no matter how old you are, people love reverting back to their
childhood and making a hands-on project –which our students clearly did!
It was awesome to hear the discussion that I did while the students were
working on their projects and going through the timelines. I heard students
interacting with other groups, as well as groups discussing their impressed
states when looking at the massive amounts of time in between each of
these significant events they were plotting on the timeline. During this
entire activity Jen and I stood back and let the children make their own
discoveries. I think it would have been really cool to have the students go
home and find a few more important events in the history of the earth that
they could share with the class and plot them on their timelines as well.
Timelines in elementary school, I believe will be very beneficial. Making a
classroom timeline to use in all subjects, I think, would be a really awesome
idea. Sometimes when dates are thrown out at me, I never really put them
into context. This way, whenever a new date was added to the children’s
vast bank of knowledge, they could plot it on the classroom timeline, and
compare it to other events they have already discussed. This is a great
visual, and something that I think students would enjoy doing throughout an
entire year! Think of how many dates would be take over your classroom
walls!
Wednesday was somewhat of a low-key day. We watched the
second part of the origin video, this time focusing on the development of life
on our planet. I could tell this time around, the students weren’t as
engaged in the movie. After watching it, Jen asked the simple question,
“So? What did you think?” One student said, “that just stated everything
you’ve already told us.” While another said “I liked the other video a lot
better.” It’s indications like this, that help us as teachers to better our
learning activities. If they don’t work the first time around, or don’t seem to
do what we wanted to discuss justice, we have the opportunity to revamp it
for the next time around. Don’t get me wrong, the movie had a lot of
beneficial information for the students, but it was a little too specific for the
information that I know Jen and Kim were trying to cover when talking
about the origin of the Earth. This is another important thing as a teacher
that I need to keep in mind. Movies are great, but only if they serve the
purpose that you intend them to. From our curriculum planning meeting, I
kind of got the sense that Jen and Kim needed a activity time filler, and this
movie provided a basis for that. Even though it contained relevant content,
the students were bored with hearing the same things they have already
heard. The movie brought out some great questions in some of the
students and made them probe deeper into the complex systems and
events that formed our planet. I was impressed by some of the questions
they were asking, and didn’t quite know how to go about answering them
myself! So in looking at this outcome of watching the video, I wouldn’t say
that it was a complete waste of time!
At the conclusion of the movie, the students were introduced to the
compound microscopes. They did an introductory lab that helped them to
become familiar with the basic parts and functions of their microscopes.
We need to remember that we can’t just assume that everyone has had the
same experience working with microscopes. I know personally, in my time
at Winona State I have had to use a microscope ONCE and that was this
Wednesday…and I’m a science major!!! So to say the least, I was just as
familiar with these scientific instruments as any of the other students in the
class. I paired up with one of the students and worked along with her to go
through the activity. A lot of the students seemed to think that using a
microscope was a walk in the park, but soon found that statement to be
false. The students could use a microscope, yes, but use a microscope
correctly? No. The students found very quickly that this activity was going
to take them longer than they had thought it was going to. We realized that
as the students were working through the activity, even though they had a
detailed lab printed out next to them to follow that they didn’t REALLY read
the content of this lab (myself included!) oops! We need to make sure we
are clear on our instructions before we just throw the kids into an activity,
assuming that they will read every detail on the handout. At the conclusion
of class Jen told the students that they would be working more with the
microscopes on Friday, and that they were to bring in interesting stuff from
home to look at. The students seemed to have some crazy ideas when
they began to brainstorm all of the items they could bring in! I liked Jen’s
idea to squash some gnats and look at them under the microscope.
Hopefully after working with the microscopes more on Friday, I will feel
even more confident in my skills of using them! Today definitely helped,
and made me regain my confidence in using them!
Today we conducted the “What is Life” experiment. The students
were to set up bottles containing a mystery substance. (One contained
yeast, while the other was sand.) The students, through experimentation
needed to determine which one of the two was alive, and uncover the
meaning of what it means to actually be alive.
Today, the students started out the class by discussing what it means
to be alive as a preparation for the lab they were about to conduct. They
did a pretty good job and seemed to generate a pretty well rounded list –
some things that I didn’t even think to include. Jen seemed to be very
pleased with the vast amount and diverse answers the students provided.
After distributing mystery substance A (yeast), and mystery substance B
(sand), the students were supposed to make predictions as to which of the
two substances were alive. The students clearly knew right away, and
seemed to have ‘written’ off the lab from the start because there really
wasn’t much ‘mystery’ to them as to which one substance was going to
dissolve the sugar and blow up the balloon that was placed on top of their
mixture. The students proceeded through the experiment, and still seemed
to struggle with the point of taking notes. The students would ask ‘do I
have to write this down? ‘Or How detailed do I need to be?’ I would answer
by saying, if you don’t write it now, you won’t be able to recall it later. The
more detailed you are the first time around the better off you’ll be in the end
when it comes time for the exam.
One thing you need to always be prepared for as a teacher is to
expect the unexpected! Today, one of our students, mid-class, started
talking about the aphid larva that has been so obnoxiously flying around
campus. We began talking about how the aphids seem to be more
attracted to bright colors. Jen instantly had an idea, lets TEST IT!! We
gathered 6 different colored bowls and went and placed them out in the
rock garden. We were testing to see if in fact our hypothesis about the
attraction to bright colors was true. I went out and set up the experiment,
and forty minutes later we had our results! The hypothesis we had
proposed was true! The yellow bucket was COVERED in aphids! So now,
Jen turned this ‘hunch’ into a teachable moment. As teachers there will be
many learning opportunities that will be presented to us that don’t exactly
follow the outline path we had originally intended ourselves to take. These
moments and activities can sometimes prove to be more beneficial to the
students because they came up with the experiment themselves and want
to probe and find out more. When moments like these arise we need to be
willing to TAKE them! The students really enjoyed doing this!
Overall, this week went very smoothly and the students seemed to
enjoy doing MORE hands-on activities than we have the previous weeks.
Next week we will be starting discussing the structure of cells, DNA, and
heredity. I’m excited to learn about these subjects because I haven’t had a
class that covered these concepts specifically since high school!
Week of September 20th
I was a little hesitant going into this week, seeing as we were starting
heredity. Since I’ve been at WSU, I haven’t had an extensive class that
covered this specific material. The last class I had that focused on genetics
and heredity was in 10th grade! By the end of the week however, I was
quite pleased with what I had learned. On Monday, the students brought in
plant and animal cells that they had made at home for an assignment over
the weekend. We didn’t spend any time in class, before the project was
assigned, talking about parts of a cell and their functions. In doing this
project over the weekend, the students were to construct their own
definitions and explain the functions of each of the parts of their very own
cell. In doing this, they were able to make a more concrete understanding,
and refer back to a personal representation of a cell to better understand
the information.
It was really neat to see the different types of cells that were created.
Some of the students just drew a diagram of a cell (which wasn’t allowed
under the guidelines Jen had set forth), some made food representations of
cells, and others used random household items. We posed the question to
the students whether or not this task was hard or easy. Most of them said
it was hard, because when they were little, it was easier to be creative, due
to the fact that you they weren’t overanalyzing the task at hand. The
students said they had trouble ‘envisioning’ a proper household item to
represent each specific part of the cell, whereas, according to most of the
class, a young child would have a smaller problem with this task because
their imaginations haven’t yet learned to critically analyze model/scale this
way yet. Another important thing to take away from this task was the fact
that the students were required to use household items to represent a
science concept. As teachers, we are going to have to pull a lot of
resources for our students to use, and sometimes this can get very
expensive. I was amazed at the items that students came up with in their
cells, and as teachers, doing this activity cost us absolutely nothing.
We started talking about DNA, which is not Jen’s area of expertise.
She proved to the students, that when we become future teachers, we
aren’t going to know everything. We are constantly going to be re-teaching
concepts and information to ourselves each time we teach (unless we have
phenomenal memories of course!) Even so, Jen took a concept, DNA that
she knew very little about, and made it seem as if she had been studying
DNA her whole life. I love the quote, “Teaching is ¼ preparation, and ¾
pure theatre.” Jen proved this to be completely true. Although she
prefaced her lecture by telling the kids she didn’t know very much about
DNA, she was still able to pull together resources and learn enough to have
an educated conversation/lecture with the class. The next project we took
on was making DNA strands out of beads. The students LOVED this
beyond belief. I’ve never seen COLLEGE student’s kids light up at the
sight of something like they did when they saw the beads. While creating
this fun project, they were still learning the concepts necessary to truly
understand how DNA works. This was something also that they could take
with them, as a concrete manipulative to refer to when studying, and trying
to remember the parts that make up DNA.
On Wednesday of this week, we worked through a Strawberry DNA
extraction lab. Jen and I had both never done a lab like this before, but
overall it ran very smoothly. One problem we ran into with this activity was
time management. The preparation and lab set up time took a lot longer
than we had anticipated. It’s never easy, when prepping a lesson to predict
how long each specific task is going to take, because it’s going to be
different for each diverse learner. Future teachers need to make sure they
set enough time before and after the lab to introduce and wrap up the
activity. We didn’t have time to wrap up the activity, and had to rush
through the last part of it, which was the most important point the
experiment was trying to make. The students all seemed to enjoy the
process of the DNA extraction and were surprised to find that this was an
activity they could conduct at their house, without any crazy lab chemicals
or contraptions! DNA is an abstract concept, and for the students to
actually be able to extract it from common items, such as a strawberry,
made for a beneficial and insightful learning experience. To remedy the
lack of time to finish up the activity, Jen summarized the results and
reflected on them at the start of class on Friday. Over time, I’ve realized the
students have opened up more and more. They start to ask me more
questions, but also continue to ask the infamous: “is this right?” question.
This relationship I’m forming with the students will help when I have to
teach all by myself next week…I hope 
Friday was by far my favorite day this week! The students were
working through a genetics/heredity lab with Punnett squares and the
Hardy-Weinberg Equation. I was surprised at how fast I had remembered
my days of high school biology. I had always liked these types of
problems, as I was super excited to help the students work through the
packet. Today, more than ever before, I realized that the students were
directing more of their questions to me, and less to Jen. They were more
willing to ask me what they deemed as ‘stupid’ questions and explain their
though processes/hunches. One girl in particular was struggling with
understanding dihybrid crosses. I could tell she was getting really
frustrated, because she didn’t understand the content, but saw all of the
other students whizzing through the packet and started to feel that she was
‘stupid’ (which is what she told me). I took this as an opportunity, to search
my understanding of the content, and find a different way to present the
information. I provided her with many helpful tips, as she seemed to grasp
the concept more thouroughly after I had explained it a second time
around. We broke up the procedure into steps, and made separate tables
and charts to get the data. I think all of the letters and letter combinations
crammed into one little Punnett square was too much information to
analyze at once for her. So taking the process step by step, helped to calm
her nerves and understand the content. I had her explain back to me what
we had just done, to check her understanding, and this seemed to work, so
I was happy with what I had accomplished! No two learners are alike, and I
realized this as I saw her struggling to understand. By finding a different
way to present the information, I was able to help her overcome her doubt
and build confidence that she could understand the information just like
everyone else in the class.
Today, it was announced in class that the students will be having
their first exam next Wednesday. I saw the look of distress fall upon each
one of the students faces as Jen began to discuss what will be required of
them on the test. I think a lot of the information we have covered in this
class, has gone in one ear and out the other, as they haven’t really taken
the opportunity to analyze the data and content that we have covered and
why it might be important to understand. Jamie and I are setting up a study
session for the students next week, so we’re hoping that this will help! I
sent out an email today to the students letting them generate a list of
questions and topics they would like us to touch on during this session,
which will hopefully calm some nerves. I think for the most part, the
students understand the content, they are just fearful of how they are going
to be asked to apply this knowledge. Jamie and I also were asked by Jen
and Kim to take full responsibility of teaching rock classification next
Wednesday. I’m a little fearful, especially seeing as I have a GEO WHIZ
that will be watching me when I teach this content to the students. I believe
this will be a very beneficial learning experience for me, and hopefully for
the students as well. I am pretty confident in my ‘rock’ skills, now it’s just a
matter of sorting through what I know, and finding ways to relate and teach
that to the student in the class in a way that they will understand.
Week of September 28th
This week was more of a non-traditional one, in comparison to
the weeks that preceded it. It started out, as what seemed to be a
chaotic, uncontrollable spiral into the state of the overwhelmed, but
as the week went on it seemed to settle down. The prospect of
knowing that we were required to teach a full lesson this week by
ourselves, and provide two study sessions for the students was really
weighing in on my capacity of tasks that I can handle in a given
period of time. The thought of teaching, doesn’t scare me, as I think it
would be a fantastic opportunity, it was the amount of time we were
given to throw something together however that was stressing me
out, while also providing the students with assistance to study for the
upcoming test this Friday.
On Monday, the students spent most of their time wrapping up
their Mendelian Genetics packet. They shared out their data,
compiled it as a class, and then analyzed the results. After
introducing the Hardy-Weinberg equation, some of the students
seemed to be rather lost. So as a class, Jenn took the time to
dissect the equation, and find out what it actually meant. After she
did this, the students seemed to grasp the concept rather well.
Seeing as Jenn didn’t have the confidence to explain how it really
worked, she managed to logically work through the problem, and
make sense of it herself through her dissection. The students had the
opportunity to practice using the equation more, and apply what they
learned by analyzing their personal genetic make-up with their
parents. The rest of the class was devoted to outlining what was
going to be on the test. It was interesting to see how the class
dynamic changed as everyone began to pull out their notebooks and
frantically jot down everything and anything that came out of Jenn’s
notes. Now, if we could only get the students to do this BEFORE we
have a test in two days, that would be fantastic. We’ll have to figure
out a way to do just that! The students asked a lot of good question,
but were more worried about test format than content. I know from
being a student myself, that the first test of the semester is always the
most nerve-racking because you don’t know what to expect from your
professor. In seeing how well the students interacted during the
class sessions thus far, I think they will do relatively well on the test.
Wednesday of this week, Jamie and I planned an in-class review
session for all of the students. It would have been super easy for
Jamie and I to just print off a study guide, have them answer
questions, and go through them. Instead of this mundane way of
studying, Jamie and I took the way that we personally study, and
presented it to the class. In the class we had 8 different tables set out
with activities that focused the students attention on the big concepts
that were covered during our first unit. There were activities such as
coloring and labeling cells, constructing DNA, a moveable historical
timeline that they could make and take with them, practice with using
and making dichotomous keys, and also punnett square practice
problems. The students seemed to really enjoy and appreciate the
time we took to set up these activities for them. Obviously there was
not enough time for students to get to all of the tables, but there was
enough activities printed out that they could take them home and
work through them while studying later. That’s what we wanted to
make this study session; interactive, hands-on and engaging, and I
believe we succeeded in doing so. I stuck around for Jamie’s section
of the class, as she was present for mine. It was interesting to see
how the dynamic of the class changed as soon as Jen and Kim
walked out of the room. The students were more willing to ask
questions, even of Jamie, who they hadn’t ever interacted with before.
The students started openly talking about their fears about the test,
and their opinions of the class in general. This is something that I
know probably wouldn’t have happened if Jen and Kim would have
stuck around for the review session. I realized a lot of the questions
that the students were asking were the ‘is this going to be on the test,’
type of question. The test hadn’t even been written yet, so it was
quite hard to limit the student’s fears of test content, when we had no
idea ourselves. In all reality, I kept telling the students, that they
know more than they think they do! The content we covered
contained a lot of different subjects that we just barely ‘dipped’ into,
so it’s easy to get overwhelmed. I reinforced the fact that I had faith
that they would do well on the test, if they had taken the time outside
of class to make connections and apply the knowledge they received
within the past month.
It was interesting to see too, the different make-up of classes
(mine vs. Jamie’s). My class is super small, so there is more of a
personal connection to the students and the ability to communicate
with each of them more frequently. I got a feel that my class was
more confident in the content and about the test than Jamie’s class
was. They seemed to be overwhelmed and started to believe that
there was no way they would do well on the upcoming test. We
actually heard some of the students saying ‘I think I might drop this
class,” due to the fact that they had received back homework
assignments before the study session, that not too many of them did
so hot on. I think from a future teachers perspective, in Kim’s
situation, I might have waited to hand back the assignments until after
the test. Most of the stuff she handed back wasn’t going to directly
impact the students studying. The bad scores they got made them
feel like there was no way the y could make up ground now. I feel
overall the study session went very well. The students were very
appreciative of the work we put into the study session, and told us
that it benefited them greatly. During our meeting with Kim and Jen
on Wednesday, we sat in and helped them make up the test. From
looking at it I felt that there were no major surprises, and the students
would be challenged, but not so much that the test was impossible.
For the test, we are doing it part of it individual, and part of it a group
test. I believe this is a great idea, due to the fact that so much of the
work the students do within this class is group based. We didn’t tell
the students this, because we thought that it would limit the amount
of time they spent studying. Tonight Jamie and I are going to take the
test to make sure that we believe the students will be able to work
through it for Jenn and Kim. I haven’t gotten many emails from the
students in the class, so I’m hoping that is because they are feeling
confident about the content and their knowledge! Jenn and Kim gave
Jamie and I the day off on Friday, so I am excited to hear how the test
goes from the students. I hope they all do well, as I assume they
should! 
Week of October 4th
For the first class of the week the students worked on a rock
classification project. They were given 24 rocks, and were instructed
to come up with their own dichotomous key for the rocks. I could tell
that the students were not looking forward to this task, as some of
them stated; “another dichotomous key!” I could see the scared look
on some of the students faces as they started to look through the
rocks, due to the fact that this was probably the first time many of
them had seen some of them. I felt extremely confident going into
this upcoming week, and topics. Seeing as my first day of Jenn’s
class I was required to ID 150 rocks, these 24 seemed like a walk in
the park. What I started to realize was however, that I had to find new
ways to explain to the students how I classified a rock as what it was
because the way I understood it didn’t work for them. It forced me to
think critically about a concept that I have so much confidence in. I
was surprised at how well I could change around the concepts to
make the students understand. Very little instruction was given in
this inquiry based activity, which I think frustrated the students and
made the task seem daunting and difficult. The students were given
tools, to work towards making this dichotomous key and to help them
distinguish differences between the rocks. They were given HCl,
water, a glass plate and hand lenses. I noticed right away that instead
of the students relying on physical characteristics, they assumed that
using the HCl and the glass plate was the way we wanted them to sort
these rocks, when in reality, these tools are used to distinguish
between limited amount of rocks, and shouldn’t be applied in all
cases. After the groups constructed their dichotomous keys, the
students passed them to the group next to them. The other group
was supposed to take their key and key out the rocks in their bag. We
found very quickly that the students couldn’t do it, which was the
point Jenn was trying to make. The point was that there are so many
discrepancies and personal observations that were included in the
dichotomous key, that it was hard to know exactly what the other
group had ID’d out. I think the groups would have done a better job if
they would have known they were being graded on their dichotomous
keys and how many the other group could correctly identify. It might
be interesting to try that next year, or at least TELL them that they are
getting graded so they care more about the task at hand, which I felt
many of them did not, although I tried to keep them motivated.
Wednesday was another day of working with the rocks. Prior to
this class period, the students were supposed to have looked up
information on the rock cycle and the three main types of rocks. At
the beginning of class, Jenn let the students lead a discussion about
what they had researched and construct their own understandings of
these topics using the whiteboards. The students then each shared
out the information their group compiled. Jenn and I were very
impressed at some of the information the students came up with, and
it wasn’t like they just copied it from the internet and read it out of
their notes, but we could tell they actually took the time to internalize
the concept and come to their own understanding of the topic. By
allowing the students to construct their own understanding, it allowed
for little lecture time directly from Jenn which I think the students
really liked, and will have a better chance of remembering now when it
comes time for the next test. After discussing the major terms
associated with each type of rock, and their characteristics, the
students were given the ‘correct’ dichotomous key on how to key out
the 24 rocks in their collection. It was amazing to see the students
work through IDing the rocks as most groups only had one or two
questions. The main concerns arose when discriminating between
color of the rocks. The dichotomous key was vague at times, and
unless your geologist, you don’t really know that when they say
‘black’ they really mean dark grey ! I think I did a good job of
handling the student’s questions, as I directed questions back to
them, instead of just telling them if they were right or wrong. I would
grab a group of rocks the students were debating and have them tell
me how they were alike, and how they were different. One group
struggled miserably with keying out the items. This was because they
thought that it would be more efficient to start from the end of the key
and work backwards, this wasn’t so whatsoever. I told them that I
would help them at the start of the next class so they could make sure
they had a grasp on the concepts before we moved on to the next
subject, which only will be more difficult if they don’t understand the
basic rock concepts. Overall the students really liked this class and
activity, I feel that they walked away with a greater understanding, and
felt confident in what they had accomplished.
Today the exams were handed back. The students did relatively
well, and from the looks on their faces and the comments I heard,
were pleased and surprised that they had done a lot better than they
had anticipated. After we spent a little time going over the test, Jenn
left the room, and I lead a discussion and conducted a survey on how
the course is going thus far. I handed out the ’25 Ways to Get the
Most Out of Now,” to the students and went over some of the ‘good’
techniques they found when studying. A lot of the students spoke
out about how appreciative they were of Jamie and I putting in the
time to make ‘inquiry’ based study sessions to help them grasp the
science processes, not just the content, and asked if we could
provide something like that for the next exam. After we talked
through the handout, I gave the students a mid-semester evaluation
for the course. After they were done filling them out, I lead a
discussion on what they like about the course so far, what they don’t
like, and how we can help them. For the most part, all of them had
good things to say to me, and that they felt as if they were learning a
lot, and that they will actually be able to use and apply the content
they are learning in this class. Most of the students were happy with
the way in which Jenn and I are handling the class, and enjoy the
inquiry nature of the activities. One thing that the students were
frustrated with were the resource collections they have to create.
They have 16 lesson plan summaries that are looming over them, but
they have known about them since the beginning of the course. I
reminded the students that Jenn is not asking you to write a full
blown lesson plan, just analyze how you would incorporate a preexisting activity into your curriculum. I told the students that the
resource collections that I have made like this one for other classes
are the most beneficial things to have when you get into your higher
level education courses. I refer back to resource collections I have
made all of the time. So although it seems like quite the workload, it
will pay off immensely in the end. Overall, I feel that the class is
running well, and no major changes need to be made, except finding
better ways for our students to take notes.
Today we started an activity on plate tectonics, it was purely
inquiry based in nature, which freaked a lot of the students out. They
were frustrated and didn’t seem to quite understand what was going
on at first, (which was the point), but as time went on they really
started making connections and understanding what they were doing.
I have confidence in my knowledge of plate tectonics, but I felt that
my knowledge somewhat kept me from thinking about the activity the
way the students were supposed to be analyzing the data. In this
jigsaw activity, one group analyzed a map that focused on
earthquakes around the plate boundaries, another on volcanoes, one
group geography and the other analyzed the sea floors. The students
were divided up into expert groups, learning as much as they could
about one certain map. They were to strictly make observations of
the maps and not inferences. It was hard for me in the activity to not
make the inferences or the facts that I know about these plate
boundaries, so I had to step back, and think as if I were analyzing
these maps for the very first time. After the students became experts
in their topics, they got into their ‘jigsaw’ groups where they put the 4
different data sets together to make conclusions, and inferences on
the nature of plate boundaries. I really liked the jigsaw teaching
technique, because it allows students the opportunities to learn from
one another. I think a lot of them felt weary about having to explain
their data to their other group members, but could do so a lot more
easily then they had anticipated. I could see light bulbs going off as
soon as the four maps were compared to one another. The students’
dialogue went from talking very little in their expert groups, to firing
out ideas and correlations between the maps when in their jigsaw
group. For the most part, Jenn and I stepped back from the situation
and let the students make these discoveries on their own, without
interfering more than we had to. I think the students are enjoying this
activity, and having the opportunity to work with various different
groups, learning from one another. We are continuing this process
on Monday, and talking about our results as a class, I can’t wait to
hear what the students came up with! They seemed to grasp the
concept much better towards the end of the class, which will help in
building a foundation of knowledge on the theory of plate tectonics.
Week of October 12th
This week was rather short, and low-key in terms of activities
going on in the classroom. Monday this week the students were
provided time to wrap up their plate tectonics activity. Jenn had the
students share out their information to the class, from each jigsaw
group, and allowed the students to come to a group conclusion based
on the results that were common among all of the groups. They were
surprised to see that the information they were able to gather by
themselves was similar if not dead on to what the scientists use to
classify these plate boundaries. This just goes to prove, that you
don’t have to be a rocket scientist to analyze and make sense of data.
The end of the class was wrapped up by showing a short powerpoint
on plate tectonics. Jenn started out the lecture by letting the students
share what they knew about plate tectonics. Jenn, then used the
information the students gave her to build off of their knowledge and
work through preconceived notions rather than to just spew out
content to them, and the “right” answers. The students liked having a
voice in the conversation, in order to construct their own knowledge.
At the end of class, Jenn assigned the “Rock Story” project. The
point of this activity was to allow the students to synthesize the
knowledge they have learned about rocks, plate tectonics, and the
history of the earth in to a culminating project. They were to come up
with the life story of a rock, have it go through a number of geologic
and biologic events, as well as each stage of the rock cycle. The
students seemed to really like this project, and wanted to elaborate on
it by making a picture story book to go along with the history of their
rock.
Wednesday, Jenn and Kim gave us the day off. The students
had the chance to catch up on their resource collection projects, and
their rock story. I can tell the students are starting to get really
bogged down, as they have gotten pretty far behind on their resource
collections. The resource collection is an ongoing assignment, and
they feel they are getting bombarded with too many other
assignments to have any time to focus on it. Some of the students
have been coming to me complaining, and I tell them to take a deep
breath and think about how beneficial it will be to have all of these
science lessons at your finger tips when you have to teach some few
years down the road.
Friday we started a new concept. Weather. I’ve never really
studied weather to greatly in depth, so it was interesting to see all of
the different things that the students knew, and how I could relate it to
my own science understanding of climate and weather. At the start of
the class, Jenn had the students brainstorm in groups, terms that you
would need to know to understand weather and climate. After having
time to compile this list, Jenn went around the room asking each
individual student something they had written down, and had them
explain it to the class. I really liked this activity, because it allowed
for the students to lead the discussion on the topic of weather. One
term or concept lead to another, and sooner than we knew it the
board was filled with weather terms. Doing an introduction activity
like this, nicely laid the groundwork for the upcoming activity the
students would be taking part in. The students were to get into pairs,
and pick a major weather topic from a provided list. This topic, was
then to be explored by them, and a 15 minute presentation to the
class will be given reporting out their results. When the students
heard the “15” minutes, I saw the scared looks on their faces, seeing
as that’s quite a bit of time for 2 people to cover. The thing they had
yet to know was that they would be required to have an interactive
piece to their presentation, and activity that they could replicate in
their classroom some day, and one that would be beneficial to the
class in learning about their specific weather topic. The students
were very eager to explore their topic and find an activity that went
well with it. Most of them found activities, and were having so much
fun teaching one another about their topic of choice. The coolest
thing, about this teaching method, which is another jigsaw activity, is
that the students are 100% learning from one another. Jenn and I
gave NO instruction other than the small discussion we had at the
start of class, and just let the students run with it. By doing this, we
were learning from our students as well, which is an important
component of any functioning classroom. By having to look up these
activities and lesson plans, I believe the students were forming a
more solid understanding of their topics, and I believe their
classmates will too when they have to present to the class. They
were able to form understandings through a very informal and inquiry
based fashion. This activity is also a great way to get the students
prepared for their field experience at CFC. A lot of them are nervous
for having to teach, and teaching your peers, I think is more nerve
racking than a room full of fourth graders. I’m excited to see how well
they do when we present next Wednesday. Monday we are starting
immunology. I’m not too confident with this topic, but bring on the
MALARIA!
Week of October 19th
This week went a lot better than I had expected it to. It was a
little chaotic with the switching of subjects between the days, but
overall the activities flowed nicely together. On Monday we
conducted a simulation on immunology, and the passing of diseases.
I knew more about this concept than I originally thought I would,
because Jamie and I actually conducted the same experiment with
our health class last year. The simulation allowed the students to see
how individuals can be carriers of the disease, but never show
symptoms, like I was in the activity. Each student in the class had
five strips of paper, and one student in the class was ‘infected’ with a
disease, and had their paper coated in baking soda. The students had
to go through multiple switches of their strips of paper to simulate the
passing of a disease. The students seemed to enjoy doing an inquiry
based lesson such as this one and were excited to see who the
infected student was. After we conducted the activity, Jenn made a
diagram of all of the student’s names in the class to show how the
disease passed from one student to another. This really helped to
make the abstract concept they represented more concrete. The
students could talk intelligently about what the activity was trying to
show which stimulated great questions about the concepts of
diseases and immunology that Jenn had the students ask Kim when
she came in to help. The next activity we did was a virtual lab. The
students were trying to detect a disease in three different patients.
The students clicked through the lab online, pipetteing different
substances, while being able to read through the process. Although
the online activity had a lot of information, it was filled with a lot of
mindless clicking, and therefore I don’t think the students really
grasped the concept of it. We are planning to discuss the results in
class on Friday, so I’m interested to see how that goes!
Wednesday was a laid back day as we just had the students
present their findings on their weather topic. Overall the students did
a great job of finding fun ways to present the information to the class.
All had elementary based projects or experiments to accompany their
information, but some were used intelligently, while others were more
to just fill time. During the presentations, I think Jenn caught some of
the students off guard. She was asking questions to the students on
the spot to test their knowledge, but almost in a way that made some
of the kids feel stupid. I thought it was important to ask the students
questions such as these, but maybe not in such a high tension
situation, or in a manner that undermined the students’ intelligence. I
learned quite a bit about weather from this presentation, and I thought
it was a great way to deal with the unit on weather and climate in
general. Instead of the professor lecturing and having to make
countless PowerPoints on various weather related concepts, the
students could specialize their knowledge, and teach what they
learned to their peers, forming more meaningful connections to the
content. The students will be able to think back to the hands on
experiments and apply them to the content knowledge they have.
This will help immensely from some of our visual learners when it
comes time for our next exam.
Today in class we finished up the weather presentations and
discussed the virtual lab experiment. I think I underestimated the
amount some of the students would read during the online lab, but
the fact that Jenn kept saying ‘you need to be able to intelligently
discuss this on Friday, scared some of the students into paying more
attention. They were able to understand the lab and apply it to the
concepts we were learning, so it proved to be an overall good
experience to add to the class. It allowed to see the possibilities that
virtual games and computers can provide our students in aiding their
learning. They formed great questions that led to deeper discussion
and probing into complex subjects that Jenn didn’t personally have
the answers to. It was nice that Dr. Bates was willing to come in and
answer the students questions instead of just having Jenn answer
with an “I don’t exactly know…” and never finding answers to these
great questions. For the weekend, each student was assigned a
pathogen to look up that they will be presenting on Monday.
Week of October 26th
This week has been very laid back in general. The students did
another jigsaw activity where they presented their findings to the
class. They were assigned a primary and secondary pathogen to
conduct research on in order to report back to the class. In order to
present the students findings, Jenn had the students group with their
‘primary’ pathogen and make a poster compiling the information they
found. I thought it was neat how Jenn had assigned a secondary
pathogen as well, which allowed for the students to switch groups
and analyze the poster the previous group had made, and add or alter
information based on what they had found. I found at times that the
students, as they were presenting their information about their
pathogens didn’t actually understand what the information they found
meant, rather they were just spewing it out of their mouth. Jenn
caught onto this quickly, and asked guided questions during the
students’ presentations in order to make sure the students had
actually learned something through their research, and weren’t just
relying on what the ‘internet’ said. It was easy to tell which students
‘did their work’ and which ones had not put in the same amount of
work. I learned a lot about the varying pathogens from listening to
the students presentations and myself gained a more well-rounded
knowledge of the different topics the students presented on.
Monday night we had our first official ScieEd pizza party and
watched Osmosis Jones. The students had originally proposed this
event as a joke and never thought it would actually happen, and I
think that it is awesome that Jenn and Kim put in the effort to pull the
event together for the students. This just goes to show that they care
that much more about their students, and their learning. It enforces
the fact that learning can be continued outside the walls of the
formalized classroom, and that we can make connections to media
and other resources to further our knowledge of certain subjects.
This is a great thought to keep in the back of my mind when planning
activities for my students. The students seemed to really enjoy it, and
it provided a way to reflect on the content we had been learning in the
previous weeks of class and tie them all together.
Wednesday the students finished up their pathogen
presentations for the first part of class. I noticed that this group was
more prepared to present than the other as they had seen the types of
questions Jenn had asked of the previous group, and must have went
and looked up the answers to some of the questions they knew she
might ask of them. I liked this way of learning in the sense that the
students created their own notes for the test in regards to the
different pathogens. Each student then will have specialized
knowledge in one specific topic, while still learning about all of the
others. The second half of class, Dr. Bates brought in slides of the
different pathogens we had been talking about in order for students to
make a concrete analysis of what these pathogens look like under a
microscope. The students were fascinated by the malaria and worms
that Kim had to show them. I liked the way the scopes were set up, in
the sense that there was no formalized ‘lab’ or procedure to be
followed. The students were encouraged to look at the samples
under no restrictions, which I believe, allowed them to ask more
personalized and higher level questions, than a worksheet or lab
manual might have allowed them to.
This Friday, the students didn’t have class, so therefore I didn’t
either. On Monday, they will be having their second exam/quiz. I can
tell that that students are much more confident going into this test, as
they kind of know what to expect this time around. There will be
another individual portion on the test as well as a group portion.
Some of the students are nervous and unsure about how in depth
they need to study each of the different weather topics and pathogens
that each group presented. I know personally, I like the comfort of
having a text book, and I think some of the students normally rely on
that fact as well. It’s hard for them to pick out what Jenn sees as
‘important’ and what Jenn most likely won’t include. The students
were provided with a study guide, but Jenn didn’t want them to rely
on us to provide their study session this time around. I’m interested
to see how many emails I get this weekend from students about the
test. I told the class that I would be willing to meet up with them if
they had any questions and wanted to review information. I am
confident that our students will do relatively well on the test!
Week of November 2nd
This Monday, I didn’t have to go to class because the students
were taking their exam. On Wednesday of this week, the students
were given time to work on planning their lessons for CFC. The nice
thing about helping the students write their lesson plans on states of
matter is that I just recently finished writing a unit on states of matter.
A lot of the activities the students wanted to include in their teaching
were familiar to me, and I was better able to explain them to the
students. Since I’ve had quite a bit of experience working with 4th
grade students, and writing lesson plans, the students confided me
more than they did Jenn. I was able to tell the students what typically
‘works’ and ‘doesn’t work’ in the classrooms when it comes to this
age range of students. For the most part, the students were doing a
good job of finding interactive inquiry lessons for the students to take
part in. The hardest part for them, was to gauge the level at which
these students are functioning, or what they already know in regards
to states of matter. Hopefully later this week we will be able to form a
more well-rounded understanding of the types of activities the
students should be teaching.
For the remainder of the period, the students looked up data on
the NASA website in regards to the various biomes that are present
around the world. The students are collecting data, average rain fall
and temperature for a certain regions of the world for each biome.
From this data, the students will be able to form an understanding of
the general trends that are present in each biome. They will compile
their data in an Excel data sheet and form their understanding from
this inquiry based activity. The remainder of this activity will be
finished up on Friday. Some of the students were frustrated with the
tediousness of the activity, but the results it yields, I don’t think they
realize are extraordinary. As teachers we need to remember that
internet links aren’t always reliable, so we have to have a backup plan
and be prepared for everything. Some of the student ran into errors
we had never seen before, so it was up to us to find ways to remedy
the situation and fast, so the students didn’t continue to get
frustrated. Overall, it worked out fine and we’ll have to see how the
data falls together on Friday!
Today the students walked in and MAYBE two students out of
the whole class had figured out the data collecting from the website.
Before the start of class, I tried to figure it out with the students, but it
wasn’t working still. I could tell Jenn was upset with the students,
because they were supposed to have the data compiled in order to
complete the activity that we were doing today. As teachers, we need
to plan for activities to take longer than we originally anticipate.
Classes seldom run as we plan so we need to have a sense of
flexibility in our planning. Technology was NOT on our side this
week, but we made it work by using the first hour of class for the
students to collect the data instead of just dropping the assignment
all together. The lesson was too important to just disregard, and the
students realized this as the data was starting to take form. The first
hour of the class the students who had their information compiled did
a lot of slacking off, as they had nothing else to really do. Our plan
was to introduce foldables today, and have each student make one
based on the biome they studied. If I were to do this lesson again, I
would anticipate that some students would struggle with the
technology aspect of the activity, and assign the foldable assignment
at the start of class. This way, the students who had figured out how
to collect the data could be productive and start working on their
project.
The students seemed really excited to do their foldables. Seeing
as they are elementary education majors, I’m excited to see the kinds
of things they come up with. I heard a lot of the groups talking about
all their creative ideas. This is a great way to compile information
while letting the students channel their inner creative side! After the
students worked on their foldables for a bit, we regrouped as a class
and discussed all of the data we compiled from collecting average
rain fall and temperature from each biome around the world. The
students were amazed to see that the data they collected matched the
proposed data for each biome pretty closely. This activity was a great
inquiry based lesson that could easily be used in an upper elementary
classroom to talk about biomes. If I did this, I would have the data
already collected for the students so they could plot it and do
somewhat of the same thing we did in a more simplified forms. I think
foldables are also an awesome idea for elementary age students.
They are visual, and will greatly help them remember information, as I
believe our students will benefit from as well. I remember doing
projects like this in elementary school. They were fun ways to
organize information and helped in remembering major concepts. On
Monday, we will be planning more for our trip to CFC. The students
seem to be more confident as the date is approaching and they are
figuring out more of what they want to do in the classrooms. They
will also be getting their resource collections and tests back. I feel
the students might have not done as good on this test because Kim
and Jenn called it a ‘quiz’ when really it was just as long, and just as
much information as the first test. I don’t think the students studied
as much or as in depth. I hope this is not the case, but this is my
prediction.
Week of November 9th
This Monday the students spent most of class working on
their CFC presentations. It was easy to see leaders emerge in groups,
as some of the students had an ‘I don’t really care attitude…” which
doesn’t get the work load done and makes me nervous for them
actually going into the classroom. A lot of their plans became much
more organized, but they were supposed to be using the class time to
practice teaching their lessons, which most of them were not. Next
Monday, they will be practicing teaching their lesson to our class, and
I’m hoping that everything falls into place better, and they actually
practice before they present. In a classroom, unless you’re a super
experienced teacher, you can’t just ‘wing’ it and I hope their
realization of this fact isn’t in the classrooms at CFC. It was neat to
see how the student’s ‘proposed’ lessons at the start of the class
changed as Jenn and I made more suggestions to them. In order to
get a feel for what the students were doing in the classrooms, Jenn
and I went around to each group and had them explain; start to finish,
the rundown of their lesson. During this time, it was good to ask
questions that the students might potentially pose to see if the
students have enough knowledge to respond to their inquisitiveness.
I brought up a lot of classroom management questions, and made the
students think about the transitions between different activities,
which are one of the easiest places to let your confidence and lesson
fall apart. If you don’t think about the flow of the lesson, and
anticipate how the students will react, you will feel less prepared
come the actual day of teaching. The students appreciated our
probing about these types of things, because before we asked them,
they hadn’t really considered how they would affect their teaching.
Some of their activities changed greatly, as Jenn and I made
suggestions on what will and won’t work based on our personal
experiences in the classrooms. The students got their tests back
today, and the average yielded the same as the first test, around an
83%. I think the students had a lot more confidence this time around,
as they got the same average on this test without a having a review
session, like on the last test.
This Wednesday was Veteran’s Day, so we did not have class.
The students were supposed to be working on their presentations and
foldables. In class this Friday, the students got together with
students who had created a foldable for the same biome that they
had. They shared their information, which provided the opportunity
for them to learn more information that they might not have stumbled
upon in their own research. It was neat to see the creative foldables
that the students came up with. Some of them were quite elaborate,
and it seemed as if the students had a lot of fun with the projects in
general. A lot of them had complained that although they were
beneficial, they took longer to make than they had anticipated. It was
easy to see why younger kids would like making an information
representation such as this, because they were very hands-on and
made the students construct their own knowledge and take
ownership of their own specific biome. The opportunity for students
to learn from one another by sharing information was very beneficial.
After Jen had the students get into their biome groups, the students
needed to make a visual PowerPoint representation of their
information to present to the class. The students did a great job of
focusing more on pictures and the important information, rather than
just typing words on the PowerPoint and reading from it. An
important rule of thumb when making PowerPoints, listening to
people read off of them is boring so why would you do that to your
students if you don’t like it?! The individualized presentations
allowed for the students to present well-rounded information in a fast
and organized way, which is great for teachers. There is less time
they have to spend sorting out curriculum, and more time for student
learning to be maximized. A lot of our projects have been done in the
following manner; students researching information and then
presenting out to the class – I think the students get nervous about
the amounts of information they are required to remember when
information is given to them by their peers.
Week of November 16th
This Monday we had two groups present their CFC lessons
to the class. Overall, in watching them, I noticed that the content of
their lesson was somewhat surface level. When it comes to teaching
about states of matter, there is a lot more information that could be
brought to the table, rather than simply discussing the distinctions
and characteristics between solids, liquids and gasses. Generally
speaking, the information that was presented was done so accurately,
but the main thing the students forgot to address was the classroom
management aspect of their lessons. I think a lot of them, while
teaching, quickly realized where things could easily fall apart, and
where they needed to strengthen their lessons. While observing, we
got to act as potential 4th graders, which was quite fun. We threw out
potential questions and made possible situations that the students
might encounter, such as students running in the classroom, because
the teachers forgot to instruct them to be safe and not do so. It was a
great idea to go through the lessons from start to finish, as it made
the students think critically about the information they were telling the
children, and its accuracy, as well as how students will act during
each activity.
The students had a certain degree of pep and enthusiasm when
teaching their lesson to college age students, but their peers weren’t
quite as receptive as younger students might be. Hopefully the 4th
graders will be more excited about the lessons than the students in
our classes were! The lessons were very interactive and student
centered, which I think the 4th grade students will enjoy. Some of the
groups are afraid that the students are going to have a broader base
knowledge of the states of matter, and that they will have to
complicate the lesson on the fly. As teachers, we always need to be
prepared to know that our students know a lot more than we think
they do. Another problem that seemed to arise during the
presentations was the fact of our students asking only
comprehension level questions. As future educators, our students
won’t learn or expand their knowledge if we only ask them surface
level questions. We need to prepare questions that make them think
deeper and make connections with what their learning and what they
already know. We need to find ways to draw out their knowledge and
allow them to make their own meanings.
The last of the groups went on Wednesday. Out of all of the
groups, the final group seemed to pull all of the ideas that we had
discussed and implemented them into their lesson, as it seemed to
flow nicely and was delivered successfully. They seemed very
confident, even after drama had developed between the group
members. Out of the original 5 students in this group, 3 remained.
Therefore, I will be taking on the role of a fourth member and helping
the student’s teach their lesson on Friday! YAY! I’m actually excited
that I’ll be more of an active part of the activity instead of an observer!
It should be interesting due to the fact that I haven’t had time to
practice with the group, so I’m going to do the teacher-y thing and fly
by the seat of my pants! Hopefully it goes okay! I have confidence in
my knowledge of the states of matter to get through the lesson
successfully, and the girls in the group are well prepared and
dedicated to making sure their lesson is delivered successfully.
Throughout the duration of class, we set up an experiment
dealing with osmosis, and hyper and hypotonic solutions. We used
an egg soaked in vinegar, and placed it in three different solutions:
distilled water, vinegar, and 40% sucrose solution to show weight
changes due to liquids moving across the semi-permeable
membrane. Our lab results, didn’t yield as we had expected them to.
As the egg in the vinegar solution was supposed to reach an isotonic
state of equilibrium, it actually weighed more than the distilled water
egg in the end. At the conclusion of class, we discussed our results
with Kim, and this happened due to the fact that the vinegar we used
was pure vinegar, and not the same vinegar the eggs were soaked in,
as the vinegar they were stored in had accumulated calcite from the
disintegrated egg shells. In order for our experiment to yield and
isotonic liquid, we would have had to use the same vinegar the eggs
were originally soaked in. Kim’s class tried it this way, and it worked
out. Even though the experiment didn’t work out the way we had
intended it to, we can discuss with the students on Monday what
actually happened, as the error might actually help the students to
better understand the process and concepts being addressed.
Monday – CFC Presentations (Team Jello/2 Kool for Skool)
Wednesday – Egg Membrane experiment/CFC Presentaiton