Final Vision Statement

After reviewing my initial vision statement I have discovered that my ideas for how to teach science in the classroom wasn’t that far off.  I had the idea that the students should have many hands on activities the only part that was missing is that it should be inquiry based.  Classrooms usually support the activity or kit portion of the science experience.  Though during this experience students are told the hypothesis where in inquiry based the hypothesis comes from the students questions (Shifting pg. 15).

Through this inquiry based classroom the learner should be fully engaged by the scientific questions.  These scientific questions can be generated by the teacher or by the students.  While the students are doing the tests they are making observations and gathering evidence to use to develop their explanations to the questions. Students then evaluate their explanations by comparing them to other outcomes that occurred in similar labs.  The students then communicate their answers to their peers.  In the communicate portion the students must use logic and reasoning to back up their explanations. 

I also believe that for the students to thrive in the classroom they need to know that they are safe to share their ideas with confidence and without ridicule.  The students need to view themselves as a community of learners working for the answers and not just as individuals trying to pass a class.  This environment starts on day one where the class starts to work as a community instead of individuals.

I believe that the students need a place to write down their explanations and observations and science notebooks are the place for that writing.  “Various forms of expository writing—procedural writing, narrative writing, descriptive writing, labeling, and other styles” occur in the science notebooks (Gilbert 30).  These notebooks help students with their writing skills in many different areas.  It is an outlet that has many purposes and one that I will use in my classroom.

I believe that teacher must discover the prior knowledge and misconceptions that the students have about the topic being discussed.  The teacher must break down the misconceptions to be able to provide the students with accurate knowledge (Stepans).   If the teacher does not break down the misconceptions the student may file the new knowledge in with the previous misconceptions and come out with a false account of the concept (Watson). 

I believe that students learn best in an inquiry based classroom, where they are engaged in the topic.  I would make my classroom inquiry based and have the students use the science notebooks to help aid in their learning process.  I will discover their misconceptions and bring them to the student’s attention to be able to convey the accurate information.

Quotes:

“Various forms of expository writing—procedural writing, narrative writing, descriptive writing, labeling, and other styles…”  Gilbert, Joan and Marleen Kotelma. “Five good Reasons to Use Science notebooks in the classroom.”

“Teachers can take steps to prove misconceptions or to break them down after they have formed.”  Stepans, Beiswenger, and Dyche. Misconceptions Die Hard. 

“If alternative views of scientific principles are not addressed, they can coexist with “what the teacher told us” and crease a mishmash of fact and fiction.”  Watson and Konicek.  (Sweater Article). Teaching for Conceptual Change: Confronting Children’s Experience.

“…the working hypothesis is clearly defined by the teacher prior to experimentation while in inquiry, it arises from the student’s questions and is based on their experiences.” Moscovici and Nelson. “Shifting from Activitymania to Inquiry.” 1998. 

Science Teaching Reflection

Day 1:

I went into the day feeling prepared for the part I was teaching for the day.  I was still a bit nervous since this was my first actually experience of teaching a lesson to Elementary aged students.  Once we started teaching I was really into the topic and engaged with the students.  The students were engaged and enjoyed the oobleck very much.  I found it very easy to tie back to the vocabulary terms they have been using.  There are a couple of things I would improve on.   First off I would make sure every group member knew what was going on during the oobleck demonstration I was leading.   I also wish I would have done more to get to know the students before today because I felt like I did an okay job connecting with them but it would have been better to know more about them so I knew which students needed the extra challenge.

Day 2:

Our lesson plan that we wrote was very similar to the Foss Kit. We decided to go with the Foss kit on this day since the students had already observed the powders from the kit during a previous lab with their teacher.  Their data would be supported by the observations they recorded while just writing notes about the physical observations using their five senses.  I severely underestimated how long it would take to get all the materials set up from the kit. I wish I had more to prepare the stations so the students would have not had to wait so long from when we got there to actually start the lab.  We had the students sit in groups of six since we were working with six different powders.  The group I was working with, each student worked with one powder and recorded the results from the four liquids mixed.  We let the groups decide how they wanted to test the powders, if each person take a powder or if each person works with one liquid and test all the powders.  The groups then had to communicate their results to the rest of the group to be able to compare their observations.  While walking around I saw students talking with their tablemates on how they would describe the reaction that occurred.  They were really working together to fill out there charts. 

The students met our learning performance goals.  They were able to verbally express the difference between physical and chemical reactions.  They also worked through their definitions of the two while working on the lab on day two.   Also they discovered in the oobleck experiment, that there are some exceptions to most rules. They discovered that oobleck was both a solid and a liquid.

On both days I felt like time was flying by so fast and the steps were taking longer than we had expected.   We stayed longer than we were scheduled to on both days, but our cooperating teacher didn’t mind one bit.  We didn’t accurately account for how much time the students would need to be able to write in their science journals about the differences between chemical and physical.  I also didn’t think about added support some students might need in the area of spelling.  It didn’t even cross my mind that it might be important to write the words they were working with on the board.  The students were very engaged while working on both days.  They were enthusiastic about learning science, and that was such an awesome feeling.

I have learned so much through this experience and am excited to get to teaching as my career.  I now understand that is some extra work to have an inquiry-oriented science classroom.  I put in a ton of effort to prepare for the first day with all the oobleck.  The reaction from the students is what made the whole experience worth all the hard work.  They expressed how they never thought science could be this much fun. I personally like the lesson and wouldn’t modify much except maybe allowing the students more time with the powders that they worked with on day two.  I would want to give students time to research about oobleck to be able to know more about it.  I would connect the oobleck cross curricular with using it in reading and math so that the students have it in all subject areas. 

Pendulum quiz question

What is their swinging experience and why.

The experience will be that the motion of the swing will be at the same angle as the bar the ropes are connected to. Since the length of the ropes are not the same length the person will be at an angle due to the angle of the post the ropes areconnected to.

October 6th

October 6,2011
Evaluate 
peer to peer.  
students show teacher what they think they have and teacher ccomments on it
use the internet
bring in an electrical expert
wirer a house...model house

Pendulums:
Found: Add more mass swing does not change

Can test:
String length
Angles
Force
Huge variety in mass
Resistance
Can the pendulum go all the way around.
Different types of string

Pendulums

1. Personal experience with swinging on anything.
Swinging on a swing set. Swinging on the top bar or the swing set. Being on a ride that swings back and forth. monkey bars.

2. What applications to "real life" do swinging objects have.
Pendulums swinging back and forth.

3.What is your prediction about what will happen if two people are on one trapeze and only one is on the other and then one switches to the other. Explain (in terms of mass)
The trapeze who receives a person would gain more mass and it would cause it to be harder to gain more momentum since there is more mass whereas the swing who losses a person has less mass which is easier to gain momentum. It is a transfer of energy from the one with to to the one with just one.

4. What science understanding do you have about things that swing back and forth.
Gravity tends to slow down objects that are swinging back and forth at a rate.
Speed of the swinging objects travels at a specific rate


Predictions:
The more washers you add the slower the rate of swings made within the 10 seconds.
The weight would cause the momentum to slow down to not be able to make a full swing.
One washer: 12
Two washers: 11
Three washers: 10
Four washers: 8

Moving Beyond the Science Kit: Explorations of Electricity and Atoms

When I first started reading Ms. Stone section I was bored out of my mind.  I wanted to tell her that these are fourth-graders and don't need the labels to figure out how the wires should go, if students were truly having a problem with this she could give helpful hints.  As the teacher she should challenge her students to figure out how to construct a circuit or if she likes giving step by step instructions she should have at least let her students guess what circuit they made by the definitions on the board.  Not all students were engaged in this activity since there were not enough supplies for them to work in groups smaller than four.

Ms. Travis used an engaging question to discover her students’ misconceptions about the topic of electricity.  During this questioning time she is asking the students to give reasoning and proof from their thinking process instead of just accepting their answer.  Doing this requires students to think about their thinking.  She also used an attention getting, hands on activity on the first day that allowed the students to explore.  Their homework was based off of what they encountered and making rules to fix what they saw.  Their homework also prepared them who the next day. I really liked that Ms. Travis didn’t use the kit on the, I feel that when using the kits most people take the easy way out like Ms. Stone did. They do exactly what the instructions say instead of pushing the students to discover for themselves by posing questions to guide the students exploration. I really liked that Ms. Travis did extended lessons off of the kit that would make it more relevant for her students’ lives. She kept the students engaged throughout the days of learning about electricity and all of the activities that went along with it.  This article really showed how far a teacher may have to go to make sure their students are in a rich learning environment.  Ms. Stone requested that flashlights be bought so that the students could take them apart and manipulate them to explore the fine details of a light bulb.  By doing this it lead the students to ask more questions and really become involved in the learning process instead of sitting on the sidelines and being instructed on what to do. 

It was very interesting to see a teacher use the kits in a more inquiry-based way instead of teaching straight from the instructions.  I am going to use this as references to model my teaching after because it shows it is okay to use kits if you use them in the right way. 

Batteries, Bulbs, & Wires

What is the smallest number of wire strips Kirsten needs to make the build light up?
B. Two strips of wire. Because the has to be a full circuit for the electricity to be conducted through to the lightbulbs.

________________________________________________
Can light a lightbulb with one wire, one battery and one light bulb light?

Yes it can

Series Circuit:

Parallel Circuit:

Simple Circuit:

Pink sheet:
Strengths: Lets the students explore more. Challenges the students to use the minimal amount of supplies to make a circuit. It allows students to keep trying.
Weakneseses: May not discover the different types of circuits (simple, series, Parallel)

Yellow sheet:
Strenghts: Very structured.
weaknesses: Students don't get to explore on their own and figure out for themselves.

Physical Science
Content standard B: Light, heat, electricity, and magnetism.
Benachmark: Electricity in circuits can produce light. Electrical circuits require a complete loop through which an electrical current can pass.

Leanring goals: what students should know?

• Electricity should be in some sort of a circuit.
• Electricity produces light. 

Learning performances: What do you want students to do to show they know?

• Create their own circuits to produce as much light as possible.
• Show multiple ways to make a circuit.
• explain the difference between simple, series, and parallel circuits.