Final Blog

This course has taught me a lot about science. I will take my knowledge of science from this course and apply it to my teaching of science when I am a teacher. I learned many skills through this class like how to use SmartBoard and action buttons on the PowerPoint. I also learned that it is important as a teacher to pre-assess at the beginning of a lesson or unit, assess while doing the lesson, and assess once the lesson or unit is done. I learned that you as the teacher have to always engage the students in the lesson. I learned about science from various activities we did in the classroom. I will use these activities like Jigsaw, Science Circus, Balloon Activity, and Float and Sink in my classroom when I am a teacher because these activities helped me to learn about science in a hands-on way. Throughout these activities and labs I have learned to love science. I really liked reading the book Science Stories by Jane Koch. I learned a lot of information from this book especially from the Science Stories in each of the chapters. I will try to use the science stories in my classroom when talking about the different units of science. The links listed below in purple are from my blog where I wrote about at least one science story for each chapter and about the other information discussed in the chapter and how I would use this information and the science stories in the classroom.
Science Stories Chapters 1-9   Science Stories Chapters 10-13 I advice you to check out the link and learn about a science story and the other information also discussed for each chapter. The two science stories that I liked the most where The Bottle Balloon and Shapes of the Moon.

The most memorable class projects where the activities that we did as collaborative projects which were Science Circus, Balloon Activity, Float and Sink, and Jigsaw Activity. My favorite was the Science Circus because each group got to plan a circus and then each group got to do the other groups circuses and learn from each circus something new and do an experiment at the same time. As a future teacher I would definitely use Science Circus in my classroom. It is a great hands-on way for students to learn.

The course aspects that have helped me grow as professional and learner are as follows. I learned how to put together experiments thanks to the Science Circus. I learned how to  challenge students and how to write objectives. I learned how to engage students in an activity. I learned how to assess students and  how to become more comfortable to teach science and understand science through this class. These are just a few aspects that I learned from the class.The class in general taught me about how to teach science to the students and how to start with direct instruction and then to engage the students in experiments and hands-on activities.This class and all of its components have helped me to learn and grow as professional and also as a learner.

My fieldwork experience was for eight hours at Bishop Dunn. The link from my blog will explain about my experience at fieldwork. Fieldwork Experience 

The e-folio presentations went really well. I liked all the e-folios that were presented. I did give feedback on some of the e-folios that were presented. I did not like one e-folio design or presentation of my classmates more than another. I liked how each person including myself put a different spin, design ,or way of presenting the e-folio and what goes on each page. I like that each person put their unique touch to their e-folio which shows that each person is creative and also their teaching style.

This final project is different then taking a test in the fact that we can be more creative and show how much we learned in a visual way. It is different then taking a test in the fact that each of my classmates can show what we learned over the course of the semester and how we would teach or use this in our classroom.

I have learned a lot about myself through this course. I have learned that blogging is a way of communicating. I have also learned how to improve and become a better teacher from listening and using the feedback from my teachers and classmates in my assignments and  when I am presenting something. By listening to their feedback and using their feedback I will be a better person and better teacher.

Microteaching

Sandra and I did our Microteaching. Our microteaching was done of the topic of biomes. We used action buttons in our PowerPoint Presentation. It was nice to teach the class. I enjoyed using the action buttons.
It was a nice teaching experience. I thought that the presentation went well except a few technology problems.

I would use this Powerpoint in my class to teach about biomes in an unit about our environment. I would also include ecosystems, abiotic factors, and biotic factor as well as biomes. This website http://www.mbgnet.net/ is very helpful to learning about biomes and ecosystems and students can explore this website and learn a lot about each biome and each ecosystem.



This video is educational. This video explains about what an abiotic and biotic factors are. This video explains what abiotic means and what biotic means. This video also gives examples of abiotic and biotic factors. Kids will like this video. It explains how an ecosystem is created. This video would be good to use when starting a unit on the environment especially when talking about biotic and abiotic factors with the environment and ecosystems.





This video is an educational video for older students. It explains what an ecosystem is and it explains about biotic and abiotic system in an ecosystem. I would use this video with fifth or sixth graders. This video goes into a lot of detail. It is very informative.



This video is about ecosystem. It explains what an ecosystem is. It is an educational video. This video explains all the ecosystem. Biomes are general ecosystems. This video talks about biomes and ecosystem. I thought that this video would be very helpful for students to see the different ecosystems that we learn about in class through this video.