Learning The Ropes

Today we met with Tiffany Davis the librarian for the Mount's Curriculum Materials Center.  The librarian spoke to us about all the resources that the curriculum library has for us to use.  Within the library they have both fiction and non-fiction books for juvenile(K-5) and young readers (6-12).  The library also has manipulative sets for varies activities and both student and teacher additions of text books.  She also discussed with us two databases to use when researching  articles, Education Research Complete (Ebsco) and ERIC (Ebsco). This was my first time in the curriculum library and having someone to explain the functions and tools of the library was a great feeling.  Know I do not feel as lost when it comes to finding materials.

Link to the Mount Saint Mary College Curriculum Materials Center

After meeting with the librarian we moved to to a meeting with our cooperating science teacher.  She stated that we would have around twelve students from the 3rd and 4th grades.  She then used a term I had not heard before called "Hand & Mind".  When the hands are exploring the mind is working.  By engaging students in exploratory learning they internalize the knowledge with a deeper understanding.  She asked us to make our lessons not "Paper & Pencil" but "Hand & Mind".  To get the students engaged with the activity and see what the discover about the world around them.
She then asked us to do a science fair project.  She wants us to put ourselves back in 7th grade.  When you do this you then experience the process just as your students will.  We will follow the same criteria and rubrics that her classes will follow.  We will follow the scientific method to conduct an experiment.  Our experiments will be displayed with the rest of the students on February 19.