Throughout the year we have had our students use modeling to help see and learn various concepts. During the Earthquake unit the students used their bodies to model the movement of P and S waves as they moved through the Earth. Currently in our space unit the students have had the opportunity to do quite a bit of modeling. The planets and stars are fascinating topics, but we can’t bring them into our classrooms and we can’t see them moving enough in one day to for it to be effective for a lesson. We can, however, model the movements of the planets and stars. That is what we have been working on for the past few lessons. After a brief intro reviewing the movements of the Earth and moon through space we gave the students these two task cards: task card 1 and task card 2. The students then worked in their groups to come up with a way to model the answers to the task card questions. Each groups needed to model the answer for me in order to get credit for the activity. I know I enjoyed the activity and I believe the students enjoyed it also. The modeling required students to apply higher level learning in understanding, applying, and then creating the modeling scenario. Students had some props to work with but I highly encouraged them to get out of their seats and use their bodies as the models. Several groups took me up on that offer. The questions on the task cards required some deeper thought than just how the moon and Earth move in relation to each other. Especially task card one which asked if the same side of the moon always face the Earth, does the moon rotate on it’s axis. Towards the end of class I asked each student to write and draw what they learned that day during the modeling activity on a sheet of paper and turn it in for me to look at. I believe a lesson like this is so much better than a simple lecture or video. This got the students up and moving. It got them working on answering questions rather than simply listening and taking notes.
Power of the Poster April 19, 2010
Never underestimate the power of a poster. I have come to be a fan of the constructivist method of instruction. I like the idea of students doing activities that allow them to discover the learning objectives on their own. With science, like many other subjects, there are times when students simply need to memorize. Parts of the cell in biology, important dates in history, and in my case features of volcanoes. In this case we decided to have the students make posters of volcanoes with a given list of vocabulary words. We gave the students free reign of any materials in the classroom from which to get their information and set them free. The students were free to design and draw the poster however they wanted as long as they had the required information. It was great to see and hear the amount of work and discussion the groups engaged in. I don’t think the students would have been that engaged and active had the material been delivered through lecture or readings. Giving the students the control of how to gather and display their information I think gave them more of a stake in their work and learning.
EDU 6139 Teaching ELL April 7, 2010
The first three chapters of the Curtin book dealt with the history of ELL and stages of english language acquisition and initial teacher considerations when dealing with ELL students. There are lots of topics included in these chapters. The hot topic in chapter one is No Child Let Behind. We’ve all have our own opinions and have heard the opinions of others about NCLB. From what I have heard, I have few good thoughts about NCLB. One of the few good things I have heard of is the disaggregation of student data making schools accountable for all students not just certain groups. There seem to be more downsides than up. The expectation of 100% success, while naively noble, is impossible, and to hold a teacher up to that standard is ridiculous. Standards are left up to states and can vary from state to state. My understanding of the Washington standards is that they are ceiling instead of minimum requirements. Instead of expecting students to reach a minimum level of proficiency we are expecting students to reach nearly honors level in their grade to be deemed successful. The last thing of NCLB is the tenets. The consequences listed in Tenet one seem to have some problems. Holding teachers accountable is good. It doesn’t seem to hold the students or the parents accountable. It seems that a great teacher at a poor performing school is at a distinct disadvantage. The tenet states that teachers “contributing” to student failure are to be replaced. (Curtin 2009) What incentive do teachers have to take jobs at poor performing schools when they can be fired for not bringing students thatthey, or perhaps no one, could bring up to standard.
I have been experiencing ELL first hand. The eighth grade math class I am teaching is an ELL inclusion class. We have 6 ELL students (which I know isn’t a lot in some schools). I have seen the challenge of trying to teach these students. The greatest challenge to me seems to be the expectation that they be taught at grade level. The students are placed based on their age but only one is within one year grade performance wise. I know two of the students read at a 1st grade level. On page 41 the Curtin text states that the reading level of classroom texts may need to be adjusted, but content must be similar. (Curtin 2009) Perhaps this is referring to language arts classes because I am curious where I am going to find an 8th grade level math book written for 1st, 4th, or even 6th grade readers. I am lucky, in that the class is designated as an inclusion class so it is co taught with an ELL specialist teacher. I think the curriculum we use is tougher for ELL students. we are teaching the Connected Math curriculum which focuses a lot on student led activities, group work, and reflections. A math teacher I know of has experienced success with her ELL students by going back to older text books and learning with numbers, formulas, equations, and repetition. It may not be the “new way” of doing things but often ELL students can do 2x=10 but may not understand “Mark has 10 Widgets and wants to give them as presents to 2 buddies, how many widgets does Mark need to put in each gift box?”
I am grateful for the ELL teacher in the class. I have a hard time seeing how we could get anything done with the ELL students without her. We do a lot of group work and the groups are expected to help each other. Many of the students do a good job with this but there is only so much they can be expected to do. There are deadlines for assignments that they have to meet also and we can’t expect them to miss a deadline and a possible learning opportunity while trying to help another student. One of us can spend the entire class helping a few of the ELL students while the other splits time with ELL and other groups questions. A great concern is pacing of the class. I know we are going too fast for the ELL students. The ELL teacher even takes extra time with them during other periods of the day to work on their math, but they are often behind and missing work is a big problem. I feel we have to be fair to the other students also. We are already a couple of weeks behind other 8th grade classes. Slowing the pace down to accommodate the ELL students penalizes the non-ELL students. We make accommodations on exams and give them as much help as we can during class. It is a topic that I feel I definitely struggle with.
Standard V Project EDU 6613 March 15, 2010
Project Overview
This is the Standard V project for the Standards Based Assessment class at Seattle Pacific University. For this assignment I was to take one assessment my students had completed and have a group of students reflect on it using some provided reflection prompts. I was then to determined what strategies would help my students improve their performance on a 2nd assessment of the same concept as the first assessment. The students would then reflect on their performance on the second assessment using the same reflection prompts as the first reflections.
I conducted the assessments in one of my 8th grade science classes. The subject of the unit was rocks and minerals. The goals of the lessons were for the students to know the types of rock that comprise the Earth’s crust and how they are formed and how they can change from one type to another through the rock cycle. In addition we looked at what minerals were and how to identify some of the common minerals. This unit took about 2 weeks, however, my assessments dealt with only the rock portion of the unit which took just over a week.
Cognitive Development 2 February 7, 2010
Much of this weeks reading dealt with the information processing part of cognitive development. Long and short term memory is an important part of information processing. It is important to ask ourselves as teachers, what is the best way to get our students to learn and remember the information we expose them to. One way that was brought up by several people in the blackboard discussion for our class was repetition. Presenting or reminding students of topics over the course of a unit make it more likely that students will transfer that info from short-term memory to long-term memory. I gavve the example of names of people I have met for the first time. I often find myself forgetting their name when I hear it just once. If I make myself repeat it or put it into some kind of context then I am much more likely to remember it. That brings us to the other important strategy for helping students remember that isn’t always under our control. Student interest. We can’t always control students interest in lessons we present. We can however work to vary our presentation and try our best to generate interest. I know I remember things I am interested in much better than those I am not. Interest seems to make it more likely for us to transfer information from short-term memory to long-term memory.
Lesson Reflection Introduction to Rocks February 3, 2010
The minerals and rocks unit is somewhat new for the science department at Eckstein. For that reason I had some freedom to do what I wanted with the unit. Since this isn’t a unit that was done extensively before there are limited numbers of rock and mineral specimens. Me being the student teacher I got to start off with rocks as opposed to minerals. Minerals is probably more appropriate to start with since many rocks are made of minerals. I decided to start the unit with an introduction to rocks with emphasis on how different types of rock have been used by various cultures through history. I Gathered quite a few pictures online of rocks as building material, artifact, or sacred site. Some of the pictures were of early stone tools, stone roads, ancient buildings such as the pyramids, Ankor Wat, and sacred sites such as Stonehenge and Uluru (Ayer’s Rock). The lesson ended with an extended talk about Easter Island and the Moai statues that dot the Island. I think the the lesson went pretty well. Even though it was mostly a discussion/presentation lesson the students seemed to stay attentive (or asleep). It was a useful lesson in that I think most people don’t really think about the rocks around them and all the ways rocks are used around the world. I hope the students learned, or at least heard, a couple of new and interesting tidbits. See the written lesson plan here.
Meta-Reflection Standard S January 2, 2010
Knowledge of subject matter and curriculum goals
Teacher candidates positively impact student learning that is:
1. Content driven. All students develop understanding and problem-solving expertise in the content area(s) using reading, written and oral communication, and technology.
My lessons should guide students towards a greater understanding of the subject material. As the year progresses I need to be conscious of the lessons I am provided and be able to make the changes necessary to lead my students to greater understanding. In respect to oral communication, we often have students to come to the front of the room in our math class to present a problem they have been working on. Our science students get practice in written communications when they complete their lab write ups.
2. Aligned with curriculum standards and outcomes. All students know the learning targets and their progress toward meeting them.
Students need to not only be aware of what they are meant to learn day after day, but why they are learning it. My students need clear objectives as to where the lessons are heading, where lessons fit in the big picture, and what they are meant to take away at the end of the lesson or unit. This is a lesson plan I created and posted earlier in this blog for the Science methods class that includes the Marzano learning strategy of setting objectives.
3. Integrated across content areas. All students learn subject matter content that integrates mathematical, scientific, and aesthetic reasoning.
My science class is not only about learning science. Mathematics is big part of science and life. In a lesson about plotting the location of the epicenter of an earthquake students had to use their math skills to determine the time difference between arrival time of two types of earthquake waves. Then apply this difference to a time difference graph to determine the distance the epicenter was from the seismic station. Finding the distance from 3 stations allows for triangulation of the epicenter of the earthquake. Aesthetic reasoning can be very important in learning. Students who judge something worth learning, whether fun or useful, are more likely to put more effort into it.
Metareflection for EDU 6535 December 14, 2009
I’ll start my final reflection with my thoughts on the class itself. I think I was one of many who did a lot of grumbling throughout this class. The work load wasn’t particularly overwhelming by itself. I can only speak for those in the ARC program when I say that the workload added to an already busy quarter of volunteering at our internship all day and a very full quarter made for lots of late nights. My hat off to those in the program with families and kids. My only excuses are poor and long unused study skills. I am hoping that by taking this class now I will make it easier for myself later in the program.
Now for my thoughts on the content of the class itself.
This class covered a number of technologies essentially all new to me. Other than watching the occasional You Tube video, the internet for me was just email, news, and shopping. Now I have posted my own You Tube video, created a blog, participated in a wiki, and frequently uttered lots of other funny sounding tech terms. For all my complaining, however, I think my cold luddite heart has warmed to some of the things we learned and worked on. The concept of free Web 2.0 tools available for use by anyone is a great concept and one that I hope continues to evolve and develop. Blogs, wikis, etherpads, and more are all tools we explored that could be used for collaborative projects.
The concepts we learned go towards meeting the Washington State Technology Standards and also our educational standards at SPU. Of particular emphasis are:
Standard S – 1. Content driven. All students develop understanding and problem-solving expertise in the content area(s) using reading, written and oral communication, and technology.
Standard T – 4. Informed by technology. All students benefit from instruction that utilizes effective technologies and is designed to create technologically proficient learners.
Most of our standards could fall here in some way. Technology can help teachers diversify their classroom in both instruction and assessment (Standard T 2,3). Students are given opportunities to connect with theirs and other communities through technology (Standards L 4). Learning about technology will benefit students by making them more marketable in the 21st century environment (Standard L 2). Students also benefit from me as a teacher continuing to improve myself through technological education and innovation (P 2).
Whether I or anyone wants it the world is becoming more technologically oriented. Like any tool, technology only really works when used properly. I think this class has given me some insight into the potential technology has for use in classrooms. Any teacher who wants to educate their students in a relevant manner is going to need to evolve with the changing cultural, social, and technological environment. If I may end with a Star Trek quote “Resistance is Futile”.
Marzano Teaching Strategies: Setting objectives, note taking, cues and questions, and formative assessment. December 12, 2009
Identifying the Layers of the Earth.
This has been one of my favorite lessons so far this year. Not only did it use several great instructional strategies, it produced one thing every teacher loves to hear in their classroom, several ah-has. The lesson began with students think-pair-sharing their ideas of how we can look into things (people, objects, etc) without cutting into them, breaking them open, or being invasive in any way. Students came up with quite a few good answers such as X rays, ultrasound, MRI, and some others. At this point I give the students the objectives of the lesson: what are the layers of the Earth and how do scientists know this? I then asked them what all of the methods they came up with at the beginning of class have in common, the answer being they are all waves. Which them led to the question: what kind of waves have we been working with throughout this unit; the answer being earthquake waves. The goal of the questions leading the students to the realization that scientists can use earthquake waves to identify the layers of the Earth. After watching and commenting on an online animation showing earthquake waves traveling through the Earth I had some students come to the front of the room and model waves with their bodies. During this activity students saw that there was one point at which waves stopped the same as on the online animation. We talked about that point and the students came up with the notion that there must be a liquid layer in the Earth because the earthquake waves stop at some point. That is what elicited several ah-has from the class and made me smile. The lesson concluded with a lecture and showing of animations from a CD while students took notes. This Lesson implemented three Marzano strategies: Setting objectives, note taking, and cues, questions, and advance organizers.
Setting objectives
This came after the initial think-pair-share activity. The objective of the lesson was to identify the layers of the Earth and learn how scientists find this out. Setting objectives is an important part of a lesson in that it can focus the thoughts of students towards the goals. Once students find out they are learning about the layers of the Earth they will begin to think about what they know about the interior of the Earth. Hopefully they will begin to think about what they came up with during the opening discussion and how it may apply towards finding out the layers of the Earth.
Standard S
After the initial warm up activity, I write on the board and explain to them the objectives of the lesson. By the end of class students will be able to identify the layers of the Earth and see how scientists know about these layers. The setting of objectives focuses students thoughts on how scientists might go about finding out the layers of the earth.
Standard T
Setting objectives in this lesson allows students to take the ideas about waves they discussed in the think-pair-share and turn it towards the day’s lesson of identifying the layers of the Earth. Formal assessments occur throughout the lesson in the form of class discussions and probing questions by me.
Summarizing and Note Taking
Notes are an important part of this lesson. There is quite a bit of information being given throughout. Although we will be observing parts of the lesson in a couple of different forms, the main objective is the same: what are the layers of the earth, some of their characteristics, and how do we know this. The class is encouraged to use the Cornell notes method which they have been practicing throughout the year in their language arts class. Ideally, practice in note taking will pay off at the end of unit final as students are better able to study for unit finals. Whatever the format they use I try to emphasis heavily the main points of the lesson to ensure they get them.
Standard S
Note taking allows students to take what they have heard or seen and to put it into their own words. Students are encouraged to personalize their notes using drawings or colors or anything that might help them better understand the content and make it easier to study when the unit final comes around. Aesthetic reasoning comes into play as students are able to use drawing at many points during the lesson.
Standard T
Students are encouraged to personalize their notes in whatever way they think is best. They are informed that they are the ones studying from them and they know best what method of note taking is best for them. This lesson incorporates several learning styles from watching animations, to listening to lecture, to acting out wave properties. These different styles allow different individuals chances to get information in a way they are most comfortable with.
Questions, Cues, and Advance Organizers.
Cues and questions are a key part of this lesson. I use them in the beginning of the lesson to get students thinking about methods of seeing inside of something without actually going inside of it. I also used them to guide students to the realization that there was a similarity between the what we were seeing in the online animation and what they were seeing as the students acted out the waves.
Standard S
My opening question “How can we look into thing without going in cutting open or destroying them?”, students answer during their think-pair-share are meant to get students to think about things they have used or seen in everyday life X rays, ultrasound, MRI, etc. My follow up question is “What do all these things have in common and what have we studied in previous lessons that have the same properties?” These questions are meant to get students thinking about how scientists know what is thousands of miles beneath the Earth’s crust. The use of online animations was a key aspect of this lesson. These allowed me to give students a visual reference to what is happening inside the Earth.
Standard T
This lesson incorporated several different strategies to try and accommodate different student learning styles. The class started with a class discussion. This was followed by some online animations shown on the board about how waves travel through the Earth. Students then used their bodies to model waves travelling through the Earth. The class finished with some class discussion and note taking on what the layers of the Earth are and their characteristics. Using these different teaching methods hopefully allowed the lesson appeal to the different type of learners in the class.
Formative assessment
A short formative assessment is given the next morning after the layers of the Earth lesson. This is for me to see how well the students got the lesson from the day before. Students should be able to name the layers of the Earth and talk about how scientists can know what is going on hundreds and thousands of miles under the crust.
Standard T
Formative assessments satisfy standard T of the SPU standards. Students benefit from the use of formative assessment strategies. Formative assessments allow me to see how well students are doing in a less stressful and more useful manner. Given either at the beginning of a lesson or unit, or after, I can quickly see what I may need to cover again or emphasis more in my next lesson.
Marzano Teaching Strategies:Cooperative learning, generating hypothesis, and reinforcing effort December 12, 2009
Lesson: Investigating the Rate of Evaporation in Relation to Heat.
In this lesson groups were to create their own lab to investigate the relationship between the rate of evaporation of water and heat. Students worked in groups of 3-4. The goal of this lesson was for students to think about all the things they did, learned, noticed, or used in previous labs and to apply it to this objective. This lesson incorporated the Marzano strategies of: cooperative learning, generating hypothesis, and reinforcing effort.
Cooperative Learning
Cooperative learning is a big part of our classroom. I would say at least 75% of all class work is done in some way collaboratively. We do quite a few labs over the course of the year all of which are done collaboratively. We also try to have the table groups think share ideas when we are conducting class discussions. For this lesson groups had to come to a consensus about how to investigate the question. They first had to come up with a hypothesis to guide their investigation. They then had to come up with detailed procedures for the experiment. We reminded them at this point that a good scientific experiment was one that could be reproduced by others and get the same results. They needed to write their procedures in a way that anyone reading them could follow. The kicker of the lesson was that all members of the group were responsible for the other group members reports being completed. Each member had to complete a write up however only one paper from the table was graded in terms of the experiment. The assessed paper was chosen randomly and it was funny to see the reactions of groups members when the name of the graded paper was revealed. At that point we would ask them why they were so concerned when every member of the group should have had the same information. Individual papers were assessed for completion.
Standard S
Much of scientific work is done in a collaborative manner. Scientists must work with peers to ensure accuracy of their work. In this lesson students must work with their table mates to come up with procedures for their experiment. Creating an experiment requires students to use prior experience with labs to decide what variable need to be controlled and manipulated. The inquiry emphasis in this lesson aligns with WA Science standards EALR 2: Inquiry, GLE 6-8 INQB Investigate. Students work collaboratively to come up with hypothesis, procedures, and conclusions and overall problem solving skills.
Standard T
Students assessment for this lesson their lab write up. Each student must complete a lab write up that includes a hypothesis, procedures, drawings, results in words and graphical form, and a conclusion. The lab group as a whole is assessed by choosing one write up and giving everyone the same grade. This gives the students incentive to make sure everyone is caught up and participating in the lab. Each individual write up is graded for completeness. This lesson appeals to multiple learning styles. Creative or inventive learners have the opportunity to be creative in their procedures. Physical learners will benefit from the hands on aspect of using any apparatus they may be using.
Generating Hypothesis
The need to generate hypothesis is very important when creating an experiment. For this lab groups had to come up with a hypothesis for their experiment answering the question: Does heat increase or decrease evaporation? As expected, and hoped for, each group came up with the hypothesis stating, more or less, that as heat increases the rate of evaporation will increase. With this in mind groups began to think up procedures on how to show this in an experimental fashion. The primary goal of this lesson is the make students reflect back on the labs they have been working on through the year and identify what they needed to include in their own lab. What we were looking for assessment wise were: detailed and comprehensive procedures that would allow anyone to repeat the experiment the same way as the group and get the same results, the manipulation of only one variable at a time to ensure the integrity of the data, written and graphic display of the data collected, and a conclusion wrapping it all together.
Standard S
Generating hypothesis also fits under EALR 2, GLE 6-8 INQB. Groups must come up with a hypothesis stating what they think will happen in the lab and why. Generating hypothesis gets students to think about the questions in greater detail. Instead of just following procedures given to them they must think deeper and ask themselves how they are going to answer the labs question: How is Rate on Evaporation related to Heat?
Standard T
Assessment of hypothesis can be a quick way to formatively assess the rest of the write up. If a student or group has a hypothesis that is completely off base with the question than there is a good chance they did not understand the question being asked and may need some clarification or guidance to get back on track.
Reinforcing effort
Over the course of the year we have used an effort/achievement rubric after group labs and projects to all students to self assess their own level of effort. This rubric is taken straight from Marzano’s Classroom Instruction that Works book except we have added at the top the question: What was the learning objective of this lesson? Then at the bottom we ask: What could you do next time to improve my achievement? Identifying the objective simply guides the students reflections as they assess their effort. In this case, how well did the student work towards the goal of creating an experiment to either prove or disprove their hypothesis? The last question is one meant to get students to reflect on their effort and hopefully relate it back to the grade they got on the lab. Over the course of the year we hope that students will be able to see the correlation between the amount of effort they put in and how well they do on their assignments.
Standard S
At the end of the evaporation/heat lab students are asked to complete the effort/achievement rubric. This rubric is given at the end of all labs and significant assignments. This rubric gives the students the chance to evaluate their own level of effort and achievement in relation to the lesson’s objectives. After I have graded assignments they can then compare their grades to the effort they put in. I ideally students will make the connection and see for themselves that achievement is proportional to effort.
Standard T
By having students fill out effort/achievement rubrics they are able to self-assess their learning in relation to the lesson goals. I believe students are more honest than most people believe they will be. By self assessing I believe students will get a more tangible feel for how their effort is directly connected to their grades.
