SCED Week Two

This week in Science Methods we began to prepare for and plan out our terrariums in class.  I am SO excited about this project and feel kind of like an elementary student again.  How often is it acceptable for college students to dig in the dirt and play with worms?!  I am also very excited to see how well we, as college students are able to do with this fifth grade project.
One thing that definitely was brought to my attention during class this week was how crucial classroom management is, especially when we are dealing with students in a lab atmosphere.  The room was a bit crazy with college students all working on putting their little ecosystems together.  I can only imagine what it would be like with fifth graders!
This week, I am most proud of the fact I am enjoying my classes! I have had fun learning about how to teach science, and researching fun things to do in the classroom.  I have decided that this semester is bound to be a good one if I am capable of enjoying the work I am putting in.  I believe a huge part of that is taking pride in the work I do and taking my time doing so.
The largest struggle I dealt with this week was the computer deleting my entire discussion board post!!!!!  But that's okay, I got extra practice writing what I learned from those documents this week! In all seriousness, however, I would say my largest struggle was that I missed class on Tuesday in Dr. Nanney's class due to something out of my control, and the class went over very important standards that day.  I have taken pictures of all the posters my classmates made in class though, and feel confident in them now after looking into them more on my own.
This week, I contributed by being more timely with working on and posting my discussion boards earlier so I could share my thoughts and throw some thoughts around with my classmates.  My goal in the future is to be present on Twitter more, because I believe that is a great place to bounce ideas and great resources around!
This week, after looking into the link with all the clips of phenomena, I got super interested and found some fun websites that give examples of how to show phenomena to our students.  I was surprised to see that many of the labs aren't as complex as I thought they would be.  But then again, if phenomena occur so naturally, I guess it makes since that you can display them in simple, natural ways.  Here is a link that shows how how simple science can show many phenomena: https://www.education.com/magazine/article/Science_Labs_Elementary_School/
This week on twitter I found:

This tweet is from a twitter profile that is absolutely PACKED with tons of ideas and advice on how to successfully implement NGSS in the classroom.  In this particular tweet, the writer is discussing what steps we can take to formatively assess our students along the way.  The article was discussing how we can incorporate formative assessments while also implementing the use of three dimensional learning.

This tweet caught my eye because it brings together the things we have talked about the past two weeks very clearly.  I understood the three dimensions of learning and that we are suppose to be teaching from the perspective of looking at phenomena, but now I can see a perfect example of how they overlap.  This is such a simple yet extremely effective way to look at phenomena and incorporate 3D leaning.

This tweet gives us an entire example of how we can show students the phenomena of density based on mass and volume.  Rather than simply showing the equations that I'm sure we all know by heart (D=M/V), the teacher showed the actual occurrence of how an objects mass and volume have an impact on that object's density.  The students go through the steps to discover density, rather than simply being told what it is.
The first thing that came to my mind for a current event involving a phenomena was, of course, hurricane Irma and hurricane Harvey.  Though the storm has caused so much damage and devastation, it proves to be one of the most incredible phenomena in the world.  The phenomenon of weather and how it occurs constantly and naturally without any impact from humans is a perfect topic to get students discussing what Science is and how it is everywhere all the time.
This week, I definitely see how students must know the content that they teach their students.  I was completely unaware of the shift to teaching about phenomena rather than just teaching information, and I love it!!! However, I am really going to have to educate myself in how to do so, as I was never taught this way when I was younger.  I believe this will be a challenge for me, but one that I will enjoy and one that will make me a much more effective teacher in the long run.

SCED Week One

Well here goes Fall semester!!! I'm not sure how it came so fast, but I am excited for what it holds!

Today in Science methods, we did an experiment that required us to create three boats out of tin foil that would float even with objects placed in them.  We planned our boats, built them, made a guess of how many objects it could hold, and then tested out our ideas. This activity was a great reminder of the scientific process and how we are expected to encourage our students to think scientifically about the world around them.  I was most proud of our science class today when we discussed how we could see science in everything around us.  We were able to find countless scientific principles in the simple things around us such as a car or a leaf.  The most encouraging thing to me this week was to see how easy it is to integrate mini science lessons into literately everything, because science is everything.

The biggest challenge I have faced since being back at school is just getting back into the swing of being a student, after being a nanny all summer (so basically playing mom).  I am having to refocus all my attention back to my school work rather than focusing on keeping children alive... but I suppose that is part of my future line of work!

Over the course of the next week, my goal is to fully embrace getting back into being a student.  In doing so, I also plan to become an active and encouraging member of the classrooms I am  placed in (especially the education ones).  I am very blessed to be surrounded by very bright and intelligent colleagues and I need to take advantage of that and collaborate with them as much as possible, because that may not always be the case.  I believe the best way for me to assist my colleagues is to give them encouragement along the way and offer to combine our strengths so that we can collaborate and learn how to overcome weaknesses.

I found this article about a teacher who was awarded for his creativity in the science field.  The article goes on to explain how he feels about encouraging students to enjoy science and think scientifically.  The article also contains specific projects that he did with his students.  This teacher is a wonderful example of how we are capable of and should be making science fun, exciting, and intriguing to our students.

The main focus of the article represented in the tweet above is that the world around students is changing and we must change with it.  There are many ways to keep students interested, and one of the best ways to do so (according to this article) is to allow students to design and create their own kind of science.  Each of the five ways involves pushing students to become interested because the activities where they must design and create demand all of their attention and they demand it fully.

This tweet stuck out to me because it is a wonderful example of how we can integrate science into the teaching of other subjects.  In this case, science is brought to life by literature.  Just as we talked about in class today, you can literately find a way to involve science in just about anything.  The world around us is science.  This is a very useful resource for when we have trouble finding science in things around us; it can remind us of how to show students science in the most unlikely places.

One current event that was brought up in class today is global warming.  Today, we took a few minutes to observe and consider the scientific properties of a simple tub of water.  We talked about water displacement, which is a present and somewhat pressing issue in our world, due to the melting of icebergs at the poles.  I was very intrigued by the similarities between our world's ocean and a tub of water.

This week's class and the experiment we did in class prepared me to become proficient in the standard "teachers facilitate learning for their students."  For example, Dr. Parker was facilitating our learning today through the science experiment we did.  He was there to assist, to explain, to keep things interesting, to remind us to look at the science behind everything, and to be sure that we were learning.  In order to be a successful science teacher, I must be extremely intentional by facilitating learning to my students in the most active way possible.  Passive teachers are not good teachers, but they are especially not good science teachers.  Science requires intentional constant effort from a teacher.  This is why the standard "teachers facilitate learning for their students" has been so active in the front of my brain.