Science Methods - Blog 4

      This week in science methods I have spent a lot of time working on my science unit, and I am definitely the most proud of my work on that assignment this month. I am planning a science unit on sound that integrates the literacy concept of cause and effect. This unit has taken a lot of planning and a lot of hard work, but I believe this work will certainly be worth it since I have now created a unit that I can use during student teaching. The aspect of the unit I struggled with the most was creating the big ideas. Often, I struggle with creating the big picture ideas for students because I am very detail oriented. My big ideas tended to be much more detailed and focused to the unit than they were supposed to be. On the other hand, creating the performance task brought me a lot of satisfaction because I created something that I know the students in my classroom will love participating in, and that made makes me very excited to teach this unit. Since I just turned in my unit, I do not have any action steps for this assignment this week. However, I want to complete my edTPA commentaries for science methods over the coming weekend.
     This month, I contributed to the overall class by simply being encouraging. This week has possibly been one of the most stressful weeks of the semester, and I have become incredibly grateful throughout this week for the wonderful people I get to learn alongside. We have all become each other's cheerleaders, and we support each other as much as possible. I think encouraging and supporting my peers is the best way for me to continue to contribute in the coming weeks.
     The outside learning I have found this week is a book that was introduced to us in class called "Science Formative Assessment" by Paige Keeley. This book is full of wonderful formative assessments that are not only great for science instruction, but all curricular areas. This research has been incredibly helpful because it has added quite a lot of strategies to my bank of ideas for formative assessments. Now I will be able to go into my classroom and have an abundance of assessments to use in order to find what works for each student. This relates directly to the North Carolina Teacher Candidate Standards, specifically standard 4h, which states that "Teachers use a variety of methods to assess what each student has learned." In order to truly know what our students have learned, we must not only assess them multiple times in different ways, but we must also find the ways that students excel at displaying their knowledge. Some assessments may create barriers for students that hinder them from showing what they have truly learned, and we must recognize this occurring and try other methods or make accommodations. During my student teaching experience, I plan to implement many of the assessments I have learned about in order to find what assessments truly show what my students have learned.
     The current event in science that I read about this month involved the planets! Specifically, there was a spacecraft that was sent to Mars that successfully landed on the planet. This spacecraft did not . land in the area that was desired by scientists, but the spacecraft luckily landed in a crater filled with soil, which made collecting data extremely easy. The spacecraft will be used to study the interior of the planet to help scientists learn more about the planet. (Link to research: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/top-stories-shocking-crispr-claim-mars-landing-and-geneticist-s-take-gene-editing)


Top Tweets of the Month:


I chose this as one of my top tweets of the week because it reminded me that coding is a scientific/mathematic idea that should be incorporated into our classrooms! Coding is something that our students will likely be exposed to in their futures, and we should embrace this idea.



I chose this as one of my top tweets of the week because I thought it was a wonderful graphic that showed the levels of learning that our students are able to experience. Clearly, good teachers would want their students to go through each level of learning and eventually come out at the extended abstract learning.



I chose this as one of my top tweets of the week because it shows exactly what our goal as teachers should be. We aren't teaching students facts and things to "know," we are teaching them how to be successful learners.

435 - Blog 4

      This month in my student teaching placement, I have begun to notice the growing gaps between the students in my classroom. The students who have succeeded all semester so far are beginning to connect the dots on concepts, and connect similar concepts together, specifically in math. On the other hand, the students that have struggled all semester have continued to struggle, and have required more and more attention in order to catch up and continue to learn. Many of them are still working on concepts that the class has moved on from, and managing this is very difficult. My CE mostly works with these students, or has me work with these students, during WIN time, which stands for "What I Need." Although this is a great time to help students who are falling behind to move forward in their learning, it is not always enough. It has been very helpful for me to see how these situations are dealt with, and I have learned that each child and each situation is often dealt with differently. We have one child in this class who is in EC for math and reading who has been moved back in the curriculum and is often doing first grade work because the second grade work has been nearly impossible. This child is working on building the concepts he is lacking in order to be able to attempt second grade work. On the other hand, there are many children who are still participating in everything, and succeeding at most everything, but simply require extra attention in specific areas to be able to be on grade level. Each situation is different, but I have learned from my CE that you must do whatever the child needs, even if that means taking a step back from the second grade curriculum and finding the problems in the previous grades content.
     According to ASCD. org in regards to students struggling with mathematics, "Students may have a serious lack of background that requires reaching back to mathematical concepts taught in previous years. The focus should be on the underlying math, not on class assignments. For example, while others are learning multidigit multiplication, floundering students may need experiences to help them learn basic underlying concepts, such as that 5 × 9 can be interpreted as five groups of nine" (Link at bottom). As educators, we must sometimes set aside the concepts the class is learning in order to help students fix the underlying concepts that were never learned. Otherwise, they may never build a foundation and continue to struggle. Knowing what your students need, regardless of the curriculum, is strongly related to the North Carolina Teacher Candidate Standards, specifically standard 4a, which states that "Teachers know the ways in which learning takes place, and they know the appropriate levels of intellectual, physical, social, and emotional development of their students." Throughout my time in this classroom, I have learned how important it is to be aware of your students, and to understand not only what they need from you, but also what is absolutely not going to click with them. My CE knows for some of her students that the whole group instruction of certain concepts most likely won't be enough, and intentionally plans to support those students in other ways. It is extremely important to be in tune with your students, and pay attention to them at all times. In my future classroom, and during my student teaching experience, I hope to learn the signs and signals that students send at all times and be able to read those to understand what my students need and what I need to do for them to make them successful.
   

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/nov07/vol65/num03/Nine-Ways-to-Catch-Kids-Up.aspx

Science Blog 3

       This month in science methods we have mostly been focusing on our science fair projects! We completed and turned in these projects last week. My groups project consisted of pouring acid rain on three different types of plants to see which plant could survive the effects of acid rain. Throughout our project, we measured our plant's heights, and we made sure we administered the same amount of water to each plant. Once our plants had grown tall enough, we began putting the same amount of acid rain on each plant. As we watched each of our plants decay from the acid rain, one particular plant clearly died a lot slower than the rest. Throughout this project, I not only learned how to complete a successful science project, but I was also able to look through the lens of a teacher and see how a science project could be utilized in the classroom. One of the biggest struggles throughout this science project was the slow growth of the plants. Our project was not able to move as quickly as we would've liked because the plants did not grow as fast as anticipated. One of the things that my group was the most proud of was being able to keep data on our project in order to prove the effects of the acid rain on each plant. Being able to see our project develop and see the results of our hard work brought our science project group a lot of satisfaction. This project related directly to the NCTCS, specifically standard 3b, which states that "Teachers know the content appropriate to their teaching specialty." In order to be effective science teachers, we must understand how to create and administer science projects in our classrooms. Science projects are extremely important to integrate into the classroom. According to classroomscience.org, "Any teacher who’s ever guided a group of students through a science project can attest to the power of hands-on learning. Freed from the two-dimensional confines of the printed page, these projects routinely benefit students by requiring them to engage in the varied tasks that comprise the scientific method" (Link at bottom). In order to help students truly understand science and learn to the best of their ability, we must let students experience science in the classroom. Science projects will help me in my future classroom to ensure that my students not only understand science in a deeper way, but become scientists themselves. 
      Over the next week, I plan to work on my unit that I am planning for my student teaching experience. I am currently planning to teach a unit on sound. In order to continue working on this project, my smart goal for this coming week are to complete half of my unit by Monday. In order to contribute to the overall class this week, I have been working with my classmates to collaborate and help each other with ideas about our units as well as decide with others how much of our unit should be done by Monday, which is when our formative assessment of our progress is due. I will continue to contribute more with my classmates by collaborating with them on projects and assignments, and ensuring that we are all learning from one another.
     One current event that I learned about this month is a fungus that was found that can break down some forms of plastic. According to sciworthy.com, a scientist gathered plastic from a lake, and separated the fungi found on the plastics into thirteen groups (Link at bottom). Four of the groups were found to be able to degrade polyurethane plastic, while none were found to be able to degrade polythylene plastic. There was one particular fungus that was able to degrade polyurethane plastic the fastest, called "ladosporium cladosporioides." Teaching students about an event such as this could show them that scientists are still discovering different things in our world today, and are still conducting experiments just like they are in the classroom. Additionally, this current event could be connected to recycling, and the idea of a fungus being used to reduce plastic in the world. 


Top Tweets of the Week:
   

This tweet is one of my top tweets of the week because it hit on some of the key ideas I believe educators must have. The first idea is that children must be challenged to be changed into successful learners, and successful people. The second idea is that children must be taught how to think, not what to think. Teaching facts and requiring students to memorize material will not help students in the future. Everything we teach must be relevant to their future lives. We are teaching concepts and ideas that help teach students how to think differently. The purpose of education is to help students reach their full potential.



This is one of my top tweets of the week because in order to be successful teachers, we must teach in away that benefits our students. We can "listen" to our students my looking at their work, listening to their answers, and working as hard as we can to find the way each student learns. The days of expecting student to conform to the way a teacher is teaching are over. We must ensure all students learn to the best of their ability by finding their strengths, and utilizing these strengths to improve their weaknesses.



This is one of my top tweets of the week because in order to make our classrooms feel safe for students, it is vital that we teach students how to fail. Failure is an integral part of the learning process, and even though no student will enjoy failure, we must always ensure that our students know that failure will not permanently be part of them, such as a tattoo, but will simply be like a bruise that will fade as they learn how to succeed.
   

http://www.classroomscience.org/new-research-just-what-are-the-benefits-of-science-projects
https://sciworthy.com/can-some-fungi-clean-up-plastic-pollution/

Practicing edTPA

      This past month in EDUC 435, we have been working on our mock edTPA experience. This experience included writing a learning segment for our clinical classroom, teaching this learning segment, and writing all three edTPA commentaries.Throughout this experience, I have learned a lot about differentiating for many different needs in the classroom. My CE and I thoroughly discussed the needs in the class before I taught my edTPA experience, and we also thoroughly discussed what worked for each student and what did not in reference to my learning segment as well.
      Differentiation connects directly with standard 2d of the North Carolina Teacher Candidate Standards, which states that "Teachers adapt their teaching for the benefit of students with special needs." Adapting your instruction for the needs of students is extremely important, and edTPA makes that evident. For me, differentiating in a real classroom has been extremely challenging. Throughout my time in the education department, I have learned how to differentiate, and I have even learned strategies for differentiating. Although I have certainly used this learning in the classroom and throughout my mock edTPA experience, differentiating for real students is much harder. The strategies that I've been taught for differentiating for different types of children sometimes work, and sometimes don't. Each child is completely different, and I have learned that sometimes the strategies I decide to use for differentiation may fail. Throughout this process, I have learned that in order to learn what works for each child, there is some trial and error involved. Finding what truly helps the students that need adaptions is extremely important, but challenging nonetheless. According to Carol Ann Tomlinson, "students in the elementary grades vary greatly, and if teachers want to maximize their students' individual potential, they will have to attend to the differences." In order to help our students truly learn and grow, differentiation is a requirement.
      In my future classroom, I will work very hard at the beginning of the year to figure out the specific strategies and tools that help each of my students learn best, and differentiate my instruction based on the trial and error that will occur at first. I will also remember that not every learning disability, or learning struggle, is ever exactly the same, and I will make sure that I do not expect the same strategies to always work for every child with the same struggle. This will help me to ensure that my differentiation is successful in the future.

Utilizing The School Report Card

     This week in EDUC 435, we looked through all the information available regarding our placement school's report card grade, EOG scores, growth, population data, and anything else that was available. After analyzing this data, we used it to create a parent night for our school that would help the school in an area of difficulty. Throughout this project, I not only realized how much information is available for my use, but also how important it is for me, as an educator, to know all of this information about my school. By completing this project, I learned that the majority of my school is underprivileged, that we have a fairly even number of boys and girls, the ethnicities represented in my school, and more. This helped me to gain a thorough understanding of the students I am teaching every day. Knowing your students relates to the the North Carolina Teacher Candidate Standards, specifically standard 2d, which states that "teachers embrace diversity in the school, community, and in the world." In order to embrace diversity in the classroom, we must know where our students come from. According to ASCD.com, "The most diverse group in the United States is our youngest children, and they will make the nation more diverse as they age. Almost 9 million young people ages 5 to 17 speak a language other than English in their home and 2.6 million of them have difficulty speaking English. For our Children's Class of 2000, we could estimate that almost one-half million are being raised in families that speak no English at home, and that at least 125,000 will need special attention in preschool and kindergarten to learn to speak and read English" (Link at bottom). 
     This project also helped me to have a deeper understanding of the struggles the school faced, and the goals of the school as well. Part of the project required us to look in detail at the school improvement plan that was created by the school improvement team at our placement schools. This gave me in depth knowledge of the goals created by my school. This helps me to mold my instruction and classroom ideas to help support these goals and move my class and school towards completing these goals.
     In my future classroom, I plan to utilize the school report card, accountability model, and any other resources available in order to fully understand my school and students. This will help me to be a better educator by preparing to face the challenges the school faces, and preparing to accomplish the goals the school has as well.

http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/107003/chapters/Diverse-Teaching-Strategies-for-Diverse-Learners.aspx

Science Methods Blog 2

     This month in Science Methods, we have learned about the acronym CLEVR. This stands for CLaim, EVidence, and Reasoning. Throughout our science methods class, we have learned how to implement this strategy in not only science, but other subject areas as well. CLEVR is a strategy that teaches students to make a claim, find evidence for that claim, and then determine their reasoning for why their claim is accurate. Although this fits very nicely with science, you could easily integrate this strategy into language arts, math, and even social studies. Additionally, CLEVR is not something that should be used once in a science lesson and thrown out. This is a strategy that must be cultivated over an extended period of time with your students. Especially in younger grades, students will not automatically be able to utilize this strategy. According to edutopia, "The CER [CLEVR] format of writing explanations is not a trivial thing for your students. You will need to explicitly introduce and model it for them. They will need support throughout the year as they get better at writing explanations" (link at bottom). The CLEVR strategy connects directly to the NCTCS, specifically standard 4c, which states that "Teachers use a variety of instructional methods." CLEVR is a strategy that may help many students gain a much better understanding of their learning by giving them the opportunity to defend their thinking on their own. This is definitely an instructional method that I plan to use in my future classroom in order to help my students truly understand why the things they think and believe are true.
     This past month I have been the most satisfied by my ability to keep track of all my assignments so far! Although this seems like a trivial thing to be satisfied by, I am feeling very overwhelmed at times by the assignments from EDUC 435 and science methods combined. Therefore, I am very satisfied by my ability to complete and turn in all my assignments os far and keep track of everything.
     This past month in science methods we have mostly been working on our science fair projects! I am very proud of my groups work on our science fair project, and I feel as if we are going to learn a lot from our experiment. One of the struggles myself and my group have faced throughout this project is the lack of ability to move forward with our project due to the fact that we must wait on the plants to grow quite a bit before we truly begin the experimentation.
     As far as class contributions, I feel as if we have all supported each other very well. We are all a team, and we help each other through each education class every semester. We cheer each other on and help each other when it is needed. I personally feel that I have reached out to people that I have not been in many education classes with more this week. In the coming weeks, I feel I could contribute to my class more by discussing edTPA with my classmates in order to gain an even better understanding of the edTPA process.

Current Event: This past month I learned a lot about hurricane Florence! This was definitely a scientific phenomenon, and North Carolina was hit a lot harder in multiple areas than is normally expected when hurricanes occur. This connected very easily to science methods, as we have been talking about scientific phenomena quite a bit.

Tweets:
  
I really loved this tweet because it perfectly fit into what we have been talking about in science methods. This tweet explains how to use phenomena to drive instruction, and takes you through a process of finding a main phenomenon, letting that break into smaller phenomena questions, testing the questions and ideas we have about the phenomena, and then creating a reasoning for the phenomena. This process seems very similar to the CLEVR process we have learned about.



I liked this tweet because it relates to younger grades and shows how they can learn from discoveries they make as they are "playing." If we give students the opportunity to explore different things that relate to science instruction, they will likely have a natural curiosity about what they are doing, and can gain new knowledge from their own intrinsic motivation.


I liked this tweet because it reinforces the idea that teachers must always learn! Professional development doesn't have to only look one certain way. As we have clearly learned through the education department, even twitter can be a form of professional development.

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/science-inquiry-claim-evidence-reasoning-eric-brunsell 

Beginning EDUC 435

     Beginning this semester in education 435 has been extremely exciting, but also extremely busy! I have absolutely loved getting to spend so much time in the classroom this semester. My clinical educator has truly opened her classroom to me, and she has made it clear to the class that I am an equal to her in her classroom. Therefore, I have truly felt like this classroom and all of the students are mine. This experience has already taught me so much more about being a teacher, and I am excited to see how much more I learn.
     I have learned a lot about behavior management as I have observed and participated in the classroom this semester. We have one child that is on a behavior plan, which has been quite the learning experience. My teacher has let me be an active part of the trial and error involved with creating a plan that works for this child, and I have learned a lot through this experience.
     One of the most impactful things I have learned about this semester so far is classroom management. This is something that has been difficult for me to learn in the past without having experience in a real classroom, so this semester has allowed me to finally begin learning about how to truly manage a classroom. I was also able to learn every aspect of my clinical educators classroom management plan through an assignment we have completed in education 435. One aspect of my clinical educators classroom management plan that I have learned a lot from is her contact with parents. Mrs. Lewis makes absolutely sure that the families of each of her students are involved in their students learning, and keeps them informed about everything that happens. This connects directly with standard 2e, which states that "Teachers work collaboratively with the families and significant adults in the lives of their students."
     Through my learning in my placement, outside research, and EDUC 435 class, I know that in my future classroom, my communication with parents must include as much good news about their students as bad news. According to the reading rockets website, "schools that communicate bad news about student performance more often than recognizing students' excellence will discourage parent involvement by making parents feel they cannot effectively help their children." It is important to me, as an educator, to help the families of my students feel like their student is capable and for me to communicate the ways the family can help in a positive way. 


http://www.readingrockets.org/article/building-parent-teacher-relationships

Beginning Science Methods

     This week in science methods we have learned about the New Generation Science Standards, the North Carolina Standard Course of Study, and how it all connects together. Before taking this class, I had never heard of the NGSS, or any of the pieces that fall within that, such as the science and engineering practices, crosscutting standards, and disciplinary core ideas. We were assigned a project where we had to figure out how the NGSS and the NCSCOS connected, which was very daunting considering I knew nothing about the NGSS. This project was definitely a struggle for me starting out, and I had to do a lot of research before I felt like I had even scratched the surface. Although this project took a lot of time and effort, I was extremely proud of my work when I was finished. I felt like this really brought me a lot of satisfaction as an educator because it helped me to be able to not only understand the NGSS and the NCSCOS but connect them together really helped me understand science and how to teach it in a whole new way.

     In regards to the overall class, I feel I have contributed by helping my peers and being encouraging. Since I have been in class with the same people for most of my education classes, we have all really learned to support each other and help each other as we go through these difficult classes. I think that I could probably support some of the students I don't know as well more, and encourage them since I naturally tend to gravitate to the other student teachers that I know really well.
     In my research about the New Generation Science Standards, I found an article titled "Next Generation Science Standards: What's different, and do they matter?" (link at bottom). Throughout this article, I found that it emphasized the idea of inquiry, and how the NGSS help push inquiry and content together. The article explains that inquiry used to be taught at the beginning of the year through the scientific method, and then content was taught separately without every connecting. The NGSS is created to connect "content and process". In my future classroom as well as throughout my science methods class, I will always remember that the NGSS is a tool that helps me connect inquiry with what I am teaching. This article has helped me realize why the NGSS is so important, and why I should continue to use it in my instruction in the future.
     Although I have learned a lot about the New Generation Science Standards this week, I have still barely scratched the surface of these standards. My action goal for this month is to continue to delve deeper into the NGSS standards, and find at least five strategies for integrating these standards and ideas into my teaching practices within a month.

Science News:
     This past week, the news has reported that the world seems to be taking climate change less seriously recently due to the president taking the focus of our country off of the environment (link at bottom). I thought this was interesting because it seems our world, or specifically our country, does not tend to want to inquiry about problems. The world today does not often take the time to inquiry about finding solutions, and tends to ignore problems instead. This relates to science methods because it shows me how important it is to teach our students how to inquiry about their world, and to always ask questions and try to find solutions.


Tweets:


I chose this tweet to share because I thought it was so interesting to think about using stem and inquiry in a way that allows students to learn in their own way. Since stem and inquiry tend to put learning back on the students, it truly allows them to do things in the way that works best for them. This creates great differentiation and helps all students grow and learn!



I chose to share this tweet because STEM and inquiry seem like such big ideas, when in reality it is just teaching students to explore and question the world around them. Teaching in this innovative way helps make learning relevant and brings the world around our students into the classroom. Letting them explore and create will also help student learning to stick, and all it takes is letting students begin to wonder about the many phenomena around them.



I chose to share this tweet because I think it is so important to teach inquiry based science in order to help science come alive for our students. Students will learn more and remember more when they fall in love with learning. We can help students to find a love for learning through inquiry and hands on learning where students get the opportunity to explore relevant things from their surroundings that are important and interesting to them.
   
Links: 
- http://stemteachingtools.org/brief/14
- https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/a-global-rightward-shift-on-climate-change/568684/

Social Studies Methods Overall

     My time in Social Studies Methods this semester has completely changed who I am as a teacher. I believe that the educator I have become throughout this semester is far beyond any expectations I had beginning this semester. One of the most impactful experiences for me this semester was learning how to teach using concepts, and learning how to turn concepts into a unit. Teaching using concepts helps students to become interested in social studies because concepts helps the material to become relevant for students. Combining these concepts to create units that create authentic experiences for students will help students connect to their learning in ways that learning about facts and taking tests could never create for students.
     Teaching through the use of concepts and concept based units also helps students to learn meaningful information that will help them in their lives at present and in the future by creating informed citizens that are prepared to face the world they live in. This connects directly to standard 3, element d, of the North Carolina Teacher Candidate Standards which states that "Teachers make instruction relevant to students." Social studies is one of the perfect ways to make instruction relevant to students, especially through the use of concepts. We cannot be satisfied with teaching students facts that do not affect them personally when social studies gives us the opportunity to connect learning to students in a way that will help them for the rest of their lives.
     According to historysimulation.com, when creating a concept based lesson plan, you must first ask yourself "What are you trying to accomplish with this lesson plan?" I think that this is such an important question that educators must ask themselves before creating assignments, lesson plans, and even units. This helps us keep our students in mind, and ensures that our concepts are relevant and important for our students. In my future classroom, I plan to continue to create concept based units that are relevant with teaching that students find importance in. I will do this by staying up to date on what is happening in the world, and by using concepts that are timeless, transferrable, universal, abstract, and are big ideas to create units that create authentic experiences that will help my students learn to the best of their ability.

link: https://www.historysimulation.com/concept-based-learning.html

Teaching in a Real Classroom!

     The month of March has been jam packed with learning experiences in Social Studies Methods so far. Although I have learned a lot from my class and the assignments we are participating in, I have gained an immense amount about being a teacher from being in a real live classroom. My clinical placement this semester is in first grade, which is where my heart is at the moment. For Social Studies Methods, we are required to teach an entire lesson plan in our clinical placement. After observing the classroom I was placed in for a good deal of time, my clinical educator and I decided that I would become part of the students literacy centers, and teach my lesson of a course of three days. On my first day of teaching, I was extremely nervous because I have never had the opportunity to teach a real class of elementary students before. Even though a lot of things did not go as expected, and I had to make decisions and changes for my students on the spot, I loved teaching. Teaching to actual six year olds and watching them get excited about what they were learning is what I live for in this major. While I taught, I was able to watch students who were not confident in themselves complete assignments that they didn't know they were capable of. I was also able to see how incredibly smart each child was in some shape or form. I think my biggest takeaway from my time teaching was the fact that each child in that classroom was so smart and had so much potential, but it took something different to get these students to have the "ah-ha" moments that unlock this potential. This connects directly to standard 4, element a, which states that "Teachers know the ways in which learning takes place, and they know the appropriate levels of intellectual, physical, social, and emotional development of their students." As a teacher, it is crucial that I know how each of my students learn in order to provide the strategies and learning experiences that each student needs so that they are able to achieve at their highest potential. The United States Department of Education wrote an article arguing for a more well rounded education said that schools should incorporate the passions that students already have. Although this relates more to students having the opportunity to go to other classes, such as music and art, I believe we can relate this to our classroom as well. If we use interests that students have already developed a passion for to engage them in our lessons, we can help students use the potential they already know they have in one area to bring them confidence in another. The article says "students are discovering their own potential through those experiences beyond just English and math." (Link at bottom)
     In my future classroom, I plan to get to know my students and how they learn as quickly and as thoroughly as possible so that I can provide them with the learning experiences they truly need. Differentiation is the key to providing this for students. Each student is smart and has potential, but every student is not able to access this potential in the same way. This relates directly to standard four, element c, which states that "Teachers use a variety of instructional methods." My students deserve for me to provide them with assignments and learning experiences that are tailored to their needs by differentiating for my classroom.

Link to Outside Research: https://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/what-school-can-be

Performance Tasks

     I have learned so much between my last blog in February and now. I think one of my biggest takeaways from this past month revolves around the unit we are writing. This semester in social studies methods, we are writing a unit plan that is concept based. We have learned that at the end of our unit, we must have a performance task. Before taking this course, I did not know what a performance task was. Of course, I already knew about assessments and how important they are, but I had mostly focused on formative assessments that belong at the end of a small lesson plan. Performance tasks are assessments that belong at the end of a unit. They are summative, and they should require students to portray conceptual knowledge about the unit that has been taught. This project should allow students to be creative and portray their work in various ways while also leading them to exhibit the specific knowledge you are looking for. We also learning that it should follow the GRASPS model. This stands for Goal, Role, Audience, Situation, Product, performance, and purpose, and Standards and criteria for success. This helps your performance task become a real world, meaningful task for your students. It helps encourage conceptual thought within your task, and makes sure that your performance task exhibits inquiry. Throughout this process, I have learned the difference between a small assessment and a performance task. I believe performance tasks help students to truly show knowledge of their topic while also giving them a real world experience to attach their knowledge to.
     In order to implement an adequate performance task, according to Jay McTighe, your task must exhibit certain characteristics. Performance tasks must "call for the application of knowledge and skills, not just recall or recognition." They also must also be open-ended, and they must be "multifaceted". Lastly, the performance task must be evaluated by pre-established standards, such as a rubric, and they should include integration of other subjects and twenty-first century skills (link at bottom). I believe that these characteristics are what set performance tasks apart from regular, fact based assessments. In order for a performance task to be successful for encouraging outside connections and a deeper level of skills, we must make sure that we work hard to establish these characteristics in our performance tasks.
     This connects directly to standard 3, element d, which states that "Teachers make instruction relevant to students." By using performance tasks that ensure conceptual knowledge and allow real world experiences to attach the knowledge to, we are making sure our students see the relevance of their learning. Students need to be taught in a way that makes learning important to them, and shows them why they need the knowledge we are giving them. In my future classroom, I plan to use performance tasks at the end of my units in order to help my students gain intrinsic motivation by seeing the connections to their world outside of the four walls of my classroom. I do not want to be a teacher that makes students feel as if school is useless. I want to make sure that my students understand why everything I teach them matters so that they will care about their learning.
     The idea of a performance task also connects directly to standard 4, element e, which states that "Teachers help students develop critical-thinking and problem-solving skills." Performance tasks tests the knowledge of a students conceptual knowledge through the use of large projects or simulations. Using conceptual knowledge requires a deeper level of thought than testing students on factual content. By using concepts, you are ensuring that students are learning the twenty-first century skills of problem solving and critical thinking. In my future classroom, I hope to promote twenty-first century skills in all aspects of my classroom. One of the ways I plan to promote these skills is through performance tasks.



Link: http://edge.ascd.org/blogpost/what-is-a-performance-task
 

The Importance of Being Relevant

     This past month in my social studies methods class, I have been working on a global citizenship project with a partner. This project required that we find a current event from January, and relate it to social studies as well as other subjects. We had to create classroom ready examples, and even find technology that could easily be included. Personally, I loved being able to learn how easy it is to incorporate current events into a students learning! My partner and I used the government shut down as our current event, and as soon as we looked at the North Carolina Standard Course of Study, we immediately saw an abundance of connections in all the grade levels. I think this project was extremely beneficial because as educators, we need to ensure that our students are not only being taught what happened in the past, but what is happening in the world around them right now.       
    According to socialstudies.pressible.org, "The Social Studies classroom is an ideal platform from which students can establish a foundation of awareness and inquiry. Current events offer the Social Studies teacher countless opportunities to make the curriculum relevant to our everyday lives" (link at the bottom). I think this is the main reason for incorporating current events into the classroom. Teaching students to be aware of the world around them while also teaching them to question what the news and other media is telling them. This will help students to learn to keep themselves informed later in life as well as help them to understand that they cannot believe everything that they see. This relates directly to the North Carolina Teacher Candidate Standards, specifically standard 3d, which states that "Teachers make instruction relevant to students." By helping students make connections to what is happening in their world through the use of current events, we are helping students understand the importance of their learning and certainly help make their learning relevant.
     In my future classroom, I plan to try to incorporate current events as much as possible in order to help my students not only see why their learning is important, but also to encourage them to continue to explore current events and what is happening in their world. I hope to help produce students that are informed citizens that can think critically about the information they are given and can make their own decisions. If I do not include current events and relevant ideas in my teaching in the future, I will not be adequately preparing my students for the world they will have to face in the future. This means that I, as an educator, will have to make sure that I am up to date and informed in order to model the importance of being informed.

http://socialstudies.pressible.org/lizhoelzle/current-events