BB&W

I would say she needs two wires. My explanation of this is that each wire will connect to the light bulb on one end for each wire. The other end of each wire will touch the battery. One end from one wire will touch the positive end of the battery and one end of the other wire will touch the negative end of the battery.

Pink Sheet Strengths Pink Sheet Weaknesses

More student oriented Doesn't provide guidance is student is stuck

Encourages multiple ways to arrive at answer Doesn't provide explanation

Students arrive at answers themselves Students may not understand why it works

Students can form their own explanations

Yellow Sheet Strengths Yellow Sheet Weaknesses

Gives easy to follow instruction Very teacher oriented

Gives visual representations Doesn't explain why/how circuit is completed

Easy steps to see where you went wrong if doesn't light Does not allow students to try other ways

Students may not understand what to record

NSES Content Standard B: Light, Heat, Electricity and Magnetism

Benchmark: Electrical circuits require a complete loop through which an electrical current can pass.

Learning Goals: Students should know how to complete a circuit by using a power source and something to connect the power source to complete a circuit (ex. lighting a light bulb with a battery and wire)

Learning Performances: Students can complete a circuit with a single battery, bulb, and wire.

Students can complete a circuit with a single battery, more than one bulb and more than one wire.

Magnets

1. What are some "real life" applications of magnetism?

A paper clip holder. A farm magnet for animals. I feel like space is a good example of magnets. Maybe this is far fetched but atmospheres pull things into them. The refrigerator is made for magnets of course. Magnetized tips for screw drivers.

2. What experiences have you had with magnets in your life?

I have had experiences with magnets being swallowed by cows to get metal out of their stomachs. I grew up on a farm and these were very prevalent. They are also extremely powerful so I would use these same magnets (clean of course) and would stick them to things all around the house. We used to have an old OLD Mac computer with the disks they had before they created floppy disks and I would stick magnets to that and just ruin it. My mother wasn't too happy if you can imagine.

3. What ideas do you have about the science of magnets.

I feel it has some very basic principles and some not so basic principles. Sadly I don't really know either. I think there are ions that are attracted to each other. So there are ions in the magnet itself and ions in the metal they are attracted to. This sounds good but probably isn't right. There is positive and negative attraction also know as attract and repel.

What I learned post-experiment:

Size does not decide the strength of the magnet. What is in the magnet decides the strength. It doesn't matter what is in between the magnet and iron as long as the iron is in within the magnetic field. Only iron can break the magnetic field. Magnetized=electrons are aligned to retain its attraction. Metal things do not stick to magnets. Iron and few other metals stick to magnets.

Content Standard B

Light, Heat, Electricity and Magnetism

Benchmark: Magnets attract and repel each other and certain kinds of other materials.

Learning Goals: Students will be able to distinguish poles of magnets.

Students will be able to understand that North and South are attracted and like poles repel each other.

Learning Performances: Students have different shapes of magnets and will determine which poles are which by how they attract or repel each other.

(bar magnets, cow magnets, fridge magnets, what pole is attracted to iron, etc.)

Students will record their data and explain.

Future lesson would be explaining charges and why poles attract and how magnetic fields affect magnets and their strength.

Research

I learned about poles of magnets and that many things can be made into magnets. They use North and South poles and the North poles are attracted to the South poles. So opposites attract you could say. But I learned that South poles repel other South poles and it's the same with the North poles repelling other North poles. I found that interesting. I used the website http://www.howmagnetswork.com/ to learn this. It is full of great information including the Earth as a magnet and rare Earth magnets along with uses for magnets and electromagnetism. I found this very helpful. I guess a big thing I would like to know is more about the main part of magnetic fields. It talks about electrons be charged and causing motion for a magnetic field and that all sounds extremely confusing. So as a future teacher if I were to use the paper clip as their own magnets trick I feel I would want a succinct way of explaining how that happens. I still don't really understand that. I also would want more information on iron. When we did our experiment was the iron breaking the path of the paper clip because it was a bigger piece of iron? So my question is if i would put the same size paper clip through the path would it break it or attract them both or how would that work?

Activitymania

Sounds like my elementary experience. Kind of. In fact my elementary science experience was almost all out of the book. Not fun and not interesting. The worst part about activity boxes or things of that nature is that it seems like they are good. The article is right, they are just and extension of the direct instruction textbook. I hated things like this. I would sit in class and not know why I was doing the next thing. Well the sheet tells me to so I'll just do it to get it over with was my thinking in this. Or I would sit there and think, the last part wasn't even that interesting why am I continuing with this. I'm not learning anything of why it happens I just know that it happens.

This is a perfect example of why inquiry based learning is so important. Kids need to see it for themselves. Kids shouldn't have to think the things I thought when I was going through a pointless activity. There should be no pointless activities and they shouldn't be disjointed from each other. There should be some form of relate-ability with all of the inquiry we do. If you don't know why you're learning it then it isn't fun. I had a thought that when a student teacher walks into my classroom in the future or a substitute is subbing for me when it comes to class time they are going to see interest right off the bat. They might not even understand nearly as much as the kids because the kids will be the one getting down and dirty and learning things through their own exploration. It's a pretty awesome thing to think about. Kind of hard to keep a smile off my face.

INSES Chapter 1 and 2

I liked this article a lot. It showed a lot how the science standards go in line with inquiry based teaching. Personally I like the inquiry based teaching came from a lot of trial and error in the beginning. It was discovered and I like that a lot. Really in the first chapter with the trees example I think that was the best decision that teacher could have made when she decided to roll with it instead of wait until the unit on plants. That's what they call a teachable moment and she seized the day on that one. When kids have the chance to be hands on you have to do that in my opinion. Inquiry based teaching sounds easy but that's not what it is at all. The teacher has to make a lot of effort and help drive the kids in the direction but that really is all the teacher needs to do (besides get background information on the subject so that the students can be driven in the right direction). The students are the ones finding the data and it will be so much more memorable for them if they are getting in there experiencing the work themselves. Finally, I really liked the "engaging from scientific oriented questions." Kids are creating hypotheses and predictions and they are following up on their own predictions from the data they have explored and corrected. As a teacher I get to set it up and oversee (kidwatch) but that's the most important part of my function. Oh, and enjoying them learning!

Challenge Me

When I think about what I've learned so far it just makes me think of how much responsibility teachers have. I like the idea of having responsibility and using the knowledge that I'm gaining from college to teach kids but at the same time that responsibility that the school system will soon bestow on me is filled with red tape and gray area with no one good way to do things. Looking at the standards Tuesday seemed like a lot of things you have to accomplish with a system that is open for so much interpretation. Standard A when it was talking about setting short term and year long goals made sense. In the next paragraph (in the description) it says that teachers must also remain flexible and be able to make time for assessment and kids' questions to not gloss over it all. When I said this aloud to the class the first thing Ted said was, "Just toss the whole damn thing out. If not take 40% of it out and really spend time engaging the kids on the 60% you have left. Don't gloss over it all because then they haven't learned anything in the first place."

That spoke to me because I really feel that teaching isn't about the content. It's about progressing the learner to where, at the end of the day, I know I did a good job. When I hear all of these standards though I am bracing myself for a lot of stress in the few years. Patience and doing the best I can will get me through though.

I think where I'm at in this class is probably the most excited I've been for science than I have been for any other science class I've had. It's starting to take hold that now I can be the outlet in which kids learn and teach things my way (hopefully) instead of being taught content in a boring mundane way. That's the exciting part and I feel excited about it!

Iowa Core Curriculum

Grade 3

Earth/space Sciences

Content Standard 3: Students can understand concepts and relationships in Earth/space sciences.
	Benchmark : Students can understand ideas about Earth's composition and structure.
		Grade Level Indicator : Describe and understand Earth's composition and structure
	Benchmark : Students can understand changes in and around Earth.
		Grade Level Indicator : Identify and explain changes in and around Earth
	Benchmark : Students can understand concepts relating to the universe.
		Grade Level Indicator : Understand concepts and relationships of the universe

The previous benchmarks are pasted in from the Iowa Core Curriculum website. This reminded me of the Private Universe video that I have seen twice now. First of all I find these standards very vague. This can be positive and negative. I like it because I can interpret them how I want to and be able to teach kids about Earth and space in a way that I see best (assuming I'm not told to follow a textbook to a T). I am surprised at how (based on the video) young the grade level is to be learning about seasons and phases of the moon, which I assume it's touching on when it says "identify and explain changes in and around the Earth."

So the question I'm supposed to answer is how would I make my instruction effective in my classroom if I have to teach the ICC on Earth and space sciences. To me I feel my students should know how the moon and sun rotate around the Earth. How this effects the seasons and lunar phases, and how a lunar eclipse works. Also I would like them to have a general idea of the planets in our solar system and their properties. For my students to learn this effectively it makes sense to me that they have visual representations of how our solar system works. That is the best part about our solar system is that each planet is so unique in look and how it goes around the sun and rotates and moons that there is so many objects you can use to make visual representations and incorporate them into a lesson. These can range from the contraption used in the video with the sun, moon, and earth that you pull a handle and the chain makes all of them rotate simultaneously--to a bunch of different shaped playground balls and a lamp. I would hope that with the proper amount of time spent on this that these visual representations would give kids a great idea of how it all works and that they would pass the benchmarks for 3rd grade Earth/space sciences.

Mosart Tests

Colby Wegter

Mosart Test

I like the effectiveness of the Mosart tests and how it can benefit both my students and me as a teacher. By having the multiple-choice tests it makes it simple and cuts out the gray area. Students may be thinking something closely related to a misconception and if they put down one of those misconceptions as an answer then you know what the student’s thinking could be. It keeps it quick and organized that way. I like that as a teacher I can focus on who put what and then be able to explore new possibilities for the kids that hopefully through this exploration they find the currently accepted answers on their own.

I also like that the tests aren’t just for a certain type of child. The tests would be good for any classroom because those who get it will still be challenged and those who don’t get it as well will easily show you that when you see their answers. No one is wasting his or her time and no one is getting left behind. I think that balance is what a teacher is looking for.

Teaching for Conceptual Change: Confronting Children’s Experience

Colby Wegter

Teaching for Conceptual Change: Confronting Children’s Experience

Once again the question lingers: How do you teach science? Do you follow the book and teach a lot of facts with little depth or do you teach fewer things and really focus on them, go in deep and let the students decide for themselves, based on their discoveries, what is and what isn’t?

I really believe that students need to experiment and manipulate things. They need to do things, not be told what is. This argument will go on forever because there are arguments for both sides. If you think you should go by the book that is OK because you are preparing kids for the standardized tests that states will never get rid of and you are giving them as much information as you can in the school year. These are true, but when I look back on what I learned in science (or any other class) it wasn’t what I learned out of the book that I remember. It was when I used my hands, when I saw what was being taught, when I was able to experiment and have my own preconceived thoughts and test those thoughts.

To me students have to remember. And to remember they have to experience. There is little to no experience when you are getting lectured out of a book and are told what is fact and what isn’t. So what if you don’t touch on everything that the book offers. There are teachers down the road who will not be bold enough to teach any other way than by the book. I want to be the teacher students remember because they will be able to tell you years later what they learned. How can they remember if they don’t have an experience.

Let’s go in depth!

Classroom Assessment

Colby Wegter

Keeley’s Classroom Assessment

To me the most important part of this article was the relationship between the students’ thinking and the teacher’s instruction. When you are talking about formative assessment elicitation is a key factor in progressing in learning. Without knowing the students’ thoughts and notions before hand it is a lot harder for the teacher to move forward. Elicitation is also a great tool for the students because it gives them a heads up on what they will be learning in the future part of the lesson and it allows them to make their thoughts explicit, which, once again help the teacher and the students move forward. This is also complemented by the exploration and concept development stage in which the students actually learn as a group.

The probes were a big part of this article and the nice part of them is that the article only highlighted the paper-and-pen option but they can also be used orally to. They can be predetermined or simple short answer questions that allow the students to articulate what they are thinking. I really like these because you can get the range of all your students’ thoughts. Especially when it comes to science, because you can catch misconceptions. Also it’s good to do it orally to make the students have a rationale for their answer.

Finally I believe the most important part of this article was how it helps the teacher and I agree with the article when it explains: “Probes... ‘turn the spotlight from examining students’ work to examining teachers’ work.’ In other words they help you understand student thinking so that you can develop more effective ways of teaching.”