Science Methods: September

Reflection of September

Throughout this month we have continued to learn many things! We have discussed using Cl-Ev-R within our future classroom. This is a research-based strategy that discusses how students can make a claim (Cl) and back this claim with evidence (Ev) and then use reason (R) to make sure that everything makes sense.  This strategy can be used in science, math, and English language arts. This is also a strategy that can be used throughout their lives with problem-solving. This week I struggled with starting my unit, but we were able to discuss the unit in class and discuss more of the expectations and look at an exemplary unit. This really helped me deal with this struggle and know how to plan for the future. The thing that brought me the most satisfaction this week is most likely our science fair project! We planted the seeds and just within a week, the seeds have grown so much! It may seem small and insignificant, but I have loved watching the seeds grow and watching how each day that we look at them that they get bigger and bigger! It is like they are my little babies and growing up so fast! My action steps for this upcoming week and month are to really start working on my unit and get progress done. I will work on a section and a half every week and really try to make little progress throughout the next month. I contributed this week to the class through discussion as well as being present within each class. For the science fair project, I contributed by watering the plants after each class and making sure that we were documenting the data. Next week I can contribute to the class by fully looking at the information for the week and looking at all of the classwork material and being prepared for the class. 

Tweets

This tweet above discusses how there is an incoming storm tonight within Mecklenburg County along with Cleveland County. This picture of the storm can be used to increase inquiry of weather and storms within the future classroom. You can ask the students what causes the changes in the clouds and why one side looks sunny and the other has this massive cloud. 

This tweet discussed how the students were able to do projects and how they learned more from doing the projects then they did sitting in a lecture. This made me really think about how within my future classroom I want to include performance tasks based off of GRASPS. This allows the students to really choose what they want to do for the performance task and have the ability to fully show what they have learned about the information. 

This tweet discusses how you can respond to students that are struggling. I found this to be very useful because, in my clinical, I have a lot of students that shut down when they do not understand or do not think that they can do the material. This is important to try to incorporate these into your future classroom. 

Outside Research

For my outside research this week, I found an article on Edutopia that discussing using Cl-Ev-R in the classroom and the benefits of using this strategy. I found that this was very useful because it even had videos that can be used to help teach this strategy within the classroom! 

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

Scientific Thinking

An event that has recently been related to science that we have all experienced was hurricane Florence. This was a category 4/3 hurricane that affected the coast of North Carolina along with South Carolina. This can be used to promote phenomenon as well as how we can see science in the world around us. NCTCS 3D states that "Teachers make instruction relevant to students". This is more evident with the use of Cl-Ev-R as well as having an inquiry-based classroom. Science can have a huge impact on making instruction relevant to your students.