Science Fair: 11-25-08

I had a great time judging the science fair in Elk Point today. I feel like it was a great experience for me, since it was something I had never done before. I had the opportunity to judge some of the physical science projects for 5th grade. Most of the students that I judged were very knowledgeable about their project and had very nice displays. Some of the projects that I saw were an egg float and paper towel absorbancy. In my opinion, these were two of the best displays that I looked at personally. Both boys were very organized and had pictures and demonstrations of their projects. I was very impressed with many of the other projects displayed as well. I thought that all participants did a wonderful job and did a lot of hard work to accomplish their end products.

work day 11-20-08

I was very grateful for the work day on Thursday. It gave my group and I the opportunity to decide what we would do for our final project. It took us a while to figure out what we wanted to do for our lesson plan and activity. I admit that we were a little confused at first about how each group was supposed to tie into one another, but once we figured it out we really got going on our lesson. We decided to work with solids, liquids, and gases. We thought it would be a great idea for 4th grade students. We also found many interesting activities that the students can do with this concept.

11-13-08 work day

Today was a very beneficial, helpful work day for the whole class. However, Shauna and I had already completed our second lesson plan earlier this week. I was glad that we went over all that was required in our lesson plans though, because Shauna and I discovered that we were missing a trade book for our lesson. We searched through many books that we could get from the campus library and found one that we think will work perfectly with our lesson.

11-6-08

In class today, I was excited to be able to create our own instructions for the activity. My group was a little unsure of what to do at first, but as we began to experiment, we started to comprehend our task even better. In our first cup, we put a piece of potato along with fresh water that had no salt added. In our second cup, we put a piece of potato along with water that had been mixed with 1 tablespoon of salt. In both cups, there was not much change. The pieces of potato still sat at the bottom of the cup. However, when we got to our third piece of potato in our third cup, we decided to add 4 tablespoons of salt with our water. This time we noticed a big change! We noticed that our potato was floating in the water. There was so much salt, that it created a kind of bouyancy for our potato. It was very interesting to see the differences that the salt made in the water.

Constructivism and the 5E's

Constructivism is basically a method where students are in charge of their own learning. However, it is up to teachers to facilitate the constructivistic learning process. Teachers should promote and provide opportunities for students that encourage and support the building of understanding. The 5E model consists of: engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate. Engage is when the students first encounter and identify the instructional task. Here is where they make connections between past and present learning experiences. Explore is when students have the opportunity to get directly involved with the materials. Students build a base of common experiences by working in teams, which assists them in the process of sharing and communicating. Explain is the point at which the learner begins to put the abstract experience through which he/she has gone into a communicable form. Communication occurs between peers, the facilitator, or within the learner himself. Elaborate is when the students expand on the concepts they have learned, make connections to other related concepts, and apply their understandings to the world around them. Evaluate is an on-going diagnostic process that allows the teacher to determine if the learner has attained understanding of concepts and knowledge. It can occur at all points along the continuum of the instructional process.