Thermal Energy: I liked the idea of having us make our own concept web as a focus activity. I had a misconception that thermal energy was energy from the Sun along, not just heat energy. It allowed me to record my own thinking, and then when we talked about it my thinking was corrected. I actually learned a lot during this lesson. Of all of the presentations, this is actually the topic I knew the least about. The fact that I learned a lot speaks a lot of the group and their ability to communicate the information to the students. I liked the demonstrations for conduction, convection, and radiation, however I was a little confused with the radiation because I did not actually get to experience it. This was a moment during the lesson that I think the students began talking among themselves and not focusing. The student observation packet was appropriate for the activities in the lesson. The teacher packet included all of the information covered during the lesson as well as some valuable diagrams. I think the diagrams are very important in teaching to make sure the students visual learning is stimulated as well. I also liked that this group included possible TAKS questions.

The Water Cycle: Out of all of the presentations, I thought this was the most interactive and engaging. I liked the matching of the vocabulary words, but the game really is what got the audience to respond. We were all trying so hard to be the first to buzz in to answer! It is great when you can get people excited about learning and participating, and that was very successful in doing so. I liked the first try of drawing the water cycle during the middle of the lesson. This was a chance for us to self-assess to see what we actually know about the water cycle. The bead game was very interactive as well. It was interesting to see how often you would get stuck at a certain location such as the ocean. A good reason for this was that the ocean takes up a very large amount of water that is used in the water cycle. This showed how random the water cycle is, and that is does not have a perfect pattern. The whole demonstration was very interactive and meaningful. The packet was very thorough, and they provided most everything they used during their lesson. It would be very easy to use this packet to adapt a lesson for our own classroom!

I have to be completely honest, and I was not so pleased with our overall effectiveness of our final presentation. We had about half of it that was successful, but the PowerPoint was just too much teaching at one time. We really lost engagement from our peers as students, and that is by no means there fault. It was the fault of us as teachers. I think we all really learned from this experience, and we realized that it is necessary to break up the information with meaningful hands-on activities, demonstrations, and visuals. You cannot solely rely on going through several slides of information, and actually expect your students to be fully focused. I thought our rock observation of the four rock samples was a good idea, but we could have been more organized. I loved the overall idea of allowing the students to make their own observations which is really important in science. Then they had to apply their observations later to the information they learned about in the PowerPoint. I thought this was a good way to parallel this information and make them apply their knowledge. If we were able to do this presentation again, I think it would be very beneficial to break up the PowerPoint slides and the information about each rock type. I think it would be good to teach about one rock type, and then have the students observe the rocks. Next, the students would choose which rock sample fits that particular rock type they just learned about. This way it would break up the teaching, and it would keep the students’ attention. I think all of our group members were pleased with how our hands-on activity, the chocolate rocks demonstration. Of all of our activities in our lesson, I think this was the most beneficial for learning purposes. All of our group members kept the students at their table engaged and on task. There was always something to be participating in. The students had to observe the processes and use their knowledge to connect their demonstration to the real rock cycle. As I mentioned earlier, we failed to include our student assessment in our documents to be printed. This resulted in some confusion and a delay in our presentation. We had to improvise and write our information on the board to assess our students. This shows the importance of always being on your toes as a teacher. Things may not always go as smoothly as planned, and it is always good to have a back up plan. Ultimately, we as teachers need to be able to pay specific attention to detail and avoid situations like this in the future.

A concern of mine is always how group work fits together as a cohesive unit. It is difficult to transition things sometimes to show that it was a single project, not separate pieces. Overall, I think we did an adequate job of fitting our pieces and jobs together to create a cohesive lesson plan. This is not exactly your real world scenario because you will not have four teachers in one classroom obviously, but it does simulate working as a team. In teaching, often you find colleagues who work together as a team to form plans throughout a department that way everyone is on the same track. I also experienced how difficult it is sometimes to keep a group of students’ attention. It is so very important to plan lessons to be engaging to help the students stay focuses, avoid disciplinary problems, and ultimately to learn the material presented. If I were to do this project over, I would definitely change up the PowerPoint. That seemed to be the weakest part of our presentation. It was not necessarily the content of the slides or our presentation, but it was the fact that we had all of our teaching in one chunk rather than spread throughout our lesson.

I really enjoyed the other two presentations that took place on Monday. I was engaged the whole time! I was refreshed on some terms that I already knew, but I also learned some new things! The first group taught about mixtures, compounds, and elements. I thought each presenter showed knowledge of their topic, they were friendly, and they were professional. The observation of the unknown items and substances was very thought provoking. It was interesting to see how many different groupings people made of the items. The sand and the iron shavings was the most interesting to me. I had not even thought about putting the magnet to the sand. We had only used it to see which metals would stick to the magnet. It was a great example!

The second group taught over abiotic and biotic factors in an ecosystem. I liked that they used the concept attainment strategy to introduce the topic. It was very engaging, and they had every student’s attention during this time. They chose appropriate pictures that provided great examples for that strategy. I then liked how they used these to probe questions to have the students determine what characteristics each group had. The making of the backyard and lake ecosystems was very creative and engaging as well. Not only did we have to create an ecosystem with these factors, but we also had to give reasoning why we chose what we did and how it affected other parts of our ecosystem. I thought a really important question was what if we removed a part of our system, and what effect would it have on the system? This was a higher thinking question that is really needed in such a lesson. The students need to be challenged to think abstractly. The teachers were very professional and showed knowledge of their topic.

Overall, I really enjoyed both presentations. Even at our education level it is very beneficial to learn from our peers.

First presentation: I thought the observations were a great idea. We did not know the topic, which I thought worked well for this lesson. We were challenged to think about how we would group the provided items. This seemed to be an alternative way to use the concept attainment strategy. The content was good. I do think that there could have been a few more visuals used such as diagrams or charts. I specifically would have liked to know more about compounds. I know that the bonds are what keep them together, but how exactly does this work? That part to me could have been extended. The packet was good, but again I would have liked to see a few more visual representations. The packet had great informational content that was used in the lesson. This was a great lesson, and I will definitely be using this type of lesson when I teach science in my own classroom.

Second presentation: I really liked the concept attainment strategy and how it kept the interest and focus of your classroom. This was a great way to introduce the subject we were about to learn. Also, it was important to keep this topic unknown to the students because it was necessary for your strategy. This worked really well in this instance. I would have liked to see a little more teaching done about the factors of abiotic and biotic factors as well as visual diagrams and charts. The information was definitely covered verbally, but I think there should have been some type of something written on the board or displayed in a chart. The informal assessment was a great way to assess our knowledge. A really important factor of this was that you came around to each group and had us tell you why we chose our items in our ecosystem and how they affect it. We also had to go to a neighboring group and tell them. This was a good way to get peer interaction as well as share our knowledge. We were basically assessed by our teachers and our peers. The written assessment of the TAKS questions seemed short. I would have liked to see a few more questions if that were to be an actual assessment implemented with real students. It was a great idea to include TAKS questions since it is such an important test in the state of Texas. It was good to see a group include these as my group did not, and the previous group didn’t either. The packet was informational, but I would have like to see some more visual aspects in it as well. Overall, it was a great presentation and one that I will definitely implement in my own classroom.

The lessons were refreshers for some of the information that I had already known, but I also learned some as well. I knew a lot about the physical science lesson of mixtures, compounds, and elements, but I enjoyed seeing how the concepts were taught. I probably learned most from the abiotic and biotic factors lesson. I knew some of the characteristics of each group, but I had to be refreshed on a few.  I enjoyed seeing the various ways that peers teach. I think this is very valuable to learn from our own peers and their teaching strategies. As teachers we must always be open to new things in order to be an effective teacher. If one lesson is not successful in teaching the material, then we must adjust and try again. It is never the fault of the student for not getting the material, but it is the duty of the teacher to find a way to reach out to that student to help them learn it. If something doesn’t go as planned in the classroom, such as not having copies of a particular worksheet, the whole class time cannot go to waste. The teacher must improvise and utilize the time in an alternative but beneficial way.

Overall, I think this whole final project presentation has been a success. Our lesson plans have room for much improvement, but it was great for us to have to put as much thought into our plans as we did. We also had the opportunity to implement them which we have not been able to do in some of our other education courses.

I had my two students Maria and Rhaianne, and one student was added to our group, Mariah. They immediately asked me if they were going to get to play the game again that day, and they seemed someone uninterested when I explained what they would be doing instead. Instead of getting nervous because of their reaction, I decided to just try my best to make it exciting! I like that they enjoyed my game last week, but in reality the students will always like some activities more than others. I started with a warm up by asking questions from last week. I wanted to check to see if they remembered the corrected misconceptions from the previous meeting. Rhaianne was practically a sponge! She repeated most everything I had from the last activity exactly how I had worded it. Maria followed along and she answered a few questions on her own. Most of the time she was following Rhaianne’s lead which made it more difficult to see if she actually knew it herself. Mariah was not with us the previous week, and she was very quiet during this time. I asked her a few easier questions directed just toward to her to try to see where her understanding was about soil properties. This was interesting to have this new student added to the group. It added the perspective of how in reality students are sometimes absent for various reasons, and it is the teachers duty to do the best they can to catch them up so they do not fall behind. After the assessment was completed, I felt that she did a great job of handling the material even though she had not been with us prior to this day. Something that was very difficult during my lesson was keeping the girls attention. Another group in the room was learning about the moon phases, and their activity required them to get up and move around the room. My girls were very interested in what they were doing, and they kept asking me questions about that activity. I had to redirect their attention numerous times to our activity. I think this could have been partially why I did not feel like they girls retained as much useful information from the activities as they potentially could have.

I did feel good about how my lesson went, but there are some things that were obvious that could be improved for future lessons. I handed out a blank vocabulary sheet because I wanted the students to record the important definitions in their own words. As we came to different key terms, we stopped to discuss them and they wrote them on their vocabulary sheets. Mrs. Craig seemed to like this idea because she mentioned to them that they needed to put these in their science notebooks because it might be helpful later. My first activity was showing the relative size chart for grain size and using the scale models, golf balls and different sizes of beads. This activity was to help correct the misconception that “none of the soils” retained water well as they had originally answered. I used these models to represent sand, silt, and clay. I showed them how there were large pores in the sand and the pores were smaller as we went down to the clay. The larger the pores, the easier it is for water to run or permeate through them like channels. The students seemed to grasp this idea fairly well. Next, we demonstrated the permeability of water through clay and sand. We used a ¼ cup of water to pour through a tablespoon of sand and clay. They each were suspended by a coffee filter at the top of a jar. We timed to see which took the longest for water to permeate. The sand took 2 minutes and 30 seconds and the clay took 5 minutes and 45 seconds. Prior to the experiment I gave them each a handout. I asked them to form a hypothesis for which one they thought would take the longest to permeate. I asked them if they knew what a hypothesis was, and they replied that it was an educated guess and that it was part of their scientific method. Although I figured they probably already knew this, I thought it was a good opportunity to check for understanding of that as well. After they formed their hypothesis, we went on with the demonstration. While we waited for the water to run through the materials, we discussed what was going on with the pores and permeability and why it was taking longer for the clay. They finished by forming a conclusion to state that their hypothesis was correct. The students were surprised by how much longer it took for the clay to drain. Judging by their assessment handouts, they seemed to really understand the ability to retain water, permeability, and porosity. They struggled in areas that I felt they were stronger in from the interview session. They seemed to know everything better that we covered during the teach session than the things I thought they knew from the interview. I think my assessment was appropriate in terms of the number of questions. After observing the students complete the handout and counting how many questions were missed, I determined that there were two questions that were poorly written which easily could have caused them confusion. There was one fill in the blank question that they used words from a word bank to complete that had two possible answers. This was not how I initially wrote the question, but in context both answers that I received were technically correct. Another poorly written question was a multiple choice question that had two blanks which I initially thought would have been a dead giveaway for the answer choice “Both A and B”. Instead, it was highly confusing. Not one student answered this correctly, but I know from the interview session this was in fact a topic that they brought up without me even prompting it. If this was for a true grade, I would have to give them credit for this topic since I think it was the wording that confused them.

Some things could have been better during the teach session. The vocabulary sheets were a good idea because I think it helps to remember things when you can put them into your own words, but I did not give them enough space to write. My blanks were way too small for their writing. In the future, I will need to remember to accommodate elementary students better with larger spaces to write. Although I know that teaching atmospheres are not always ideal, I think it would have been easier to keep the attention of the students better had we not been in the same room as two other groups. The girls were very interested in the moon phases group when they got to get up from their seats. Although I did redirect them several times to our own activity, I think I could have been more stern to make my point. Even though the environment might not always be ideal, a teacher must be able to cope with this situation and still make it an effective learning lesson.

After reviewing the assessment handouts and observing the girls during the demonstration activity, I concluded that two of the three students really had a good understanding of the material. One student definitely struggled, but it was also the one who was the most distracted by the other groups. I think she probably benefits from a more structured environment. One student was obviously a higher level student, and it was not surprising when she only missed one question on the handout. The student who was not with us the previous week actually caught up very easily, and she only missed two. I was very pleased with her participation and willingness since she had not been involved the previous week. The other student struggled more missing four questions. I do not feel that I was as effective as I should have been to that particular student. I should have been more stern with her when she was distracted by the other group.

Overall, I thought my teaching was adequately effective, but there is most definitely room for improvement.

     I had two girls for my students, Maria and Raylynn. Maria was very excited from the beginning to be in my group. I had subbed at this school once before so she had remembered me from a few weeks ago.  Raylynn also seemed energized and they both wasted no time in questioning me about what we would be doing for our activity. When I told them that our activity was over soil properties they both seemed very confident because they had been covering this material recently. Raylynn seemed the most confident, and she even immediately identified the samples as I brought them out. Maria was a little more energetic and harder to focus than Raylynn. Maria even asked to use the restroom at one point. I did allow her to go because she had already written down all of her observations and Raylynn was still working. I had to refocus them both a few times because they were excited they had found snail shells in some of the soil samples. For the most part, they both performed well during the observations. During the game, I was very pleased that they participated without being too competitive which can sometimes be an issue. Overall, they were very easy to work with.

     I was very pleased with how my activities went. I felt very confident and comfortable with my students and their engagement in the observation and the concept map game. It was also nice to hear Mrs. Craig comment about my activities. She mentioned that she really liked my magnetic pieced concept map and that the girls really seemed to be engaged. It was nice to hear comments like this to ensure that I had at least done a few things right! In the appraisal of what worked, I believe the observation of the soil samples was a good idea to have at the beginning of the lesson because it helped the girls get focused on soil. It helped them tap into their prior knowledge of the subject that they would need for this interview session.  Without using this as a focus activity at the beginning, I think it would have been very difficult for them to build the concept map. During my peer activity, I just had the concept map which I prompted them to build by asked them questions. I really wanted to make sure that they were engaged during this part of the lesson, so I added the competitive dimension to the lesson with the board game. I am so glad I added this because they girls really enjoyed it.  It also made them eager to answer the questions correctly so they could move their game pieces.  I also liked how I obtained their knowledge of the soil properties on their observation sheet as a preliminary assessment. Also, I made notes on which questions the girls specifically had difficulty with when they were building the concept map. For example, they immediately impressed me by knowing the word humus, but they had no idea exactly what it was. Both of these assessments will be very beneficial when I am creating and modifying my teach session for this week.

     As far as improving my interview session I could have done a few things different. It is so important to be organized and have a routine with students to help them stay on task. When I brought out the soil samples, I did not direct them to not touch them or open them before I instructed them to do so. They immediately began doing things with them before I had the chance to give them instructions. This caused me to lose a few minutes of time because I had to have them close the samples while I did my personal introduction and conducted their focus questions.  Another thing I would do different

     Both students were knowledgeable of the topic, but they did have some misconceptions. During the observation of the soil samples, both girls immediately identified the flowerbed soil as humus. Although this was great that they knew that vocabulary, it was somewhat of a misconception. The soil did in fact contain humus, but it also contained a mixture of other inorganic materials. This mixture of materials is actually referred to as loam soil. As far as identifying characteristics of this sample, both girls did well. Both students identified the sand, silt, and clay samples correctly, but when it came to the characteristics they had difficulty. The particular clay sample I had contained some very fine particles as well as large clumps. When comparing grain size, they put the samples in order from largest grain to smallest grain. Their order was clay, silt, then sand, but the correct order is sand, silt, then clay. I can see where their thinking came from due to the large clumps of clay in comparison to all of the smaller individual particles of sand. They both seemed to have a good understanding that the dark color in the soils showed that it contained amounts of organic materials and nutrients. A term that they also struggled with was inorganic materials in context of sand, silt, and clay. I detected this because it was one of the first questions and blanks on the concept map and they had trouble with the question that prompted it. They also did not understand the concept of the different soils ability to retain water when they first observed them on their own. They recorded on their observation sheets that all three do not hold water well. I am not sure if this was because it was more of an abstract thinking concept since the samples were all dry. When they played the concept map game, the pieces served as a word bank, and they eventually figured out which samples held water better than others.

     Due to the fact that there were some misconceptions with some of the characteristics of each particle type, I think I will need to definitely cover grain size and ability to retain water. I will most likely bring back the soil samples for the girls to observe while I teach them the characteristics of them. Also, I will be using my activities from my peer teach session since they are relevant to the ability of the soils to retain water. I will cover which soils retain the most water and which do not. I will also be covering the reasoning behind this since students often want you to “prove it” to them. I will use a relative grain size chart showing grain sizes from gravel, sand, silt, and clay in comparison to millimeters. I will have a ruler so they can visualize in real scale how small and even microscopic some of these particles are. I will also have large scale models to use to teach about size, porosity, and permeability which all effect how these particles can or cannot hold water. The scale models will be golf balls, small beads, and very small beads that are all differing in color. I will also demonstrate the mixing of the materials and humus to create the ideal soil for supporting plant growth, loam soil. My activity to prove that clay indeed does hold water better than the largest particle, sand, will be by actually running water through them.  Using two jars, rubber bands, coffee filters, clay, sand, water, and a stop watch, I will demonstrate how clay takes considerably longer for the water to permeate through it. Prior to the actual experiment, I will have the students predict which soil they think will take the longest and shortest amount of time for the water to permeate.  If time allows I will also discuss the idea that clay does not have much air in the pores because it holds water. Sand does have a lot of air in the pores because they do not hold water. An adequate amount oxygen in the pores also contributes to whether or not soils can support the growth and life of plants.  I also am going to have the students record their own definitions of certain important vocabulary words that we cover. I think this is important to allow students to come up with their own versions of a “textbook” definition because they are then easier to remember and internalize.  I think this is more effective than handing students a handout with textbook definitions. I will have a written assessment with multiple choice questions as well as true and false questions for the close of our lesson. The true and false questions will ask the student to apply their knowledge by correcting what is wrong in the question to make it a true statement.

**First, I will reflect on the lab observation. My first observation was over a lab titled “Investigating Streams”. The teacher began by reviewing their previous lab. She asked what they were modeling. The students answered that they were modeling rain with bottles and sprinkler heads. I really liked her reasoning for using models. She asked them why we use models in science, and a student replied, “It is either too big, too small, too expensive, or too dangerous” to use the real thing. I thought this was a neat way to understand why we use models. In this particular example, the rain is much “too big” to actually have in the classroom and so were the streams that they would be studying during this lab. The stream lab began by asking a student what their definition of a stream was. A student replied that it was moving water or flowing water. I liked that she dug to see what their prior knowledge was rather than just telling them the “textbook definition”. She liked his answer, but she said they needed to add the word source, because every stream must have a source. Since this was an important part of the definition, she told them to write it down. It would be wrong to assume that students automatically understand and catch important words such as these, so it is important that teachers do prompt them to take note of important information. Next, she transitioned into what type of things were considered sources and whether they were above or below the ground. She received answers such as lakes and rain. They arrived at the answer that any precipitation or melting ice is above the ground, while there are also sources from underground springs. I liked that she gave the students a real life example that they have most likely observed. She asked the students if they have ever seen what happens in the streets when it rains a lot in Lubbock. The majority of them replied that the water runs down the street. This was her example of a stream because it was indeed moving and flowing water from the source of rain. When she passed out their lab sheet, I noticed that each of them opened up a bradded folder in which they put their paper in. It is important to help the students with organization such as this. I can remember when I was in science labs we had loose papers, and many times a student would loose it. This would definitely help students stay more organized. The next step was for the teacher to assign groups and model the experiment. First, she used the overhead to explain all of the steps in the experiment and the materials. Then she actually modeled the set up. As a teacher, modeling is one of the most important things you can do in any lesson or activity. You can never be too specific when dealing with students. They definitely need every bit of this clarification, especially in the lab atmosphere. Next, I will describe the experiment and the steps she explained on the overhead and through her modeling.

1. Plastic mats were placed on the table and on the floor to catch any messes.

2. Each group received a tub of soil and rock that she explained and modeled how to mix up and make a “brownie” or block in one end of the tub using a plastic spatula. It was important to mix the soil to make it a “fair test”

3. She showed how to attach a cup to a Velcro stand on the end where the “brownie” was. This was to represent the streams source. It had a hole in the bottom of it.

4. She showed how to use the 2 liter bottle of water to pour into the cup to the fill line. It was important to keep it at the fill line in order to keep the water pressure constant.

5. Another student was shown how to hold the catch bucket at the opposite end of the tub because there was a hole in the tub for the water to flow through. This is where they also catch run off to examine sediment deposition.

6. After the water was poured, the students caught 50 mL of run off water in a graduated cylinder and labeled it so they could observe it later after it had settled.

7. On their lab paper, they drew the model and what path their stream took through the sediment.

8. Using a string, the students traced the path of the winding stream them measured the string to determine the length.

Due to limited supplies, the four groups had to combine into two groups. This was a good example of how things might not always go as planned in your classroom and you must be prepared to improvise. During the activity she reviewed weathering, erosion, and deposition by using a pencil eraser. When she erased it was weathering, when she swept it or blew the pieces it was erosion, and where it landed was deposition. I thought this was so very creative and every time the student is approached by a weathering and erosion question, they can demonstrate it using their pencil. It is a great way to show the difference of weathering being the breaking down of sediment, and erosion being the actual movement of that sediment. Overall, I really enjoyed watching this lab experiment. The students were interesting to watch was they interacted with one another and worked as a team to complete their lab.

**The second observation was in the classroom setting. This first thing I observed was how the teacher handled a discipline situation. A student left the room without permission to go purchase a pencil in the hallway. She addressed this matter by sternly saying “You cannot leave the room with out asking. You will get a pink slip and you will not want that on your record.” This lesson was actually finishing up a previous lesson with a reading and worksheet handout. I observed the students taking individual notes on their handouts when they were prompted to write something down. Others voluntarily took notes over what they thought was important. I did observe a few who did not seem to be writing down anything. Later, this was a problem for those students when they came to the worksheet with the assessment questions. The lesson began with the question, “how do we use water?” Answers varied from brushing teeth, flushing, showers, washing dishes, drinking, and swimming. Using a given number, she had the students calculate the mean or average amount of 2L bottles of water a person uses in a day. The given number was 350. The students paused and seemed confused, so she used another way to explain how to arrive at the mean. She used money instead of water bottles. If she had $3.00 and she gave someone half, how much does she have left? $1.50. If she had 50 cents and she gave someone half, how much does she have left? 25 cents. So by splitting up the amounts to easier division, the students understood and answer 175 2L bottles per day. I liked that she incorporated math content into the lesson because science is very math oriented at times. Her method of explained how she arrived at her answer was very creative and helpful to the students. Next, she discussed how much of the water on Earth is actually salt water, and without desalinization plants, this water is not useful to us. This was a very new word, so she took the time to explain that it was an expensive process, and that Saudi Arabia, a very rich oil country, had the money resources to use this method. At this time she had a student go to a world map on the wall to show the location of Saudi Arabia. This was a good way to connect the topic to geography. You could tell that most of the students were unaware of where Saudi Arabia was located, therefore it was a good opportunity to show them. She also recalled the term source from the lab the previous week. She explained that there are surface sources and underground sources. She included Lake Meredith which is North of Amarillo in the lesson because that is where we get our fresh water. I think it is important for the students to be able to connect the information to how it affects their everyday lives. We also get ground water from the Ogallala Aquifer which is an underground source. At this time the students found the name of the aquifer to be humorous, and they got off task. She paused to redirect the class and took a look at the discipline clipboard. She said, “I can see its not just in here. The people being silly are also that way in other classes. We need to get serious!” It was interesting seeing how a teacher got her students back on task after they had lost their focus. With a stern redirect the students were back on task. It is important as a teacher to address these situations or otherwise your learning environment will be sacrificed. I thought she handled the situation quickly and successfully. They covered a few other terms such as filtration, treatment plants, conservation, and limited resources, then she started a 10 minute timer to give the students adequate time to work on the hand out questions. I thought it was a good idea to give the students a working timeframe. A lot of the time students think they have all class to complete an assignment which can cause them to not use their time wisely. I think having this time frame not only helps the teacher use the instruction time wisely, but it also helps the students use their time wisely. During this time she went around helping students with questions they had. She also displayed their “catch up work” on the overhead so they could finish this work after they had completed their handout. I think checklists are also helpful reminders to students. After observing the student and teacher interaction during this time, I began observing the classroom atmosphere. When students needed help with a question, they used their Science Saurus book that was located on their desk. These are a really good resource books spanning Earth, Life, and Physical sciences. The teacher had posters all around her room. Several of them pertained to their current study of water sources. She had pictures and articles about the Ogallala Aquifer on one of the bulletin boards. In other parts of the room she had charts covering: solids, liquids and gases; parts of a microscope; temperature; life cycle; and several others. I thought it was a great idea to have a specific location such as a bulletin board to post informational posters and charts that are relevant to the current study topic. I also liked that she had “science power words” displayed on the dry erase board. Many of these words are very important during science and experiments. I am sure that many of these will also appear on the TAKS test. Overall, I found this classroom observation experience to be very different from the lab and very beneficial.

My activity first began with passing out a sheet with nine soil vocabulary words with blanks to the side so the students could record their own explanations of each. I first reviewed the vocabulary words and concepts from the previous week for a warm up and to get focused on the activity. I made flashcards with these vocabulary words on them. I reviewed inorganic materials, sand, silt, and clay. Each time throughout the activity that I introduced one of these vocabulary words, I asked my peer if she knew the definition. If she did not know it, then we used to the flashcards and I allowed her to record them on her own vocabulary sheet. I liked the idea of using the blank vocabulary sheet because I think it is important for the students to get the key words but also be able to put it into their own words where they can better understand and remember them. At this time I also displayed a relative soil particle size chart. This chart shows relative sizes of gravel, sand, silt, and clay particles and compares them to millimeters. I thought it would be a good representation because it shows the huge difference between the sizes that is not easy to see when actually looking at samples. I liked using this chart in my activity, but my peer later answered a question about grain size incorrectly because I had thrown in another particle, gravel, that we were not covering. I got this chart from the internet, and it was already made. I still like this idea, but I think I should recreate it myself and eliminate the gravel particle to avoid confusion.

My next activity was representing these particles size, porosity, and permeability by using a scale model. I had three cups and I filled one with golf balls to represent sand, one with smaller round beads to represent silt, and the last cup was filled with very small round beads to represent clay. I used these models to discuss how the sand has very large pores, but it forms large channels which causes it to be very permeable. The silt and especially clay are better at retaining water because they have many smaller pores. My peer seemed to really like this activity and thought it would be really good for the kids. I also mixed the three models together to form a loam soil. At this time we covered the fact that loam soil is the best soil for supporting life and that it also contains humus. Humus is one of the words from the previous week that my partner had difficulty with. This was a concrete way of showing how the other particles mix into the large pores created by sand. This mixture causes the loam soil to not retain too much water like clay, but for it to be less arid and dry than sand by itself. My partner liked this part as well, but she suggested that I have them make a prediction of what the mixing of the soils will do for the ability to retain water.

My last activity was actually performing a demonstration using the largest grain size, sand, and the smallest grain size, clay. I used mason jars, coffee filters, rubber bands, water, and the samples to perform this activity. This was my favorite part of the teach session because it has a dramatic difference in the way these two samples can retain water. My partner was really surprised how the sand only took about 2 minutes and 10 seconds for a half cup of water to permeate it. The sand took almost 8 minutes for the water to permeate! My peer thought this was great that I could actually prove to the students the big difference that pore size and grain size makes. A really good suggestion from my peer is that I do this activity first and make sure I have some filler information to cover during the long time it takes for the water to drain through the clay. The activity had a long awkward watch of water draining which will lose a students interest very quick! So I am going to do this activity first, then follow up with the relative size models. This will enable me to set the demonstration to the side for a few minutes then bring it back to show the official time. From this I will eliminate the long wait. Overall, I was very pleased with my activity, and I received some very good suggestions.

I actually observed two different peers, Sarah and Amy. Amy’s activity was a board game and an informational pamphlet about the constructive and deconstructive forces of the Earth. I really liked the pamphlet flip book she had us create because we were able to draw our own pictures and explain the forces definition in our own words. I think this is very important with kids so they do not have to memorize the exact “textbook” explanations. I also liked her game because it adds a little friendly competitive aspect which most children enjoy. I think this will help get the students engaged because they are always wanting to win, and little do they know, they will actually be learning! I suggested that she come up with some sort of assessment for each student because the game only assesses them on the certain forces that they randomly drew. This would ensure that they are assessed on all of the forces.

Sarah’s teach session was over the phases of the Moon. She had a great demonstration of how the Sun, which was a flashlight in this case, shines on the Moon and how we then see certain portions of the lit Moon. This all depends on the Moon’s location relative to the Earth. I thought this was a great demonstration, although she had a little trouble getting everything set up at first. I suggested that maybe she make her flashlight Sun stationary where she did not have to hold it, that way it would be easier on her. Sarah also had an instructional activity where she explained what the terms gibbous, crescent, waning, and waxing meant. She also had an activity to put these terms into perspective by having us put the Moon phases in order counterclockwise of the Earth. Her assessment was a true and false worksheet. If we answered false, we had to explain our reasoning. We suggested that maybe she add a few more questions to the assessment. Overall, I thought it was an effective teach activity.

     My other activity was building a concept map together with labels and a magnetic concept map poster. I used prompted questions to help Sarah use her background knowledge to build the concept map. There were 1 or 2 words that she had not heard of before that I had to help her more than others with. One of the words was humus, a word describing the material in soil that is decomposed plants and animals. I liked this idea because it shows whether or not the student can make sense of all the information as a whole rather than one concept at a time. This activity seemed to work well, and I do not think I will make many changes to it. This along with the predictions and observation activity were my assessments of what I need to work on for my teach lesson. I also think I may need to revise and add a few more questions to help me prompt the students to think in the right direction.

     Sarah seemed to enjoy my activity. She did mention that I may have gone through the activities a little fast, and I should add a little more wait time in between concepts and questions. This will allow more time for the student to provide a thoughtful answer without being overwhelmed by another question.

     I initially had planned on using magnifying glasses to aid in the observation of the soils, but I did not get one for Sarah before we left the classroom. I do plan to use these during the Bean Elementary activity because I think it will help the students look more closely at samples. 

     Overall, this activity made me feel more confident in my soil properties activity. I feel that I can make the necessary modifications to my activity and then it will be ready to present to the Bean students.

    My partner’s activity was over the Moon phases. Sarah had a good lesson presentation with several activities. I liked that her activities made me as the student use both concrete and abstract thinking. This is a good exercise for 5^th grade students. I thought her activities were grade relevant and useful. I suggested that on her true and false assessment that she might add blanks for students to explain why they answered false. This would help eliminate the lucky guesses, and it would allow her to see if the student really is knowledgeable of the concept.  I also suggested that she might add a little more wait time in between her questions for the KWL graphic organizer. At times I was still writing and then she asked another question. Overall, I thought Sarah did a very good job. I am confident that her activities will help her evaluate the knowledge of the Bean students.

5^th Grade

Soil Properties- 1^st activity

Materials:

pencils

sand

clay

silt

flower bed soil

magnifying glass

observation worksheets

The following vocabulary will be useful in this activity:

Soil: A mixture of inorganic matter, organic matter, water, and air, which forms on the land surface. Soil can support the growth of plants.

Organic matter: Material derived from the decay of plants and animals.

Inorganic matter: The parent rock material that weathers and erodes to form smaller particles that are sand, silt, and clay.

Sand: The largest-sized soil particles. Sand feels gritty. Also refers to a soil texture that consists of at least 85% sand particles.

Silt: Soil particles in between sand and clay in size. Silt feels like flour (smooth and velvety). Also refers to a soil texture that consists of at least 80% silt particles.

Clay: The smallest-sized soil particles. Clay feels sticky when wet. Also refers to a soil texture that consists of at least 40% clay particles.

Nutrients: Elements or compounds that nourish organisms. They are essential to support life, growth, and reproduction of plants.

My interview activity is over soil properties. I will be using four soil samples to find out what my students know about the topic. I have soil samples from a flower bed, the bank of a pond, a sandy field, and clay.

(2-3 minutes) – Focus Questions: Have you ever helped your parents in a garden? Played in the mud or dirt? Or played in a sandbox? Think about how it felt? What color was it? Did it hold much water? Or was it dry? Were there plants growing in it?

(5 minutes) – My focus activity will be observing the soil from the flower bed. I will allow the students to open up their baggy of soil and use a magnifying glass to closely observe the contents. The students will record their observations on a worksheet that I have provided. I will prompt them to describe grain size, color, texture, and the materials they see in it.  I will ask a series of questions at this time to find out their basic knowledge of soil.

(5 minutes) –

Does the soil in a flower bed differ from soil in your yard? How?

What is the importance of soil on our Earth?

Do humans have a dependency on soil? What does it do for us?

What are the main components of soil?

Do you think some plants grow better in certain types of soils? Why?

Do you think some soils have the ability to retain water more than others? Examples? Have you ever wondered what material helps lakes and bodies of water to hold water? What do you think helps the bodies of water retain water?

We classify soils according to how much of certain materials they contain. Can you tell me what these materials are?

(15 minutes) – Next, I will give the students three more bags of unidentified samples. Based on their prior background knowledge, I will have the students make a prediction on if the sample contains more sand, silt, or clay. They will label the bags accordingly and on their observation sheets. I will ask the students to provide their reasoning for their predictions. Then they will observe each sample and record their observations on their worksheet. Again, I will prompt them on looking for individual grain size, color, texture, and if they think it would retain water well. I will have the students share their descriptions. I will then read descriptions of the characteristics of sand, silt, and clay. The students can compare their observations with the facts I provided.

I will ask if they would like to change their predictions, or if they are confident with them. If they change their labels I will have them explain to me their reasoning.

(15 minutes) – Lastly, I will have the students use their background knowledge to try to help me put together a simple concept map of soil in a group. I would like to use this to assess whether the students can make sense of their current background knowledge. I will ask questions to prompt them to help them fill in the concept map blanks.

(5 minutes) – I will close my lesson with asking if the students feel like there are any concepts that are having difficulty with. Is there anything they specifically do not understand? Is there anything they would like to learn more about?

     The benefits of using a scripted curriculum are that students all across school districts would be taught the exact same material. If the students were to move to another school, they would be more likely to be at the same point in their material.

     Some disadvantages of using a scripted curriculum are that since all of the students are learning the exact same scripted material, it does not leave room for above average students to be challenged or for the lower students to be helped. It assumes all students are on the same level. Also, I think as a teacher I would have anxiety or fear that I was not using the script correctly. If you do not follow the script exactly, will you get in trouble? Does it effect the overall presentation of the lesson if it is not presented this way? I also think the students would be very disengaged with this type of curriculum. It seems like it would be highly repetitive in the methods that are used to teach causing the students to be less receptive to the material. Even statistics are showing that this is not advantageous to the students. “A study comparing the standardized test scores of Title I elementary school students using SFA to the scores of students in comparable Title I schools using a different reading program found that, over a three-year period, students in non-SFA schools experienced an average gain of 17 percent in the reading proficiency section, compared to an average gain of 8.5 percent in the reading proficiency of students in schools using the SFA reading curriculum (Greenlee & Bruner, 2001).” This particular study showed that proficiency improvement in non-scripted formats almost doubled the improvement in the schools using a scripted curriculum.

     I personally am not in favor of the idea of implementing scripted curriculum materials that have been commercially prepared and required for the teachers and schools to use. I think this takes away all freedom that the teacher possesses to be creative and inventive in their lessons. It would be difficult to present science in the form of experiments because it would be hard to do using a scripted format. These hands on activities for learning science would be very limited, and the curriculum would focus highly on just the content and less hands on learning.

     If at all possible I would not want my first job to be in a school district that goes strictly by scripted materials. I would be afraid that my development as a first year teacher would be severely hindered by this. I think that each classroom is unique in cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and I do not feel that a “one size fits all” approach such as a generic scripted curriculum will benefit the classroom as a whole. I feel that lesson planning should be open for creativity to the teacher in order to create engaging and interesting materials to accommodate each individual in a classroom.