Sayonara Science & Smirnova

The semester is now over and I just wanted to write a final closing blog for now. This class has taught me so much and opened my eyes and mind up to different techniques and practices for my future classroom. This class was definitely not easy. You need to put in long hours and pace yourself if you wish to succeed. As I wrap up this semester I want to thank my colleagues and Dr. Smirnova for all of the things you taught me. Now when I look at a group of students I will always hear in my head "do not say guys" and thus I will be more professional. To future students taking this class good luck and just know it will all be worth it in the end. Dr. Smirnova is one of my favorite professors now and I am lucky enough to continue to build a relationship with her through Kappa Delta Pi, the Education Honor Society at the Mount. I accepted Membership chair of the society and look forward to spending many more Saturdays with her! Until next time bloggers!

Getting Jiggy With Life Science!

This week was all about Life Science! To learn this topic we used a technique called Jigsaw teaching! Until now I have never heard of a jigsaw activity, but i'm glad now that I know. This activity is good for breaking up a broad topic.Everyone in the class was broken up into groups. This is called your base group. Then each member of the group chose an animal kingdom. Once everyone chose the animal kingdoms group separated into expert groups. The expert group works together on their given topic to learn as much as they can. Once they feel that they have mastered the topic, each classmate returns to their base group to teach them their expertise. I really enjoyed this activity because it taught me the information I needed to know without being overloaded and having to go in-depth for each subtopic. Every group did a great job teaching the class about their expertise!!

Saturday Fun (ET)4ALL

This Saturday I spent yet another day of my weekend with the great Dr. Smirnova. This conference was the Educational Technology for Authentic Life Long Learning. The first keynote speaker was someone who teaches teachers. Weird to say, I know, but what she said was amazing. She talked about how everything is on the internet now a days and you have to stay cautious of what you post on this massive world wide web. She also gave insight on how to incorporate technology into classrooms!

The first workshop I attended was "Going Google." The instructor informed me that many schools are moving away from office 365 and towards Chrome. This was a surprise to me because I grew up using school computers and was very familiar with the office 365 software. She then went in depth about the numerous components Google offers educational professionals. One in which is called Google Classroom. This allows the teacher to communicate with students and parents online. I think it is very important for teachers to have a class webpage so parents can know what is going on. Most days parents ask their child "How was your day?" and the child simply responds "good." With Google Classroom parents will have insight to what their child did throughout the day. This is also good for students who have a tendency for forgetting homework at school or lying and saying they have none. The teacher can post the nights homework on the site that way everyone has access.

Following the Google Workshop there was a group workshop presented by Susan Oxnevad an Education Director of ThingLink. ThingLink is my favorite tool to use in the classroom and after hearing Susan speak even more in depth my love grew! There are so endless ways to incorporate ThingLink into your classroom.

The third workshop I went to was my absolute favorite of them all. This workshop focused on Virtual Reality or VR. I have always heard about it, but never had the chance to experience it myself...well until yesterday! Once I put the goggles on I was in awe. I had left the classroom and entered a whole new world. I instantly thought about how I could incorporate VR into the classroom. When doing a science lesson on a particular climate/animal/body system, you can have your class travel as if they're there experiencing it all on their own. One example I saw was the circulatory system. As you have the goggles on you are inside a human body with blood cells flowing all around you. This VR technology is fast on the rise and will be an awesome tool to have in the classroom one day!

Thank you KDP for hosting this wonderful event!

Astronauts, Meteors, Planets Oh My!

This week class was out of this world!!.. Literally. The topic we focused on this week was space science. Outer Space is a topic that is so vast. You can focus on the United States and the space race or you can focus on the planets. The ideas are endless. As a class we were each required to create a scrap book of articles all about space. I made my digital scrapbook using Glogster. You can find my glog HERE! These articles are all from Newsela and interested me in different aspects of space. After creating our scrapbooks of articles we were then separated into groups. As a group we brainstormed which topics and words came up the most often in our articles as well as what interested us. With these words we created a word cloud to display all of the words! Word clouds are great to introduce a topic, you can ask students what looks familiar and what does not. A word cloud could then lead into a KWL chart. Students can list the words they already know, the words the want to know and then finally after the lesson they will write the new words they learned. The next task for our group was to create a timeline of space based on some of the words. As a group we split up the words evenly and got straight to work researching. We each found one or two popular events regarding the word/ concept to add to our timeline. Our timeline was created using Tiki-toki an online resource that allows you to make 3D timelines! Once we finished our timeline and viewed it, it was as if we were actually traveling through time starting with the big bang going all the way to present day! What a cool idea for teaching history you can "time-travel" as a class!

All Life on Earth is One

This week our class focused on teaching Earth science. In preparation for this I read some articles and the textbook to gain more insight on Earth science. Each student was then asked which topic they knew the least about to then research further into the topic. My group chose Earth's oceans. I had no idea we had 5 oceans on Earth. After researching I found out a lot about the oceans, the currents and the marine life within. In order to teach my class about Earth Science, my group decided to create a ThingLink. Here you can find our ocean ThingLink. This activity was a great way to refresh my Earth science knowledge learning from my own research as well as from the teachings of my peers. One fact I found to be the most interesting about our oceans is that 97% of all Earth's water is found in the oceans! I really enjoyed learning Earth science topics this week! 

24th Annual CELL Literacy Conference

The Annual CELL Literacy Conference is my favorite event MSMC hosts each year. This year the keynote speaker was Susan L. Roth. She is the author and illustrator of over 50 books. When she started her talk she didn't say a word. We just watched in awe as she took different fabrics, papers and scraps and transformed it into a beautiful image. I am someone who loves art and watching her really inspired me because you don't need expensive materials you can make beautiful pictures using the bare minimum and that is exactly what Susan does in her books. She then went on showing all different images from her books that she has created. One of my favorites was from her book Parrots Over Puerto Rico. The vibrant shades of blues and greens really stood out to me and her ability to capture such a beautiful bird using just paper was amazing. This form of turning scraps into pictures is called collaging and it is something I look forward to trying in the future. Susan spoke about how she was inspired to write some of her books and spoke of her passion for traveling. Many of her books take place in countries outside the United States.

After the keynote, we went straight to our first workshop. The workshop I attended was: Stories of “3” Come to Life. This geared towards early childhood grades and I enjoyed it very much. As someone who is going to school to be an early childhood educator I have read my fair share of The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and The Three Bears and The Three Billy Goats Gruff stories. There are so many different versions and so many different activities you can do with these stories. One activity I particularly liked was changing the ethnicity of Goldilocks. When you change Goldilocks' ethnicity you also change the clothing she is wearing, the type of food she tries eating, the style of the home she goes into and so much more. I think this activity is great for students of all different ethnicities to make connections to the character of the book.

The second workshop I went to was: Full STEAM into Reading: An After School Library Program. This workshop focused on different activities that make a connection between science and literacy. Some of the activities included spice painting, story jenga, crystal trees and exploring colors. Each science activity was paired with a book. My favorite station was the crystal trees station. Here you were given the necessary materials to make a crystal tree. The activity was paired with Dr. Seuss' The Lorax. If I were to do this with a class I would first read them the story and talk about the importance of conserving our trees, then talk with the students to see what they can do to help our environment. As a closing activity we would "grow" our own indoor crystal tree. The class would then be asked to draw their own picture of the tree and write a story based on if we had crystal trees instead of green trees like we do now.

Project Learning Tree

This weekend MSMC offered a FREE hands on Pre K-Grade 8 Science/Interdisciplinary Workshop! I attended the workshop and gained so much knowledge I cannot wait to use in my classroom one day. We started the morning off playing an "ice breaker" bingo activity. We had to go around the room trying to find someone who matched a space on our bingo board. The catch to this game was each space was related to nature in some way. On each game board I was able to sign off for having a tree house! I thought this was cool because I seemed to be the only one with one. This was a great way to get to know the people we would be spending the day with and their personal takes on nature.

Immediately after the ice breaker we jumped into a new activity involving tree cookies. A tree cookie is a piece of the tree that has been cut off from either the trunk or branch of the tree.We learned how to tell how old the tree is from counting the rings on the cookie and also learned different parts of the cookie. The instructors then linked it to literacy as we drew our own tree cookie based on our lives so far. If you had a really great year in your life you made the space between each ring larger because that meant you flourished and had great growth at that point in your life. I thought this was a great way students can plan  what they are writing based on their drawing of their tree cookie. It is a great way to brainstorm and organize thoughts and ideas before writing. This activity can also be linked to social studies in which you can create a tree cookie for a country to show the years they flourished as to they years they did not. A tree cookie is like natures own timeline!


Another activity we did was creating tree "fashion." Each group used a brown paper bag to represent the trunk of the tree filled with different parts of the tree inside. This was a great way for us to really get to know the different parts of a tree and expand our knowledge. We then wore our vests and hats for the rest of the group to see.

My favorite activity from the workshop was the "Peppermint Beetle." The Peppermint Beetle encourages students to use their sense of smell and other techniques to find the beetle. This activity can be done with any strong scent you wish. All you have to do is place the scent on different objects around the yard leading up to the hidden beetle.

All in all today was a very successful workshop. I enjoyed all of the activities we participated in and will be sure to use them in my classroom one day. I think it's amazing how science can be connected to all different subjects in all kinds of ways. The free book we received will be an excellent resource as well.

The Future of Educational Technology

If I had to pick one thing that I learned this semester and cal it the most important thing I learned in this class it would be educational technology. Nowadays all students use technology in someway or another. As teachers it is important we incorporate technology into our classrooms. We must conform with the new fads which now and its not going anywhere is technology. I was introduced to many new different online educational tools this semester. A few of my favorite educational technological tools include ThingLink, Kahoot! and Glogster.

ThingLink has been my favorite tool to use this semester. With each preceding ThingLink I created it it got better than the last. ThingLink is a create tool to use as a study guide. You can include the key concepts from a unit and add videos as well as images that correspond. It is a way to save paper and students can access it from home which gives them no excuse not to study! ThingLink is also a great way for students to present a project especially a group project. ThingLink can have many editors that way more than one person can work at the same time. At the same time the students work, the teacher is able to add commentary.

Kahoot! is another tool I enjoyed using this semester. I had seen Kahoot! in the past, but was always too nervous to give it a try until now. Kahoot! is an online tool to create fun learning games such as surveys, quizzes and discussions! Everyone in the classroom is able to respond at the same time at their own pace, but it can get competitive. Kahoot! times how quickly you answer the question and ranks you based on your speed. This is a great way to create a positive attitude towards quizzes as well as create friendly competition within the classroom. The best part about Kahoot! is it's FREE!!!

The third tool i enjoyed using this semester is Glogster. Glogster is an online tool that allows you to create interactive posters, complete with text, images, graphics, audio and video. Glogs can be used to present lessons complete with links to outside resources, with audio and videos related to the subject and topic. Glogs support and meet the needs of special education, general education and ELL students. Glogs are a fun way to learn and engage students in learning. Glogs can sustain the students' attention for longer periods of time and stimulate creativity.

Science Fair Fun

Each year Bishop Dunn Memorial School hosts a science fair for their students grades 5-8 and this semester I was able to be a part of it! Dr. Smirnova told us she and Doc Love, the science teacher at BDMS, wanted our class to take part in the science fair this semester to show the students examples of really good experiments. I was excited to start brain storming my ideas of what I wanted to do for a project. I decided I wanted to correlate my science fair project with the topic I taught the students in the after school program: Energy. After exploring the internet for different "energy" related science fair projects I finally came up with one. My question was "Can the color of your house reduce your energy footprint?" In other words can the color of your house save you money? Once you have a question the next step in the scientific method is to research your question. After researching different sites and articles it was time to make a hypothesis. A hypothesis is an educated guess. Our students are familiar with making hypotheses because of their practice within our inquiry lessons this semester. My hypothesis was "If your house is painted a dark color, then the inside of your house will be warmer and reduce your energy footprint." I continued on with the scientific method by conducting an experiment. To test my hypothesis I used four shoe boxes all the same size and painted each one a different color (black, grey and white). Inside each box I placed a thermometer and outside the boxes was a heat lamp. The heat lamp represented the sun and the boxes represented the houses. After recording my data I was able to draw the conclusion that proved my hypothesis to be true. This project was interesting because I haven't done anything like it in which I had to follow the scientific method step-by-step. I always wanted to participate in a science fair and now I had the chance!

Our students from the after school program loved seeing our projects on display and were eager to show us theirs. One project that stood out from the rest was done by a 4th grade student Daniel. I met Daniel this semester in the after school program and I could instantly tell he had a love for science. Although Daniel was not required to enter the science fair because he's only in 4th grade, he chose to because he wanted to express his findings. Daniel's project was all about dark matter. Before talking with Daniel about his project I had no clue what dark matter was, but he quickly informed me. Speaking with Daniel I could tell he was very passionate about his project and findings from various research he has done. He had three different models to represent dark matter each one explaining it in a different way to help his audience understand. I was truly inspired by Daniel's hard work and efforts with his project and I hope that I can help make my students have the same love Daniel has for science.

Reduce, Reuse & Recycle!

Last but certainly not least group four presented today! Bravo to group four on mastering teaching the after school program! Group four did their lesson on pollution and it was great! After watching all of the other groups go, group four was able to take what they learned and turn it into a wonderful lesson. To start group four placed a piece of "litter" on each student's desk and announced that they had been visited by the liter bug and it was their job to recycle the litter into the correct bins. This was a great to get the students up and moving to get any left over energy from that day out! Immediately after they finished sorting the litter, group four went over the rules and expectations for the class. My colleague Allison did a wonderful job explaining the behaviors she wanted to see and introduced a game they would be playing. The game is called students vs. teachers. The object of the game is to beat your opponent by demonstrating good behaviors during the lesson, when the students did this, they earned a point, but when they did not, the teachers received the point. This was a great way to have students want to behave in order to beat their opponent.

I really enjoyed listening to group four teach their direct lesson. They included a acronym (P.A.W.L) to allow students to remember the 3 different types of pollution which include air, water and land. For each different kind of pollution group four briefly explained what it is, what causes it and what the effects are. I think that this was very short and to the point which made it easier for students to remember. Another thing group four did differently was that for each review question they had they included a political cartoon pertaining to the type of pollution they were reviewing. This was a very unique way to review and I will be sure to use this idea in the future. After teaching the different types of pollution the group gave the solution to pollution which is to reduce, reuse and recycle showing students how they too can help save our Earth from pollution. I think group four did the best job yet teaching their direct instruction and I was excited for the inquiry.

Group four introduced their problem using "Fred the fish," an adventurous freshwater fish who is going to swim downstream, but is scared of the obstacles he may face because of recent increase in pollution in the area. The students were asked to help Fred see what he may or may not face as he travels. The students were then reminded of the inquiry process and soon began to work on their experiments to see what would happen to Fred (a sponge in the shape of a fish) as a result of different forms of water pollution. This activity was very interesting and engaging as each group was interested in helping their friend Fred travel safely. Watching my colleagues work with the students I could see how intrigued each group was in their process. Congrats group four on your excellent work!

Rain, Rain Go Away!

Today group three taught their direct and inquiry based lessons on precipitation. Group three started off strong using a word cloud in the shape of a tornado to introduce precipitation. It is always important when you introduce your topic to relate it back to something children are familiar with. This procedure ensure students will be making connections as they learn new material. Students who make connections while learning are better able to understand the content they are learning. Group three did a great job connecting their material to the real world such as why you can see your breath when it is cold out and what the white lines are behind planes. This was a great way for students to think back to something they have observed before. Students gain a deeper understanding of a concept when they make authentic connections. The only suggestion I have for group three during their direct instruction lesson is to "teach the stuff and cut the fluff." By this I mean that group three gave the students a lot of information that was unnecessary and doing so they ran out of time. It is better to just present the students with the information they will need rather than anything extra that may distract them. 

When it was time for the inquiry lesson, group three was already so behind they left out a lot of key steps when presenting. I wish he group had more time to explain to the class what the inquiry process is and what they would be doing at each station. It seemed that group three had very thought out and exciting experiments for the students, but it was hard to see what was going on. Next time I hope group three remembers time is of the essence! 

Go Green, Go Clean

Well, today was the day! After weeks of planning, hours spent practicing and many late nights editing my group finally taught our two lessons. As you read in my previous blog our topic is clean & green energy! I personally was very excited about this topic because I wanted to learn more ways I can help our planet through the use of alternative forms of clean energy.

For our direct instruction lesson we used a google slideshow that you can find HERE to teach the necessary vocabulary and concepts that the students will need to know in order to do the inquiry lesson. As we taught our direct instruction lesson, the students followed along writing the necessary words in their "green energy" booklets that we provided. I think this was useful because after the students learned a new word they wrote it in their booklets and then read the definition again. This repetition is key to learning vocabulary and we thought this would benefit our students when it was time to apply the knowledge they learned. In addition to the booklets we used an acronym to teach the five forms of clean energy. Silly (Solar) Boys (Biomass) Go (Geothermal) Hunting on (Hydro) Weekends (Wind). Together as a class we repeated this over and over until it was second nature for the students. The direct instruction lesson went smoothly with a few check for understanding activities and a couple of guided practice worksheets to ensure the necessary material was learned. The students were very respectful for the direct instruction lesson and seemed to be very interested in learning more about green energy.


Now, let's talk about our inquiry lesson... We chose to create a webquest for our inquiry lesson in which the different groups of students would each become experts in one form of green energy. Similarly to group 1 we chose to use a voki o introduce our problem. This choice was also our biggest problem as teachers. We thought it would be a good idea to use a voki of President Trump in which he would ask our class of students for help as he wants to save our planet. Yeah, we THOUGHT this was going to be a good idea, but instead of having the class actively listening, they all bursted out in laughs and had their own comments to say about Mr. President. I wish we would have used a letter/ email "written" by the president and maybe things would have gone smoother. My colleagues and I did not let this ruin our lesson though. We tried to keep it as serious as possible and explain to the class what we would be doing in our groups. We went over the inquiry process in our google slides presentation which you can access HERE.

After we taught the lesson it was time for the groups of student activists to get working! Each group was assigned a form of green energy and using the webquest I created they would fill in a sheet to become an expert on their energy. The groups then explained why their type of energy would be best for the United States with details from what they learned. The students seemed to enjoy researching their energy topic using the ipads. I think the inquiry lesson was very effective and engaging for the class because they felt as if their voice was going to be heard by the government which made the experience authentic for the class. I'm glad they learned something because the future of clean and energy lies in that generations hands.

Solar System Guinea Pigs

Week four approached quickly and with that came time for group 1 to teach their lesson. The topic group 1 chose to teach is the solar system. Group 1 started off strong, my colleagues started off with an acronym to help the class remember the planets and their order. To teach their direct instruction lesson, my colleagues used a Prezi with many pictures and minimal words. I though this approach to teaching was very effective because it wasn't too much for the students to remember. I am unfamiliar with Prezi and often take the safer route which is creating a google slides presentation. After watching group 1 present, I hope to use Prezi in the future for a lesson or at least play around with the website for now.

The inquiry lesson was an exciting experiment in which each group was assigned a different material to see which could keep the ice from melting! The problem was introduced through the use of a Voki about how climate change is effecting glaciers and the students must become geologists to find how to keep ice from melting! I think this was a very engaging start and the students seemed to be very interested in becoming geologists.

I think because it was the student's first time being taught a lesson in the after school program they did not know what to expect. Most of them figured they would be doing crazy science experiments that included explosions and fizzing wonders, but that was not possible in the little amount of time we were given to teach direct and inquiry lessons. This was hard for group 1 to up hold such high expectations, but they did a great job teaching the material. The behavior management could have been approached differently because the students were very disrespectful throughout the lessons.

Finally Class at Last

After a delayed start we were finally able to meet our students that will be apart of our after school program! The program consists of about 20 students from 3rd to 5th grade. Our first afternoon meeting with them we were asked to bring a getting to know you activity, a way to introduce our topic and a book that has to do with science.

The topic my group chose was clean energy. We asked the students what energy was, what types of energy they know of and how energy works. We did this so we could see what we would have to teach them and what we could review based on what they already knew. When we met with the groups of students we noticed a couple of different things. First we noticed there were a couple of major behavior problems with the students. Right away my group agreed we would have to strategically place the students seats when we teach our lessons and stand scattered amongst the students. We decided this because we noticed "cliques" amongst the students, we knew that if we wanted the lesson to go smoothly we would have to separate them. Secondly we noticed that the skill levels varied greatly amongst the students. Some students seemed to love science and knew a lot of different information where as others had a hard time answering our simple questions. To make sure the lesson would be beneficial for everyone we knew we had to make it engaging with different types of assessments so the students didn't struggle or get bored while we were teaching. After the "meet & greet" session I knew we had our work cutout for us and we should start planning sooner rather than later. I am excited to see how the program goes and the different lessons my colleagues and I will teach!

 

The Snow Strikes Again!

Another class canceled due to inclement weather! I would like to say we have gotten lucky, but in all reality missing two classes back to back is actually worse. Dr. S expects a lot from her students, and it is very easy to fall behind in her methods classes. I don't think I will have this problem because I know what is to be done each week to insure I don't fall behind. It is essential to stay on top of writing blogs and also writing observations as each group teaches the class. This is where Dr. S really looks to make sure you were paying attention to the group's lesson & give feedback to our peers. I am excited to meet our students, but also nervous because I am still confused to what exactly we will be doing in the after school program. Hopefully the next blog I write is after meeting our students!

The Journey Begins!

The first Tuesday classes of the semester started off with a snow day! I had mixed feelings about not meeting in person for the first class, because we only meet once a week this semester. Online through webchat Dr. S was able to give the class a brief overview of what we will be doing this semester.  I think the first class session was easier for me than other students because I had Dr. Smirnova last year. I am now familiar with her Eclass style and knew what to expect with the different google docs.

The first thing Dr. Smirnova had us do was draw a scientist. After we drew our scientists we then discussed the similarities in our drawings. Many of the drawings had men with crazy hair, lab coats, glasses and some sort of beaker or glass tube. We then talked about why these are our interpretations of scientists. Many of us stated it was because this is how scientists are portrayed on television or in movies. Dr. Smirnova then talked about how there are many different types of scientists that do more than just experiments. This activity made me think back to my elementary school days when I was always excited for science lessons. In my school we had a science/math specialist who would come around monthly to each class and do a different experiment. One of my favorite experiments was getting a hard boiled egg to fit inside a glass bottle. We were always asked to make our own hypothesis and then make conclusions why whatever happened after the experiment was over.

Just as we did last year in Social Studies Methods, we were required to create a blog and also use a tool to introduce ourselves digitally to the rest of the class. I was interested in using a new tool this time around so I chose thinglink! With thinglink I was able to introduce myself to the class using pictures from different aspects of my life. This tool is good in the classroom for older students to use for projects that way they can make a virtual poster with required information rather than a hard copy version. You can view my thinglink here!

When I found out we would be doing fieldwork in the after school program at Bishop Dunn I was very excited. The theme for the program is everyday is earth day! This program is intended to excite students about science through the use of the inquiry process. My group decided to pick the topic "energy resources." We will be discussing different types of energy (wind, water and solar) , where they come from and how they effect the planet we live on.