Science Education Speakers Bureau

When I chose my topic I mentioned one of my objectives was to bring science professionals into the classroom to talk about their life experiences, and hopefully spark an interest in the minds of the students. I came across this organization, located in southern California.

http://www.biocom.org/workforce_development/science_education_speakers_bureau/

This doesn't do us any good here in Wisconsin, but this is EXACTLY the type of organization I'm looking for. I have to believe there are similar organizations here in Wisconsin. BIOCOM is the largest regional life science association in the world. They describe their mission statement as:

"To position the Southern California life sciences community to achieve individual and collective success on the world stage of scientific and technological innovation, and in the development of products that improve global health and quality of life".

One of the services they provide is the Science Education Speakers Bureau. This program matches industry professionals from academia, research, and business with K-12 classrooms. Theses volunteers speak to the students and provides science role models to students and teachers. This type of interaction between science professionals and students helps kids see the connection between the topics they cover, and future careers. For some students, this type of experience may be the tipping point in convincing them to pursue a career in a science field. The lectures are web archived, and lab supplies and learning kits are shipped to the class prior to the speaking engagement.

I hope to find a similar program here in Wisconsin.

Outstanding Science Tradebooks 2010

I'm continuing my research on supplementary materials to use in our Science classrooms.  My goal is to find resources that take students beyond the textbook into the real world, providing the opportunity for inquiry and discovery.  In my last blog I posted two websites that I found to be a good jumping off point for my research.  They offered short Science articles for kids to read, videos, and photos to enhance any Science unit plan.  You can click here and here to browse through them if you didn't get a chance last post.

My focus this week shifts from websites to children's literature.  I've been in a lot of schools around the Des Moines area and one thing I've noticed is that Science is not regularly scheduled.  It may be once or twice or week or maybe even every other week, sometimes not at all.  This should not stand in your way of exposing students to Science!  Children's literature is a wonderful gateway to keep Science in your classroom.  There is an abundant amount of research explaining how non-fiction and fiction trade books increase content vocabulary, motivation, and comprehension.   I found one article published in the The Reading Teacher written by Danny Brassell titled Inspiring Young Scientist with Great Books.  (Find it in the December 2006/January 2007 issue, Vol. 60, No. 4.  It's a PDF otherwise I would provide a link).  It focused on the success a 3rd grade teacher had from using Science trade books for read alouds throughout the day.  She saw an increase in motivation, curiosity, and vocabulary specifically regarding Science. 

Using children's literature to incorporate other content areas such as Science and Social Studies is not a new concept in the teaching world, but finding excellent books to use can be overwhelming, difficult and time consuming.  Luckily, I found a wonderful resource that will not only save you time, but bring Science into your classroom.   NSTA.org (National Science Teachers Association's website) offers a lot of great things for teaching Science, so I suggest spending sometime browsing.  For the past 37 years they have sustained a partnership with the CBC (Children's Book Council) to produce a list for Outstanding Science Trade Books for students K-12.  This is no regular book list.  For the first year NSTA and the CBC have arranged the books according to the National Science Education Standard they most fully support.  A full summary, suggested grade level and links for supplementary material that can extend and support learning is also provided.

Go to the list, check out the books and report back to me!  Are there any in particular you liked or didn't like?   

Motivation and engagement entertwined

I recently have blogged about student engagement and tips to improve engagement, but I find that motivation can be placed within that spectrum because if students are not motivated they won't be engaged and they won't learn what it is we are trying to teach them! There are various reasons as to why students are not motivated, sometimes they are reasons that we teachers can do something about!

I enjoyed this site because it has different issues that teachers can look at through the navigational menu on the left of the page. The only concern was that it was a website that you could only get so much information from and then you would need to find books they sourced/cited to continue finding out more on whatever topic you picked. But the site did give me some good ideas to investigate. For example:

• Providing choices for students (give them autonomy)
  
• Make it real for them (relevant to their every day life)
  
• Balance the challenges students have in the classroom (slightly above their ability level)
  
• Establish a sense of community and belonging (connections and relationships)
  

http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/affective/motivation.html

Teaching to the Test...

For this week, I chose to look at the science section of the WKCE testing. I chose to focus on the 4th grade level because that falls in the primary elementary ed level. Although I hate to bring up high-stakes testing, it is out there and we are going to have to work with it when we do have our own classroom. So to better prepare students for the test, I chose to look over some of the areas covered to see what content needs to be addressed.

As far as assessment, there are 8 main areas:

1. physical science
2. science inquiry
3. nature of science
4. science connections
5. life and environmental science
6. earth and space science
7. science in social and personal perspectives
8. science applications

According to this website, which is directly related to WI DPI, teachers should consistently be teaching the appropriate curriculum if they are following WI DPI standards, which in return relates directly to the WKCE testing. However, not everything goes as planned- especially in a younger classroom. Although the lesson plan calls for 25 minutes of instruction, sometimes the students have questions or are very intrigued by the lesson. If this is the case, then why not spend more time with this unit/topic and skip a lesson down the road? It just makes sense to cater lessons to the students' interests.

This website also had a great chart with all of the state science standards that are addressed in the WKCE test. Pages 12-20 focus on 4th grade standards. These are very helpful to refer to; I know it's difficult because we have state, district, and school standards to abide by. However, these standards SHOULD tie into one another to make it a bit easier for us.

Although I touched upon testing information, this is only a part of the test-taking. Students need to be comfortable with test-taking as well. This includes: practicing test-taking strategies, being familiar with vocabulary (a clock's second hand vs. the big hand), test-taking procedures, etc. Sometimes teachers overlook this, but these skills actually need to be taught. We want students to be as comfortable as possible- putting pressure on them only makes them nervous. I wouldn't even call it a "test".

So how can we prepare students for the WKCE testing? Here are some tips that I found to better prepare students and families:

• Inform parents of the testing so they are aware and can help their child review
• Don't assign homework for that week
• Try to spend time assessing students (individually) a few weeks prior to the test to see what areas need more time spent on them
• Have students practice taking tests - filling in bubbles, staying quiet, reading carefully, using scrap paper is needed, using the proper utensils (#2 pencil, calculater?)
• Provide a breakfast for students- some don't eat breakfast, some families cannot afford breakfast, some don't have time in the morning...
• Don't put pressure on the kids
• Review often- incorporate fun and exciting games to help students remember information
• Work and build on testing info all year! Don't try to cram the information in 2 weeks before the test
• Explain the testing (briefly) to the students and try to create a routine for testing days so the day seems more normal
• Make sure the testing area is conducive to the students- little to no noise, in the classroom or somewhere they are familiar with, appropriate seating arrangement, etc.
• Make sure the students that need accomodations receive them

http://dpi.wi.gov/oea/pdf/scifrmwrk.pdf

http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/collection.jsp?id=42

The Wonders of Physics - The Traveling Show

I continue to find great information about bringing speakers and professional scientists into the classroom. The Wonders of Physics Traveling Show is a great opportunity for schools to showcase the exciting world of physics. This organization is associated with UW Madison, and travels throughout the area doing shows. This is a non-profit, grant-funded program, and for a small fee (suggested donation of $200) they do a 45-60 minute presentation for groups up to 300 students. Audience participation is encouraged.

This is exactly what I had in mind when I wrote about getting young students interested in science. They need to see the fun side of science and the material should be current and relevant.

Check out the website for a full description of the program.

http://uw.physics.wisc.edu/~wonders/

Watch the video below to learn a little more about the show.

Differentiate

As I continue my research on the question, "How do we build our confidence as teachers?", I discover many helpful tools that aid us to become more confident in our teaching abilities. In order to be confident in ourselves, we must be able to meet the needs of each and every learner in our classroom. Having the belief in ourselves that we have the capability to help every student in our class succeed, will allow us to build up our confidence in a positive way. We can do this by developing an effective way to differentiate the content, process, product and learning environment in which students perform the best in. 
Content- what the student learns or how will the student get access to the information
Process- activities in which students are engaged in, in order to make sense of or master the content
Product- culminating projects that ask the student to rehearse, apply, and extend what he or she has learned in a unit
Learning Environment- the way the classroom works and feels
These are the four main components that must be differentiated to create success for all types of learners in your classroom. 


Importance of Differentiated Instruction

Differentiated Instruction is teaching with the child in mind rather than adopting a standardized approach to teaching and learning that seems to presume that all students of a given age are at the exact same place academically. Direct Instruction is responsive teaching. Differentiated Instruction gives students a range of ways to access curriculum, instruction and assessment. It engages students to interact and participate in the classroom in a richer way. It is based on the assumption that all students differ in their learning styles, strengths, needs and abilities and that classroom activities should be adapted to meet these differences.


So now the question is.... How do we as teachers effectively differentiate the content, process, product, and learning environment in our classroom? 
I began my research on google and found several helpful sites that can lead teachers in the right direction when they begin to differentiate. 


I came across a pdf file which talks about important strategies of differentiation and their success rates. There are numerous examples and ideas of how to change up the content, process, product and learning environment. 
Click here to view the the pdf file.


Another site that I enjoyed, listed articles on differentiated instruction. I think it is important to read about other people's success's and failures with differentiated instruction. You can build off of people's ideas and avoid making mistakes others previously have made. 
Click here to view this site.


Overall, I think there are so many helpful websites! Along with there being plenty of beneficial websites, there also are several books that address how to differentiate instruction. An example of a very resourceful book is Differentiated Instructional Strategies: One size doesn't fit all by Gayle H. Gregory and Carolyn M. Chapman. This book has over 50 planning models, matrixes, rubrics, checklists, and questionnaires in order to help teachers make the right decisions about instruction and assessment on an individual basis. 

Embracing technology in the classroom

The digital age is upon us and students are becoming extremely immersed in technology. It’s becoming a way of life for the youth of America. Therefore, classrooms cannot be a trip back to the Stone Age for students. The time is now for us future teachers to fight fire with fire! Or in other words, we have to embrace and effectively utilize technology to teach and connect with the students.

In the October edition of the NSTA’s “The Science Teacher” magazine, an article written by Stephanie McCormack and Donna L. Ross highlight their approach to integrating technology with a lesson on bacterial transformation. In this article the authors explain that their traditional lecture, lab, and lab reports were transformed to animations, videos, podcasts, and how-to videos. McCormack and Ross conclude that this project “created a positive learning experience for students.” Not only did their students have fun, but they learned! They also point out that the decision to incorporate technology is easy because the noticed firsthand the differences in motivation and understanding of the students.

Michael Romano gives some great tips for teaching in the digital age. His reflection is also in the October edition of the NSTA’s “The Science Teacher” magazine in a column called “The New Teacher’s Toolbox.” One of the pieces of advice he shares deals with a cautionary tidbit regarding Facebook, the online social networking website. He suggests never adding students to your friends list until after they graduate and also emphasizes the “SPP rule” for your page’s content. The SPP rule is asking yourself if you are comfortable with any picture or wall post being seen by your student (S), student’s parent (P), and the principal (P). The other tips Romano publishes are for us future teachers to get creative with projects by incorporating the students’ skills of technology into a lesson and also suggestive of creating a teacher webpage for communication and compiling resources.

The below links are some providers for creating a teacher website >>
http://www.teacherweb.com/%20
http://www.classnotesonline.com/
http://www.schoolrack.com/


My next couple of posts will be reviews of the types of technology we can use for hands-on learning in the classroom. I will break it down into two posts, the first being hardware devices, and the other software applications!