Today we went to Bishop Dunn and worked with a science teacher there. This lesson was both informative and engaging. The first thing we did was an experiment, this was the introduction which was designed to "draw us in" she offered to give us candy which was an incentive. Doing a small quick experiment is a good way to engage students, I would like to use this technique in my future classroom. After that we started discussing things about science, what we thought about it and what our prior experiences with it are.
One thing that the science teacher spoke about that really made me think was " not everyone is going to like science, but everyone is going to vote." What she meant by this was that not every student is going to like what you are teaching them and that is OK, but you have to inform them about these things such as space and climate change, so that when they get older they can make informative decisions to vote on. I never really thought about this, but it is definitely a good thing to think about while teaching, because I'm not too fond of science myself, but i have to engage the students anyways so they can learn important information for their future.
well, this lesson did not go as planned, but it worked.
For this lesson we used technology, which is always risky because it may not work. along with the technology issue, we also had a time issue. All of this along with excitable students, became a bit chaotic...
The lesson itself had a lot of parts to it, 2 worksheets, research, a powerpoint, presentation and a homework assignment. This was a lot to accomplish in an even shorter period of time then we were given, which is why things were rushed.
Along with these issues, there were some group problems. A lot of our lesson was planned last minute because things kept getting changed, which caused confusion on my part. We were also missing a group member.
The outcome of the lesson was OK, the students understood the concept and were able to explain what they learned. It was just a bit unorganized.
From this lesson I learned that I need to speak up a bit more in groups or I will be spoken over. Something else I learned is that modeling what you want to be done helps the students tremendously. Our modeling part was rushed and the students became a little confused on what was expected of them.
We were assigned to make a science fair project for our fieldwork school. Before doing this project, I had a little bit of experience with science fair projects because I did a few when I was younger. This project was a bit more in depth then the once that I did as a child, but I definitely learned a lot more from this one.
I decided that I was going to do an experiment on density. The experiment was called " Rainbow in a Jar." What I did was put all different kinds of liquids( after putting food dye in them) into a jar to see which would sink and which would stay at the top (density).
I ended up doing a trial run with my class in the daycare (school age) that I work at. The children really enjoyed doing it. Then when I got home, I did the project again but with different colors, so you could see the "rainbow" better.
Through this experience I noticed that children (in my class) like to do science. It is both engaging and educational for them. with most projects they will just think "this is fun", but they will actually also be learning. When students are engaged and are having "fun" they learn more.
When I did it in my class the children were all different ages. So I could see which grade understood density and which did not. However, no matter what grade they were, they really didn't grasp the density of liquids because they are a little harder to tell. So no matter what grade would do this with I would weigh each liquid after the lesson.
For 2nd and 3rd grade: I would do it how I did it in my class as a whole group project, each student would have a part in the lesson but it would be done as a whole the students could understand it better.As a group we would come up with which liquid we think is the most dense and which is the least dense and put them in order according to our hypothesis. ( it most likely wont be right) so we will trial and error until we get them into the correct order (density, so non of the liquids are mixed)
for 4th and 5th grade: I would have them do the experiment in small groups. they would get the process sheet and follow the directions. Then as a group I would let them hypothesis what would happened if they did it out of order and allow them to put the liquids in out of order to see what would happen.
for 6th grade: I would allow the students to do the experiment in small groups. they would hypothesis what order the liquids should go in and them try it in that order. If the liquids mix, they will see that they did not do it correctly. They will have 3 tries to put the liquids into the correct order.
This experiment will teach the students about the inquiry process because they would hypothesis which liquid is most and least dense and test their hypothesis through trial and error until they get it right.
here was the process:
Materials:
- A tall, see-through container (I used a clean mason jar.)
- Honey
- Light corn syrup
- Dish soap (either blue like Dawn or green like Palmolive)
- Olive oil
- Rubbing alcohol
- Water
- Food coloring
Steps:
1. Pour Honey into the middle of the jar
2. Dye corn syrup and pour into the middle of the jar
3. Pour dish soap into the middle of the jar
4. Dye water and pour it into the middle of the jar
5. Last pour Olive Oil into the middle jar.
Over
the last few weeks, we have been working in a 2nd grade class. My group
has not taught yet, but from my observations I have noticed a lot of
things about this class. The children in this class are very rambunctious, because they are in 5th grade, the teachers need to keep the students engaged which is hard to do, or they will lose them very quickly. The teacher candidates have done a good job keeping the children engaged, especially with the activities that they plan. The only problem is that with some of the activities, the children got to rambunctious and the class got very loud a little out of control. What all of the teacher candidates (us) need to learn is how to allow the children to be engaged and have "fun" without allowing the class to get too out of control.
