SLED TEACHER REFLECTION HUB SUBMISSION
There are three parts to this reflection submission. The first part requires a brief description of
your instructional activities over the course of a SLED design task. The second part includes
your reflection on a student (or team of students) who performed well and your reflection on a
student (or team of students) who performed unsatisfactorily. The last section includes your
response to a series of questions.
Save your file as: Reflection_YourName_YourSchool_YourGrade_Date
Example:
Reflection_Capobianco_Purdue_Grade4_11-15-2015
When uploading to the hub, use the title: Teacher Reflection: Your Name, Activity, Term
Example:
Teacher Reflection: Capobianco, Save the Wolf, Fall 2014
Teacher Name: Teresa Watkins
School: Triton Elementary
Grade: 6th Grade
Design Task: Roller Coaster
Date: 12-02-2015 & 12-03-2015
PART I:
Overview of your SLED lesson(s):
Day
Brief description of lesson activities you enacted
each day over the course of the SLED design task
What do you think your
students learned each day
1
Introductory Design Challenge: Jumping Marbles
Time: (10-15 minutes) Challenge:
Design a ramp for a marble to travel on that will allow the
marble to jump the greatest distance possible to land in a cup.
2
Converting Energy (Potential and Kinetic Energy)
How Stuff Works Roller Coaster demo: Research and virtual
roller coaster activity
Teaching Points (Conservation of
Energy content): Potential Energy
(PE) is stored Energy that, in this
challenge, can be either gravitational
(gravity) or elastic (rubber bands,
springs...).
Why do roller coasters begin with a
really high hill and then continue
with smaller hills, loops and turns.
Students could identify where
kinetic energy is the fastest and
where potential energy is the
strongest. Could identify velocity,
friction and acceleration.
Students could identify from the lab
page who the client was. Students
could identify what the constraints
were.
3
Students reviewed Terminology for the Design Process
4
Students took 1/2 hour to design and label an individual
design. They circled the part of their design that they liked
the best. Students then met with their groups and tried to
combine their thoughts and ideas to build a team design. I
allowed students 1/2 hour to hold up the tubing without taping
it. They calculated their dimensions and measured their tubing
and their linear footage. Students made any revisions to their
design project.
5
Students will build their final roller coaster design and
complete the lab page with their team. Students created a
poster and named their roller coaster based on their research
and what they think it represented.
6
Students use a timer to do 5 trials and record their average
velocity in their design journals on a data table.
7
Each group of students will explain
their design strategy and how their
marble uses energy, forces, and
motion to complete their roller
coaster. Students will share their
end result to the mathematical
questions.
Students will answer the questions:
1. Where will you find the
greatest amount of
potential energy?
2. Where will you find the
greatest amount of kinetic
energy?
3. What type of energy is
being stored in this design?
PART II:
Reflection#1 on student performance:
Include an image of work from one student (or one team of students) who you thought
performed well on the task. Insert the image here within the Word document. This image may
be a copy of the student’s notebook entry(s) or an image of the team’s artifact or an actual
picture of the student at work.
In the space below describe what the image(s) is about and why you would explain or
characterize the student’s performance as mastery or excellent.
This team did an outstanding job on their final team design this is the final draft of their
roller coaster design. Very detailed and very neat also I loved that they gave their design a name!
When the team designed their roller coaster it looked exactly like their design model in their
design notebook. The students also worked together very nicely and only used a small amount of
tape to meet their clients’ needs.
Reflection#2 on student performance:
Include an image of work from one student (or one team of students) who you thought did not
perform as well (unsatisfactory) on the task. Insert the image here within the Word document.
This image may be a copy of the student’s notebook entry(s) or an image of the team’s artifact or
an actual picture of the student at work.
In the space below describe what the image is about and why you would explain or
characterize the student’s performance as unsatisfactory.
Students did not give detailed description of their design - When they built it their design was
completely different then what they had in their design log. The characteristics of unsatisfactory
were not staying on task, not going back and doing a redesign if not satisfied.
PART III: Reflection Questions: Please answer each of the questions below.
1. Based on your students’ presentation of their work, what features made a good design?
The features that made a good design were the teams that used a small amount of tape and used
creativity to connect it to object where acceleration and kinetic energy could be used to have
their marble travel through the roller coaster without stopping.
2. What features made a poor design?
The features that made a poor design were using too much tape and not big enough loops in
order for the marble to travel through the entire 12’ of tubing.
3. Which phases of the engineering design process do you feel most comfortable and confident in
teaching? I have been having my students use their Science notebooks for drawing and
recording experiments for about 12 years. I think that the designing part was a nice addition to
my already successful process.
4. Which phases of the engineering design process do you feel least comfortable and confident in
teaching? The design process terminology is new to me. I am getting use to it. The problem
solving strategies are hard for me to not give the students the answers and let them do the solving
and the creating as a group.
5. What is one area in your implementation of the design tasks you want to improve upon in your
next implementation?
Time management – I went down to the wire on this project because I added things like the
jumping lab, rube Goldberg machine and research.
6. Do you feel you teach science differently now than you did years ago? If so, how are you
teaching science differently? What do you think caused you to change your practice? If not, why
do you think you have not changed?
I am teaching Science differently – I really pushed the Scientific Method in the past
years. I do more design and sketching now – I have done the roller coaster lab for 12 years and
this is the first time that I added the cost of materials section and an evaluation worksheet. I
really liked the students having to figure out how much tape and string they needed. Most did
very well at estimating. I loved that they had a final team score – There was a lot of discussion
about “What was your score?” – I think seeing the demonstrations and actually doing them this
summer was very helpful and gave me another way to look at my curriculum and implement
more Math into the program.
7. Is there anything that causes you concern, that you are afraid of when you think about
changing your science teaching and implementing SLED design tasks? Are there things that keep
you from changing your teaching?
I have 3 rotations of Science that are 45 minutes each - Space and Time seem to be the
factors that hold me back from being able to add more to my curriculum. I do not feel like I
could do more than 2 or 3 design process’s a year and hit the other standards the way I need to in
order for the students to be prepared for ISTEP. I do however feel that this is a great and easy
way to teach the concepts to students so they remember them. We also do a Science Fair and a
lot of models and Science Experiments that are also very time consuming.