Making a Prezi

Creating a Prezi was really fun, but also frustrating at times. Being new to this presentation tool, I was not aware of all the little tricks and how to preform certain operations, even after taking the tutorial. However, despite my hiccups with the software, I found it to be a very interesting tool to use. It makes PowerPoints look dull and boring in comparison, and I'd rather more teachers use this type of presentation in the future. I know that I will use this type of presentation often in my classroom to start discussion and get the students thinking about the topic instead of just copying down verbatum what is on the slide. When students do this I feel like they don't fully comprehend the meaning or lesson of the presentation, and that getting them engaged in the lesson is the most authentic form of teaching.

Who is that in the mirror?

The last chapter was all about reflection and self-assessment. As teachers, reflection is an active and constant process. Being an effective teacher requires that we frequently reflect on our students' thinking and on our own teaching practices. Reflecting on how my students are responding to a lesson may lead to me altering my lesson plan and changing the course of subsequent lessons. On a larger scale, being reflective about my teaching practice will allow me to seek out additional means for professional development such as workshops and contacts with other teachers. With the help of this chapter I have started to develop my own personal teaching philosophy, as well as gained a deeper understanding of professional development. When I think of professional development I think of it as what I need before I student teach. However now I see that professional development never ends, and in order to become the best teacher I can be I will consistently and continually try to better myself.
I really enjoyed the poem at the end of the chapter!


Investigate and you will find,
New information of some kind,
Question all your observations,
Understand through your explanations,
Integrate what you have discovered,
Reflect and share what you have uncovered.
You are doing science!


By Carol Federico

What IS the Big Idea?

The main focus of this chapter was being able to match assessment to instruction. In this chapter we learn about the three types of assessment, diagnostic, formative, and summative. Diagnostic assessment is when teachers assess the students at the very beginning of the lesson, they do this by asking questions, or a quick recap quiz. Formative assessment is used to gauge students' understanding of a particular topic in a unit in order to judge their progress and adjust the rest the instruction accordingly. Summative assessment comes at the end of a unit or course and is used to document students' acheivement. Final exams are a typical example, but a more thorough example of a students understanding at the end of the unit would be something that they have to create, such as a portfolio. Assessment is not seperate from instruction. In reality the two join naturally together in the instructional context. Whenever we are doing science with students, we are engaged in assessment. Different types of authentic assessment are science notebooks, portfolios, science conversations, concept maps or cartoons, and electronic presentations. When we create our lessons it is important to keep in mind what kind of assessment we will be using, as well as how our lessons connect to both the national and state standards. 

Reflecting on Fieldwork

I have always felt that fieldwork experience was the greatest opportunity for those who want to be teachers to really understand what is expected of them, and what they have to look forward to in a few years. It helps many in deciding whether or not they want to really be a teacher, and often times helps a student decide whether elementary or secondary education is where they'd like to teach. I have always enjoyed fieldwork, I believe that it gives us a way to apply what we learn in the classroom in a meaningful context. It's one thing to write a lesson plan and know the components back and forth, but another to actually implement this plan and see how the students work with it. Knowing that I would get the experience with teaching children this early on in my college education is what solidified my decision to go to Mount Saint Mary College. Working with my student (as seen above) was a great experience. It showed me how fast children really learn about things that I have long since taken for granted as common knowledge. Being able to reword or create an example was my biggest challenge, but also my biggest victory and sense of pride. When I came up with multiple examples of what a mixture is versus what a solution is he really seemed to understand and fly through the work. What I thought was best, however, was working with half of the class in implementing our lesson. I have worked with students one on one, and in small groups (four to five students), but never before had I worked with so many students all at once. It was incredible the difference between teaching one student and teaching thirteen of them. I really do believe, however, that it worked out very well. Our cooperating teacher was great and very helpful in creating our lessons and working with the students. She was a great model for what we should do in our classrooms. I look forward to the next time I am able to implement a science lesson or activity.

Teaching a Science Lesson!

Today was a great day for me and my group. We presented our  5e lesson plan to Bishop Dunn Memorial School’s fifth graders and it went great! I was originally very worried because we had to share the 50 minute time slot with another group, giving each group little less than a half hour to conduct their lesson. Well we were the second group to perform, and the group before ran over the time they were given. Once the group before us had finished we technically had only 5 minutes to present our lesson (that can’t happen). We knew we were crunched for time, so we just started off the lesson as quick as we could. We couldn’t really do a quick warm-up activity with them as we had planned, so we just explained the assignment to them really quickly then split them up into groups. My group, since we were the last to present, decided to put together a culminating activity for the students to participate in as a way to present their knowledge of the chapter. We created four stations at which each group of students had a different assignment. There was a song/rap table in which the students could create their own chemical change rap, or sing along with one that we found online. Another group had to create a short skit about their favorite part of the chapter. Then there was one group that was giving a piece of oak tag with the letters that spelt out Chemical Change, in which they were to make an acrostic poem out of. And lastly there was a group that was assigned to draw and create a collage of all the important ideas that they learned from the chapter and put them onto a piece of oak tag. We gave the students approximately 10 minutes (probably less) to work on these projects. Myself and my co-teachers walked about from station to station to monitor the students progress and help out when needed. Each group of students was having a great time creating their masterpieces. At the end of the ‘creating’ phase we asked the students to come up and present their work and why they chose to do what they did. I felt that this lesson went splendidly, and if there was one thing I would change it would be to get a bit more time to actually engage the students instead of just throwing them into the assignment. However, given the circumstances I feel really proud of our lesson and of all the work the students were able to accomplish, presenting their understanding of the material in a variety of different ways.

Observing a Group's Lesson

Today at Bishop Dunn Memorial School we observed a group of our peers implementing their  lesson plan with Mrs. Benfer’s fifth grade science class. I loved how they first engaged the students,  giving them a problem to solve (what had more vitamin C, and orange or a vitamin supplement of  vitamin C?). This got the students really thinking about the problem. The group then asked the students  to give their answer and explain why they picked what they did. This introduction led into the main body  of their inquiry lesson, which was to discover whether the item was made with chemical technology or not. The students were broken into groups of four to five and each given a set of different materials to explore and ponder over. When the exploration phase was done the teacher candidates pulled up an activity that they had created on the smartboard. A representative from each group had to come up and drag the items that they were given into the ‘chemically engineered’ vortex or the ‘other’ vortex. If they were right the image was sucked into the vortex. This was a great use of technology in the lesson, and I really thought it made the lesson that more engaging and enjoyable for the students. The lesson was very well made and executed; I hope that when it is my turn to teach our groups’ lesson that I will be able to do as well a job as the group did today.

Getting to the Core

Chapter 12 just discussed the Big Ideas and Systems that a teacher will most definitely need to cover during the year. The information given is what we need to know to teach the subject, but I hope that almost everyone in college should already know the material mentioned in the book. The material covered was solar systems, human body systems, simple machines, the earth as a super-system, interactions and patterns of change, heat energy and matter electricity, light, sound, and magnetism. After covering these concepts, the book then goes on to explain how to develop these units, and what sort off activities would be appropriate for each unit. What I liked best about the chapter is that it gives a checklist at the end to evaluate the science curriculum that you create. It helps because if you know what to work towards, your units will be more centered, organized, and focused.