At my school we are working with a program that allows us to utilize a variety of differentiation skills so that we are better assisting our students' needs. We are also ensuring all of our students are receiving high quality instruction by revisiting our curriculum and unit plans. We are looking closely at questioning in the classroom and utilizing Webb's Depth of Knowledge (DOK) stems with our questioning. It is through this that we are also looking at the tasks we are giving our students. We are making sure it is based on student choice, interest, and skill level. These tasks are also created through DOK levels as well (Analyze, Create, etc). The obstacle we are facing now is time because this type of planning takes a lot of time. We try to plan together once or twice a week so we are not all doing this alone but it still is taking a lot of time to put all of this together. The only good thing about this planning is we will be more prepared for next year.

Sputnik is the first of its kind and because of it we had advancements that brought us together toward opening our eyes to the future and conquering new possibilities. It symbolized the future for us and it opening the door to opportunities we all did not think about before. As of now, people feel that since everyone has mobile devices, computers, tablets and so on, that we are technologically advanced. Since they are satisfied with Now more than ever people are more technologically advanced than before and some may feel this automatically makes them scientifically advanced. Some people can misinterpret being technologically savvy for being well informed int he science world. However these devices serve personal gain or satisfaction such as with networking and wireless connectivity made easy. This does not provoke the drive to discover what can go beyond in science education and advance us. Sputnik sparked that attention because it was the first, so I feel we need another Sputnik to drive us into action again. The war we are in right now brought the nation together against an idea rather than for something like a Sputnik that represents the advancement of science but more significantly the opening up of opportunities. What do you think?

This week I am reflecting a lesson I did on plate tectonics and natural disasters. I do not teach Earth Science so I had to implement this lesson after school with a small group of my students. I thought this lesson went well! In previous lessons I did not use student choice and I noticed this time my students were responding more to the assignment because they could “choose” what they wanted to do. I appealed to their interest and I felt that this helped the lesson. I also for the first time used visuals, videos, and models all in one lesson and I found that this helped my students grasp the material more. This I could see in their formative assessments and Frayer Model assessments. I also allowed my students to present to another class to get student feedback on if their information was clear and provided enough information. This I will try again in the future.
 
  I felt this lesson went very well! I would have never thought to do a student led project lesson for a topic like this! I have not taught Earth Science in a long time and since it was not in my curriculum this year the students were very receptive to including it into our curriculum after school. They really got into the lesson and were able to take more ownership over their projects. I could see with my own eyes that discovery, hands-on, and minds-on works for any topic in science even topics outside of my curriculum.
There is one thing I would change and that is to allow more time for research or provide a structured way of collecting the research needed for the projects because some of the groups were just writing down everything they read instead of chunking the information. I felt I did not explain it well to everyone and some students were confused on how to do proper research. We try to be hands off toward the end of the lesson as per the GRR (Gradual Release of Responsibility) model but with this activity I needed a longer mini-lesson so directions were clear. 

NATURAL DISASTERS!!!!

Do we all know everything about Natural Disasters?

To create scientifically-literate adults is to educate through a common area. This would mean to not only give data on weather channels or through meteorologists, but also through commercials. We advertise all kinds of things but why not use it to educate in small doses. Not enough to bore someone but enough to educate in small doses. I think it would work! How about you?

In the classroom I create scientifically literate “teen adults” through “seeing”. They are big believers when they see and experience things so I try to make concepts real to them through videos they would have probably never have seen before or through real life applications. Recently my students had to become news anchors reporting on a natural disaster and this helped them gain so much knowledge. Students were able to ask each other questions after their news cast and the students were able to actually answer their questions. My hope is that they bring this information to their parents to educate them!

With this work in the classroom our school also has become part of relief efforts through food drives and clothing drives. Our students also reach out to the community through letters to raise money, food, or clothing for the families who were affected by the storm. This is great for making them apart of the effort of helping someone other than themselves and once they get involved they always say “That felt amazing!” I love that part!!

This week I tried out the ask a scientist website to see if I could use this with my students, but I am not impressed. My students (who are in high school) but are pretty much like any student when it comes to asking a question, they need an answer now! This website has not gotten back to me and maybe my question was a little much so maybe that's why its taking so long.  The major curiosity that was evoked was if there is an actual website where students can ask questions and get a response in a decent time frame? Do any of you know any other good sites for this?!

I like to set up my classroom where the students get to work exploring a science concept and if they have any issues then I am asked a question but I wish there was a scientist website that was working on a regular basis where students can ask questions about their research topic or project. Ill keep searching for a working website and Ill get back with my results in a few.

THANKS!

Web 2.0 - Presentation Tools!!

This week I tested different presentation tools! I tested: PreZentit, Vuvox, Prezi, and FormatPixel......

 This presentation tool was very easy to navigate and use. It has templates that are pre-programmed and you can upload them into your slideshow very easy. It works just like powerpoint in that you can add text and pictures to a background page. The only thing I did not like was that I could not upload my own photos into the program. It had difficulty reading the picture files. I may need to go back in and play around with it to see what I need to do to upload my own pictures. This program setup is a little different than most but so far very user friendly.

 This presentation tool is very cool! I like the collage feature that allows you to scroll through the slideshow instead of trying to complete slide after slide like Powerpoint does. This program allows you to create interactive presentation which is nice and it is very easy to use.  The pictures I uploaded were quickly downloaded and easy to place into the presentation. There are still some kinks I need to work out with inputting videos but with practice I should be able to do it with ease. The site also offers a tutorial which is nice!












This tool is one I have used all the time in my classroom to try to spice up a slideshow! You can upload pictures with an ease and add text or videos. The presentation starts from one picture and then zooms into the other pictures that are on the page, one right after the other without leaving that page. You can do one slideshow from one actual background picture which is awesome! It adds a source of engagement and a cool feature to use in the classroom or in any professional development.

This tool is awesome to use when creating brochures! It can be your presentation on the screen and you can print it out and hand them out so everyone has a hard copy. I played around with this one the most this week because I can see my students using this for their projects. It is very easy to add pages, upload pictures, change background and add text. I recommend using this one completely if not for teacher presentations than for student projects. I think this is much easier than using word documents to format a brochure. Check it out!

This week I searched through the 21st century skills map for all content areas and I came across a section on critical thinking and problem solving for physical science. This essentially is the "main idea" for what students should be able to do in physical science through critical thinking.

--> Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
Student groups in a physical science class design experiments to examine how different sources of error can impact the results of a lab activity focused on the relationship between force, mass, and acceleration. 
Retrieved by: www.p21.org/storage/documents/21stcskillsmap_science.pdf

I believe that students need to become critical thinkers and be able to ask higher order questions to really be apart of a 21st century skill science classroom. The ability to use creativity and innovation to learn a science concept is where science classrooms should go.  

Through my searches I also found a cool website for students where they can use their engineer hat and design. Students follow the whole website from start to finish learning physical science and creating!! This gives them real world application to what they learn in the classroom and when they go to an amusement park maybe they will have some cool things to share with their families!
Check this out:
http://www.learner.org/interactives/parkphysics/

The only challenge I would face is time in my classroom. The time to discover and keep up with the curriculum. I struggled with that this year and fell a little behind. I need to better work on the timing of everything for next year!