Creating Interest

The book I chose to do a book trailer for was The Rock Factory: A Story about the Rock Cycle by Jacqui and illustrated by Matthew Lilly. I chose this book because not only does it go through the different stages of the rock cycle for students, it includes illustrations which are bright and colorful. The illustrations on some pages have word blurbs to identify what is happening in the picture and explain the process for students.
Creating a trailer for a book is something I had previously never considered. I have had to write up book reviews, summaries, or other short writing pieces about a book I read previously, but none were done for the purpose the book trailer was. Creating the trailer was fairly simple using Animoto and I think could be effective in a classroom. Students generally seem interested when presented with technology or videos which would mean that by showing them a book trailer in such a way they would be engaged and more curious about a book than if the teacher simply told them about it standing at the front of the class. Further, because using animoto was as simple as it was, this activity could be a project for students to do in class as part of a book report, or even at the end of the year as a way to engage their classmates to read what they decided was their favorite book of the year.

Researching to Learn

When teaching science, it is important to consider the other content areas can or need to be included. It is often important to properly and effectively include reading into science, as explained in "Infusing Reading into Science Learning" by Zmach, Sanders, Drake Patrick, Dedeoglu, Charbonnet, Henkel, Fang, Leonard Lamme, Pringle (2006). By incorporating literature properly within a science curriculum, a student's scientific skills as well as their reading skills could greatly benefit. In the example opening the article, the literature read by the class on different types of waves lead to discussion and questions from the students. The discussion created not only lends itself to questions being formed by students, but can act as a for of informal assessment in that the teacher is able to gather information about what the class does and does not understand about what was read in their scientific literature. Additionally, the questions posed during discussion or because of the literature read creates an environment for inquiry, which encourages student curiosity and investment in their own learning. Additionally, by infusing scientific literature, students learn more scientific language by seeing it in use. In my own classroom, I would be sure to include this kind of scientific reading within my units. There are always ways to link science and reading, and in doing so I know my students would become more engaged in what we are learning about.

Making the Most of Miles

Participating in the Skype-a-thon was an incredible experience. It was so interesting to see how Skype could be used in a classroom, and how quickly you can connect to to other classrooms and use that in the classroom. Before this experience, I wouldn't have thought to use Skype in the classroom. Having the opportunity to not only use Skype in a college class, but see how another teacher implements the lesson in an elementary school class was eye-opening and definitely something I would want to include in my own classroom.

Skype can be used in so many different ways within the classroom. It can be used to go on a virtual field trip to almost anywhere. Students could talk to a specialist like a zookeeper and see what they do on a daily basis, or learn about any other job they might be curious about. When learning about the history of other countries or areas, Skype could be used to allow students to see historic battlegrounds and talk to a historian about what happened in that area. Being able to video chat with people from different areas could also help eliminate stereotypes or misconceptions students may have about an area, as well.

Discovering new ways to engage students in active and meaningful learning is always so exciting, and participating in the Skype-a-thon helped me find something new to remember to incorporate later on. Skype has the ability to let students travel the world without ever leaving the classroom.

Science Fair

Science fairs are often a part of a student's scientific learning career. From my own experience, I was required to participate in a science fair every year of middle school. Generally, students had free range of what their project was on, as long as it related in some way to whatever science course we were involved in at the time. Involved in these projects was not only a poster board with our findings, but a research paper submitted to our teacher. While stressful at the time, the end product was always something I was very proud of. Now that I am learning about teaching science, and discovering how to engage students in their own learning as well as ensure students gain as much knowledge as they can, I see how important and beneficial science fairs can be for students.

The picture above is generally what was involved in the creation of a poster for our science fair experiment, and what other students, parents, and teachers would see during the fair. The research paper I had been required to write as a student in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade did not have to be attached to the poster, because the paper was a summation of our results and research done to support the hypothesis we made as well as our results. This research paper was the first exposure I had to needing to both utilize sources as well as determine which sources were considered credible. The sources I was allowed to use in middle school obviously would not necessarily be considered credible at a college level, but the process of researching made me question what I was reading and whether or not it was something I felt could be used. Performing the experiment and creating the poster was the enjoyable part of the process. The experiment allowed me to answer my own question I had about a subject, which I realize now is part of the inquiry process. Because I was the one who came up with the experiment I wanted to perform, I was constantly interested in what the results were going to be. For one project, I designed an experiment which allowed me to discover which plant food would allow for the most growth over the course of a few weeks: organic or chemical plant food. This was a topic I had heard debated over at family parties and was interested to see which of my competitive uncles was correct in claiming their garden was better than the others. In being required to use scientific language like hypothesis, independent and dependent variable, control, and so on, I was able to fully grasp the concept of these words and how they were to be used in a science experiment. Finally, when standing next to the poster board I had decorated and designed, explaining my experiment to people at the science fair, I was proud to present my findings and of all the work I had put into the project. "The Impacts Of A Secondary School Science Exhibition On The Students In Charge"(2014) also talks about skills such as communication with teachers or people outside the student's family benefited because of the science fair projects. 

 SAHİN, Esin, and Nuray ÖNDER ÇELİKKANLI. "The Impacts Of A Secondary School Science Exhibition On The Students In Charge." Necatibey Faculty Of Education Electronic Journal Of Science & Mathematics Education 8.2 (2014): 71-74. Education Research Complete. Web.

Meeting the Class

Meeting the class of sixth grade students our class will be teaching for the first time was an exciting experience. For our first time there, each group designed a quick activity to help get the class excited about what we will be teaching them that also helped us find out a little of their prior knowledge, in addition to the pretest our class contributed to.

My fieldwork group decided to bring in different types of rocks for the students to see and make observations about. We also asked the students to try and group the rocks in order to see if the students would inadvertently notice characteristics about the rocks that show what type they are and group them accordingly. The students were all quick to offer their thoughts on the rocks: what they looked like, felt like, and so on. The students' eagerness to discuss both with us and each other was exciting to see and made me more excited than I already am to have the opportunity to teach them all. It was interesting to see how each group of students divided the groups of rocks and what characteristics they thought were both uniting and dividing factors. Further, students quickly made connections between the marble and granite pieces we brought in, and counter tops they'd seen or had in their own homes.

The first visit to the school was definitely an experience that will help everyone design lessons based on, and has motivated me further for the fieldwork experience this semester.

Whole Class, Whole Mind

Preparing to teach in front of a full class is a daunting assignment. I am incredibly excited to be in front of a class, but being up there for the first time, and working out all the details in lesson plans is a bit nerve-wracking. Trying to think of every possible outcome for questions being posed to the class, and the activities that the students will be taking part in is important, because by thinking of all different scenarios, I know we will be prepared for anything that happens. Because the students are in sixth grade, it seems more intimidating. The content taught to younger grades is generally content I have been taught over the course of my academic career, but to varying degrees of difficulty. Truthfully, I do not remember much of sixth grade, much less about metamorphic rocks and the rock cycle. Being sure to have read up on all the information I need to effectively teach the class as well as answer all the questions the students may have is important to ensure I am providing students with all the information they could possibly need. Practicing the slides I will be teaching to the class is helpful because the other members of my fieldwork group are able to give feedback and help ensure I will be fully prepared for teaching when our opportunity comes.

Progressively Presenting

Being a part of a jigsaw group helped me realize how positive of a tool it can be in a classroom. By setting up groups in such a way, students learn both individual accountability, but also how to work with a partner and in a larger group. It also ensures that no one single person becomes accountable for all the work. Furthermore, I've noticed in our social studies methods class that these groups serve as a median point for presenting. We first presented to the class about ourselves, a topic we already knew very well and were comfortable with, and then presented to our smaller jigsaw groups on a topic we were not previously familiar with. This sort of build up of presentations can help ease the nerves of students who are not comfortable speaking in front of the class by slowly challenging them and increasing their confidence. Presenting should be something students become comfortable with as they will likely be faced with the task of presenting many times in their academic career, as well as professionally later on in life. 

Creating Mystery

The "Mystery Bag" experiment was definitely an interesting way to introduce the scientific process. Not only did it give us a chance as a class to reintroduce ourselves to science, but it could be used for a variety of topics in and out of a science lesson. The mystery bag lesson could be used to introduce students to the process of observing, hypothesizing, predicting, and carrying out an experiment. It could also be used to introduce a new topic in science by including items relevant to the topic and having students hypothesize and predict both what items are in the bag, but what they will be learning next. The activity could also be adapted to use as an activity for students to get to know each other. Each student could place items in the bag they thought represented themselves, and exchange bags with another person, who then had to decide what those items said about their classmate. Overall the mystery bag activity was insightful both in the context of science, as well as how else it could be used in the classroom.

Teaching to Question

The first chapter of our textbook brought up a point I had never thought about before. The text spoke about creating scientifically literate citizens, not just students. Teaching young students, it almost feels strange to realize that what they learn in class will be carried with them throughout their life, even after their academic career has ended. Although, as I though about the idea of what it means to be a "scientifically literate" citizen, I realized that much of what I learned as a young student still influenced everything from my current viewpoints and even my college major. For example, were it not for my first grade teacher, I may have never fully realized how incredible of a tool my writing can be in my life; if it weren't for my sixth grade social studies teacher, I may not be as aware of my impact on my environment as I am today; and if it weren't for my eighth grade Spanish teacher, I would not be so inspired to have the opportunity to teach students. 

The idea of being scientifically literate as a citizen made me think about the issue of global warming. While global warming is an accepted fact by many people, it is important that students and citizens learn not to take everything they hear as fact. By encouraging students to think, question, and research or experiment as scientists do, they can carry that into their lives outside of the classroom. This means that they will learn to question information presented to them as either fact or fiction, do their research, and make their own informed decision on the topic. 

The word cloud I included at the top of this post included many of the words that I thought should be associated with science, in and out of the classroom. "Informed" and "knowledge" are two of the words that seemed to associate themselves with the idea of a scientifically literate citizen as was described earlier. As citizens, students should keep themselves informed and be knowledgeable about the world and whats going on around them.

Starting a Scientific Journey

The first day of class brought to light an interesting point about science, and what exactly comes to mind when someone thinks of a "scientist." Realizing conscious or subconscious thoughts about those who work as a scientist can be very important when teaching young students because of a variety of commonalities seen in the pictures everyone in class drew, but the common point I found most interesting was that the majority of the pictures were of men.  The attached video shows the view from a young girl, who, despite being passionate about science, felt uncomfortable and as if she didn't belong dissecting a fish in an upper grade science class, the way she had in pre-school. Working in a daycare over the summer, it is sometimes upsetting to see or hear children tell others that they cannot play with a certain toy because "that's only for girls/boys." This is important to realize because as a teacher, students need to be motivated and excited about a topic regardless of gender. Teachers need to be aware of what society as a whole tells their students, because that is likely the mindset students come into class with each day. One way to perhaps encourage all students to be excited and motivated about science particularly is to recognize and challenge the second commonality in our class' pictures: the scientist were represented in lab coats and goggles doing an experiment in a lab. A lab setting might not be the best fit for everyone, which is why it is important to realize all the different professions available in the scientific world. A scientist could be someone who goes out to study wildlife, and do so in the animals own habitat. It would be interesting perhaps to have students in kindergarten or first grade draw a scientist, and repeat the activity again in high school to see if their ideas of what a "scientist" looks like has changed. Every student should see themselves as a scientist, especially in the classroom. It is a teacher's job to help ensure this happens.