Science Methods comes to a Close!

Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened!

After three long months, Science Methods has come to a close. The semester had it's ups and downs as everything in life does, but I am stronger because of it. I had some great memories throughout the semester. I have made many great friends this semester because of our Science Methods class. Whether I had a question or someone else had a question, someone always knew the answer and were ready and willing to help because they knew the favor would be returned down the road. I feel much more confident about teaching in front of a whole class now after taking this class. I was able to see what my group, as well as other groups, did well and what activities really contributed to the students learning. The students were all excited when they were introduced to the topic by Astronaut Annie from group 3. I thought that idea was really ingenious and so clever to use texts and tweets throughout the lesson because the students are exposed to that type of technology in their everyday lives, so it made the content seem more friendly. The students were also very engaged by group 2. Everyone in that group had such an electric energy about them that really helped the students shine and become excited about inner planets themselves. Group one used a Voki to get the students engaged and made the lesson seem like a mystery game for the students to help discover what season, time of the day, and phase of the moon there was in that particular city. I thought it was very exciting for the students being their first exposure to an inquiry lesson to make it a really collaborative and problem-solving mission. I thought our inquiry lesson was very successful. The student was very excited to make observations and discover what planet the mystery planet was. All of their faces light up once they touched the planet and it was actually cold. If I were to do that lesson again in the future, I would try to do it on a larger scale. I would make each of the eight planets and break the students up into teams of two or three. Once the students had made their conclusions about what their planet was, they would have to share what they found with the other students in the class to put their models in order as a sort of jigsaw.

Where there was good, there was bad. Behavior management across the board could have been improved. This group of fourth graders was a lively class full of energy and questions. It became difficult at times to keep their volume levels under control for every group at least once during our lessons. To try to combat the use of yelling over the students to get their attention back to the lesson, my group tried to use a prompt where the students would do a physical response instead of a verbal response. This helped keep the volume levels down, but it did not help keep their attention completely. Our Students vs. Teachers game was also not implemented enough to be an efficient way of keeping the students under control. Time management was a major deficit across all groups. On the first day, my group taught we had to skip the section on the Mars Rover and had to shorten our Jeopardy game. In the end, it worked out in our favor to do the section on the Mars Rover at the beginning of the inquiry lesson because it flowed nicely into the use of technology to observe a new planet.

Time management was played a major role in Science Methods in general. It is very important to have time management throughout this course, or you will be struggling at the end. I tried to break up my work and get things done as early as a possibly could, but by the end of the semester when my other classes started to pick up, it became harder and harder. I think for Social Studies, I might dedicate one night a week solely to Social Studies methods right off the bat so that I can start working on my assignment earlier. I will also be sure to write a blog once a week so that they do not become overwhelming to complete. Overall that is what I would change about the course in general. I would have loved to have earlier deadlines for each assignment. Ideally, I think it would be best to have all of our lesson plans and Task 1 for edTPA done before fieldwork. Then as fieldwork is occurring the other tasks can be done at the same time. Then all that would be left would be the philosophy of teaching and to pull everything together on the efolio. This will be my ultimate goal for next semester in Social Studies.
With everything winding down, I realize that I have accomplished a lot this semester and I feel like I have learned a lot. I feel comfortable with an inquiry lesson and the five E lessons. The five E's are engaged, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate. The engaging step requires the students to make connections to their previous knowledge and to prepare for the activity to come. The explore stage is when the students make observations and manipulate materials to make discoveries. The explain stage allows the students to discuss what they have been finding or show off the new skills that they have learned. In the elaborate stage, the students get to explore deeper into topics they enjoy and develop their skills even further. Finally, the evaluate stage allows the students to self-assess. The five Es and inquiry go hand in hand to make a very successful lesson. I also learned a lot about edTPA. There is a lot of reflecting that has to be done with edTPA. It really makes you look back at what you did to determine your effectiveness as a teacher. Overall, none of the tasks were particularly difficult, but they were very time-consuming. Sometimes it was confusing to tell what was meant to go under each task, but I felt like I have accomplished each task. I have also learned a lot about the different technologies that are possible to have in my classroom one day. I think that Voki, Thinglink, and Voicethread will become the most useful in the future. The students all really like Voki when it was used in fieldwork. I really liked using Thinglink and Voicethread personally. I think Thinglink would be very interesting for the students to explore an image to find information about a topic. It can become almost like a game for the students find the different bubbles on the screen and then to learn what the bubbles have to teach them. I think Voicethread would be a very useful tool for both students' projects and for myself on days when I am absent. I could record myself teaching the lesson and the sub could play it as if I were there.
When it comes to science, I learned a lot about space and the different technologies used to explore space. I have also learned a lot about Earth Science, Physical Science, and Life Science 4 that may not have been entirely new, but refreshing for my memory.  I find that it has been a really productive semester and I am prepared for what Social Studies has to come. It will be a great experience to share with my group members again. You can check out their blogs for to get a glimpse into their spectacular space adventures as well. Nessiah, Allie, and Alisha have some great reflections waiting to be read over on their blogs!