Hi, my name is Melissa. I am an elementary education and iSTEM major with a specialization in Mathematics. I transferred from Brookdale Community College with my associates degree. I have been in two third grade classrooms and a kindergarten class throughout my schooling so far. I am in my junior year of college. I continue my studies in hopes to get my bachelors in Elementary Education and iSTEM. One day, I hope to teach my own 3rd grade class.
Practicum Lesson Summary and Reflection The science lesson Ms. E and I taught in Mrs. Kaminski’s class was about hurricanes. For the start of the lesson, we created a KWL chart with the students and had them write on two different sticky notes. On one sticky was something they knew about hurricanes, the other was what the want to know about hurricanes. Then we talked about hurricane sandy and showed them pictures. After we had them copy down some vocabulary words. I wish we had thought out more about the vocabulary and maybe had them printed already and they had to glue them together to make the cards. The students took a while to write down the vocabulary. For the engage part of our lesson, they watched a video about hurricanes. Explore consisted of the student splitting into two groups. Each group had either Ms. E or I with them. We both had a bowl filled with water and poppy seeds in, a spoon, and a paperclip on a string. Students surrounded us as we demonstrated the activity. Turning the water in a counterclockwise motion created our mini hurricane. We took the paperclip and dangled it in the water to show the motion in the water. If you place it in the center, there is no movement because that is where the eye of the hurricane is. Before we dangled the paperclip in the water we had the students record what they thought would happen if it dangled on the left side, the right side, and the center. As we demonstrated, students had to record in their notebooks what happened when the paperclip dangled in each of the spots. The group that I had for the demonstration was more difficult than I thought they would be. My group consisted of two students with learning disabilities, one student with a behavior issue, another student that gets distracted easily, and then two other students that had no issues. I had to make sure to not go too fast, so the students with learning disabilities didn’t miss it. They were having a hard time; they didn’t know what to write. I was trying to help them but also keep the rest of the group on track. The other group finished before us, but we did eventually complete the chart. For explain, we talked about the weather conditions that need to be met in order for a hurricane to form. We also talked about the difference between a tropical depression, tropical storm, and hurricane. We also went over the eye of the storm again. Then for elaborate, the students watched a video of a plane flying through a hurricane to get to the eye of the storm. For evaluate, the students were given two worksheets to complete with their group. Overall, the students enjoyed the lesson and so did Mrs. Kaminski. The lesson went well, I am glad I got a challenging group. It helped me grow as a future teacher.
Summary of discrepant event lesson: The lesson started off with students in groups went through a bin of objects and they had to sort through putting them into what they think is magnetic and what they don't think is magnetic. Then, students moved into stations. There were four different stations. The first station students explored magnets by putting disk magnets on a pencil and seeing what happens when they put a new magnet on. At the second station there were two magnets on strings hanging off the desk and two magnets on the desk for students to point at the magnet hanging. They were to record what happened when they pointed the magnet at the other magnet and try to figure out why. The third station, students were given magnets to explore what is magnetic and not magnetic throughout the first floor of the building. They had to find five objects record the object and whether or not it was magnetic. The last station, student had to set up two cups with a ruler over the two cups. On top of the ruler was a magnet. Under the rule hangs a paperclip. The goal is to see how many s-shapes can be held by the magnet on the paperclip. Students slowly added s-shapes to see how many they could get. Once students reached a max and couldn't put more on they added a magnet. Then tried to add more s-shapes. After stations we watched a Bill-Nye video about magnets. Next, students in three groups were given a real world problem to solve using a magnet. Students got an exit ticket that was a postcard that they wrote to someone telling them what they learned in class.
Reflection on discrepant event lesson: To prepare this magnet lesson we used the 5E’s. The 5E learning cycle was designed to gain students interest on a topic by interacting and then explaining why these interactions occurred. The 5E’s allow for students to develop their own ideas of why something happens. Using the 5E’s as the basis of our lesson, we thought of an idea for each E. From these thoughts we developed activities for each E, to keep the students engaged the whole time. Our lesson included some of the NGSS standards. We focused on 3-PS2-3 and 3-PS2-4, which focused on magnets and their interactions with each other and other objects. As well as, how magnets can be used to solve real-world problems. The lesson had recurring use of cause and effect throughout the lesson when thinking about why magnets repel and attract. Also, our lesson included how an amount of magnets affected the amount of force. Students also made observations and measurements to see how more magnets affect the strength of the magnetic force. During this lesson, I believe I had a few strengths and a few weaknesses. First, for one of my strengths, I felt as if I understood the topic very well, and was able to explain the content. When asked questions in groups I was able to answer the question asked by a student. Next, I believe that I asked questions to promote thinking in small groups. By questioning the students I could tell whether or not a student was grasping the content. Then for my weaknesses, I feel I should have asked more questions than I did. Asking questions during a lesson and activity is very important. If the student doesn’t get asked any questions they may not understand why they are doing the activity. At the end of the lesson, we gave each student a postcard to write on and tell someone about what they learned today. This exit activity was a great way for I, the teacher, to know if the students grasped what they learned. The students after learning about magnets should be able to use the terms associated with the lesson when explaining what they learned.
Lessons learned from practicum and class During the course of this semester I have learned a few things. In our class I learned how to incorporate literature into science as well as, create hands on activities for different lessons. I got a lot of practice with coming up with activities for my discrepant event lesson. So when it came time to create a lesson for the third grade class I wasn't so worried about it. I didn't go into the lesson having no clue what I was doing. We learned about the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) that teachers in school now have to learn. I think that will be great for us students when we go looking for jobs, we will already know what those standards are. Through practicum, I learned that schools really don't allow a lot of time for science which is very sad. Science is still just as important as all the other subjects.