Goodbye! Adios! Ciao! Sayonara!

     Reflecting on this class seems nearly impossible due to the magnitude and volume of experience, knowledge, insight, and personal growth there has been. I came into this class as a student who was studying to be an educator and now by the end I feel as if I have been pushed to actualize my full potential, I seized initiatives, and am able to leave this course feeling like I am an educator capable of running whole-class lessons and planning for meaningful experiences. I have grown in my education, abilities, skill set, and knowledge through this course, meeting all course objectives along the way, but I have also grown personally equally as much. I had no idea what was in me or what level I could work and function at until, through this course, I was pushed to go there and realize my potential as an individual, teachers, student, and worker. 

      Dr. Smirnova began the semester hoping we would be able to see ourselves as scientists through this course and then realize that in life, all people are really scientific. Out of all of the course objectives and expectations achieved throughout the semester, the following were the most significant for me: 

•  "Be able to engage elementary school students in their own learning by providing meaningful science experiences for them, facilitating their explorations in the classroom, and helping them seek answers to their own questions" 

• "Learn how to plan for meaningful science experiences that are aligned with the guidelines in the National Science Education Standards (NSES), the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS), including the New York State K-4 and 5-6 Science Core Curriculums" 

• "Integrate technology into all facets of the process of becoming a science learner and a good science teacher" 

• "Appreciate the importance of understanding and interacting with nature as a way of protecting the planet for years to come."

This leaves me with professional growth. This class has taught me how to give and take constructive criticism, which was a first in my educational career, and opened up many resources for me professionally. This class was not focused around our learning inside of the walls but rather focused around activities that we could all use in our classrooms, use to get job, use on interviews, use for our students, etc. This class was all practically applicable to our futures and taught us how to work in teams, collaborate, and take/give professional feedback. While this was painful at the beginning, by the end it was a welcomed way to improve. This class brought me connections to Smart Board Training, Kappa Delta Pi, a Leadership Conference, CELL conference, Cultural Expo, and also facilitated in getting my name professionally in a newspaper.
I now leave this course confident in my teaching abilities, philosophies, constructs, methods, and modalities. I understand how to teach through constructivism principles and how to create hands-on, minds-on experiences which cement learning for students due to it being them creating their own knowledge. I feel comfortable running a whole-class lesson and I also feel confident in writing full lesson plans. This class was exactly what I needed to take my education, professional career, and personal achievement to the next step. I am thankful for the opportunity to participate with such an outstanding professor and colleagues.

The following are the names of my colleagues whose blogs are the ones I commented on. Their names are hyperlinks to their blog post and my comment. Below that is the link to two of my blog posts which have been commented on by peers. 

Jack Reilly, 

Alyssa, 

Amanda

Veronica, This post is very essential and really great all together! I like the idea you had produced for your project. This project looks like it had included much thought and testing to prove your theory. I like that you included a great amount of details as well as pulling details from articles to back your thought up. You can tell you put a lot of time and effort into your project. Great job overall, I enjoyed reading! on Music and Memory: Friends or Foes?

Alyssa

on 5/5/16

Great post, Veronica! I thought your idea of how you came up with your project was so interesting and very original. I found your results shocking; I would have probably put the same hypothesis as you did, because I cannot study with music playing as well. Your project definitely taught me something new. I also like that you incorporated research articles into your study. It sounds like you had a great experience participating in your first science fair. My only wish is if you could have explained the procedure of your project a little bit clearer, because I was slightly confused. Overall, I really liked reading your blog! on Music and Memory: Friends or Foes?

Stephanie Cretella

on 4/27/16

Physically Fascinating: Physical Science in Review

     Before this section in class and in the textbook I would have said that when I think of physical science I think of density, gravity, kinesthetic energy, potential, etc. I am not even sure I had a clear idea of what physical science really encompassed. However, now I have a much better idea and will summarize my thoughts and learning about physical science below.

     Physical science, as I learned, is what we can hold responsible for all health and medical breakthroughs that occur to keep us and our families alive each day. Physical science also affects our daily life in the form of technology. I never would have guessed that technology would fall under the same category that I previously thought was just physical objects and their relations. Another idea relating to physical science I had not recalled was the chemical changes in matter and their irreversibility, for example, when red meat cooks to be brown the chemical composition has changed and the meat cannot now be uncooked. While I realize now this is what I was thinking of when describing concepts I remembered, I did not list that basically elements, compounds, and mixtures are what comprise the matter and physical essences we are discussing.
     While these are aspects of physical science I did not realize, I did realize the importance of matter in physical science. Matter, mass, and energy were in fact some of the original ideas listed in the introduction that came to mind when I first saw physical science on the chapter title. Reading deeper into these general ideas I had were sections on solid, liquid, and gaseous matter, as well as kinesthetic energy which was one idea I did associate with physical science from the beginning.
     The chapters go in depth on laws of motion, atoms, molecular compositions, and examples such as flight. Energy was heavily discussed as well in its forms of electrical, light, sound, friction and heat energy. In reflection of all of this reading and summarizing, I realize that physical science is literally all of life being that it includes atoms, and maybe this is why I was unable to define clearly before what physical science really is. This will be an idea I discuss in my future teaching so students understand better than I understood about physical science. I also, now that I know truly what it is, realize that I love physical science and I can recall many experiments in chemistry, biology, and elementary science classes having to do with matter, reactions, chemical change in food, and laws of motion. I was glad I was able to read and reflect on thee concepts to keep my knowledge current and focused on modalities of teaching science in the future. I also plan to use the idea of discovery centers in conjunction with physical science in the future.

Music and Memory: Friends or Foes?

Music and Memory: Friends or Foes?

        Looking around the library at Mount Saint Mary College I can see three students with headphones in and four without. So which of these students is going to remember more? When I got the idea to research the correlation between memory and music I was thinking that the results would show a strong correlation between music and remembering less of what one studied. This was based off of the fact that I cannot listen to music while studying, writing, or reading. My ideas about music and memory have drastically changed though. While this study is broad and does not focus in on the beats per minute, words or no words in a song, or does not use reading or writing as the mode for judging memory, it does give a generalized view of the relationship which is more generalizable as not everyone studies the same material, or listens to the same music.

        To begin with, I posed a question: will listening to music affect memory? I hypothesized that yes, music would negatively affect memory. Next I asked 18 friends and family members to play a memory game so that I could collect data. The participants went to http://www.play.vg/games/52-Concentration.html and played the memory game four times. The first two times were practice rounds to eliminate the bias of naturally getting better the second time one plays. The third time was with music. The participant was allowed to choose their own music that they would normally study to. Lastly, the fourth round was played with no music. I recorded all of this data in a chart and it was concluded that my hypothesis was wrong. 11 of the 18 participants remembered more and faster with music than without. In retrospect, however, I suspect that if instead of a memory game with pictures I had used a reading comprehension task to assess memory that the results may have been different. As DeRosa and Abruscato discuss in our class textbook, Teaching Children Science: A Discovery Approach, “children love to touch, they also love to look at things, to smell them, to move them about and to twist and turn them. Children must develop habits of mind that go beyond their natural curiosity. Scientific inquiry requires careful, active observations of the details and connections of systems and events that we encounter, which often go unnoticed by casual observers. The experience you provide children can stimulate and strengthen connections among brain cells that reinforce learning” (DeRosa & Abruscato, 2010). By doing an experiment like this I was modeling and practicing the scientific method but through touching, listening, playing a game, researching a natural curiosity, and stimulating both sides of my brain. These are the types of experiments we need to assure our students are engaging in.

        This project helped to develop pedagogical knowledge in that I now see the huge value in a science fair. I am young enough that when I was in elementary school it was the beginning of the move away from science fairs and so I never participated in one until now. After creating my own project, viewing all of the projects in the Bishop Dunn Memorial School gymnasium, and reading various articles, I have been made aware of the huge value in science fairs. This is a development in my pedagogical knowledge because it has given me a large resource to use in teaching scientific inquiry and investigation. One advancement in particular is my new attention to statistics as they are involved in science fair projects. As Gonzalez-Espada describes in her article “Using Simple Statistics to Ensure Science-Fair Success”, it is statistics, especially those backed by the t-test, hold great value and show great understanding of the experiment and the scientific process.

I also added to my pedagogical knowledge the experience and feeling of what it is like to feel the nature of science on my own without any guidelines or suggestions as to what or how my project should be. This speaks to DeRosa and Abruscato’s comments on the nature of science based in exploration as a human endeavor. They discuss in their book how explanations are tentative and and subject to change, however, scientists do not change their explanations on a whim and that new information is always forming (2010). By doing this project I was able to add this pedagogical knowledge but growing up in school science was a fixed set of questions and answers so this knowledge was not old hat to me. Technology, which was at the center of my data formation in this project, opens up a whole new world of science and discovery as well as information. Throughout this whole course I have added to my pedagogical knowledge a wealth of technology sources, methods of teaching with technology, and how it aids and enforces learning in the classroom. Science, engineering, and technology are connected in ways that are inseparable in the classroom.

        Throughout the course of this project I gained science content knowledge, knowledge on the teaching of science, and learned of new tools to use. Being that I had never done a science fair project before this experience was full of new learnings. The first of these that was mastered was content knowledge. Content knowledge, as in science, was available for the taking all throughout this process. In surfing the internet for ideas, seeing the ideas in real life as I walked around, and then doing the actual project, I learned so much about conducting small scale research, recording information and eliminating additional variables, and presenting evidence visually in both a clear/academic way and an interesting/eye-catching way. I also learned even more as I walked around both the upper and lower grades science fairs and saw the presentations there. I read some projects and others were shared with me verbally through presentations but either way there was a lot to learn on many different subjects. The next mastered content was methods, or the way of teaching science. I had never participated in a science fair and so I had never thought to use one as a method for effectively teaching science. Through watching Mrs. Foster-Faith and Dr.Smirnova I learned so much about the way or method to teaching science through student generated ideas, projects, research, and largely independent work.

        This project could be easily adapted to use with 2, 3rd, 4th, or 6th grade students. The adaptations would include adding or subtracting variables that the students must attend to and what type of memory study is used. For 6th graders I would add variables such as they type of music listened to, the beats per minute of the song, and what setting the person was in. I would also have them see if there were differences between what was being memorized: memory game of images, reading comprehension, Facebook posts, etc. To make this a 2nd grade project, however, I would not have any of these additional variables or specifications. The 2nd grade students could just time people playing a memory game with and without music. According to the Next Generation Science Standards, students in all grades K-6 are taught on categories under the umbrella topic of Understanding about Nature of Science. Students explore scientific investigation, scientific knowledge based on empirical evidence, scientific knowledge as open to revision in light of new evidence, science models, laws, mechanisms, and theories that explain natural phenomena, science as a way of knowing, scientific knowledge assumes an order and consistency in natural systems, science as a human endeavor, and science addresses questions about the natural and material world. “Science, like all other learning, is a progression. We need time to process information. Learning progressions imply the deliberate and coordinated development of learning over time. Children learn science by doing science.” (DeRosa & Abruscato, 2010). By changing an activity to fit a grade level we are keeping the same concepts, nature, and engagement with science, just creating a developed and staggered experience of science throughout the grades. DeRosa and Abruscato make the point that yes, science is learned by doing science and understanding its nature, but science learning must be a progression and a development. This is why quality, inquiry-based, engaging science is integral at different levels throughout every age group or grade.

This project will help students learn how to generalize concepts of inquiry, scientific method, and critical thinking skills because it shows that students can take any question, interest, or problem they face and using the inquiry or scientific method/processes they can arrive at an answer, conclusion, or solution. For example, if a student has a parent who is always telling them to turn their ipod off while studying then they could perform this experiment and show their parents the result that more people remembered greater amounts, faster while listening to music than without. Science fair projects, in general, show students that the isolated concepts we teach in the classroom (inquiry, scientific method, critical thinking) are really not isolated at all as they can apply and be generalized to almost any aspect of life. “Assimilation is the reconciliation of new experiences and data with present understanding so that the new data support and deepen but do not change their fundamental mental model. Accommodation is when new evidence cannot be reconciled with prior understanding and mental models are forced to change. (DeRosa & Abruscato, 2010). This difference in accommodation versus assimilation speaks to generalizing concepts because the experiences we give students or ones they embark on themselves falls into one of these two categories. Either way, whether the concept is automatically assimilated or if the student needs to change their prior understanding and accommodate the information, the student is taking in their experience and new knowledge and will have it in their brain when confronting all other experiments, problems, or situations in the classroom and outside of it.  Isolation of these ideas is not possible.

As far as science content, this experiment teaches on the subject of biology, more specifically, the human brain. The brain can do more than one thing at a time, especially when it is something with a dichotomy much like studying in music. Music is a right brained activity while studying or memorizing is a left brained activity. By combining the two not only are students brains doing two things at once but they are fostering connections between the two parts of the brain which makes studying more effect, long term, and effective. In our course work we discussed in length how getting children engaged, active, moving, and responding evokes a better and more memorable learning experience. This concept was shown or proven in just a slightly different context through my science fair experiment. I would have students to this experiment before I open up a unit on the human brain and then ask students once they learned about the brain to reflect on why we started with this activity to allow them to make the connection about how the brain functions as a whole and in parts.

According to the standard for understanding the nature of science students must learn science as a way of knowing, scientific knowledge assumes an order and consistency in natural systems, science as a human endeavor, and science addresses questions about the natural and material world. By doing an experiment much like mine or my colleagues students will naturally understand and apply these objectives.

Bibliography

Abruscato, J., & DeRosa, D. A. (2010). Teaching Children Science: A Discovery Approach.

Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Gonzalez-Espada. (n.d.). Using Simple Statistics to Ensure Science-Fair Success.

Retrieved April 27, 2016, from

https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-168631628.html

Tradebook -No Way Book!

     This was my first trade book assignment and my first book talk via technology. It was fun and challenging to make a book trailer that was interesting, peeked a need to read the book, and didn't give away the end. By the end, however, I had a video that makes it hard to believe the book is just a trade book! 
     I began by choosing a trade book that fit into my unit plan. This book, Making a Difference by Megan Goss, describes the journey of a teacher and her class through their study of aquatic ecosystems and then their role in restoring their local watershed with the help of STRAW (Students and Teachers Restoring A Watershed).
     After reading this book and gaining approval I began work on choosing which pictures would be helpful in setting the tone and peeking interest and what comments should be made around those photos to peek interest yet not give away the content of the book.
     I used animoto to compile the images and text with background music. I chose a song that was upbeat and spoke about the present to fit with the restoration theme and show that now is the time to take positive actions for our ecosystems and environment.
     This virtual book trailer took a lot longer than I thought and it was hard. Taking a short, nonfiction book and then making a video that is interest peeking, engaging, informative, and makes the viewer have to go and read the book was a challenge.
     While verbal book talks are quicker and easier no doubt, these virtual ones only have to be made once and then can be used multiple times. These book trailers are also more interesting and would be more engaging for students. The students could also make their own videos based on books they have read and enjoyed to share with their classmates who might be looking for an interesting read.
     As a teacher this book trailer was good as well because it made me thing very critically about the book I was using. Between the rubric and the trade book talk sheet I had to think about the purpose, standards, interest, result, activities, engagement, and generalizability of this book. By making these book trailers it would force me as a teacher to be choosing effective and engaging books rather than ones that just fall under my unit.
     All pros and cons aside, this assignment was good for me because I used animoto and now feel comfortable with it, have thought about what really goes into choosing trade books, and have the ability to make book trailers for my class to save time, get students reading, and engage them with nonfiction texts that they will enjoy. I even think having the students create a virtual library of books they have enjoyed using book trailers would be a good idea. Students who loved a book can share it which helps students chose books for reading workshop and also helps those students who have trouble finding books they enjoy reading.

Astronomy in Real Time- Science in the News

     While studying Earth and the atmosphere we researched popular press articles on astronomy. It was interesting looking through articles without abstracts, data pages, and words longer than supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. These articles were catchy, to the point, interesting, informative, and were on or around an 8th grade reading level. I thought it was an interesting project to create a scrapbook of articles because it made researching current events and information pertaining to astronomy engaging and interactive when it could have been a laborious task. Below is the link to my glogster which includes my scrapbook of engaging, interesting, and astronomy filled articles!
LINK TO GLOG

     After the creation of our glogsters (which each held a student's 10 articles) we got in groups of three in class and then discussed our articles and what were common themes among these. We picked out about thirty words or concepts that were prevalent in all of the articles and made a collaboration for a visual representation of astronomy in popular press.

     After this creation we went to work creating a timeline for these terms which proved to be important and significant in the field of astronomy. This task was easier said than done as terms such as sun, stars, and milky way date back to before human existence. Other terms, such as astronomers and spacecraft had more interesting stories behind their concepts and names. Just by researching these "top 30" terms, so to say, I learned a great deal about what is at the heart of astronomy and how it has evolved. 

Link to Timeline

     In reflection, if I were to do this activity again, I would have liked to choose a topic within astronomy and do the terms and timeline relevant to that topic. For example, the first trip to the moon as a topic and then choose terms and a timeline for the history of planning, building, and then actually going to the moon. 

     This structure for an activity was really engaging and also informative. The hands on creation of objects appeals to many types of learners and the way students are creating their own knowledge will make it more memorable. This activity would be an engaging and helpful way to begin a unit. It quickly and effectively gives every student background knowledge and a working knowledge on a subject or topic. 

     The articles chosen were mostly chosen because the topic or title caught my eye. While reading though they were mostly about the stars and planets in the sky changing, moving, and creating phenomenon! This all fit into our classroom discussions of keeping on the cutting edge, how teachers can keep up to date on astronomy information, and in general how we, as teachers, will keep ourselves informed on new findings. Through these articles I learned new breakthroughs in astronomy and also followed through on the discussed ideals of us teachers keeping our knowledge current. I would use news articles in teaching science for this exact reason- they are catchy, short, to the point, and give a lot of information about a broad topic through several more specific articles. In teaching I would have students browse articles on a topic and then write down everything they learn that they feel is significant. It is amazing how much is learned through just 30 minutes of browsing articles and the knowledge is mostly current and cutting edge. 

The Earth is Moving- Are You?

Week 9 Explore and Explain- Keeping Knowledge Current

As part of our Earth Science unit, we led class discussions and posts on what we know, don't know as well, what and how we can keep our knowledge current, and the resources that can help. The following questions and answers are what Melissa and I came up with to add to the discussion.

1. Consider the area of Earth’s surface, atmosphere, and weather about which you feel most knowledgeable. What ideas do you have regarding what you will do as a teacher to keep your knowledge current?
1. There are many ways to keep your knowledge current. Some ways are to subscribe to different magazines, look on websites, and keeping it engaging for the students. An example we would like to use in our classroom would be, during the unit, we could track the height of sea level.
2. Consider the area of Earth’s surface, atmosphere, and weather about which you feel least knowledgeable. What ideas do you have regarding what you will do as a teacher to continue to strengthen your knowledge base about this topic?
1. I will continue to research and keep my facts current with all new findings. It is important to have the most current information to bring to your students. We can attend science professional development events. We could attend “IROC” type informational presentations at local colleges, and we could also join a science professional organizations.
3. What resources are you aware of that will help you be an effective teacher of Earth’s surface, atmosphere, and weather?
1. We can follow and support NOAA, NASA, or IPCC  to help us stay current in our science teaching. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Nasa, and  IPCC, or Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are extremely useful resources. As for the earth’s surface, museums and national archives are good resources for information on rocks, fossils, and Earth’s changes.  

Social Learning Theory at Work

    I learned just as much from teaching as I did from watching all of the other groups teach. I had the pleasure of being in the last group so I was able to watch the mistakes of those before me and then learn from them to become a better teacher. I was given time to work on learning student names, not saying "you guys," and making sure everything in my lesson was engaging (not fun) and purposeful.
    Humans are social creatures and through the first few years of our life as we develop we learn mostly from social interactions. Modeling and cooperation are used in lessons for this exact reason- students learn through social stimulus. By watching other teacher candidates teach I was able to learn and study their models and then incorporate behaviors and positive teaching strategies I learned.
    Throughout this process I watched and learned about Web Quests, the importance of a base vocabulary understanding, group work, class management, time management, the importance of rubrics, the double edged sword that is videos, how motivating technology is, and how added responsibility produces more and better work from students.
    As teachers we add advanced as well. Throughout the course of fieldwork we all became better at not saying "you guys," responding to correct or wrong answers, presenting without reading from the board, speaking clearly and not yelling to get attention, signals for attention, assessing, and creating more engaging and interactive lessons. We developed insights into teaching a whole class rather than groups such as the necessity for guided notes and questions rather than non-structured notes. Leading a whole class also taught us to use choral responding or group answers over picking individual students to ensure that every student was engaging and responding to each question.
     Groups one, two, and three each built on each other content wise and in perfecting skills that were commented on. Each group got better time management control and learned new ways to keep the students on task. Throughout all of the similarities, however, each group planned and executed very different lessons and activities. I was glad to see work, ideas, and lessons from peers that think differently than I do so that I can push myself to move outside of my comfort zone as well to better accommodate all of the learners in my future classroom.
    In a last note, the chance to sit back ad observe a lesson instead of always being in it was an interesting and worthwhile experience. Just observing a lesson allowed me to put myself in the students shoes and find where confusions, boredom, excitement, engagement, and learning could occur. Being in an observing position is rewarding because it gives the teacher candidates a chance to think more critically about lesson components, implementations, and engagement. As stated in the beginning, it is easy to say I learned just as much from observing my colleagues in this class as I did from actually teaching.