Assignment #4

The biggest thing that I noticed right off about Mr. Bishop is that he absolutely refuses to let his students fail. He does everything in his power to push the kids along to get their work and learning done, and I don’t mean only in the class room. On my second day observing Mr. Bishop he called several students to talk to him after class. During their after school discussion he informed them that he had noticed that they had not finished a big project which was due, he then went on to offer to help them complete it the next day after class or come by their house that Saturday to help them. Most of the kids stayed after class the next day, but the fact that he was ready and willing to give up part of his Saturday was astounding to me.
Mr. Bishop is a teacher who always wants to take the kids one step lower than the core needs him to. In his unit on rocks he expected the students to learn and be able to identify many different kinds of rocks. He says that if we only get a seed planted in their mind then they will start to hear things on the news or in conversations which will build on that bit of knowledge until they gain a good understanding, but it is key to introduce hard concepts while they are young.
Mr. Bishop has a masters in technology something and has been teaching for sixteen years. He believes that a key component for student learning is that the teacher is always trying to learn as well. When the room is filled with a spirit or desire to learn that will help motivate the students to go farther than they normally would. In this light he is now working on getting a national certification. He showed me the book and some of the things he is required to do and it looks extremely tough. The simple fact that he is continuing to struggle and progress not only improves him as a teacher, but also can inspire the students to search for knowledge.
One of the things I like the best about Mr. Bishop is the fact that he is not afraid of having some fun and joking around. For me this was always a key point in connecting with a teacher.

Assignment #2

Biomes

Objective: To engage the students in thinking about different conditions around the world and the adaptations life has made to best suit itself to these conditions.


Procedure:
1. Lead the Class in a discussion about what makes two places different. If you were to describe the conditions of the NON-LIVING elements of this area, how would you?
2. On the board, list on the board several of the important features the students generate. Explain that these different conditions make up separate biomes.
3. Ask the class to name off as many different types of biomes as they can think of and record on board. Help them think of them all.
4. Go through the list of biomes one by one on the board. Have the students break into work groups and discuss the living organisms which live in a specific biome and the adaptations they have made which allow them to thrive in that particular biome. Have a representative from a few of the groups stand and present why they think their animals are suited for life in this biome. Lead discussion on organisms presented.
5. It might also be very educational while discussing the different biomes, or at the end of class to discuss the different people who live in the different biomes and the adaptations they have made to be better suited for that area.

I thought that the lesson definitely had room to improve, but it had some good points as well. I enjoyed the amount of class participation that I received, everyone in the class seemed ready to get into the discussion and answer my questions. I also think that it is important that they work in groups in their discussions, more than mere scientific facts need to be learned in the class room. At the same time, there were, and always will be some quiet students in the class who will be a bit left out of the discussion and might not get as much as others. And of course one always has the goof off’s that love group time because it is a great time for them to get attention.
I was glad that we had the students themselves stand up and present their ideas, this gives them a feeling of importance and helps them want to do well. I also liked this because then it becomes the class itself who presents the information instead of me sitting up there pouring info over them. Of course time didn’t permit every student to have a chance to present, but we came as close to that as possible by having all of the groups present.
I think the biggest problem that I ran into was that this process of breaking up into groups and presenting got old at the end of the class and the students, and myself, were getting bored and sick of it. I think it would have been good to have something else to switch to right here, an ideal situation would have the students change modes here from simply discussing topics to an in depth inquiry project on a question they had. Students might wonder if a camels hump was really a place to store water, or why Aberiginies are all short and dark skinned. They could then take these questions and go find responses to be presented at a later date.

Assignment #1

I choose to read and share an article out of the July/Aug 2006 COLLAGE SCIENCE TEACHING, it is entitled "What Makes it Science?" I love the quote by Einstien at the beginning, "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of every day thinking." One of the big subjects in the article was whether or not inteligent design falls in as a science. This is the part I choose to discuss with a couple of teachers. Selby, author of the article, claims it is not a part of the newer defenition of science as it cannot be disproven. One of the instructors I spoke with agreed with this saying that it cannot be tested and therefor is not science, I kind of argued quite a bit with him. I totally agreed with the second. First he brought up the question of if string thoery(accepted my most as science) is science. Of course it is, and yet there is absolutely not way to test it or "disprove" it, it just isn't quite as "close to religion". Then he pointed out the fact that through out history, when many of the great scientific theories emerged there existed not means to try to disprove it.

Assignment 1 - Article Thoughts

For this assignment Mr. Borton and I read and discussed the article "The CSI Effect" written by Richard Jones and Arthur Bangert in Science Scope, the free article for November 2006. The article explained that until recently female middle school students often portrayed scientists as white einstein-like males, but that more students now hold mental images of scientists that are aligned with their own gender and typical features, rather than stereotypic “mad scientist” images.

"What phenomenon is responsible for the recent change in female students’ mental images of scientists?"

Jones and Bangert suggest that "perceptions of scientists may be more related to a public stereotype of scientists than to teachers’ efforts in the classroom, or even to scientists’ roles in real-world contexts." We discussed this from the perspective we gained from the study we handed out to our students and felt that much of this statement was accurate. Many students who took our study have parents who work in science careers, yet they likely do not see this 'real-world' context because so few of them mentioned these common careers for our area as what they would want to do. Mr. Borton mentioned that we may need to more explicitly talk about these 'real world' careers which are common in this area to try and improve students perceptions of what a scientist is.

Jones and Bangert further explained: "the results from our study suggest that the change in the mental images of scientists for middle school girls is primarily due to the recent propagation of the CSI-type television series that have appeared over the last several years." We did agree that this must have a lot to do with the change of sterotype, not only from CSI, but from many shows and multiple applications where females and males are both seen and playing active roles. We do think that there is much more than this effect, however. We discussed that many of these girls are now in the third generation of working women and that as many women have moved to the workforce that the general sterotype changed. Perhaps the CSI effect could be a direct result of women taking to the workforce in the first place.

Jones and Bangert conclude: "Our findings indicate that middle school girls’ global view of scientists is more balanced in terms of gender and less stereotypical than has been observed in the past." There is no disagreement with this; it appears obvious from our research that the sterotypical images associated with science are changing to more balanced ends.

Dec 6

Wednesday, December 6th was my last clinical experience day in Mr. Bortons classrom. I taught most of first and second hour except a small portion of the lecture on the Doppler Effect. The lesson was about properties of sound, intensity and pitch. Much of the lesson was lecture based with the students taking notes, and I used part of the lecture for my second SATIC analysis. I also included a class lab. We talked about how bats, owls and people hear. For the lab I had a blind-folded student sit in the center of the room while six other students spread out behind and to each side of the edge of the room around the student. I then pointed at each student around the room and had them make a noise and we watched as the blindfolded student pointed at where she thought the sound was coming from. She did pretty well the first time but was sometimes slightly off. I then had the blindfolded student plug her right ear with an earplug and had the students shuffle around to other spots and tried it again. This time she was way off on pointing to where some of the noises were coming from, especially when they came from the side of her plugged ear. I explained how when we hear the sound is more intense at the ear which it reaches first and the brain can determine this tiny difference in sounds between ears to tell where the sound is coming from. After this we dicussed pitch. The demonstration for second hour worked even better than first hour and we had a good time with the lesson. I felt confident and relaxed and am excited to move on but at the same time wish it wasn't over.

Assignment #3 a

Thursday, October 19, 2006
Oct 19

This morning I tried again at lecturing second hour. Mr. Borton left the room to do something else and handed the class over to me. First we corrected the homework from the day before and then we moved to the lecture. I lectured on bacteria while the kids took the required notes again. As I started the kids moaned again that they had another lecture. As I went through I tried to make it interesting. I caught the kids attention with a few things such as telling them about all of the bacteria that live on their bodies and how some of them ate a lot of good bacteria in the yogurt they had for breakfast. A few kids were involved and asking questions. I tried to get at the students conceptions of bacteria at the beginning with a discussion about what the kids initially think when they hear bacteria. Many of the kids were reluctant to participate in this although after some effort I got half a dozen responses to this. When I was scribbling what they said on the board they got worried about if they should write that down to and would be tested on it. I explained to them that it was just for discussion, that they wouldn't be tested on it.

One little boy kept complaining really loudly and obnoxiously about how he hated taking notes and doing a lecture. I wasn't sure what to do about it and some of the other kids were really involved so I just ignored him and after the third or fourth time of getting no attention he quit. I'm not sure if there would have been a better way to handle him or not. When the lecture was over I went over to him and asked him if the book-work assignment they started at the end of class was better than taking notes and he said that it was. As I went through the lecture notes I had difficulty keeping the attention of the students from time to time. If what I was talking about was really interesting to them then I could keep their attention for a little while and if not they would start getting ancy. They were all studious when they had new sets of notes on the overhead to write down. For this reason I started going through the lecture notes faster. What happened was that there were a few kids who were slow at writing who would keep asking me to go back so they didn't miss anything. There was one boy on the back row who was painfully slow at writing but was determined to write down every word. It was difficult for me to accomodate for him and keep the rest of the class from getting bored.

My Role - Correct Homework, Lecture on Bacteria for most of period, Involve students in discussion
Mr. Borton's Role - Take roll
Student Role - Take notes individually and participate in the discussion. A few minutes after the lecture was left for work on a bookwork assignment.

Strengths of Lesson - Discussion about bacteria that live on our hands and bodies and good bacteria that we eat and that are in our food.

Weaknesses of Lesson - I had difficulty keeping the attention of the students from time to time. I did not pace through the lecture notes very well and went too fast, then I had to go back and wait for the slower students to write them down. Because of this much of the student attention was based on writing, not listening to learn.

Assignment #2 a

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

10/10/06

This morning I visited Mr. Borton's second hour class. For the last three school days the kids have been working on correctives or extensions to get the full points needed to pass the unit. Today the corrective test was given. Immediately as class started a boy was being rowdy and Mr. Borton made him go in the hall to talk with him. He had me review for the test and the students were actively involved in this. After the review the test was given to the half or more of the class which was doing correctives. I noticed that most of the extension students were done with their units and most were reading novels or working on some homework for another class. Only a few of them were finishing up their units. After the test we put on a movie and graded the tests. It was disappointing that so many of the students who retook the tests failed again. A few who did well were excited that they had done better, but many of them failed again. Each student was called up to talk with Mr. Borton. He asked each student if they studied before taking the test again and almost all of them said no. Also most of them who failed the test were falling short in completion of their unit or didn't have their folder to show the teacher. Mr. Borton said that he had just talked to most of the parents of these students and that they all said that they would help their students study to pass this test the second time. It makes me wonder how effective correctives are and if it is worth taking all the time required or not to try and help the few students who take the correctives seriously.

Summary
My Role - I took the correctives students in the back room and we all reviewed for the test. I then graded the tests of the correctives students as they finished them.
Mr. Borton's Role - Help extension students complete their units and grade them.
Student's Role - The extension students finished up their units and had them graded. The correctives students reviewed for the test for a while and then completed the exam.

Assignment #4-Clinical Experience Teacher Trait

Clinical Experience Assignment #4


“As teachers, our job is to ensure that all boys and girls…have the support they need to be successful science students who feel respected and challenged in their science courses. So what does it mean to have a classroom in which students feel respected and challenged? A classroom environment that models respect is one in which both teachers and students can feel accepted and all students are invited to learn.” NSTA President Anne Tweed

Respect is a difficult thing to explain and quantify. It can be seen and felt. An environment of respect in the classroom is something that every good teacher wants. Some define respect in terms of power or authority, or a behavior intended mainly to please or avoid punishment. Others define it on the other side, such as very high honor, esteem and even admiration. The respect I want to define is somewhere in between and I feel like I have seen this in Mr. Borton’s classrooms.

When I attended a faculty meeting one day the principal was talking about how the school was being remodeled and the teachers would have to experience the gruel of a move with still many unanswered questions. After some time Mr. Borton spoke up and said to the effect “If any people can do this, this staff can!” I was amazed when in unison the staff cheered loudly. Others made remarks, stated opinions, cracked jokes and even jeered at the principal but no one seemed to command the respect of the staff better than Mr. Borton did. Something about him and the way he respects people can be seen and felt and the support of the staff during this meeting was an outward expression of that.

In the classroom Mr. Borton has always held high regard for his students. Indeed, he has respected them. When students approach him about a problem he can sense if they are being genuine and he respects that. It is not uncommon for him to let students get something they forgot in their locker or to forgive them of a minor trespass. When he does this the students gain a greater respect for him. On the other hand though, he does not let the students walk on him or prevent other students from a learning experience. He is selective in controlling problem situations but by experience knows when to put his foot down and when to let it go. This is what I hope to learn.

When I was in high school I remember that Mr. Wilson was my biology teacher. I remember coming to his Zoology class on first hour of first trimester of 11th grade. He explained his expectations and rules and then he did something that I will never forget. He told us that he understood that people sometimes got sick or needed to blow their nose or go to the bathroom for some reason and he told us that if we needed to we could leave his class and go if we had a problem and come back when we were done and he wouldn’t say anything as long as we didn’t abuse his trust. Wow! Never before had a teacher told me that! For what reason did he trust me to not abuse this? A few weeks into the semester I had an illness and the mornings were especially brutal. Every day during first hour I had to repeatedly blow my nose. I must have left his classroom a hundred times to blow my nose and then come back in again. He never said a word and I never wanted to betray his trust. This is something I will never forget. It is a lofty goal to respect your students like Mr. Wilson respected us.

During first hour of my clinical experience with Mr. Borton one day I noticed that one of the boys would not stand up and say the pledge of allegiance. Later on I talked to Mr. Borton and he said that he used to be upset by students like this who had beliefs so different than his, but that as time went on he realized that often those students who believed most differently than he did on certain issues were his best students. As time grew so did his respect for all of his students. It is my goal that likewise my respect for my students can grow over time.

I have enjoyed working with Mr. Borton during this clinical experience. I have appreciated the respect he has always shown to me (like he does with all of his colleagues); his flexibility and his humble honesty. I have appreciated asking him questions about things and knowing that I will get an honest and practical answer. A goal I have for my classroom is to foster respect as I have seen during my clinical experience and at other times in my life. By doing this I can ‘invite’ my students to learn and feel that more learning is taking place than there would be without that respect.

11/16

Today I taught first hour again. We did a lab on angle of insolation and temperature and then a heat transfer lab. I found a really cool computer demo about it on the internet yesterday but couldn't get permission to use it in time for class today. As a class we did the angle of insolation lab and made hypotheses, collected data and made conclusions. I wanted to guide the students a little bit, or at least give them some idea for a possible hypothesis, but not give them one. I explained my small understanding of the angle of insolation but I probably could have explained what I expected a little better because some in the class didn't seem to know what they were supposed to do. Mr. Borton was going around as we were collecting data and helped some of these students understand what to do. When it came time for the heat transfer lab I let the students work with little instruction. Its hard to say whether the kids learned better this way or if I should have guided them a little more, but most of them seemed to figure it out. I think the lack in the lesson was from my end in explaining. Still the heat transfer lab is really fun for the students and some of them understood right away what was going on and others it took some thinking to figure it out.

Assignment #1

Assignment #1

The article that I chose to read was “No Test Tubes? Debate on Virtual Science Classes” highlighted in the October 23, 2006 NSTA Express online newsletter. The article originally appeared in the New York Times, October 20, 2006. The article focuses on the debate surrounding students that receive college credit after having only received virtual laboratory experience with no hands-on experimentation in the lab. I asked 2 science instructors about their thoughts on the Virtual Chem Labs available for students.
The first instructor I interviewed, Dean Richens, teaches Chemistry and Physics at Union High School. He thinks the virtual labs have a place in classrooms but should not replace hands-on experiences. He has used lab simulation software to introduce students to laboratory experiments that would be too dangerous or costly, as well as showing students in simulation what to expect in the lab. However, in his experience he finds that students that have spent lots of time in the virtual lab and then transition to a real lab are very forgetful of safety precautions. In a virtual lab, you can’t get hurt, but that changes in the real world. He also doesn’t feel that student are prepared for upper division lab classes when virtual labs are the only learning tool. He acknowledges the ease of preparation and set-up time for a virtual lab, but wonders how much students actually learn.
Similar sentiments were expressed by the USU-Uintah Basin Chemistry Professor, Dr. Charles Langley. He said, “You can’t teach someone to milk a cow using only a computer.” There is something about performing a titration or mixing a solution and feeling the exothermic reaction through the beaker that a computer simulation cannot replicate. When I asked him if there was a place for virtual labs, he said that he had ordered some for the nursing chemistry students because they likely will never see the inside of a lab in their working careers and the expense of putting them through a real lab outweighs the benefit. However, for science majors, there is a certain expectation that a real lab experience has been achieved. He feels he would be cheating his students if a real lab were not provided containing real chemicals with which to experiment.
I can’t help but wonder, though, how Virtual High School students have scored so well on the AP exams as the article points out. These virtual schools must be doing something very well to pass 10% more students than the national average.
As I think about the tools that I will use to effectively teach science in the classroom, I am interested in all methods that point to a higher understanding for students. The limited amount that I have played with some of the software packages leads me to think that there is a high potential and untapped resource in these laboratory simulations. I hope to be able to learn to use them effectively.

Nov 10

Today I went in and taught first and second hour. The lesson was in line with what Mr. Borton was teaching and consisted of a lecture/discussion and note taking on heat transfer, conduction, convection and radiation, and a review on temperature. I used a powerpoint presentation and talked as the kids took notes. I felt better about pacing out the time to give the kids enough time to write down what they needed to this time. I think that the lecture was not as good as I wanted it to be. I tried getting the kids to participate but it was like pulling teeth and I think the kids were half asleep. I ended up finishing the lecture kind of fast and so I went back and reviewed temperature with them. I was feeling pretty frustrated by the end of first hour because it just seemed so dead to me. I think that Mr. Borton was unimpressed to say the least.

Then I went on with second hour. This time I tried a few new ideas and used some different examples as well. For some reason second hour was so much more willing to participate, more awake and energetic. The kids were excited to share what they thought of when they heard the word 'radiation' - everything from bombs to shaky, squilly particles. When I was about to move on there would be another kid that wanted to say something. I won't say it was great but it went better than first hour. There is a boy in the back that is sometimes getting into trouble and somehow he was interested in this lesson and he just kept raising his hand and commenting and was excited about the topic and that made me very happy to see this.

After not feeling very confident in what I did I had to stay and see Mr. Borton teach third hour. He used some of the same examples as I did, and some others, and drew a lot on his experiences outside of the classroom to explain the concepts. His experience shows in that he can come up with things he knows that 6th graders like such as imaginging things to help them understand which I would never have thought of. The kids in 3rd hour were so excited that they would keep raising their hands to comment and many times the kids wouldn't get called on because of the emphasis of getting through all this material. It's easy for me to do this as well, but I do try to include the kids and I really think the lesson is more fun for me when I can do this better.

Nov 7-8

Mr. Bishop these two days went over worksheets with his class, I struggle with thinking that this is very educational, He lets them use these work sheets as study guides for the test but the problem is that he does not acctually let them do the work, he sits at the front of the class and does it for them. There doesn't seem to be much thinking going on on the part of the students they simply write down whatever he says.

Oct. 24

Oct. 24, 2006 - 1:45 - 3 pm
Today's science time was entirely spent discussing and exploring moral issues that students face. Mrs. Seamons is very concerned with some of the students in her class and their complete lack of honesty. She began the discussion by asking students to respond in writing to 8 questions:
1. Who is someone you admire that is living today?
2. What is it about this person that you admire?
3. If you see someone cheating, what is your responsibility? Why?
4. If you were riding in a car that the person you admire was driving and s/he hit another car but drove away, how would you feel about this person after this incident? Would this person have done something like this?
5. What does it mean to tell the truth?
6. Think about the last time you told a lie. How did you feel?
7. Who looks up to you as an example?
8. What kind of adult would you like to be?
After the students responded to these questions, Mrs. Seamons directed the discussion as each question was talked about in class. It was interesting to hear the responses. The students were open and seemingly honest about their responses. After school I spoke with Mrs. Seamons about the discussion. She said it was inspired by some things that have happened this quarter that disturb her greatly. She and Mrs. Swasey, the other 6th grade teacher, are very concerned with the dishonesty that is going on in their classrooms. I've thought a lot about this issue and how I will handle cheating in my own classroom. I know every student is different and will require individual treatment, but I will address it everytime I know it has happened. The first thing I will want to know is why the cheating occurred. Discovering the motive I think goes a long way toward solving the problem. If I can help students address the underlying reasons for cheating, I hope to help them understand that the cost for cheating is too great a price to pay for such meager returns. I don't know if I will be successful but it is an issue that I feel very strongly about.

Thursday

Thursday

Today I visited Mr. Bortons first hour again. We had another session of correctives and extensions with the students working on their individual projects. Many of the students worked with partners anyway because they like it and have gotten used to it. It is good to see many of the students putting their heads together to solve problems. Many in the class are doing correctives this time but they seemed to be involved well and understanding the work for the most part. One boy kept reading Calvin and Hobbes. I tried to get him to do his work (which he had to go back and redo the questions he had missed) and he tried on it for a few minutes and then told me that he was going to do it at home instead. He was sure that the answers he marked were correct and when I tried to help him understand otherwise he resisted that he wasn't correct. Some of the extension students were reading from the book and doing reports on viruses, antibiotic resistance, etc. One boy was asking me all about antibiotic medicine and bacteria resistance. It was fun talking to him because he was really interested in it and was telling me about when he had to take antibiotics. More students than I expected were doing report extensions on things they were more interested in and some of the students were asking me to explain things to them what they read in the book but didn't understand. Sometimes they get frustrated when they try and answer a problem and I try to teach them how to figure it out. Simple things such as using the index and glossary and ruling out certain answers in multiple choice problems are still being learned by many of the students at this age.