E-folio complete

This semester has been a journey, I have learned so many different things and have been able to participate in so many activities. I have learned what is is like to be a teacher, teach a lesson, create a lesson and watch my peers learn and grow with me. The final step was creating my e-folio. At first, it was really hard. I had no idea what i was doing and i was stressed beyond belief, as time went on i became more familiar with how everything worked and before i knew it i was going through the tabs one by one completing everything i had to complete. It is very time consuming, you really need to buckle down and complete it day by day or else it would take you forever! but once you have the finished product you will feel so much better. The last night i worked on it i was up until 2 Am when i finally finished. I was relieved that i had completed my very first e-folio and i was proud of my work. This is something i can always look back on one day, it will be helpful when i am a teacher and have my own classroom one day. Having an e-folio will allow me to look back on the work i've done in previous years and give me ideas on what types of lessons and activities i should do with my students. Overall, this semester has taught me a lot. I have learned what it is like to be an educator and how to take constructive criticism to become better, after all this is a learning experience!

Trade Book

          Have you ever made a trade book before? I sure haven't. This was my first experience creating an animoto based off of an educational book and having to try and grab the students attention at the same time. Picking a book that interests students can be very tricky at times. It is important to find a book that will inform the students with information on the topic that they may not already know but also a book that has illustrations that will grab a child's attention and want them to continue reading. While creating my animoto I made sure to ask children questions that they may or may not already know, questions that will get their brains thinking and wanting to engage with others to come up with those answers. It can be very tricky to not give the book away, you need to make sure you ask simple questions that grab their attention and make them want to know more. I chose the book What is the Theory of Plate Tectonics, Written by Craig Saunders. This book was a great book when it came to informing the reader of knowledge based on the theory of plate tectonics, when it occurred, who created the theory of Pangea and much more. I was able to take this book and create a Trade Book  that asks students questions about plate tectonics but didn't give the book away entirely.  I also added pictures from the text to grab the students attention and added music to the animoto. By using this you are able to make reading a book engaging and appealing to students. I think creating a trade book is an excellent way to get students involved, it is a creative way of grabbing children's attention but also asking questions pertaining to the book and their individual knowledge on the topic. I think creating trade books are an awesome technique to use in class and creating them on animoto is fun and easy as well! I really enjoyed creating my trade book and I hope students would find my animoto appealing as well. This book would be a great book to use with students when you are introducing them to what plate tectonics is. It is full of information and could easily be used in a lesson, this book allows students to obtain information on the topic and create questions on their own that they may have about plate tectonics or the theory of pangea. Creating this trade book is an excellent way to get children informed, wondering and excited about this topic. Hope you enjoy!




                                               

An Inquiry Primer (RAR)

I have decided to do my research on an article titled An Inquiry Primer written by Alan Collburn. Throughout this article there was a lot of information provided regarding inquiry and inquiry based instruction. This article stated if inquiry is so important than how come more teachers do not use it in the classroom? There was a study conducted that found those exact reasons. Not all teachers are using inquiry in the classroom due to “Confusion about the meaning of inquiry, the belief that inquiry instruction only works well with high-ability students, teachers feeling inadequately prepared for inquiry-based instruction, inquiry being viewed as difficult to manage, an allegiance to teaching facts and finally the purpose of a course being seen as preparing students for the next level.” All of these reasons above are reasons why not all teachers are using inquiry in the classroom. I think it is important to use inquiry while teaching, not all teachers fully understand the concept on inquiry and that may be why it is not used as frequently as it should be.

There are all different types of inquiry, structured inquiry, guided inquiry, open inquiry and the learning cycle of inquiry. These types of inquiry have their separate definition based off of how they are used within the classroom. Structured inquiry has to do with the teacher providing hands on problems to investigate, along with these hands on problems there are procedures and materials that need to be used, but structural inquiry does not inform the students of the excepted outcome of what will happen. Students are too collect data and be ready for an outcome. When it comes to guided inquiry the teacher is to provide only materials and a problem for the students to investigate. Students are to come up with their own way to solve this procedure and come up with an answer. Lastly there is Open Inquiry this process may seem a lot like guided inquiry but it has its differences, even though students are to formulate their own problem when it comes to open inquiry students are to also do the science.  A good example used in this article for open inquiry is the science fair and science fair activities conducted by the students and then there is a learning cycle that comes along with all of the above.

A question is asked, is inquiry only for bright kids? The answer to that question is no! Inquiry activities can be used to challenge advanced children but it is not only used for advanced children. The researches took their time to examine learning from what is known as a Piagetian Perspective, they were able to come up with two conclusions along the way of researching. One conclusion was that “Inquiry often requires hypothetical/ deductive reasoning, and the second conclusion was “Concrete thinkers have a great deal of difficulty developing an understanding of abstract concepts.” This article states that most middle school children are known to be concrete thinkers so they may have trouble when it comes to using inquiry to explore abstract concepts. There are pros and cons to using inquiry with children at the middle school level. There are ways to effectively teach inquiry-based instruction but there are steps that need to be followed in order to do so. One step that must be used to effectively teach inquiry-based instruction to children is to center activities around questions that students can answer directly through investigation, also as a teacher you want to make sure you only use inquiry when you know that activity is suitable for your students skills and knowledge so they can successfully complete the activity without frustration and confusion.

            There are many things a teacher needs to do in the classroom for the inquiry process to be successful, the teacher needs to know how to support inquiry-based instruction. Often if a teacher is not familiar with inquiry they will not know how to use it with their students in the classroom and avoid the concept entirely. The teacher must ask open ended questions, be patient and give their students time to think and avoid telling your students what to do, give them the time to figure it out by themselves so it becomes a more rewarding feeling for the child.  Overall, when it comes to teaching using inquiry, inquiry is seen to be “equal or superior to other instructional modes and result in higher scores on content achievement tests.” Inquiry is not only used for the advanced students, it should be used for every student. Students will become very successful when using the inquiry process, they will be able to come up with answers and ideas on their own and interact with one another.

            I thought this was a great article! It really informed the reader on what inquiry exactly is and how it works. It allowed individuals to obtain knowledge on inquiry and be given background information on why it is not only for advanced students and can be used in the classroom everyday. I think it is important to use inquiry, throughout teaching our lesson at Sacred Heart we learned how important using inquiry really is. I made my selection on this article because we have spoken about inquiry all semester long and the importance of using it in the classroom. This article has really informed me of all different skills to use while teaching an inquiry based lesson in the classroom and I will use this information I have obtained on inquiry in my classroom one day. I think that it is extremely important that teachers are properly trained and informed on how inquiry based instruction works before shutting it out completely. I think it is a great opportunity for students to use and learn the inquiry process, and I also believe it helps advance to child’s ability of working in the classroom and following direction.  The inquiry process should be used in every classroom! It’s a great method.

 

  

       
                                 

References

1. National Research Council. 1996. National science

education standards. Washington, D.C.: National

Academy Press.

2. Project 2061. 1993. Benchmarks for science literacy.

New York: Oxford University Press.

3. Welch, W.W., L.E. Klopfer, G.E. Aikenhead, et al.

1981. The role of inquiry in science education:

4. Analysis and recommendations. Science Education

65:33–50.

5. Suchman, J.R. 1964. The Illinois studies in inquiry

training. Journal of Research in Science Teaching

2:230–232.

Fieldwork Reflection KA7

Fieldwork came and went in a blink of an eye, but it has defiantly impacted me in so many different ways. When we first began our fieldwork experience it was nerve wrecking, none of us knew what to expect, for a lot of us it was our first time actually teaching a classroom full of sixth grade students a lesson. It took a lot of time, effort and creativity but the overall outcome at the very end left a rewarding feeling.

            When fieldwork first began I was given the opportunity to meet each student in the classroom, to go around the room in our groups and create a getting to know you activity with the students, this gave us a little bit of knowledge on each student in the classroom even before we started working with them and teaching them our lesson. My group was assigned as group number four, the last group to teach our lesson. As the weeks went on I sat back and watched my classmates teach their lessons to the class. I obtained a lot of information during this time and I was also able to see what strategies work well and which can be done a little differently. As I sat back and watched each group present and teach their lesson, I became more and more nervous for my first day of presenting our lesson. You never know what to expect and as teachers you always need have a back up plan just in case what you planned does not work the way you expected it to. When it was finally my time to teach this sixth grade class at Sacred Heart I had no idea what to expect.  When we first began to introduce ourselves to the class I was nervous, but once I began speaking everything seemed to come naturally. 

            As we introduced ourselves and began speaking to the class I was really thankful that I was able to watch my classmates do an amazing job teaching before it was my turn to go. It made me feel a lot more confident knowing that they were there to watch us and give us feedback at the end of our lesson, just like we did for them. I was ready to take on our task of teaching these students all about Plate Tectonics and they all seemed excited and ready to listen and learn.  Our first day of teaching our lesson was focused on  Direct Instruction. I think it is very important to teach the Direct Instruction to the class so that you are able to give the students a significant amount of information that they can drill into their minds before they are ready to go onto an activity based on the information that they have obtained. I worked with my group to come up with a power-point to show the class that consisted of all the information we needed to provide our students will in order to be successful learners on this topic. Along with the power-point the students were given a vocab worksheet to fill in so that they had the proper definitions for each word. Having this worksheet for the students helped us keep the students engaged in our lesson and also let us see who was understanding the material and who needed a little more explanation, that is where our emoji creation came in hand. We were able to see the students hold up a smiley face or a confused face when it came to the work we were teaching them. This allowed each of us to know where our students were at throughout this lesson and what we may need to spend a little more time on explaining.  It is important as teachers to know if your students are following along with the material you are providing them, if not it is our job to assist the student in anyway that we can to help him or her better understand the topic we are learning about. One strategy my group had used throughout teaching our lesson was having the students repeat a word after us, this helped us determine if the student knew how to properly say the word or if they knew when to use the word and what that word was connected with. It was a great way to check understanding on the information we have provided for them. We explained continental drift to the students and provided them with an activity to show them an example of what continental drift really was and what it looked like. Students were given construction paper and were asked to fold in back and fourth and then to place the two continents on the paper and move the paper apart and back together to see how the continents drift away from one another. This was a quick and easy way to show the students a visual on what we were teaching them. Some students often learn better when they are given a hand’s on activity rather than just hearing and reading information off of a power-point slide or a worksheet.  To wrap up the lesson from the first day we asked students to participate in our wonder box that we have created for them. Students were asked to take an index card and write down their wonders about continental drift, pangea or any other wonders or questions they may have had based off of the information that was taught during our first lesson. This provided us with information on what we needed to clarify for the students and we would use these questions for our next lesson. I believe as teachers it is very important to know what material your students are understanding and what material you may need to spend a little more time on.

            After teaching a Direct lesson our next task was to teach and Inquiry based lesson. This lesson was based off of questions, coming up with solutions or ideas, creating a hypothesis and proving it rather then just being given direct instruction and direct information. I believe that the majority of students much rather an Inquiry based lesson where they can come up with a hypothesis, try to prove it and work on hands on activities rather than recording information onto a worksheet.  While participating in an inquiry based lesson students are able to work on the 5 E’s, engage, explore, explain, elaborate and evaluate. As a teacher it is important to make sure that you create a lesson that allows students work on the 5 E’s. I believe that it really gets each child thinking, wondering and involved. They want to come up with an overall answer or finish the experiment they are given. Before you can begin your inquiry lesson it is important to review what you learned from your first lesson and to go over the information briefly with the students again before moving on. Refresh their memories. Our inquiry lesson included four stations with a mission that needed to be solved. The students were given a certain amount of time at each station before switching to the next. The four stations consisted of a station that had to do with fossils and where they would be located if pangea occurred, a station based on earthquakes, a station based on boundaries and a station based on convection currents. Having stations allows the students to work with one another and move form station to station to come up with clues that lead them to a final answer. It is a good way to have the students engaged in the work and participating with one another to solve information and clues. I loved seeing the children work together.

            Throughout my experience I have learned a lot. I learned what it is like to manage your time and to always have a back up plan. I learned the importance of technology in the classroom but not to always depend on it and have a back up plan just in case something goes wrong. I learned what it is like to work with other individuals and be mindful of their suggestions and I learned what it is like to stand up in front of a classroom full of unfamiliar faces and watch them learn and grow over time. Being a teacher must be an extremely rewarding feeling at the end of each school year and I cannot wait to have that feeling one day when I have a classroom of my own.  I am forever grateful for this experience I’ve been given. Not only was I able to teach a classroom full of students I was also able to learn and grow myself when it came to the feedback my classmates had given me based off of our lesson. I think it is really important to make suggestions for one another and to give constructive criticism, it helps each and every single one of us learn and grow, in the long wrong it will help us develop into the teachers that we will one day become. This was a wonderful experience.