Week 5

This week has been exciting in both science and math methods! Tuesday in math methods, we were detectives investigating word problems! Dr. Nanney came in dressed as a detective with magnifying glasses and explained that we were going to investigate word problems to show us how to hook our students. Tuesday in science methods we got to create the water cycle in a plastic bag. It's amazing how many of the investigations in science methods are done with very low cost, common household items. We created a water cycle bag with a cup of water inside, they are taped on the window and it gives a visual of how the water from the cup gets into the bag through the process of the water cycle. I would definitely use something like this in my future classroom because it is something fun for the students, but they are also engaged in the learning because of this. Thursday in science methods, we discussed EU's and EQ's for our unit plans. The essential understanding is just a statement of what I want my students to know by the end of my unit. For example, "Plants rarely survive without sunlight and water." The word rarely is my qualifier for this EU. The EQ's for our units must provoke thinking in our students minds. Using a yes or no question would not be tapping in to your students knowledge on a topic. An example of an EQ is "what will happen to plants if there is no sunlight or water?" I am very glad that we went over this in class today so I can keep moving forward with my unit planning! Also on Thursday in science methods we learned how to use Cl-Ev-R. This was very cool to see come alive during the solids and holes experiment! Dr. Parker told us what the experiment was and we had to make a "claim" about what we think is gonna happen. Then, we did the experiment and wrote down our data and evidence, which is what the Ev stands for. Lastly, we had to (R)esearch a reason for our evidence and figure out why both items floated even though one had holes in the bottom. I will always keep the Cl-Ev-R model in my resource kit for my future classroom! As you can tell, I learned a lot this week in class, even though at the beginning of the week I didn't feel as confident as I do now about the things we've discussed. Over the next week, I want to continue to work on my unit so that way I can focus on engaging my students in science while also integrating other subjects. I contributed to the class this week by participating in class discussions and asking questions that my classmates may have been wondering too. Next week to help my classmates out I will continue to be encouraging and helpful with things for our classes. Our class discussion on Tuesday about why the sky is blue had me curious, so I found this experiment that you could use in your classroom to show your students. You put a bar of soap in a clear glass of water and let the water get cloudy and white. Then, turn the lights off and shine a white LED light through the glass and the water reflects the blue color! I thought this was a great way to engage my students in a lesson and make the content relative to them.

My first tweet for this week is from NASA and it is a picture of the Caribbean islands before and after Irma. This is something I would show to my students to help them to understand how strong these hurricanes are. 

My second tweet for this week is about student centered coaching and it's a visual that helps us as teachers to remember how to set a goal for your students, assess their prior knowledge on it, teach them according to their needs, and assess them again to check for understanding of the goal. 

 My third tweet of the week is from Alex Corbitt and it's titled "8 characteristics of an innovators mindset" he puts the definition of "innovators mindset" at the top of his visual which says "the belief that abilities, intelligence, and talents are developed leading to the creation of better ideas." The visual has 8 characteristics such as being observant, reflective, creators, and several more crucial characteristics.

The current event I focused on this week was the earthquake in Mexico. This is another catastrophic phenomena that my students will need to know about. I found this GREAT video to help introduce and explain earthquakes to the kids! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJpIU1rSOFY 

Chapter three's text facilitation hyperdoc started out with learning about the difference between knowledge and understanding. I now know that if you understand something, you are able to apply it rather than just knowing about what it is. I also learned that constructivism builds on prior knowledge and is a learning theory that says content is more meaningful if they are able to interact with the concepts. Scaffolding your students learning to higher order thinking can be done through scientific inquiry. I also got an up close look at a scientific misconception and the actual scientific concept and got a list of common misconceptions in science which I put in my resource kit! This week was full of learning and growing, and I am ready for the weeks to come so I can learn and grow even more!