Science in the News

 Wouldn't it be cool if you could go into space? Well, that may now be a possibility! Thanks to Richard Branson, who started Virgin Galactic in 2004, tourist spacecrafts are going to be available. On December 12th, a spacecraft carrying just the two pilots and weight bags to simulate people took off successfully into space. These spacecrafts are going to cost a ton of money to board, so as of now they'll only be for the extremely wealthy. But, if everything goes according to plan for Bronson, soon tourist space travel will be a reality for everyone! “Today, as I stood among a truly remarkable group of people with our eyes on the stars, we saw our biggest dream and our toughest challenge to date fulfilled,” Mr. Branson said in a statement after the takeoff. “It was an indescribable feeling: joy, relief, exhilaration and anticipation for what is yet to come.” This was the second time a Branson spacecraft took off into space, with the first time being about 14 years ago. Branson is trying to lead the charge into space tourism, but he has a lot of rich competition in the form of Elon Musk of Telsa and Jeff Bezos of Amazon. He is hoping that the takeoff of this ship will put him in the lead, and one day help him and others reach outer space!

    I chose this article because I'm very interested in space travel. I also chose it because I did a project in class about Virgin Galaxies and thought it was really interesting, so I wanted to continue learning. This article relates to classroom topics and discussions because we dedicated an entire day to space science, and we all did projects on it. You can use this article to teach students science in a variety of ways. You can have the students read the article and then make their own space tourism company and spacecraft. They can name both, and then also pick a destination for his/her spacecraft's maiden voyage! This project could hit a multitude of standards and include a bunch of activities like writing assignments. Space science is a very interesting topic for students, so I would use this article to take advantage of that and complete the assigned project.

Reference to research article:

Haag, M. (2018). Virgin Galactic Rocket Ship Reaches Space, a Milestone in Space Tourism. New York Times.

Semester Reflection!

Wow. What a semester. This class was equal parts fun and stressful, but I can for sure say that I've learned more in this class than any other class I've taken at the Mount. This class made me not only a much better science teacher, but a better teacher in general. This semester was the first time I had ever taught in front of a whole class before, which was nerve-racking to say the least! But, I had a really great group who helped me through it, and I can now say that I'll be comfortable teaching in front of a whole class in the future. Something else I gained this semester was knowledge and insight into the inquiry model of teaching. This model with the "5 E's" of inquiry is really beneficial to student learning. They love this model because they get to immerse themselves in the material, form hypotheses and then explore their hypotheses. I enjoy using this model of teaching because it's way more interactive than just teaching direct instruction. Something else I'm going to take away from this course is the amount of technology I can implement in my instruction. Programs like mentimeter, voki and thinglink are all valuable tools for teachers to use to help 21st-century learners pick up information. I will most certainly use all of these tools and more, and will keep my eyes and ears open for more along the way! Probably the most important thing I picked up on this semester was how patient you need to be as a teacher. My patience was tested inside and outside the classroom this semester like never before, but that's the life of a teacher. I have to learn to stay the course even when the day isn't going as planned. Even if my lesson that I worked so hard on falls apart right at the beginning, there's no time to complain. The students need a strong teacher who won't yell and scream when things go bad, and that is really what I took away from this semester. Patience is a virtue, and no matter what, I will stay patient with my students and guide them towards becoming lovers of science who enjoy learning and inquiring about everything science has to offer!

Unit vs. Lesson Planning

   I had a lot of prior experience writing lesson plans from my previous education courses, but I had never written a unit plan until this semester. Unit planning is a big part of what teachers do, and good planning leads to success in the classroom for all, so it's vital that a teacher has good unit plans going into the school year. Unit plans are long and take a lot of work to prepare, but they are so worth it. A unit plan is comprised of a bunch of different types of lesson plans, all about the same topic. 

   The key to a good unit plan is having a variety of teaching styles and resources within the unit so that every student has the best chance to succeed. You can't have a unit plan filled with only direct or inquiry-based lessons; that is not enough of a variety. Unit plans should also contain a lot of technology for the students to explore and learn with. In this generation of technologically based learners, having a plethora of resources for students to access and use is crucial. To not have this in your unit plan would be a detriment to students in your classroom. A unit plan has an overall goal and objective for the unit, and also has individual objectives and goals for each lesson in the unit to get to the end goal. It's important to keep reminding yourself what the overall objective of the unit is while making the individual lessons. All of the lessons in the unit need to get the students closer to the big goal of the unit. Something else that must be included in a unit plan is a culminating activity at the end. There should be some sort of project or assignment that students have to complete based on a rubric to show that they met the unit goal by the end. This assignment could be something as simple as a test, but I'm going to try to be more creative than that! I'm going to use fun projects where the students can show that they mastered the content in a fun, creative way. Unit planning isn't easy, but it's a vital part of teaching. Students need good, structured units to really shine in the classroom. If you want to check out my unit plan for this semester, the link is here! My unit is about botany and plants in general, check it out! 

edTPA Reflection

For the first time since I've started my journey to becoming a teacher, I was exposed to edTPA this semester. edTPA is an assessment that all teacher candidates need to complete before officially becoming a certified teacher. This assessment is used in over 40 states and tests the skills that all teachers need to have in order to be an effective teacher. This task seemed daunting at first, but once I got started I realized that my class and fieldwork experience prepared me perfectly to answer all of the questions. edTPA is broken down into three tasks that all have numerous subtasks. Some of them are very short in length and some of them are a lot longer. Task one is all about planning and focuses on everything that happens before the lesson. Task one has five subtasks which all describe and explain the planning that went into my instruction. This part is supposed to prepare you to get into the classroom, and make you think about why you're making the educational decisions that you picked. Task two is only two parts and focuses on your actual teaching. Task 2A is just a video of me teaching a direct instruction lesson to the students, and task 2B forces me to discuss and analyze what happened in the video. This task is meant to analyze my own teaching, which was very beneficial. I had never actually seen myself teach before, so it was cool to be able to see myself in action and then reflect and learn from what I did. Task three focuses on student work samples. I had to grade student work from my lesson and reflect on how that showed what the students did or did not learn during the lesson. I also had to think about how student work would affect my future instruction if I were to keep teaching the same class. All of these prompts took me a lot of time to complete but were all worthwhile in improving my understanding of what happened this past semester. I'm going to have to fill these tasks out again for my social studies class next semester, and this time I'll feel much more comfortable filling them out. I'm not going to wait until the last couple of weeks of class to start filling them out; instead, I'm going to start working on them as soon as I finish my teaching lesson. This will give me plenty of time to make sure that they're perfect! If you want to check out my edTPA from this semester, here's the link to my eFolio which contains all of the edTPA tasks and much more!

My Philosophy of Teaching Science!

This past semester was crucial in forming my personal philosophy of teaching science. I never was comfortable with science as a student, so I didn’t think I’d be comfortable teaching it either. I struggled with the subject in school, and didn’t enjoy it much. However, this semester I learned a bunch of new strategies and ways to make science class fun and engaging for students!

In my opinion, the inquiry model of instruction is often the most appropriate way to teach science. You still need to conduct direct instruction lessons as well, as these help students form new knowledge and learn new concepts. But, science is best taught through the 5 E’s of inquiry: engage, explore, explain, elaborate and evaluate. Through this model of learning, students really get a chance to immerse themselves in the material. The inquiry model should be taught the day after a direct instruction lesson for the best results. This will allow the students to take notes and learn the new information on the first day in the direct lesson, and then think about what questions they still have an inquiry about the next day. This helps students develop their problem-solving skills as well, as a good inquiry lesson lets students explore their questions independently or with peers. A very important part of the inquiry model is making hypotheses. A good hypothesis is the crux of inquiry lessons; the students need to know what essential question that they are inquiring about and they need to provide a tentative explanation before continuing with the process.

Technology is also a great way to get students engaged and interested in science. In 2018, we have so much awesome technology that allows us to see the world like never before. Science teachers need to use all of the technology at their disposal in order to best support these 21st century learners. Students in today’s society learn best through technology, so it’s only right that 21st century science teachers use it to the best of their abilities. This semester alone, I’ve found so many great sites to use in the classroom such as voicethread, mentimeter, voki and many more. These resources are easily accessible, and they really will benefit the learning of all of these technologically based 21st century learners!

Book Trailer!

One of the more challenging but interesting assignments I had to complete this semester was a book trailer. Much like a movie trailer, a book trailer is a preview of the story without giving away the ending! Book trailers are supposed to engage students and encourage them to explore the rest of the book on their own. This assignment was difficult for me because I had to use a brand new program called voice thread. This program allows you to create a mini-video and include a bunch of cool features. At first, it wasn't easy making the voice thread, but once I got the hang of it, it was a simple and fun way to create my trailer. Everybody should check voice thread out!
   For this trailer, I had to pick a science trade book. Something that I had to do for this project that I had never done before was create a storyboard. I used Google Slides to make mine for this project.
I put a picture from the book in the slide, and then wrote my script in the notes. Once I made this, all I had to do was upload my slideshow into voice thread and record my voiceover and then I was done. It was very easy and that is how I would recommend that anybody else make a voice thread. The book I chose was "The Tiny Seed", written and illustrated by Eric Carle. This book was very visually appealing and focused on abstract drawings. This most certainly will catch the attention of students. This book follows the journey of a tiny seed and his much bigger seed family. The book shows how seeds travel from place to place and how plants start growing in places they weren't growing in before. The book is very easy to follow, and really paints a picture of how seeds travel. In my trailer, I play the part of the tiny seed himself and spend a couple of minutes previewing the story and the pictures. Here is the link to my book trailer on voice thread if you want to check it out!
   Creating a book trailer that didn't give away the ending was very difficult, but I'm very happy with how mine came out! I'm using my book trailer in my unit plan for my class, and I also would love to use it in my future classroom as well. Book trailers are fun and engaging ways to get students to connect and get excited about a lesson. All teachers should consider using one in their instruction at some point, and make one themselves if they can!

Shattering Science Stereotypes!

When you think of a scientist, what comes to mind? I was asked this question on the first day of class this semester, and it really got me thinking. I was asked to draw what I think a scientist looks like, and the ugly drawing you see is what I came up with. You can see that my idea of a scientist was a white male with crazy hair, wearing a lab coat, holding a beaker and working over a lab table. Terrible artwork notwithstanding, I think that this is pretty common perception among students of all ages of what a common scientist looks like. Well, in 2018 that is just not the case. Scientists come in all different shapes and sizes, and do a bunch of different work. The following analysis is based on the article “Breaking Science Stereotypes” by Alec Bozdin and Mike Gehringer, in which a similar activity to the one I participated in was conducted with a group of fourth and fifth graders.

A total of 69 students participated in this activity. One day, a group of researchers went to these students and asked them to complete the same task as me; draw what you think a scientist looks like. The students drawings were then collected and looked at. They were graded by the Draw-A-Scientist-Test-Checklist (DAST-C), which is a rubric that looks at typical science stereotypes and how many of them are in a specific drawing. What the researchers found was that most students drew their scientists just like I did; a white man with a lab coat working indoors at a laboratory. According to the research collected by the group, 77% of students drew a white male as their figure for a scientist. This is unfortunate, but not the fault of the students. Especially at that young age, students probably haven’t been exposed to anything else representing a scientist. That is why this group wanted to really work with these students and see if they could show them that scientists come in all shapes and sizes. Over the next few weeks, the students were visited in their classrooms by a female chemical engineer and a male physicist. The scientists talked with the students a little bit about what they do, and then conducted a science experiment with them. These scientists were brought in because they went against what the students pictured as a scientist based on their drawings. The chemical engineer was a female, and since only about 20% of the class drew a female scientist, this was very important. The students needed to see a female figure as a scientist, especially since there are so many of them in today’s world. Although the physicist was a white male, he came in wearing a suit and tie instead of a lab coat. This was also important because 86% of students drew their scientist wearing a lab coat. Although it may be true that many scientists wear lab coats, scientists can wear many different things and work all over the world. After these scientists visited the class, the students never heard another word about them. Four weeks later, the group returned to the students and had them draw their idea of a scientist once again. They were hoping that the visits with scientists would get the students thinking and seeing that scientists can come in all shapes and sizes. After collecting and analyzing the students drawings the second time around, the group was pleased to see that the students artwork was very different. The amount of students that drew a white male wearing a lab coat decreased by about 20%. This is a big change!

The work that this scientist group conducted was very interesting and eye-opening. Based on data, it seems that this was very effective in transforming student misconceptions as scientists. I think that the fact that the students got to see two completely different scientists for an extended period of time. They got to learn and ask about what each one did, which deepened their understanding of what a scientist can be. I think that it’s especially important for young girls to see that they can grow up to be scientists if they want! Girls don’t always get to see these role models in their lives, so this would probably explain why even most girls drew their scientists as men. I also think that is was cool for the students to get to see different types of scientists. Most students drew their scientists in a lab wearing a coat, so it was good for them to see that scientists can work in a bunch of different types of environments. The fact that both elementary aged students and my peers in my class had the same misconceptions shows that teachers really need to emphasize and show examples to students of a plethora of different types of scientists. Students should know that no matter your race, gender or age, science is for everybody!

Article Used:

Bodzin, A., & Gehringer, M. (2001, January). Breaking Science Stereotypes. Retrieved December 5, 2018.

Why hypothesize?

    We're all taught as kids that a hypothesis is an educated guess. This isn't necessarily wrong, but there's much more to a hypothesis than that. A hypothesis is best defined as a tentative explanation. This means that a hypothesis is what you believe the answer to an inquiry question is before you investigate it. It's vital for students to make hypotheses at the beginning of inquiry lessons because this "tentative explanation" provides the guide for the rest of the lesson. The students will inquire about a topic, and then make their hypothesis to get engaged with the material. The student then spends the rest of the lesson trying to prove or disprove their explanation. The students are more engaged in the rest of the lesson now because they have a personal connection to it; they really want to see whether or not their explanation is correct. Hypotheses also help the teacher see if their instruction was effective or not. If a student makes a hypothesis that is incorrect, then can explain why it was incorrect by the end of the lesson, the teacher clearly did a good job and the lesson was beneficial. Always have students write down their hypotheses in the beginning of the lesson so that by the end you can see how student learning has been affected.

 During class last month, my classmates and I participated in a grab bag activity. My teacher showed the class a closed bag filled with something, but she wouldn't tell us what. She passed it around to each student in the class and gave us each five seconds to do whatever we wanted with the bag to try and guess its contents. The only rule: no opening the bag! Most of my classmates held then shook the bag, but others tried more interesting methods. I saw a few people holding the bag up to their face or nose trying to really see what was inside! By the time everyone had their five seconds with the bag, we all had a hypothesis ready to go about what we thought was inside. Personally, I thought it was some sort of dog toy because it felt like there was a small object in the bag and I heard it squeak. My class and I were able to separate our hypotheses into five categories: dog toys, rattles, rocks, balls, and children's toys. After this, Dr. Smirnova got the attention of the class and started to really break down what exactly a hypothesis is and why it's an important aspect of inquiry learning.

   Inquiry lessons are so crucial to science instruction. Science can be so immersive and engaging for students, and inquiry is one of the most engaging ways for students to learn! So, it only makes sense that a good portion of lessons in a science unit are inquiry-based. Students need to be able to wonder and explore the content, and inquiry is a perfect way to do that. This grab bag activity was very engaging and taught me exactly why inquiry and hypotheses are so crucial in science instruction. I will use an activity like it one day in my own classroom to emphasize the importance of inquiry and hypothesizing in science! (By the way, we never found out what was in the bag 😭)