Final Vision Statement

In my experience as a student in the realm of science instruction I have learned and understood that science is not just disjointed experiments and monotonous worksheets; science is a long-traveled journey. In what way is it a journey? I realize as a applicant to be a teacher, while a curriculum will be placed in front of me, a FOSS kit and worksheets are not science. They are experiments that often are disconnected from one another. I understand now that science is based on inquiry. The core features of engaging the students, allowing for evidence collection, having students explain their evidence, giving the student an expert opinion in the form of evaluation, and pushing the students to communicate the final product are what progresses education and learning for a student in the science classroom. The following words will explain science as inquiry and my role in it along with the additions of important readings and my previous vision statement that will allow me to give a visual construction of my future science classroom.

The best way to shape the future is to understand the past. My past science experiences were lackluster and inefficient, meaning I didn’t enjoy the classes I took in elementary and high school and didn’t retain much knowledge from them either. My initial vision statement highlighted the mundane instruction that I received as an adolescent and it comprised of FOSS kits in elementary school and checklists or itineraries paired with experiments in high school. There was no freedom and before I took science methods at the University of Iowa I assumed that’s how science was supposed to be. I now understand science as inquiry is a process in which children truly understand what it is that they are learning. This means that if extra time must be taken on something then it must be so. The article Activitymania explains their concern with pre-packaged experiments in that… “conceptual understanding and scientific literacy are not facilitated with [this kind of] practice.” If there is something that holds true from science methods over any other is that you should not gloss over information. If you do students will likely forget you as a teacher and what they might have learned. Therefore effective science instruction must be based around inquiry. If a lesson does not have at least a form of all five features it is likely that it will not be impactful on the students and tools that progress them forward may be left behind.

My practicum experience helped me understand how to plan a lesson that includes the features of inquiry. It is explained in How Do I Develop and Use Benchmark Lessons? that students need to use the lesson as a tool to build their factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive knowledge. When you include these with the five essential features of inquiry it creates a classroom in which students are always processing information in a way they can access it best. This is an important feature of inquiry-based lessons. While many people think that you can’t reach every student in the best way that works for them individually in one lesson, inquiry allows the best possible chance for it to happen because it is student-centered, which allows students to obtain the information in a way that is unique to them.

Since my first vision statement when I believed that science was the same experience for everyone, I have realized that inquiry creates the best chance for students to not only learn information in the best way possible but it is also likely that they will enjoy their experience. Before the inquiry lesson can even begin, I have learned how important it is to identify misconceptions. In the article, Misconceptions Die Hard they highlight an example in which 75% of students believed that if two identical pieces of aluminum foil are measured and you ball one of them up and leave the other flat that the balled up one weighs more than the other. This is just an example of the misconceptions that students bring into class and without identifying them, before enacting the lesson, it is likely that those students will hold onto those misconceptions unless they are made knowledgeable so the teacher may address them. Without doing so a lesson cannot move forward to ensure understanding.

Assessment is a vital part of science as inquiry. In the article containing the Introduction to Classroom Assessment it explains how I would use assessment in my future classroom. It can begin with the pre-assessment probes that I intend to hand out often to not only discover what the students understand but also to discover their misconceptions. I have also practiced assessment during my classroom experience. The most likely of forms of assessment is that of listening to students’ vocabulary as they research and discuss the topic at hand but it can also range to a quiz and more. There are also different ways to map the assessment. You can have a chart with students’ names on them and write notes next to their names as you walk around the room; you can do the same with sticky notes. You can also form a concept/assessment map in which you have expectations, learning goals, and performances clearly outlined. This is a streamlined way to see if a student is grasping the concept or not. I plan on using some form of all of these options based on the lesson plan type.

My future classroom may seem simple on the outside but in reality it will be a complex machine. If you spend time in my science classroom you would understand what inquiry is and how it is the foundation of all the lessons. You will see the students asking meaningful questions to me and to each other and also smiling because they enjoy what they are learning. Inquiry will create an enjoyable experience that allows students of all types to form meaning and those students will be able to communicate their findings in ways that are challenging yet familiar. You will see me walking around the room asking questions to prompt responses while assessing at the same time. In my future classroom you won’t just see worksheets and science kits; you will see a place that is both fun and educational. It will be a science classroom that adults can only wish they had experienced at a young age.

SLPE Reflection

I personally believe as a whole it went extremely well. The first day was not as good as the second because we had a lot of information to give to the kids and in my mind we were all a little nervous so we rushed our explanations and probably talked to much. The actual lesson was supposed to be student-directed but our nerves made it seem more teacher-directed. What made it work extremely well was the second day. The first day we were giving them a lot of information and density was pretty new to them so it seemed like they didn’t really get it but the second day when they were allowed to pour the liquids themselves and have a visual representation you could really feel things going well and the kids enjoyed themselves a lot. The minor changes we made were mostly effective because it wasn’t a repetition of something they had done before. Our initial idea was actually being enacted by the other group that went earlier in the week so we decided to focus a lot more on density and gave them more information.

Students met the learning performance by explaining why they thought they had different densities and then by arranging them in some sort of order on the second day. They had a visual representation of their knowledge. The discussion that followed exemplified that they understood the main point that liquids have different densities because of their properties. I would say something that lingered for the ideas they had would be that most of them thought that water was the least dense liquid that was out there. On the worksheet most of them put it as the least dense. I’m not exactly sure why that was and when I asked them the next day before they poured the liquid they said it would be in the middle but didn’t have an explanation why. They more or less changed their minds without reason.

What actually happened when we taught our lesson compared to what was written down was not that different. It really did go smoothly and the only thing I would say that I really expected to be differently was the time. You always hear when you are creating lesson plans that you should have early-finishers and extra things for the students to do which of course is a good thing but if the students are engaged like ours were with the actual lab portion then it seemed like time was short. I would have liked to have more discussion at the end just to clarify a few more things but we made sure that they interpreted the learning performance, which they did, but it is crazy how fast time goes when you are teaching.

I learned a lot about time management and classroom functions firstly. This was really my first time being in charge of a lesson and you don’t really know how to manage a classroom until it really is your own and the truth of it is it isn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I’m sure I’ll learn more about that the more I progress through the college of education. This really influenced how to create an inquiry-oriented classroom. I truly understand the difference between a FOSS kit and science as inquiry from this experience. While every lesson could have even more inquiry it was apparent that our lesson had a lot more inquiry than the kids are used to because of their level of engagement. It was almost as if they had never had the choice of how to do an experiment like they did with our lesson. The factors that need to be considered most when teaching inquiry is that it has to engage the learner initially and then they have to be able to research it and talk about it and then get a second or third opinion and talk about it again to show they understand. The five features of inquiry are branded in my brain because you can really see it work before your eyes if it is happening and that’s what this experience has taught me.

From what I learned in this experience the only thing I would modify for the first day is more time (preferably a week on density if not more) but on that first day to have something visual so they can put things together or take more time so the explanations have a chance to take hold instead of a lot of information all at once. I would probably use more visual aids such as video resources so they can understand that liquids and objects alike both have different densities over a large spectrum. I would also add a scale to the mix if I had more time because I believe kids should be able to at least calculate some sort of density. It doesn’t have to be challenging but they should be able to show they can thus making that a learning performance.

As far as anything else to address I would say that it is extremely challenging to teach with others and that is another great thing because I could have not done this project without them. This project really teaches you how to effectively collaborate with peers outside of teaching the lesson and inside. Outside it is important to make decisions and I loved my group mates for being vocal and for also being great listeners when I had something to say. Inside of teaching the lesson is interesting because I have a very different teaching style compared to the girls but since we are all laid back it worked great and I also like the aspect of working in a group to understand strengths and weaknesses. There are few projects that I feel make me a better student but this is one of the few.