Welcome all. Here's where we can talk about what's going on in elementary science education in our class and in your practicum work. Instead of emailing in a reflection on Friday, why not participate in our blog and see what we're all saying!
Monday, January 26, 2009
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[Professor, if there's a way to post a new topic instead of simply commenting on this one, please let me know. To the best of my knowledge regarding blogger, we aren't able to post on our own without creating gmail addresses and having you list as as authors.]
ReplyDeleteHi All,
Professor Matkins suggested I post my questions and her answers here so you all could see them.
Question about Activity Demonstration assignment:
I originally got an idea for an activity by looking at the science SOLs for kindergarten, since that's the grade level of my placement class. One of the standards (K.5.e) is "Students will investigate and understand that Š some materials float in water and others sink." Therefore, I thought an activity would be to bring in dishes of water and objects such as rocks, feathers, paper, etc. for students to test whether each object floats or sinks. Then I would have students make a chart and draw pictures of each object depending on whether they floated or sunk. My first question is just a clarification-I'm supposed to actually bring in the materials and have my classmates watch as I drop objects into water? Or, am I supposed to have them drop objects into water? Do I then need to have them make charts and lead them in a discussion, as I would with actual kindergarteners?
Secondly, I'm a bit concerned about the second and third part of the assignment, even though they aren't due yet. I assume that for my activity to fit into an "NSES inquiry science lesson," NSES would need to have a standard similar to the SOL. I tried to look up the NSES, but the link you gave on the first page of the syllabus does not appear to work, and I could not find the NSES by searching. I'm concerned that if I do this activity now, I won't be able to complete the second or third parts because I didn't plan ahead. The second part of the assignment also says to attach a page about the activity from the source document. I didn't have a source document for this activity, I just made it up-does this mean I need to pick something else that I've found online or in a book?
Professor's response:
When and if you do this with kindergarten children you'd certainly have them drop items into water to see if they sink or float, so why not do this with your classmates? It will be much more engaging and memorable. Re. the chart, you'd probably make a chart for K children, not have them make one.
The NSES is in the LRC on the shelf with my other textbooks if you want to look at a paper copy.
Re. the source document, I suggest you look up an activity similar to the one you've thought up. In the world of science ed. you can build on what others have already thought through re. interesting setups and often have a much better idea than one you've come up with. You might find references to possible misconceptions students have about sink and float, and objects that would be good to use.
Here's a working link to the NSES:
ReplyDeletewww.nap.edu/html/nses/
My 1st Reflection! (I hope I'm posting this in the right spot?!)
ReplyDeleteOver the past month or so, I have observed several science lessons in my cooperating 3rd grade classroom and there seems to be one common theme: things rarely go as expected. More so than any other subject I have observed, science appears to constantly be surprising us. While this is one aspect of the subject that makes me very excited to teach it, it also makes me very apprehensive. It appears to be almost impossible to be a science “expert” within an elementary setting. Students inevitably ask questions that, for the life of me, I have no idea what the answer is. Sometimes…they are questions I could never have even thought of! How do I respond to these? I don’t want to take them off on a new tangent of how to search for information and the importance of utilizing available resources, but I would also like to be able to give them an answer. I usually would like to know the answer myself.
Besides the daunting task of fielding impossible questions, the science experiments themselves are often challenging enough to explain. For example, a few weeks ago, my class did an experiment on germs. We all touched a potato without washing our hands, some students (against our advice) sneezed on the potato. Next, we all washed our hands and touched a new potato. Both went into separate bags, and we waited days to see which potato would rot first. Sure enough, they both rotted almost simultaneously. Now, the students laugh and say germs aren’t real and it’s okay to sneeze on one another!
Another situation happened this week. The students were learning about pollution in the James River. In one vase of water, they poured oil, grease, and trash. In another, the water was crystal clear. They put white carnations in both vases, and waited to see which would die first. The one in clean water died two days later! Instead of learning about pollution, the students learned how carnations don’t grow in the James River and the difference between a carnation and a fish! This was not exactly the planned direction of the lesson.
In short, I am already beginning to see the importance of being confident and in control within a science classroom. If my cooperating teacher were to have panicked, the students would have gotten very little out of the lesson. Instead, the students were able to see the unpredictable nature of science experiments. This is also what I have pinpointed I most want to work on thus far into the class. I am excited to get out there and start teaching science in order to gain more experience with how to handle these situations. I am realizing, no matter how many times I practice the experiment or rehearse what I want to say in my lesson; things will most often not go as imagined. While I know this is true in all classroom settings, I am finding it is almost necessary to expect the unexpected in science.
Reflection #1:
ReplyDeleteThough we have only had one full week of classes, I think I have already begun to learn a lot. I have also realized just how much more I have to learn. Science hasn't been a favorite subject of mine since the very beginning of high school, but this class is already bringing back fun memories from my elementary school years. I'm starting to get really excited about teaching science, and about watching kids learn and grow in an environment that allows them to do so.
Finding a science activity proved to be a difficult challenge for me. I wanted to find an interesting one, from which kids could learn a good lesson, and I was also limited in supplies! I found the tsunami lesson and thought it would be really cool to see kids attempt it and learn from it. I also came to find that sometimes lessons and activities won't always go the way you practiced them, which I think is an important lesson to learn. I would love to try the activity again with kids, but I think I would make a couple changes to it next time. And I would make it as interactive as possible. Seeing everyone else's activities was also beneficial. I got a pretty well-rounded look at what kinds of things you can do in the classroom, and also added some interesting experiments to my rather short, but growing, list.
I feel like I won't get the full effect until I actually get into my classroom, so until then things are pretty fuzzy. I'm really looking forward to the rest of this class and to my practicum, which I know will be a great learning experience.
Reflection # 1
ReplyDeleteI never particularly enjoyed science in school. During college, I took the bare minimum (an astronomy lecture and lab), and though the concepts introduced in class were intriguing, they were definitely not interesting enough to motivate me to take more science. In this class, however, I’m beginning to remember that science can (or at least should) be more fun in elementary school. Using authentic materials to conduct hands-on experiments seems like a great way to learn science, and I wish my teachers had focused more on these activities than on vocabulary and the scientific method. It has been very helpful to see and hear about activities that I can use in the future with my students—the activity assignment and the “stories” in our textbook both are interesting.
The worst part of the class is that I’ve not yet been able to put my lessons into practice. I can’t wait to start my practicum experience with kindergarteners, where I can actually try to teach science (or at least observe it being taught) with real students. As I read the textbook, especially, I keep thinking to myself “These activities sound great in theory! In reality, though, I’m going to be in a classroom with a set time limit for each activity and with many children with different abilities and interests.” I can’t help but worry that I’m going to have to spend more time on classroom management than I am on actual teaching. Once I start my practicum, I’ll be able to observe my cooperating teacher ,and hopefully I’ll learn ways to balance the two extremes.
I would like to learn more about creating interesting lesson plans that align with SOL standards. I can nurture critical thinking skills all I want, but unfortunately, to be considered a good teacher, I’m going to have to teach certain objectives, some of which will probably be less exciting. My authentic, hands-on activities have to have some structure. I need to learn how to combine intrinsically interesting and fun activities with lessons that I am required to teach. I think that as we move through the course and learn to create lesson plans, I should get a better idea of how to do this.
Science...Well science has been my least favorite subject since elementary school and I still dislike any type of biology, chemistry, or physics. When I was in elementary school, my teachers did make science interesting or the least bit engaging. All I remember from elementary science are worksheets and reading from the textbook. From then on, I have never really given science a chance. I am really looking forward to this class because I have already learned that hands-on experiences are the key to a successful science lesson. That is MUCH more exciting than worksheets and reading straight from the text! I am excited about getting into the classroom and observing my cooperating teacher. I'm excited to see the different ways she is able to get students engaged in the lesson because I never experienced that.
ReplyDeleteThe activity demonstration on Wednesday was a great and fun class! I never realized how much fun science could be! I really enjoyed teaching my activity. But I do have a question about how I would go about demonstrating the activity to my students, or what the best way to demonstrate it is rather. Should I demonstrate the activity to the class first then have the class do the activity after watching me do it? Or, would it be better to do walk the students through the activity while I am doing the activity at the front of the classroom, at the same time?
Also, I am getting a little nervous about teaching a science lesson to my class since science is my weakest subject. I am scared that because I didn't enjoy science when I was in elementary school, I will not know how to teach science effectively or with excitement. I hope that by taking this class this semester, I will become an expert on teaching elementary science!
Even after only the first full week of class, I can tell that I’m really going to enjoy learning how to teach science! I enjoyed the activities we did as a group, but I’m looking forward to getting into the classroom with my cooperating teacher and seeing how she does things and how the kids respond. I’ve observed and volunteered in a lot of kindergarten classes, including some science lessons, and I think I have a pretty good idea how that goes, but third grade is new territory for me. So I’m really excited to start my practicum!
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I’m beginning to wonder about, especially as I think about my placement and the fact that I haven’t spent much time in third grade (I actually skipped third grade in elementary school, so I really have no idea!), is the content that corresponds to each grade level. Obviously we will be addressing that as we look through the SOLs; I’ve just gotten curious since I don’t really have any idea when to expect certain knowledge or skills of elementary school students. A lot of my experience has been with preschool children, so I have a good idea of the distinctions between those age groups, but once we get past third grade I’m lost.
I really enjoy our activity demos the other day, even though I don’t feel like I did a great job with it. It is always different doing a lesson for a group of peers than for kids and, while I had thought of that when I planned for class, the dynamic still caught me off-guard. I forgot a lot of the exploration questions I was going to ask, etc. However, I think it was a good experience to see the challenges before I start doing activities in the classroom. I also really enjoyed sharing ideas with each other, and seeing what everyone had come up with. And I loved looking through idea books and websites and imagining how I could use the different activities in the future.
Reflection #1
ReplyDeleteSince the beginning of the semester, I have learned how much I have to learn. I am thrilled to be in the school of Ed. and finally taking classes that I feel are practical and have some importance in my life. I learned just how much is on the web about elementary science and how many fantastic activities there are to engage students. It was a great experience to have to present a mini-lesson to our small class-it was a little nerve racking, but overall a good start to the semester. I feel more relaxed now that we have all given demonstrations and gotten over the stage fright. It was valuable for me to perform the demonstration, rather than just reading about water surface tension. I am not sure I would have understood it as well had I just read the activity. I am sort of embarrassed by how little I remember from basic science. Science has never really been my favorite subject, but since I have taught about teaching it through a garden and cooking, I am much more interested and hopefully my students will be, too.
It was exciting to see all the materials in the LRC. I had no idea that these existed. I am still unsure what to expect from the semester, but I am curious to see what other surprises I will find. At this point I am not sure what I need help with or what remains unclear. I do not really know what to expect yet, but I am excited to find out.
Therese, what you describe as going off on a tangent in terms of those unexpected questions, what to do… may make the difference with a student or students in terms of their self-confidence and their attitude toward science as something that is do-able by them and accessible to them. So, your idea of pursuing those questions was totally in the NSES, SOL best practices mode.
ReplyDeleteThe SOL are the MINIMUM, they are not the end goal for any grade level. A mistake made in many classrooms is to teach the SOL and then rest on that. Good teaching of the SOL should lead to more questions. “More questions” happens all the time in science!
One of the realities in science is that we’re (you, me, all the other scientists) discovering more and more every day, and changing our mind about what we thought, based on these things. The body of knowledge in science is growing. So, even if you were a Ph.D scientist you could not know all there is to know in science. That means that you should not feel unqualified when a child asks a question you don’t know the answer to. What you should do is acknowledge the question and help the child (maybe the class) try to figure out/find an answer. It’s also really cool when children realize their question is a question scientists are still working on!
Isn’t it cool that kids are so curious and such active thinkers, when you let them?!!
About the potato, rotting may not be directly related to external microorganisms. After all, things rot whether or not we touch them or sneeze on them, thank goodness, or there’d be a lot of non-rotted dead things laying around all over the world. If you wanted to show that we carry germs and we should wash our hands, look for experiments about that in the LRC and Internet and I’ll bet you’ll find a way to show this that works.
About the carnations, I don’t know what was going on! I suspect that there was a problem with the dead carnation totally unrelated to the experiment. One thing about both experiments, did the teacher or you try these ahead of time? Not necessary, but if the point of the lesson is to teach a science outcome (e.g., when we sneeze we expel cold germs, we need to wash our hands, clean water is better for plants) then the teacher needs to try the experiment ahead of time and see if the outcome is reliable. If it doesn’t come out the way you expected, there should be class discussion about what could have caused the difference, meaning what variable was not kept constant in both situations, or what other initial condition needed to change. We’ll do a lot of work with experimenting in our class, and you’ll get more of an idea of how to handle an experiment in a classroom.
Kelly, funny how for many kids they liked science through elementary school and then something happens in middle or high school. You’re not alone in trying an activity and deciding you’d do some things differently next time, also in wanting more interactivity. The more children’s hands are involved, the more involved they’ll be, in general. So, if you can set up a science lesson so every child gets to do an authentic activity, that’s good.
Ginny, it’s sad that your elementary school (and sounds like middle and high school) science memories are not of enjoyment. Science can and should be enjoyable all through school years, because it should be about the learner gaining their own understanding of how the things they care about work.
And you’re right that classroom management has to be a part of the equation, especially with kindergarten children. Realize through that you don’t accomplish classroom management and science teaching (or any teaching) in a linear fashion. You manage the class while teaching, so your practicum work this semester will give you a good opportunity to learn more about both these aspects of good elementary teaching.
We’ll be working with the learning cycle, which is a good lesson plan structure for you to use, it enables focus on standards while supporting student construction of understanding. More to come this week in class.
Nesli, in answer to your question, see my response to Kelly re. the tsunami lesson. I have a secret to tell you. When I started teaching elementary science, I had not had a good science experience in my K-12 and college years, and I had not liked science. I began to like (even love) science by responding to my first graders, who wanted to know more and more about spiders and rockets! These topics came from my read-alouds with them, and led us to field trips and other books. So, if you listen to your students, you’ll probably find excitement for science contagious.
Erin, your question about the sequence of topics through the grades, we’ll be looking at this explicitly as a topic in at least one class, but you can get a head start if you want to by looking in your CoursePack at the Virginia science SOL section. You might also look at the Internet document, the Virginia Science Curriculum Framework. It tells you what was taught the previous years, and what is coming through 6th grade. You said you had lots of questions you were going to ask and you forgot to ask them… that’s understandable! We get so into the flow of the activity that if we haven’t done something to remind ourselves about the questions we want to ask to guide the learning, then we might just get distracted by other things. The lesson plans you’ll write for this class will require you to explicitly plan these questions, and the lessons you’ll teach will give you a chance to learn to use the questions you’ve planned (and evaluate whether or not they were good questions!). So, you’ll get to work on this in our class.
Andriana, your experience in learning more about the science of the activity by doing the activity… that’s not uncommon for adults so what does that mean for kids? Of course the hands-on supports their learning!
Here’s something I’d like everyone to think about, and this is related to an article I read called “Hands-On is not enough”. We’ve done some hands-on already in our class and you seemed to get something out of it.. enjoyment, some knowledge, confidence, etc. Why might hands-on not be enough for kids?
See you all Monday! Have a great Super Bowl!
(1.) In the past two weeks, I have enjoyed scanning our course material. The text and content regarding science education has really changed since I took a similar methods course (yikes -20 years ago!). Hearing that number, I really "shouldn't" be surprised since I was taught that science textbooks need to be rewritten every 7 years. Nonetheless, we are covering some topics that weren't covered in my more-recent teacher training like the virtual microscope.
ReplyDelete(2) Unclear - I still feel uncertain about what is a science circus - sounds like what I hear called stations.
(3) Practicum Observations - I'm learning how it is challenging to set up 20 hours of observations when science classes at my private school - Williamsburg Christian only schedules only 20 minutes for our science lead to do a lesson once a week in some classes. Some teachers supplement/do their own activities so observing them might be easier. I'm glad the assignment is not due until the end of April!
(4) Suggestions for coop. teacher/professor - I always love seeing how to set up/give directions in labs in terms of organizing groups. I have a handful of techniques and can always add more to my lesson options.
Hi, Folks,
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to figure out how to archive a week's comments so the next week's posts are the only thing that show up on the blog UNLESS you click on the archive on the left. Would also like to configure posts so the most recent shows up first. Might not be possible.
Best
Juanita Jo