SCED 330, Blog 1 // August 30, 2018

Hey y'all! It's so good to get back to blogging, I have missed this!
     I have officially started my clinicals at my student teaching placement school in a 2nd/3rd combination class!
     Overall, I would say that it is going well. I really like the location of my school, the atmosphere, my classroom, C.E., and my students! We are all getting to know each other, and I have some awesome kids in my class this year.
     This week, I was most proud of how hard I worked in getting my work in SCED 330 done on time. I encountered struggle this week when I accidentally submitted all google links not in "edit mode." (Sorry Dr. Parker!) To deal with this struggle I immediately made it right. I also encountered struggle at first understanding the NGSS information, but I dealt with it by reading the sources and watching the explanation video over and over. This helped a lot. I got the most satisfaction with my work this week when I constructed my ecocolumn. I absolutely love hands on learning. I especially enjoyed this activity because I didn't construct an ecocolumn in elementary school. I think this activity will help me to be a better science teacher because it will be another great activity in my "bag of teacher tricks/activities" that I can use to facilitate learning in my future classroom for my students (Standard 3).
Action steps I want to complete over the next week & why:

• Confirm my PDP goals so that I can get started on Professional Development as soon as possible.
• Confirm a plan with my Science Fair Group as soon as possible so we can get the ball rolling on that. 
• Complete all my course work to the best of my ability on time so that I can remain successful in this class. 

     This week, I contributed to the overall class by:

• Participating in my group's science fair discussion (via group text).
• Creating a google doc for our group with the project's rubric on it.
• Directed my classmates on how to find the discussion board rubric in blackboard.

     Outside research learning that I completed this week was from www.sciencebuddies.org. I found a great visual on their website about the Scientific Method, and thought that I would share it with y'all!

Source in APA: sciencebuddies.org. (2018). Steps of the Scientific Method. [online] Available at: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/science-fair/steps-of-the-scientific-7method [Accessed 30 Aug. 2018].

     Tweets:

I really liked this Tweet by "Josh" @Jetstopia in a Twitter chat about STEM. I like how he communicated what he thinks differentiation in a successful STEM program looks like. He explained that a successful STEM program's activities are effectively differentiated when they are "open ended enough that everyone can get involved." 

I also liked this Tweet because it is directly related to what we learned about in class this week- the NGSS! There was an article attached to this Tweet from sfexaminer.com titled "Science refreshed in elementary schools this year." I thought that as a future educator, this tweet was encouraging.

Lastly, this tweet was amazing. It was like our whole week in SCED 330 summed up in one Tweet. It says, "Teaching science through inquiry by using the 5E instructional model & Profile of a Graduate!" It also had #aligned, which we talk about a lot. This explanation won't make sense unless you look at the picture that Reinaldo Gomez was tweeting about:

This is a picture of a sample of student work! I thought this was great to see in a tweet about student inquiry in science, including the 5E model.

Scientific thinking: 

For my current event this week, I learned about the hurricane "Lane" that happened on the coast of Hawaii! I learned that hurricane Lane was the "second wettest tropical cyclone on record in the U.S." Hurricane Lane put down 52 inches of rain. Hurricane Lane was the second wettest to hurricane Hiki of 1950. 

Citation in APA: Mersereau, D. (2018, August 30). Hurricane Lane Was The Second-Wettest Tropical Cyclone On Record In The U.S. Retrieved August 30, 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/dennismersereau/2018/08/30/hurricane-lane-was-the-second-wettest-tropical-cyclone-on-record-in-the-u-s/#2ecf2c6e3376

This week I really learned what Standard 3, "Teachers facilitate learning for their students," really means in science instruction. This does NOT mean reading a textbook. This means learning through student inquiry, hypothesis, labs, hands-on activities, and concept-based science instruction. I am grateful for my deeper understanding of Standard 3, because I will implement all these things that I have learned about good science instruction in my future classroom.