Being an Educator

 Last week was the final week of our spring semester and it was bittersweet. I learned a lot of valuable teaching lessons and I feel that I grew as a person as well. 

     The course outcomes were, in a summarization, to be able to teach different aspects of Science through different types of teaching skills. I feel that these skills, inquiry and the scientific method, were definitely developed and mastered throughout the course of the semester. Also, I enjoyed learning about the different aspects of Science. Before this class I was not very confident in teaching Science, now I feel I could just teach Science. I also feel that Social Studies is such a fun topic now. I really loved all of the topics that we covered in class and the different aspects of Science. Another course outcome that I am extremely excited about is the edTPA course outcome. I felt that this was unnecessary originally; however, I am excited to have had an advantage among other students who not done this practice edTPA. Overall, I feel I learning a lot from this course.

     My unit plan was very tedious but, again, I feel this was very helpful in teaching me more about education itself. My unit plan design starts with my two main lessons on the Solar System and Climate Change. These topics then moved into my last lesson, the artifact bag. I completed my artifact bag on the Great Barrier Reef. The fourth lesson plan was a little different, and focused on Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. This can tie into the rest of my unit plan because it has to do with the Earth and our surroundings. I enjoyed putting together this lesson plan because all of my topics were interesting. I loved the “Great Barrier Reef”  lesson the most. 

     Fieldwork was a huge part of this Science methods class. I feel that I grew from working with a whole class versus small groups. I actually preferred to work with the whole class because I feel it is more realistic to what teaching is going to be. Also, by working with students on so many different academic and social levels I was able to gain experience with all of them. I really enjoyed fieldwork this semester and I am excited to see where the students go. 

      Overall, I den say that I am coming out of this class more informed. I am also better prepared to teach students of the future. I would like to say thank you to Dr. Smirnova because without her, I wouldn’t have made it through this semester. She was always understanding and was very helpful when I asked questions. I wish the best to everyone from Social Studies Methods Spring 2016.

Work Time

      This week in Science, we were presenting our timeline projects that I had previously mentioned in the blogs. This project was interesting and provided some great insight on the different things and accomplishments throughout the Science program, NASA. This week my group was absent when it was time to present, so I went solo and presented my timeline to the class. The presentation went smooth and I was able to answer any questions the class. 

      For the rest of class, we were tasked with working on our folios. During this class, I was able to get a decent amount of work completed. I worked on my edTPA for most of class. The edTPA assignments tend to be very tedious and a waste of time. I don’t feel that we learn anything beneficial for edTPA. It is frustrating to be working on something that we are not going to get graded for or even feedback. Overall, I got a lot of work on the edTPA completed and I was able to focus in class.

      At the end of the class, we broke into the same groups and completed an activity on life science/biology. We got into groups and for the next class, planned what we were going to research. 

Space Science and more

      This week we worked on Space Science and we presented our projects from the Earth Science unit. This week was filled with many different topics and we covered a lot of material this week.

      To begin, our presentation on the Earth’s surface went well. Many other groups also presented on the same topic and it seemed to be a little repetitive, but my group was able to effectively present our ThingLink to the class and we were able to get the point of using ThingLink across to the class. After the presentations finished, we began to work on our space science projects. To begin the class, we had to read a few science articles. After reading the articles we were asked to create a word cloud of the most common words we found. This was a great introduction into what would become a timeline we were going to create based on the word cloud. All of the projects intertwined with each other and I felt that they all contributed to the overall learning of the space science unit. I enjoyed learning more about the topic and science overall.

      Next week, we are going to be presenting our Space Science projects and working on our eFolios. This is going to be a productive week.

Unit Plan and No Class!!

     This week in Science, we were not in class because Dr. Smirnova was in Canada for an educational experience. We were tasked to work on our unit plan. This semester, my unit plan focused on the solar system, so I kept the theme going for the rest of my unit plan. 

      For these lessons, I tried to keep the theme going, but also keep the lessons entertaining for the students. I worked on the first two lessons with my partners for fieldwork and we decided to have the students complete an experiment on the polar ice caps. That was a great way to get the beginning of the lesson plan started. For the last three lessons, I worked solo and tried to be as creative as possible. I worked on the third lesson plan being a current events project. I used something similar for my Social Studies class, and I really enjoyed the fun that the students had. Therefore, I recycled the idea of the current events and had the students research the current events happening in the Science world. I think it is important for the students to keep an up-to-date opinion on the science world. The fourth lesson focused on JIGSAW collaboration. The students would be working on the Climate Change and it’s current state with the Great Barrier Reef. The final lesson was an artifact bag to try and figure out what different things correlate to Climate change and which do not. All of these activities truly focused on the students and their discovery through the topic. Most of the lessons are going to focus on the leadership of the students. 

     Overall, this week was very productive in terms of the unit plan. I am excited to present my unit plan to the class because I worked very hard on the lessons. 

Creating fun in Science

     This week in Science we focused on Earth Science in class. We were able to discover and discuss many of the topics in Earth Science. We began the class by getting into groups and being lectured on the different topics of Earth Science. I thought that this was nice to have a relaxed discussion with other classmates, because sometimes you can learn more from your peers than you can through lecture. I believe that the different topics of Earth Science are interesting and they provide an understanding of the Earth's surface.

     As discussed in class there were some things that I didn't understand when it came to Earth Science, and thankfully we split into groups to begin working on the topics that we didn't necessarily understand. In my group was Kim and Sean, now Sean and I have previous experience of working together. Kim and I have worked together with many different varies of projects, so it was exciting to be working with her again. This project was very helpful to my understanding on the topic as a whole. I enjoyed learning about Earth’s surfaces’s because my theme for the semester and fieldwork was The Solar System and Climate Change, so this fit right in with the rest of my projects. We decided to use a multimedia tool, ThingLink. This tool was super creative and was nice to use for our project. 

      Next week we will present on this topic, but I feel completely confident to present on this topic. I also feel like my group is going to be able to answer any questions on this topic because we thoroughly researched it. Next week, we are also going to be focusing on space and the different topics within space science. 

KDP and Class FUN

     This was our first class without having fieldwork! We covered a lot of topics in this class that were helpful to the class as a whole. We talked about how to create and write in a blog and how to create our e-folios. This was more helpful to some of the other students because I have done this for many classes. However, I did not know that a website can be copied, so I created my website from hand and created each web page.

     After we completed these two tutorials, we went to a KDP Event: Knowing what to say. This event talked about talking to children about difficult things. Knowing what to say to a student who has been through a tragic situation. Unfortunately, nowadays students experience very dramatic things at very young ages. These students go through more than the teachers do and knowing what to say is half the battle. We had many different speakers ranging from professionals to students who had gone through a dramatic experience. The most moving speaker for me was Veronica Malloy, president of KDP. Veronica spoke on domestic/sexual abuse in a  household and what to say to the children. I found this topic to fall close to home and I appreciated that she was able to speak on it. Overall I think the workshop was a success and I enjoyed attending with the class.

Fieldwork everywhere!

Fieldwork is an experience that all future teachers must endeavor. For fieldwork in Science Methods we completed fieldwork at Bishop Dunn Memorial School. I had the joys of working with the Science club after school. The unit that we focused on in fourth-sixth grade is “Everyday is Earth Day."

Overall, fieldwork contributed to the master skills of teaching because we are focusing on writing different types of lessons, and implementing the lesson designs into the classroom. Our master skills, as a class, are being developed through the creations of different lesson plans. I feel that developing these different lesson plans we are widening our abilities as a teacher. It is important to keep an open mind when teaching, and these lessons plans allow that. By creating a direct, inquiry, and cooperative learning lesson we are opening a gateway to creativity. By implementing these lessons into the classroom we are opening a window for all children to learn differently. We are making it easier for students, who do not learn just one way, to learn the same material that their peers are learning. Also, we are making the material easier for the teachers to know how to teach to all students. We are also widening the horizon in which we teach. My observations of the lessons created has also allowed my, not only the teacher, but also the student to think outside the box. So many of my peers have thought of so many different, creative ideas that I personally was not able to think of. Personally, I think this shows the power of teamwork and teams versus individually. However, I think watching my peers implement the lessons was another roller coaster. It was interesting to see a lesson on paper and then to see them execute it. I feel that seeing my peers execute their lessons just made us, the class, realize that it is imperative to executing a lesson plan properly to stay on time.

Overall, fieldwork as a whole was extremely rewarding. I loved working with the science club at Bishop Dunn. I feel that it was a great learning experience as well. I hope that all of the teacher candidates made as much as an impact on the students as they did for us.