Time Flies When You're Learning!

I cannot believe the ending is here! I am officially finished with my science methods course and have survived! What an awarding feeling this is! Throughout the course of this semester I have reflected on my experiences in our Science Methods and Technology course. I wrote a blog post just about every week expressing my feelings towards something we learned or writing about overwhelming, incredible experiences like fieldwork. I also reflected on projects I created like the science fair, research article review, science in the news, etc! I highly enjoyed writing my blog posts as it really forced me to dig deep into important science concepts and teaching techniques. I can now look back at the posts I wrote in the beginning of the semester to see how much I have improved and learned since then. I can even look back in a year or two from now and see a much greater improvement, which is very exciting! 

I chose the title "Shannon's Exploration Through Science" because science is truly an exploration and I knew I was going to be exploring a lot about Science. I was right because I learned so much about not only science, but TEACHING science, which is so important to me right now as I am studying to be a teacher. Through exploring science, I have learned how to create different types of effective lesson plans, taught a class for the very first time, implement these lesson plans into that class, learned a lot about EDTPA that will help me tremendously as I student teach next year, learned about numerous ways to integrate technology into a classroom and was introduced to a variety of different digital tools to use in a classroom one day.The list goes on and on, but I have learned so much from this course that I will take with me into my future teaching career that will help me create success among all of my students. I enjoyed exploring through science so much this semester and I cannot wait to explore science in my own classroom on day!

I also had the opportunity to comment on other peoples blog posts and their titles! I think having a catchy title to a blog is important to really grab the audiences attention! Here are some screenshots of my feedback on my peers blog titles!

I also commented on my peers actual blog posts! Here are the links to some of the comments.

Mallory's Science Methods Experiences

Courtney's Journey to Discovery in Science

Amanda's Learning to Teach Science Experience

Teaching Students to Think Like Scientists!

  Many elementary schools have been hosting science fairs for their students for many years now. Many students have this misconception that science is about mindlessly memorization and step by step procedures, rather than interactive, live experiments and processes. Len Kenyon, a former marine science researcher who teaches sixth-grade science at Tippecanoe Middle School in Tipp City, Ohio has been monitoring students through science fair projects since he began teaching. He is working to change this kind of thinking students have about science. Kenyon states “Students have these misconceptions…they think science must be conducted in a cookbook sequence. I teach my kids that science is a process. It’s messy, it’s here, it’s there. They might be doing something and all of a sudden they get data they didn’t expect to get and suddenly they’re off on a tangent. That’s real science.” (Kenyon, 2011).

Science fairs are beneficial to students for a numerous of reasons. First, students are actually educating the teachers and families themselves about their projects. The role is being reversed, which is incredible. They get to tell you their discoveries and show you how their experiment works. This can be very exciting and rewarding for students as they feel like they are teaching someone else, opposed to always being taught. The best thing is that they are still learning while they are doing this. They are learning the scientific method, how to research their topic (which expands their literacy skills), advancing their speaking and and communication skills, and they are realizing that science is not all about boring notes and explicit instruction.

At tippecanoe middle school in Ohio, science fairs are optional and students develop projects with guidance from their teachers and through a local science club. A majority of the science teachers at this school agree on the importance of helping their students come up with ideas that allow them to participate in the science fair and become part of the scientific process (Mascarelli, 2011). Michaela Iiames, who teaches fifth- and seventh-grade science at St. Timothy’s School in Raleigh, N.C., has been doing science fairs with her students for eight years.  Iiames asks them to begin with journaling about their everyday interests. Liames states “We’re trying to really hook them into science and seeing how science concepts can be applied in their everyday life, not just with test tubes and chemicals” (Liames, 2011).

A major key to science fairs are creating a positive experience for students whether they win or not, and directing them to feel like they own their ideas and experiments. Science fairs can be a huge commitment, but teachers agree that the process is so delightful for students, teachers, families, and the community. Susan Duncan, a science teacher at Summa Academy at Meadow Park Middle School, keeps in mind a lesson that her own mentor taught her: The main goal should be to teach students how to become researchers. “So whether they go on to language arts or to become journalists or lawyers or doctors, they’ll leave with these research skills” Duncan concludes.

https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/science-fairs-teaching-students-think-scientists

Reflection on Assessment and Instruction

This years fieldwork experience for the Science methods course I am currently enrolled in was an incredible learning opportunity. Over the course of four weeks, my group and I had the chance to teach two lessons in a 6th grade science classroom, and then observe three other groups lessons. It is a complete different ball game when you are teaching a whole class opposed to working one on one with a kid, or simply sitting in the back of a classroom observing the teacher. I have learned so much from teaching in front of a classroom and implementing the designed lessons plans into the classroom, collaborating with peers, writing different types of lessons, and observing peers. I am excited to share and reflect on my fieldwork experiences.

My group was group 1 and we had to go first. This was very nerve wracking for us and a little more of a challenge since we did not get to see the other groups teach before us. Every group had to give each other constructive criticism and it would have been a lot more effective to listen close to feedback from other groups and then apply that and improve our lessons and teaching. But, unfortunately we did not have that opportunity. Someone has to go first though! We still were able to learn from other groups and our own groups mistakes for our future teaching which was very beneficial for everyone.

We were instructed to create and teach a direct instruction lesson and an inquiry lesson. The direct instruction lesson is geared towards teaching through explicit instruction and personally I find these the most difficult. It is hard to make your students focus and retain all of the information from direct lessons, where the teacher is doing all of the talking and presenting all of the information. The students are not involved and are most likely instructed to take notes or fill out a vocabulary packet. Direct instruction lessons are super important, but also very challenging. The students need to learn the information the teacher is presenting on a specific topic, and learn all of the vocabulary to keep moving forward and participate in a cooperative or inquiry for the following lesson. Our group combined a direct instruction lesson with an inquiry lesson. I believe we did this wrong as other groups combined inquiry and cooperative, which makes more sense. Then again, we were the first group and would have done it the right way if we had seen previous lessons. For our inquiry and direct, we taught about minerals and how to identify minerals, and then the students had mineral kits and actually got to identify two minerals in groups. We each worked with a group and helped the students identify their minerals. I realized and learned that this was not direct instruction, and they were split into groups and the information was not straightforward presented to the students with the teacher in front of the classroom. We can only learn from our mistakes because as a teacher, it is very important to drill down the steps of teaching direct instruction in order to drill the information into the students. Creating inquiry lessons were also a challenge but teaching them to me is a little easier because the students are able to follow a procedure. This procedure being the scientific method. Students will always have a chart of can find anywhere the steps to the scientific method, and then apply those steps to their experiment. Inquiry methods can also be fun for students because they are creating an experiment by developing questions and investigating to find solutions. This is what science is all about and is why inquiry lessons are also very important. Implementing these lessons into an actual classroom was a huge learning experience for everyone, especially since it was most of our first time ever teaching in a classroom and creating our own lessons. It has taught all of us so much from just such a short period time. I have especially learned that just because you have a written lesson plan, does not mean you will follow it precisely and that it won't change. If students are not understanding the lesson and what you are doing, you must stop and go back, or completely change the lesson. What is the point of teaching a lesson if the students are not comprehending what you are teaching? It is very important to be prepared for this and not just keep teaching because you have it all written out and planned out in the lesson. It is also very important to realize when your students are not retaining the information and learn how to correctly check for understanding.

The second part to the fieldwork experience was to observe the lessons taught by our classmates. This was also a great learning experience because we learned how to give constructive criticism and feedback that will benefit them for future teaching. Some of the feedback was a little harsh given by other peers, but in the long run it will only help us in the future so we can learn from our teaching flaws. It really helped all of us and gave us tips on how to become a better teacher, as we are all still learning what works and what does not. By giving each other feedback from the observations we can all learn from this and make changes for our future teaching to make ours students more successful.

Overall, I have taken in so much from these 4 weeks of fieldwork. One of the main things I have learned is the importance of being prepared for anything, and I hate to say it, but sometimes the worst. For example, we found out when we had got to the classroom that the internet had been down and we did not have access to it. We were prepared for this, but not 100% as we uploaded the wrong powerpoint onto the drive. We got very flustered at first which affected our first half of the lesson, but we ended up pulling it together and rolled with the punches and just kept moving along. It is so important to not rely on technology as it does crash a lot and depending on the area you are working it, an impoverished school may not even have full access to the internet or any at all. This courses fieldwork has had a tremendous impact on me and I have learned so much that I will definitely take with me as I strive to become a better teacher day after day.

Trade Book Experience!

Trade books can be used in a variety of ways in a classroom. They are great to start a lesson or unit off with, background reading, do a book talk with, create projects from, and they provide numerous research opportunities for pretty much any topic you choose. Trade books are educational and enjoyable at the same time and make learning fun and meaningful. Trade books can also be geared toward a specific learning need and can be used to differentiate instruction which is very important for all types of learners.

For one of our assignments in class, we were instructed to do a trade book project. My trade book was on rocks and minerals which I had previously taught 2 lessons on with my group for fieldwork. The book was an excellent read and I highly recommend it to anyone teaching science! The title of the book is A Project Guide to Rocks and Minerals by Claire O’Neal. This book stood out to me because the cover page was intriguing and contains pictures of really cool, unique minerals. As I skimmed through the book, there was so much kid friendly information on rocks and minerals and had an experiment or project for each sub topic. For example, one experiment teaches you how to grow your own minerals and your own salt crystal garden, and geode! It tells you all the materials necessary needed to make the projects and step by step instructions.

I made an animoto and did a book talk on my tradebook including pictures and experiments from the book. We had to make a book trailer for our books which was a lot of fun and super simple! You were able choose your own theme and song. You could add pictures and put a little caption on the pictures, or just put the pictures, or just the words! It was a great learning experience and I would definitely use animoto in my own future classroom one day. I could have students create their own trailers for a book or a topic, introduce a topic by showing the animoto, or even show them an animoto to choose a book to read! There are so many ways to implement these awesome tools into a classroom and I am very excited to keep learning more about them and use them!

Helping Your Students Succeed Through Assessment!

Word Cloud of terms having to do with assessment!

         For the research article review assignment, I chose the article The Role of Assessment by Lois Moseley. This article provides extremely useful information about following: the purpose of assessments, all of the different types of assessments, what we should assess, and when we should assess our students. The article starts off talking about how the last decade has experienced  significant changes in educational assessment practices. Moseley states "These changes are reflected in both large-scale, standardized tests and in individual classroom assessment practices. At least four factors have contributed to assessment reforms: the introduction of standards-based education; the importance of alignment of curriculum, instruction, assessment and professional development; the flexibility of technology in data analysis; and accountability." (Moseley, 1). I think what she is saying is very important to us as future educators and considering assessing our students is a huge part of our role. Us future teachers need to realize all of these changes occurring and why they are occurring. This article really stresses how assessment should be more than just a test at the end of the instruction to see how students perform. Moseley argues that they should be integrated into the instruction that informs and guides teachers as they make instructional decisions. (Moseley, 1). 

According to Kellough and Kellough (1999), there are seven purposes for instruction: 

1. To assist student learning
   
2. To identify student’s strengths and weaknesses
   
3. To assess the effectiveness of a particular instructional strategy
   
4. To assess and improve the effectiveness if curriculum programs
   
5. To provide data that can assist in decision making
   6. To communicate with and involve parents.

            One of the main reasons I chose this article is because I think knowing how and when to assess your students is one of the most important aspects of being an effective teacher. It is so important to be knowledgeable about the purposes of assessment and knowing the difference between them. As studying to be a future educator, all of these purposes are essential in a classroom to build achievable tests in the small amount of time a teacher has to devote their time to the task. It is crucial for us future teachers to be aware of the rudimentary principles in order to construct assessments and interpret them. I also chose this article because it goes into depth about teachers being aware of different technologies and all of the technological advantages we have today as teachers. Assessment technologies are very useful in todays society and in a variety of situations. These technologies enable and help teachers plan the assessments, construct them, and score and analyze them. 

           This article was an excellent, simple read and I highly suggest it to anyone studying to be a teacher. This article provided me with information that shows with research how written tests are not the only way to assess students, and there are a bunch of alternatives. Assessments can be standardized or alternative, and summative or formative. It is incumbent that teachers know the difference between these assessments, and understand when it is appropriate to give a formative test opposed to a summative test. I would use assessments in my future teaching by not just giving my students my students written tests in order see what information they are obtaining, but also enjoyable assessments to check for understanding where they won't even know it is an assessment. I would incorporate formative assessments in my classroom in numerous ways. I would make them engaging and use observation, exit tickets, discussions, presentations, and simply questioning. I would also choose ways to incorporate writing, drawing, speaking, and reading into my assessments without giving my students an actual exam. Incorporating different types of assessments for each lesson would also be important in my classroom in order to assess my students learning in different ways. I would also be aware of the results from my formative assessments and use that knowledge to build my next assessments for my students to help them succeed and reach their fullest potential!

Moseley, L. The Role of Assessment. Retrieved December 2, 2016, from glencoe.com, http://www.glencoe.com/glencoe_research/Math/trawp.pdf

Science in the News

Science is everywhere and keeps expanding more and more as we learn about the natural and physical world. For the science in the news project I chose to focus on articles about a very interesting topic to me; astronomy. I researched articles on astronomy and most of these articles came from Newsela. Newsela is an awesome website to find informational articles on just about anything you are looking for. It is very kid friendly website and can be geared towards all different reading levels. I chose eight articles that I thought were important and resourceful for anyone researching or learning about astronomy and combined them together in a glogster to make a scrapbook of these articles. All of the articles I chose were pretty recent and relevant to whats going on in the world today. The first article I chose focused on learning about the constellations and how they can help you sort the stars scattered in the night sky. I enjoyed this article a lot because it started off comparing the constellations to the first day of school.

"Remember your first day of school — entering that classroom and finding yourself confronted by a roomful of unfamiliar faces? Even on that first day, you probably made a few friends. Through them, and with your day-to-day exposure to the classroom, you gradually became acquainted with all of your classmates. Learning the constellations is like that. With a little help from your friends (easy-to-find guidepost constellations) and a willingness to "show up for class" on successive nights, you'll soon feel comfortable in your nighttime surroundings." (Chaple, 2008).

I loved how the author compared learning about the constellations to making friends and getting by with help by your friends as your progress throughout the school year. The next article was about how scientists are finding more to study about the milky way also portraits get larger. I liked this article because I've always wanted to learn more about the milky way galaxy and it goes into depth about important details about it. Another article that I found very intriguing was about the super moon. I thought this was very relevant because it happened very recently on November 14th, 2016. I think it was super cool how the super moon was as closest to the Earth as it has been since 1948! This article went in depth about how rare this super moon is and all of the great qualities about it. 

Making this glogster was super easy and fun! It is a great tool to use in a classroom for a variety of assignments. For example, in my future classroom I might ask my students to find articles and do a research paper on these articles. Making a glogster would be fun for them to incorporate all of their articles in one and keep everything organized. It is also a fun tool because you can choose a layout that is already made, or upload your own background! For my astronomy scrapbook made on glogster, I used a pretty galaxy for my background. 

After making my scrapbook, we were instructed to get into groups and make a timeline and word cloud based on our articles. We used tiki toki, a great tool to make a time line. It was very confusing and hard to use, but once you knew how to do it, it came out really cool and you are able to do it in 3D. This would be a great tool to introduce to students if they have to make a time line for a project and I would definitely use this in my future classroom!

Literacy Alive! Ahoy Matey's!

The Friday before Thanksgiving break, I participated in a literacy aliveevent that was held at Barea Elementary school. This event consisted of numerous literacy stations, all revolving around the theme of pirates. All of these stations were created by the mount students in the education program and they had to sign up for a station and create a literacy activity for the kids. This wonderful event was hosted by the  Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education, Sigma Tau Chapter 451. My friend Amanda and I did not actually create a station, we volunteered to help. We walked around each station during the event to see who needed help and how everyone was doing. A lot of the stations had so many kids at once and were so thankful we were there to help them! Some stations got very crazy with all of the excited kids and Amanda and I were such a big help. We mainly helped at one of the stations where the students made hats, and another one where they had to pick a notecard with a pirate related term on it and write a poem about that word. Both of these stations constantly had huge groups of kids at them and all the help was definitely needed! It was a great idea to have more than one volunteers at the event and I would recommend having even 4 slots for people to sign up sat volunteers next year instead of 2!

Literacy Alive! was an amazing, successful event and went very smoothly. Everyone did such a great job and the kids and their parents enjoyed it so much! The stations were so engaging and every station was different which made it so enjoyable for the kids. Emily and Veronica did a great job putting this together and making sure it ran well, which it did! Major bravo to them and their dedication to this event! The idea of a pirate theme and having a map to go along with each station then at the end getting a prize from the treasure box was a brilliant idea. Seeing the students engaged in all of the stations and laughing having a great time, while also learning and completing their assignments was awesome to see and truly inspirational.

I could use these activities in my future classroom one day and hope to even run an event like this in my school! I really enjoyed helping everyone at their stations and helping the kids get complete their work at their stations. It was great to see the kids and their families have a fun time together while learning and practicing literacy! I can't wait to do something like this in my future classroom with my future students!