Cool It Lab

Learning Goal: What the students should know.
Learnning Performanc: How the students show and desplay what they know.

The 5 Essential Features of Inquiry:
Engage, evidence, exploration, evaluate and communicate/justify.
These five features of Inquiry help students develop and learn the material in science.  Engage helps students get into the material and be active in learning.  Evidence helps students develop and explore their scientific questions.  Exporation helps students ask questions and investigate what they are trying to find out.  Evaluate helps students look over their work and see if they are on the right track then comunicate with their peers or teachers or anyone else they want to share their findings.

Temperature

Standard/Benchmark:	Learning Goals What should students know?	Formative Assessment What do students already know?	Learning Performances What do you want students to do to show they’ve learned?
Standard: Earth and Space Science Content  Standard D, Changes in the Earth and Sky  Benchmark:  Weather changes from day to day and over the seasons. Weather can be described by measurable quantities, such as temperature, wind direction and speed and precipitation.	My goal: I want my students to learn how the weather changes from day to day.	These students dont understand that their are mulitply factors that impact the weather and temperature. After the first previous section of the test and seeing the results I will do another pre test testing students on their basic knowledge of weather.  1.     What are some       examples of weather? 2.     Where does weather come from? 3.     Is weather always the same? 4.     Where does weather happen?	Performing labs, experimentation and check for understanding.  Have the students learn the different changes of weather by dividing the students up into groups.  In each group assign them a map to design about the different types of weather.  The groups would be temperature maps, precipitation maps, wind speed maps, humidity maps, and front maps.  In each map have the students show how their topic changes from day to day and from other states.  I would also have questions going with each map to further the student’s knowledge about the weather.  After the posters were made we would post them up on the wall in the room.  Then I would check for understanding and ask the pre quiz questions again.

1. Explain how the learning performance you chose would help you understand what students know about the standard you identified  (learning goals: what students should know)

The learning goal will help me understand what students know about the standard because the students will show me through their posters.  The posters will help me get a feeling for who knows what is going on and if they all understand that weather changes from day to day.  In their posters they will show the changes of how the weather changes due to all the different factors each group presented.  

2. Explain how your Learning Performance contains all five features of inquiry.

   My learning performance contains all the five features of inquiry by having the students engaged by asking questions and investigating their factors.  Students have to also find evidence that allows the students to develop and evaluate explanations to the questions we asked in the formative questions.  Then for the third formative feature the students formulate an explanation from gathering the evidence for their maps through research, asking questions etc.  Students will then evaluate what they found and their evidence by creating their poster and sharing it with the rest of the class. The poster the students created will help the students put all the first four features of inquiry together because it allows the students to be engaged, gather their evidence, formulate an explanation and evaluate by creating the poster.  Then for the fifth feature of inquiry the students need to communicate their proposed explanations.  The students will present to their classmates and me as the teacher.  I would also like the students to present to another class so they are not just presenting in front of me who they are comfortable with.  These five features will help the students understand the activity fully and understand how the weather changes.  

Magnets

Standard/Benchmark:	Learning Goals What should students know?	Formative Assessment What do students already know?	Learning Performances What do you want students to do to show they’ve learned?
Physical Science: Content Standard B: Light, Heat, Electricity and Magnitism Magnets attract, repel certain other materials.	My goal: How the temperature affects the strength of the magnets?	Have students take a pre-quiz with questions concerning how the temperature affects the strength of magnets.  The questions would be: 1.     Does the temperature affect the strength of the magnets? If yes or no, explain why. 2.     Do you think it will be stronger with a colder temperature or a hotter temperature? 3.     Explain why you think your answer to question 2 is right.	Performing labs, experimentation and check for understanding.  Have the students test out the different temperatures with one magnet.  Have the students perform hands on activities by putting the magnet in three different temperatures: room temperature, freeze it and put it in boiling water. (Safety is important with boiling water). Then see how strong they are by seeing how many tacks the magnets can pick up and record for each temperature.  Repeat. Create a table with the results.    After the lab, check for understanding and see if the students understood their results and produced their own answer.  Have the students take the pre quiz again to see if the students learned the material and have understood why temperature affects the strength of the magnets.

 2.Explain how the learning performance you chose would help you understand what students know about the standard you identified  (learning goals: what students should know)

This will help me understand what my students know about the standard because this will let me see if their misconceptions about magnets are cleared up.  I would give the students the pre quiz again and see if the students actually understand the material and have learned that temperature does affect the strength of magnets.  I would be able to see who really knows the material and who still needs more time to grasp the concept.  

Activitymania

   Activitymania is an approach to teaching through hands on activities.  These activities can even be  disconnected from one another.  In this approach students learn through procedures by following the steps right in front of them and matching their personal findings with the expected findings from the teacher.  The students are also working off of the teachers questions and not asking their own questions or investigating what they would like about the certain topic.  This approach only involves one right answer and based on product oriented and students can not question their actions or answers because they are only doing what they were told to do by the procedures.  I think activitymania is less critical thinking because the students are not able to investigate their results and go further with the activity because they are only trying to get the same results as the teacher.  This approach also does not allow much conceptually understanding because it is very technical following procedures and developing low order cognitive skills.  I think that this approach is good for students to get the hands on experience but to get the conceptual understanding I think inquiry would be the best option.
    Inquiry on the other hand, is flexible and the results are unknown to everyone including the teacher which allows more critical thinking and experimentation.  Students can expand on their own thoughts and results while asking their own questions and developing several possible solutions.  This approach really challenges intellectual thinking and looks for equilibration in the students.  Shifting from activitymania to inquiry is asking teacher to "clearly define conceptual goals and the relationships to students lives and interests prior to selecting classroom activities."  This shift will help the students and the teachers by understanding the concepts better through asking questions, investigating and through experiments.  The best approach in my own opinion would be to combine the two but lead with inquiry learning then add hands one activities to supplement the learning process of the students so they understand the material and not just memorize the material.  The most important item is to let the students actually take something way from the activities and understand the material if they are not they are just following steps which does not assist their learning.  I think inquiry is best for students to understand science and gain knowledge about the concepts.
   This impacts me as a teacher because it provides two approaches with details about each approach.  If I were to use this in the classroom which I probably would I would probably combine the two starting with inquiry learning then using hands on activities to aid the students understanding of the concepts.  I remember when I was in elementary school and all we did was follow the steps and get the answer of what the teacher wanted us to get.  I think if my teacher used this inquiry I would have remembered the labs more and learned more.  I really enjoyed this reading because it provided me with a lot of very quality information.  

Common Core Standards

     This past week I attended a workshop that was about the common core standards here at Iowa and across the United States.  It was very interesting to listen to because it gave me a better idea as to what standards I will have to follow as a teacher and to just get more information about what the standards are for each subject.  This year was the first time I actually dug a little deeper into the standards and started to fully understand what they mean and what teachers have to follow when they are teaching.  After reviewing their website and listening to the workshop, I have a few general opinions of my own regarding the standards.  I think it is an effective way to have common standards across states because it does keep the states unified as to what we are teaching our children and it helps if a student moves from one state to another they will not be that far behind because of the common core standards.  This website provided several examples as to how the standards were divided for example they are divided into discipline and grade level.  I really liked looking at both the different categories because the discipline provides a basic break down of what the standards are overall and what the teacher needs to cover in math, science and english. I really liked looking at the division by grade standards because they were divided into what each grade should cover with what area of subject the standards need to be under.  For example under third grade for physical science the students need to be able to understand how to apply knowledge of the concept of conservation of mass and matter.  That is just one example of one concept that needs to be covered in grades 3rd through 5th.  I think the division of grades and standards is really helpful to the teacher to be able to see what they are suppose to teach and so the teachers know their focus for the units.  I would also be a little worried because if a teacher just teaches off of standards and what has to be taught, creativity and being original might be lost.  As a teacher it is very important to have creativity and bring to the class your own individuality and have fun with the kids.
   Another interesting fact that I learned when I went to the workshop this year is that the tests such as the standardized tests are going to be completely different in the upcoming years.  The test makers want to make the tests computer adapted and tests on the computer.  I think this test will help students because it will be more active by having a recorder read the student a little piece of the article and then answer questions when it is over and several other examples.  I think these test will help the students learn better and show the teachers which student needs more help.  Overall I feel that these standards will provide several positive benefits for states and will help create a baseline for what curriculum each state should be focusing on and unify the nation.  

Formative Assessment

The question we gave to the students was "What are the stars made of?"  From the assessment there were only three out of seventeen students who had the correct answer which was Sophia:  "I think astronomers examine the light given off by a star to see what it's made of."  From the results we gathered most of the students thought when shooting stars fall to Earth, some pieces are left and astronomers take them to the lab to see what they're made of.  Since the majority of the class has the misconception that we see what the stars are made out of by having them fall, this would need to be addressed right away in the beginning of the lesson. The second question which was asking the students why they thought their answer was right had various and some interesting answers.  It seemed that only one student really knew what they were talking about because they really explained their answer and provided detail as to why sophia was correct.  The other two students who guessed Sophia, restated the question as their short answer or picked Sophia because it was the logical choice.  As a teacher I would take these results and go over the misconceptions before starting the lesson to help the students understand what the stars are really made of.
      This assessment would be very helpful as a teacher because it lets the teacher see where each student is and what they are thinking before the lesson is even started.  I would use this information to base a unit on stars to help students really understand the stars and what they are made out of.  The next step for me would also be to show videos and demonstrations to further the students education in stars and clear any misconceptions.  This assessment was helpful and would help me as a teacher where to go to help my students clear up any misconceptions they have about stars.

Mosart Website

   The Mosart website was very interesting and informational.  This website was developed to make the assessments available and free for any pre-service teacher or any teacher who wants to help and aid their students to learn as much as they can. Each MOSART assessment instrument has a set of multiple-choice items for grades k-12 in the subject of science and to help the teachers see what kind of misconceptions the students are having and to prevent them.  These tests probe for any conceptual shifts to help the teachers realize what the students need and how to teach the students how to understand and learn from the misconceptions they have.  This website is a great tool to use because it allows teachers to be able to use a misconception based test and give it to the students to try to cover the misconceptions before the lesson begins. 

   This website does impact me as a teacher because it is a very helpful tool.  I remember in elementary and middle school how we would just dive right into a subject with out knowing the background of the unit or really anything about it except our misconceptions.  I really don't remember if we took a misconceptions quiz before the unit began but I am pretty sure we did not in most of my classes.  I think the misconception tests are a really good idea to use because it helps the teacher and the student.  It helps the student to start thinking about what they are going to talk about and they start thinking about their own conclusions and own ideas of the topic.  It helps the teachers as well because they are able to see which student has what misconception and be able to cover them before, during and after the unit.  Then making sure that the students leave the unit with the right knowledge about the unit while leaving their misconceptions behind.  I am glad we got to visit this website because I think it will be very useful!