The End!

    

     As we are coming to the end to the semester, we are starting to look back on all the things we have learned and all the experiences we have had. This class has taught us so much and gave us new and exciting experiences. After all the projects and stressful nights it was rewarding to see all the information that we have learned and all of the hard work that has come out of it.

     One of the main experiences that I will definitely not forget will have to be my fieldwork. This fieldwork was something I have never done before, which was teach an entire classroom. It helped
me gain confidence in myself and helped me realize what it will actually be like when I start to work as a teacher. While having a new experience in fieldwork, I also learn new types of lessons such as, Direct, Inquiry, and cooperative. Even though it was my first time hearing of these types of lessons I quickly and easily learned them. We created our own lessons and put them in action in our fieldwork. That is how I was really able to get a handle on them so quickly.

    Another experience I would say I will always carry with me is the amount of technology I was introduced to. If I were asked how I would incorporate technology into the classroom, I would not know how to answer. Throughout this class I have been shown many digital tools to use in the classroom. I was able to use them in the many of the projects we created and became familiar with them. I would be able to use them when I start to teach and have my students try to use them and become familiar with them as well.

 

     Now we are currently working on our Livebinders, which is a practice run for when we start to do our edTPA. It is so much work but I know that all this work and stress will pay off in the end. It will definitely help me in the future when I start my student teaching. Here is a link to my Livebinder. Right now it is a work in progress but it will be completed by the 15th if you would like to see the full and completed version!

   Even though this is the end of the semester and our class, I feel that it is just the beginning. We will always be learning new things and new ways to improve our teaching. Even when we are teaching in a classroom we can still learn more new and improved ways. I am excited to talk the rest of my education classes and see what else is out their for me to learn about teaching students. I am so thankful for the knowledge that this class has given me and I will always carry it throughout my career.

Tradebooks in a classroom!

      This week we looked at tradebooks and their importance within a classroom setting. We were told to pick a tradebook to use for our unit plan. We were giving a template to create out book talks and a couple of digital tools to help us create the trailer for the book. For my book I used Animals and their Habitats: Ocean.
      This kind of book would be used as a reference book for information and facts about the ocean and their marine life. Each page had a different marine animal and gave facts about where they lived, what they ate, pictures of what they looked like, and diagrams on the parts of marine animal. toward the end of the book, which I thought was extremely helpful for students who were just learning, it gave a glossary on some of the challenging words that were mentioned. I thought this was a perfect book for teachers to use and students to look through. Especially if the teacher is doing a project on the different marine life.
     When looking through this book I was able to come up with an activity that students could do based off this book. Due to the different marine life the book goes though, students can pick their favorite and do a poster on the different information found on that specific animal. If the student has more then one favorite then they could do both and look at the similarities and differences on those animals.

     For our project, as I mentioned before, we did a book talk! This link is to my book talk if you would like to read more about the book and what more is in it!

      I made my book trailer with Animoto. I would definitely use this tool again and recommend it to other teachers. It is a great tool to use for making videos and using it as a different method to teach. It is very quick and easy to use as well. If you haven't used the tool before it is not hard to figure out and use. This is also a link to my trailer for the book that shows pictures of what the book looks like inside and the layout of what they discuss!

Science in the news!

  This week had to be my favorite week of the semester! This week we focused on the topic of astronomy! Even though my strength in school is definitely not science, I love to learn about outer space, the stars, and the planets. We were given a home assignment to find astronomy in the news and create a scrapbook or collage on our news articles. Last week I mentioned how me and my partner used Glogster for our weather topic and this week I used Glogster again! I found multiple articles on the new Planet 9, galaxies, stars, etc. To the right you can see a sample of my Glogster poster in my articles. Click the link and you will be able to see a full version of my poster! When you see the full version you can also click on the titles of the article to be directly forwarded to the article itself!

When we came to class the next day we were then put into groups! We were to look at all of our articles and pick words that we found repeated and all our articles had in common. When we found those words we were to use another digital tool to display those words. Some tools we could have used were tools like Wordle, Tagul, ABCya, Tagxedo, WordArt, and Tagcrowd. The ones my classmates used were very interesting and it was cool to see how they worked and what the finished project looked like. For my group we used Wordle! Due to technicalities we found it difficult to get the finished product but somehow we got it! Some words we found in common were Astronauts, Asteroids, Orbit, Mars, Moon, Galaxies, etc.

             We also, after creating our Wordle had to create a timeline of the different events such as discoveries, companies, like NASA, that were founded. For our digital timeline were use an extremely cool tool called TikiToki! I absolutely loved this tool. When creating it, it was very difficult to figure out. Since it was brand knew to all of us we had to explore and figure out how to make events on a timeline and put them on their right date. However, the finished product was amazing. It was 3D and for our background picture we chose the stars and it looked like you were actually in outer space. Especially when you click and make the timeline full screen.  If you would like to see our timeline click the link! Make sure you click the option to make it 3D to get the full effect and make it full screen! I would use this tool in my classroom and also recommend it to any

teacher. It is good for any subject and students would definitely love it. However, depending on the grade I would not recommend for students to use it due to it being somewhat complicated to use. If you wish not to use TikiToki, here is a        link to some other digital timeline website you could also use.  I really enjoyed this activity. I thought it was fun to do and very interesting to me due to my love for astronomy.

Do you ever wonder about the Earth?

       Do you ever think about how Earth works? What is the Earth like? All students have these questions in their mind and some have more. Most students know something about the Earth but want to know more. This week in class we explored Earth science and talked about Earth's surface, the atmosphere, and the weather. We took a quiz in which we were ask how confident we felt about teaching these subtopics. The only one I feel confident in was weather. We were also given questions such as:

• Consider the area of Earth's surface, atmosphere, and weather about which you feel most knowledgable about? What ideas do you have regarding what you will do as a teacher to keep your knowledge current?

• Consider the area of Earth's surface, atmosphere, and weather about which you feel least knowledge about? What ideas do you have regarding what you will do as a teacher to continue to strengthen you knowledge about the topic?

• What resources are you aware of that will help you be an effective teacher of Earth's surface, atmosphere, and weather? 

     We split up into partners and answered these questions to the best of our ability. Click the link to a document with my partner and I's answers to these specific questions! With my partner I found that we both had a strength in weather but a weakness in Earth's surface and Atmosphere. When your a teacher you should always be knowledgable in all topics you are going to teach to your students. This way you are able to answer whatever questions they ask you. If you are unsure of a certain topic you should always research before hand and make yourself knowledgable on the given topic. 

As teachers it is good to have a couple of kid friendly websites for students to further their knowledge  in the topic. When working with my partner we found four current websites that are very helpful to students. These websites were BrainPOP, Time For Kids, Discovery Kids, and National Geographic. All these websites give students current articles on the Earth's surface, Atmosphere, and weather. They also have games, facts, and videos on the given topic. When looking at all these website they reminded me of when I was younger learning about Earth science. I used these websites and learned so much from them. I would definitely incorporate these into my lessons when teaching. There are so many more websites out there now that are just as informative as well! All teachers just have to do their research! 

   After answering the questions and looking for resources my partner and I created a Glogster for one of the topics. We chose weather because we had a interest in it the most. When the lesson was over we realized we should have chosen a topic that we knew less about so then we could become more comfortable with. However, we still had fun using Glogster and creating our project. Glogster is a great digital tool for any teacher or student to use. It is extremely easy to use and if you use it in the classroom and the students do not know it, it is easy to explain how! I would use it in my classroom and recommend doing it to any teacher. Below is a picture of our Glogster!  

Click the link to see the full poster! 

Jigsaw Method

      Today in class we finished learning the Jigsaw method. If you do not know the Jigsaw method, it is a very effective way to do lessons and it involves a lot of cooperative learning with students. When doing this method you are splitting up into groups and giving them a topic. These first groups you would call home groups. Each person in your home group would have a different topic. The students would then separate into other groups again. The second groups would do the topic you were assigned in you home groups. When you have completed the assignment the students go back to your home groups and teach the topic to your home groups. Each person would present what they have worked on in the second group to their home groups members.

      For our class we did a jigsaw method on the topic of climate change and in our home groups we chose different topics related to climate change. I loved this activity, it was very interactive and was interesting. I would definitely do this again and due it in my classroom. It a fun and creative way to teacher students. It is especially good for the students that do not like to sit still and listen to teachers teach or do not like having the same groups members all the time. I chose Marine Life due to my interest in the oceans and the marine animals that live there. Other topics included:

Oceans and coasts

Climate

Weather and Atmosphere 

Marine Life 

Fresh Waters

Here is the link to our powerpoint on Marine Life and below is a video on the jigsaw method for further explanation!

Article Review: Discovering Flowers in a New Light

   There are always new and advance means of technology that help teach topics within science. Teachers think of way to help the students learn more efficiently and gain more information then how they normally teach. In the article, Discovering Flowers in a New Light, we look at a classroom  that has come up with a new and advance way of teaching the structure of flowers. They incorporate new technology and use the 5 E's in mastering their lesson, which are engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate. Within the article they go through the 5 E's through out their lesson plan.
   This lesson used digital microscopes on a computer screen to look at the specimen. This was the advance technology that they incorporated to improve their lesson. When using the digital microscope the whole class was able to see the specimen all together. They had the students practice with the use of the digital microscope giving them an object to use. After the students became familiar with the technology they then continued on with the lesson.

Engage:
   When using the first E, they read to the students or had the students read a book about the process of flower growth and structure to get them more familiar on the topic and access their prior knowledge. It also included language arts due to the books connection to the topic being taught. When going through the book they also asked the students questions.

Explore:
    They were to sketch what they thought a flower looked like from memory. They sketch the structures and as much detail they could remember.  They then gave the students a certain flower to look at. It was mentioned that if you gave them a rather large flower that they will be able to distinguish the structures and detail better.

Explain: 
     Students were then asked to answer a couple questions, putting them in groups from here on out,  based on the flower they viewed and sketched. This helped focus on their observations, as said in the article, and had them explain what they saw. The questions would then start into conversations between classmates. These questions included, what part is that?, what do you think the function of that structure is?, and what have you observed that made you think that?

Elaborate: 
      The students would then get couple more flowers, including the one they have originally observed. They would then look through the digital microscope and find similarities or differences in structures and functions.

Evaluate: 
    Teachers assessed the students by groups to present their findings to the class. They were to show their findings by using snapshots taken by the digital microscope.

  After reading this article, I found it to be very interesting to see the new technology that is being put to use in the classrooms. I also love the idea of having books incorporated into the lesson as well. Not only did they do science but also Language Arts. This lesson is an example of the improvements made in the classrooms and lesson, which is by the aid of technology. I would definitely recommend a teacher to read this article. It can help if you are looking for new technology in science or if you need an engaging lesson to teach on flowers and their structures. 

Here is the link to the article if you would like to read it and learn more!

Misconceptions?

      This week we learned about misconceptions in science! Many student tend to believe or create myths in their minds and it is up to us, as teachers, to help the students learn more information about the topic to turn away from those misconceptions or build upon them. In class we paired up with a partner and made a list of misconceptions for dinosaurs and violent weather. My partner was Amanda  and I was shocked to see that most of our misconceptions that we had when were little were very similar.

Some of our misconceptions on dinosaurs and violent weather were:

1. Dinosaurs were made up or just story parents told at bed time. 
2. All dinosaurs are violent and dangerous.
3. Thunderstorms were going to destroy my house and I would not have a home. 
4. Intense rainstorms were going to blow me away. 

       

     Students are going to create many more misconceptions on many other different topics. I work in a Daycare with a lot of two year olds and I have noticed they they even have misconceptions on many different topics in science and other subjects. I always ask them where they came up with their ideas and they always tell me different ways. Some learn it while watching cartoons or books. However, most of the books that they read are fictional. After coming up with some misconceptions we had as children we were asked to answer a couple of questions about them. These questions, as teachers, are a good way to figure out how and why students come up with them. 

The questions we had to answer were:

        

•   What does this say about the misconceptions with which our students will come to our science classroom?
• What is the purpose of identifying student misconceptions?
• How does identifying student misconceptions relate to constructivist teaching?

Here is the link to our answers and what we thought! Misconceptions that students create are out of our control, but we can guide our students to the truth and identify them when we notice them!