Our Time Is Up

So our time has come to an end with our science after-school program and it's time to celebrate the students and our accomplishments.  In the after-school program the students learned about about physical science, life science, earth science, and the scientific method.  The students of our program were amazing to work with.  They were engaging and respectful through the whole process.  For our celebration our cooperating teacher had a great surprise for all the students.  She made liquid nitrogen ice cream.  This process is pretty simple but, needs to have safety in mind.  She added half-and-half into a metal pot and a graduate student held the pot with pot holders.  As the teacher poured the liquid nitrogen into the pot the graduate student stirred the half-and-half.  We made a bit of a mess, but after, a while the half-and-half turned into ice cream.  Everyone found this process to be very cool and it was a great way to end our time together. 

To Inquiry About The Inquriy Process

Inquiry Instruction Lesson:
The inquiry lesson plan focused the execution of the scientific method.  First, we reviewed the scientific method with the students.  Then, Michael and I modeled the process that the students were going to use in their experiment.  We then showed the students a prezi on magnets which would aid their understanding of the topic for the experiment.  The students then conducted an experiment using the scientific method on the topic of magnets and liquid.  During the experiment students were to fill out a graphic organizer following the scientific method.  At the end of the lesson we had all the groups communicate their results to finish out the scientific method.

 
Reflection
As we worked through the direct lesson I could feel the students excitement of the topic.  This lesson was to allowed students to explore the scientific method.  This lesson workout very well and the students were engaged in the experiment and the scientific process.  The one thing I should have changed the plan for presenting.  We only had 5 students in our class that day and we had the time.  I should have allowed all the students to present on their own.  This would have allowed everyone to see how each person can get different results.  We also ran out of time and did not get to give the students their post-assessment sheet.  I did not think I would enjoy teaching Science but, I had a very good time teaching this topic.

To Begin With The Direct Way

Direct Instruction Lesson:
The direct lesson plan focused on the scientific method.  We started with a pre-assessment sheet for the students to fill out.  We then taught the steps of the scientific method and the concept for each step.  Students learned what a scientist do and how they use the scientific method.  We used two smartboard activities for our guide practice. At the end of the lesson we gave the students a exit ticket to assess how much of the information they retained from the lesson.  

Reflection
This time around we were the last group to go.  Michael and I had worked together in our social studies class and we work very well together.  In these session I felt less scared and less intimidated.  The direct lesson flowed very well and Michael and I feed off each other very well.  This was also a great learning experience.  In our direct lesson we need to work on using more check for understanding throughout the lesson.  We should have put in more stop and think questions after every couple of slides.  This would have enforced the concepts even more.  Other things I found I need to work on is my use of academic language which was better in this lesson, but, I still caught myself saying "you guys". I had a good time teaching this topic and the students were engaged through the lesson. 

Here We Go Again

So Mike and I got to teach together for a second time this semester.  This time around it did not feel as much as a whirlwind.  Within an hour and a half time period we taught two different lessons to a great group of students.  The hour and a half was broken into two parts: direct and inquiry lesson.  Within those parts we explored the scientific method.  This time around we were the last group to present and I felt like we had a much better grasp of what we were doing this time.

Overall we did a good jog of being prepared with our materials, staying on topic, and keeping students focused.  But, no matter how prepared you something can always go wrong and it did.  While setting up for our lessons, I got to the classroom first and went to hook up my laptop to the smartboard just to find out it was not compatible with the smartboard equipment.  When Mike got to the classroom he loaded his laptop and we had everything we needed except our smartboard activities.  I spent a couple of minutes to reconstruct our activities and we were on our way.  This taught me that you should always be prepared, but, you also need to be able to roll with what ever comes your way.  Some of the things that went well in the lesson today were our time management between the two lessons.  The lessons also flowed into each other and kept the students engaged.  The students also like coming to the smartboard to do our guided practice activities.  The lesson was not perfect, but it was definitely better then our first time teaching.  In the direct lesson we could have had more stop and think questions after every couple of slides.  This would have enforced the concepts even more.  In the inquiry lesson we could have allowed each student present their results instead of as a group.  There were only 5 students in the class that day and we had time for them to all present.  We also ran out of time and were not able to give the students their post-assessment sheet. 

 
Direct Instruction Lesson:
The direct lesson plan focused on the scientific method. We taught the steps of the scientific method and the concept for each step.  Students repeated the step and concept after each slide. 


Inquiry Instruction Lesson:
The inquiry lesson plan focused the execution of the scientific method.  Students conducted an experiment using the scientific method.

Third Times The Charm

What a great way to learn about rocks.  The third group presented Earth Science.  This group focused on three types of rocks: Igneous, Sedimentary, and Metamorphic rocks.  They opened the lesson with a pre-assessment fill in the blank. They handed out a graphic organizer to help the student follow the slides.  Some of the students had trouble with this graphic organizer.  They then taught the class the three different types of rocks. Explaining their characteristics, where they can be found, and different examples of each.  They then showed a great video on the three types of rocks.  The students really like this video.  When the video was over they then reviewed the graphic organizer as a class. As a guided practice the group used a interactive smartboard game called Rocks or Soils which the class engaged with well.
In the inquiry lesson the students became geologist.  As geologist they were to test rocks to classify them.  The group did a great job modeling the process the students were going to use.  The students were asked to test the rocks using a table for qualities: Shape, Color, Streak, Luster, Hardness, and Grain Size.  By the qualities each rock had the students classified the rocks by igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic.  The students were engaged in the task of being a geologist and testing rocks.       

It's Time for Round Two

The second group presented Life Science.  This group focused on classifying different things.  They had a great opening activity were they group the people in the room into two different groups, then they broke those groups into more groups.  First, it was by college students and elementary students.  Then, within those groups we separated into groups with buttons on their shirts and without.  Last, those new groups were separated into people who can roll their tongues and people who can't.  So we started out with 2 groups and ended with 8 groups.  The groups started with teaching variations, species, traits and classify to the students.  They then taught the students about dichotomous key.  They had the students repeat that word through out the lesson which was a great way for them to remember the word. They used a great video on the dichotomous key.  Then, they reviewed the vocabulary words that were used through out the lesson.  The guided practice was based on how to use a dichotomous key using leaves.  The group called students to the board to help them classify the leaves.
The inquiry lesson was on using the dichotomous key.  The students were given a bag of jelly beans that had both good tasting beans and bad tasting beans.  The idea came for the Harry Potter and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.  The students had to use a dichotomous key to classify the jelly beans without tasting or smelling the beans.  They students were very engaged in this activity.  They took the dichotomous key very seriously because no one wanted to eat a vomit flavored jelly bean.  This group did a great job at keeping the students engaged and focused on the subject at hand.