Virtual Field Trip to Kansas For a Skype-A-Thon!

Today in class we participated in a Skype-a-thon! We connected through Skype with a mastery 6th and 8th grade Science teacher from Kansas. We skyped with her 8th grade class during our science class. First, we were introduced to Andrea Friend and her class, and Andrea gave us a background about what they are doing. They were participating in international Skype week where they connect with different classes from all around the world. Andrea did a "mystery" Skype with her class where they had to ask us yes or no questions about our location to try to to figure out where we are located. We also were trying to figure out where they were located by asking them questions too. The students all had their own map to use a guide to ask questions and cross off areas that didn't apply to their thinking.  

Once our class discovered where they are located (Kansas) and they discovered we are in New York, Andrea talked to us more about integrating Skype into the classroom and the many benefits of it. It is important to her for her students to remember her class and take something from the learning and experiences with them into their future. This will be very important to me to as a future teacher. One of my main goals is to make many fun memories and teach my students life lessons that they can take with them.

After this discussion, one of the students came up to the webcam and explained to our class one of the Skype projects they have done in the past. They have connected with Africa and Greece and linked together to discuss and learn about clean drinking water. The students were all working together to help Africa obtain fresh and clean drinking water. This was an amazing opportunity for the students and such a brilliant idea. I think it is awesome that these students get to link up with not even other states, but other countries too. This class truly made memories by doing this considering this project was done years ago and they still remember it like it had happened yesterday. You could tell they were all very enthusiastic about this project and enjoyed every second of it. It is much for fun and interactive then taking notes all class!

After that, Andrea told us she was going to wrap up her lesson and have her students reflect on their learning. Instead of saying goodbye right then and there, she had us watch and listen to her conclude the lesson to teach us ways to do that. The students all reflected on what they learned and what they did and sat all together and spoke about it. This was a great way to conclude a lesson and checking what the students learned and understood. The class had an excellent discussion about their learning for the day and Andrea challenged their minds to think outside the box. Andrea also gave us an opportunity to ask her questions about anything related to education which was extremely helpful and appreciative!


Andrea was a true inspiration to me and I am so glad we got introduced to this Skype-a-thon and helped their class gain miles for their adventure! I learned a lot during this class and using Skype in my classroom one day will definitely be essential. It is amazing how many connections you can make and how beneficial and enjoyable it is for all students. It was great to hear how much Andrea loves what she does (teaching), so much that she started to get emotional. Through stressful times like these  coming to the end of the semester where we are cramming in so many assignments and have finals, it is easy to have thoughts of giving up. Hearing someone like Andrea speak such highly about teaching and making every little thing for your students work was a true inspiration and I aspire to be like her as a teacher one day and leave an impression like she does on her students and peers!

Word Cloud and Timeline

On Tuesday, we were instructed to get into groups of 4 and create a word cloud and timeline based on our articles. For the word cloud, we had to choose an app to use and put words in it from all of our articles that related to astronomy. We used the word cloud tool "tagul" and made it creative and colorful. For our timeline, we used a very difficult tool that the whole class had trouble with. It was very confusing, but we eventually figured it out. It was just very time consuming. Something great about the presentations is that everyone took this project and did something different with it, so we really got to learn a lot. For example, our group did recent articles and incorporated all of our most recent articles and our timeline went from 2014-2016. We did this as a way to introduce a research project to the class that they can one day do with their own students on recent news about astronomy. It was also good because some of our articles were about the super moon that was very recent and unique. Students might love to do research on it considering it was so recent and some students might of actually seen it and have pictures of it. This was the approach we took for this project, and other groups did different things with it. It was really great to see different ways to use these tools that will help all of us as future teachers!

 Next class we are working in different groups and finding information on the kingdoms for life science! I am excited to see how differently the groups approach this and to learn more about the kingdoms, as I have forgot a lot about them because it was so long ago!

Teaching About the Planets

In the previous class, we were instructed to sign up for a planet to teach and work in a group to create a couple slides on a power point and present to the class. The planet my partner and I chose was Uranus. We were instructed to do research on this planet and then come in and put it all together in a power point. I wish things went differently. My partner was sick today and did not show up, and I ended up being very overwhelmed and felt stressed out and rushed. Even though this was unfortunate, I worked the hardest and fasted I could to come up with an effective, decent way to teach the class about Uranus. The first slide contained fun facts about Uranus and a couple pictures about the planet. The second slide had more pictures and a couple more facts. I wish I engaged the class better and had more to present, but we were very limited time and I was by myself doing the work. To look on the bright side, I learned a lot about Uranus that I had never known before and that I completely forgot about. It is a very unique and interesting planet.

I also learned a lot from my classmates presenting their planets. We all gave each other useful information that we will need to teach about these planets to our future students. This situation also taught me a good life lesson. It is important to always be prepared for the worst and never to rely on anyone else. I did not want to present by myself and was very nervous, and even asked if I had to, and I did. I sucked it up and told myself I could do it! Even though it was far from perfect, and I wish I did things differently, I did my best for what I had to work with and believed in myself.

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Learning More About Teaching Science

In class today we split up into groups and had to share with the class what we all agreed was our most knowledgeable aspect of science was and our least. We all decided that weather was our most, and we could teach it a to easier, and the atmosphere was our least, and we would need more time studying it to teach a class. Since our least was the atmosphere, we were instructed to create either a thing link, powtoon, or glogster and present our topic. This was great because we all worked together and we are all learning as we are putting together a presentation to share with the class. We chose to do a thing link and are teaching the class about the layers of the atmosphere. We are including a super cute and engaging video to start our presentation with and pre-assess the class. Then we will go over the layers and teach the class, then end with a little game where the class will have to put the layers of the atmosphere in order on a worksheet. I am excited to teach the class about the atmosphere and we hope to learn more about it while doing this, and also most importantly teaching the class something they may have forgot.

 

Midterm Week

I cannot believe we are already half way through the semester and finishing up midterms. This past weekend, I completed the midterm for our science class. It took me a long time to complete, especially since I had to dig through the textbook, but it was all very effective and useful information. I was very glad we got to have as many attempts we we wanted too in order to get all the information correct and get a good grade. Our teacher truly wants us to know the information, and was not just giving this midterm to trick us or stress us out, which is very appreciative. 
Before the midterm, we also had to complete part 1 of edTPA. This was very challenging for me considering I have never even looked at edTPA before this. It was also difficult because we did not have enough of the information about the school or the students that we needed to complete it, so it got frustrating at times. I am really glad we did get a chance to practice with it and go through the process of edTPA to start preparing us for student teaching. It is a very important task for us that we all need to know and be familiar with, considering we will be doing all of the parts for student teaching and they have to be accurate.

Fieldwork Week 2!

What a relief it is being done with teaching!! It is nice to sit in the back, relax, and watch the next group of teacher candidates teach the class. Even though I do miss the direct interaction with the students, it is a lot less stressful and overwhelming knowing our group has completed our part of the teaching. Group 2 did a great job with both lessons. Their first lesson was a direct instruction lesson on sedimentary and igneous rocks, and the second one was an inquiry lesson on these types of rocks. The use of white boards was a great idea for the first lesson. The second lesson was very unique and the students loved it. They used play doh to make their choice of a sedimentary or igneous rock. The students would then each get a popsicle stick with a number on it and would observe a different rock and try to use what they have just learned to figure out wether the rock they have is a sedimentary or igneous rock. This was a very interesting and engaging activity that I would even consider to use in my future classroom! The teacher candidates all seemed very comfortable speaking in front of the class. Their lessons were very organized and flowed smoothly. I learned a lot from just simply observing the teacher candidates teach and being able to give them suggestions that will help everyone improve their teaching skills. Giving each other positive and negative feedback is really important because you don't want to discourage them, but at the same time you want to help them improve and be a better teacher. It is important to have an equal balance of great and not so great things each teacher or the group does because it is not an easy task at all and we are under a lot of pressure. I am excited for next class to see what group 3 will do for their lesson!!

Second Day of Fieldwork/ Teaching

The second day of fieldwork was a success! It was my groups second and last time to teach for the semester; since we went first. We had the students put on a mineral show. This was super fun and engaging for the kids. First we reviewed what we did for the first lesson, then we explained how the mineral show is going to work. Each group had to pick one mineral out of the 2 they identified. Then they had to create a poster on that mineral including at least 7 facts about the mineral and decorate their posters. 

After 20 minutes was up, the students all had the opportunity to walk around and check out their classmates posters. After this, they had to vote on their favorite poster on a ticket and on the back of the ticket, choose why they picked 
that mineral and how 
their group worked together. The winning team got a medal after we counted up all of the votes. We set up balloons and ribbon in the beginning of the class to make the mineral show as real as possible and create a fun environment for the students. All of the students got a certificate at the end for participating in the mineral show so no one was left out!

I was very happy how our second day of teaching turned out. Our group had it all together this time and since we were aware this time that there was no internet, we worked around it and were all completely prepared. This lesson was a lot more organized and it was less nerve wracking to teach. I am very proud of my group for the great work we all did and how well we worked together! It was definiltely a challenge, but I have learned a lot from both of the days teaching and got a lot of feedback from our peers that will help us for our future!