I Say Spaghetti, You Say Meatballs!

Now that our 5th science lesson is complete, it's so clear to me how important classroom management is. This week, we had a lot to accomplish in one hour. We did it, but it wasnt' easy. It required coordinated teamwork and paying careful attention to timing and pacing. Every teacher has his or her own technique for maintaining order in the classroom. Our classroom teacher typically does a rhythmic clapping sequence. When she claps it, the students clap it back and know that it means they are to stop what they are doing and look to the teacher. She also uses a "thumbs up" method to indicate when students are ready to move on to the next task. I know that some of our classmates have been using other methods such as the "red zone", using a xylophone, and even whistles. A friend of mine who teaches uses spaghetti and meatballs. When she says "spaghetti", her students respond with "meatballs" and know they need to listen. Whatever works is clearly the take-away here!

This week, I came upon a couple of students having a heated argument about whose turn it was to do the next step. My first instinct was to solve the fight and choose a student myself, but I quickly realized this wasn't fair to me or to the students, so I told them they needed to work it out for themselves. Instantly, they both started shouting their case back to me, and I calmly explained that they knew the rules and expectations of today's lesson and that taking turns was one of the rules and that if they couldn't figure out a way to work it out on their own, I'd have to take their materials away and ask them to sit out the rest of the lesson. The threat was enough motivation for them to come to an agreement without my intervention. I was relieved because I wasn't sure if it was going to work. I like these little learning moments. Now the next time it happens, and it will happen, I'll have a new weapon in my classroom management arsenal!

This week, we were observed on our ability to incorporate technology and writing into our lesson planning. Because we knew we had a lot of prep work to do for the materials up front, we decided to ask the students to write in their journals at the very beginning of the class. This gave them quiet, focused time to write while we set up. Our classroom teacher let us know that there is a variety of writing ability levels in the class, so we decied to use an open-ended question that would allow students to write at their own pace. We asked them to think about their favorite memory of the lessons we've done with them so far. I thought most of the students would write about the effervescent tablet lesson, because I think that is the one that I heard the most oohs and ahhs, but surprisingly, I think many of them wrote about the "Chubby Little Snowman" song that we did with them. I had to laugh when I heard them all talking about it because I did that part of the lesson that day, and I really messed it up. I kept getting the lyrics wrong (the kids kept telling me!), and my singing was horrible. Just goes to show you how important it is to ask for feedback now and then. Things we think are working/not working may be just the opposite!!

Once we began the lesson, it was time for us to really watch the clock. We had a lot to get done in a short amount of time, but we did it. The students were really great again this week. I continue to be surprised and proud about how well they do. We were working with "Prediction" as our process skill of the week, and most students successfully predicted that the gravel would be the easiest to separate from the water and the salt would be the hardest. Once we got through the experiment, we asked the students to think about what happened and to share their thoughts of what worked/didn't work and why. We also circled back to their predictions to make sure they understood that what they thought might happen, happened for a reason.

To conclude the lesson this week, Megan brought the kids over to the carpet and showed them a They Might Be Giants video that Michelle had shared with us the previous week. It's a fun, upbeat song about solids, liquids and gasses with great animation to go along with the words. The kids liked it so much they asked to view it twice! I thought it was an interesting way to incorporate technology into the lesson that I probably would not have considered doing if we weren't asked to! But it makes total sense. Today's students are very tech-savvy, and there's no underestimating the impact of the "cool factor" that slick computers and other technology can bring.

There's only two weeks left now! I'm sad to think the end is near, but I have really enjoyed the entire experience.

Gross and Disgusting are not "Science Words"

Today's science lesson centered around mixing solids and liquids. I think this was the most challenging to date because there were so many materials we needed to control, and there were many steps to complete the experiment. My partner, Megan, and I both agreed that our key to success today was going to be with classroom management and making sure the students didn't talk too much or move ahead on their own. To accomplish this, we dedicated precious minutes at the beginning of the hour to making sure that everyone understood the rules and expectations of the day. We stressed the importance of being good listeners and that everyone needed to stay focused and only talk when we asked them to talk with their partners. Much to our delight, this actually worked (for the most part!).

We were very explicit in our instruction today and broke the lesson down into very small, consumable parts. We walked the entire class together through each activity in the lesson, asking students to take turns doing the pouring or the mixing, etc. This process worked very well with these students. They really like to all be involved in the hands-on activities, so taking turns is a good, democratic way to make sure everyone gets a turn and stays happy.

Our observation tasks this week were: content vocabulary, flow of the class, and misconceptions identified.

We were actually happy to have vocabulary as one of the observations today, because it forced us to think about it more concretely and develop a method for ensuring that our students were being introduced to the new vocabulary words in a way that is meaningful and useful to them. I think we've done a good job in the past taking time to explain new words and review their meaning and importance throughout the lessons, but we took it a step further this week by creating a vocabulary hand out. We highlighted a few of the new words that we've been using in this unit (and will continue to introduce over the next couple of weeks), and we defined them in simple, easy to remember definitions. Each student received a copy of the handout, and we explained that they could keep these vocabulary sheets in their science folders and refer to them if they had any questions or didn't understand something. In addition, we created a "vocabulary word of the day" handout that provided more context and an example. Our word of the day was "solution", so we provided the definition and two examples of solutions. One example was mixing lemonade crystals with water to create lemonade, a "real world" example that most of the kids could relate to. Our second example incorporated the "effervescent tablet" experiment from our first lesson, which provided nice synergy across lessons. The students all remembered that experiment enthusiastically, so I was glad we were able to provide some more context around what we did and what became of that tablet after it "disappeared" into the water. Megan and I were delighted to hear one student at the end of the class sharing, without prompting from either of us, his ranking of which of the mixtures was the best solution in today's lesson. It was so wonderful to see that they had actually listened and that they had actually learned something from our lesson! I also think having some of my attention on vocabulary helped me to be a better teacher. As I was walking around the room during activities, some of the students would say things like "it's gross" or "it's disgusting" when I asked them to make an observation about the mixture. I was able to talk to them about how "gross" isn't really a good "science word" and asked them to think about how they could explain that in a more scientific way. It was fun to watch their wheels turns as they thought of more descriptive ways to convey their observations.

For flow of the class, Megan and I kept a very tight reign on the timing and the pacing of each step. We used a classroom management technique of "thumbs up and mouths closed" when each group completed each step. This is a strategy that the classroom teacher uses and shared with us in an early lesson. The students respond well to it, and it helps them to focus on what the teacher is saying. Our class is full of very enthusiastic talkers, so it doesn't take much to get them off track, and the room gets pretty loud pretty quick! Megan and I are very lucky to work really well together, and we worked together to keep things under control.

Identifying misconceptions was a little tricky. It's difficult to imagine what the students will think or question, but we did provide a list of possible misconceptions in our lesson plan, and we printed out a copy of that, as well as all of our handout/materials to leave with Dr. Gilmore who was observing us today. Provind the material ahead of time was a great way for Dr. Gilmore to get an understanding of what we were trying to accomplish and provided her with insight into our thinking and our planning. As were progressed through the lesson, we would ask students to record their observations on their record sheets, and by walking around the room during this time, we were able to directly address their misconceptions as they occured. In addition, in the recap at the end of the lesson, we asked students to share their observations with the class and could address misconceptions with the whole class as they came up. This worked really well today and in the past for us.

As we get more comfortable with the class and with the unit, I feel like it's coming together more and more each week. We're getting better about remembering to ask the "science question of the day", beginning our intros with a recap of what we did in the previous lesson to get their minds focused back on science, pacing the class and the activities so the students have ample time to enjoy the experiment while staying on schedule, and we're getting really great at recapping the lessons so that the students understand the purpose of why we did the particular activity and what it means from a science standpoint. This experience has been invaluable, and I really am learning so much from it.

It's been really great so far, and it just keeps getting better and better. Especially after we were done today and we had accomplished everything we set out to accomplish. It was a challenging week, and we had out doubts, but with a lot of planning and communication, we were able to pull it off! Yay us!

Things are Really Gettin' Good Now!

This week, my teaching partner, Megan and I worked with the students on the next lesson in our Changes unit. Because this lesson had many steps, Megan and I were challenged to manage the classroom effectively. In our past lessons, there's been more independent discovery time, and students could pace themselves, but with this lesson, we wanted the entire class to progress from step to step together. It was tough, but our classroom teacher taught us one of her techniques which is to ask the students to give a thumbs up once they completed the task. This helped up keep the kids focused and was an easy identifier of the students that required assistance and/or more time.

Our friend who has shown a strong interest in pickles didn't let us down. While he was observing the properties of the sea salt, he noted that it "smelled like pickles". I had to laugh when he said that!

Megan and I also focused our attention this week on posing a "science question of the day", based on feedback we received in prior observations. Our question was "what is a mixture", and at the start of the lesson, the students were able to tell us that a mixture is something that is made of more than one thing, but following the lesson, having had a chance to create and separate their own mixtures, they showed a deeper understanding and were able to articulate that in this case, even when we took two substances and mixed them together, each substance maintained its properties, and each substance was clearly visible throughout the experiment. We even had one student ask what would happen if we added water to the substance, which is what we're going to do with the class next week, so it was a good preview, and it was so impressive that she was thinking about it.

Another element Megan and I worked on was introducing process skills. We explained that when we conduct science experiments, we use process skills and that this week, we were going to practice "classifying." When I asked if any students thought they knew what it was, one student said that it was like a secret. Like when someone has classified information. Although not the definition we were looking for, it was good that they thought about it and used their prior knowledge to form an answer. We continued asking for ideas about classifying, and one student thought it was a way to "name something".
I was quite impressed with the simplistic yet accurate description. I continue to be surprised at how smart these kids are!! We explained to the students that we wanted them to practice their classification skills during this experiment by organizing the materials into groups and identifying their properties. They were able to understand this when Megan gave them a good example of how most of our closets are organized into shirts, pants, sweaters, etc. It helped them understand the concept with a real world example that I thought was very effective.

Once the experiment was complete, we returned to the front of the classroom for a wrap-up discussion, asking the students if we saw any mixtures during our lesson today and asked the students to list some of their thoughts and experiences with the mixture. We captured their thoughts on the flip chart paper and reviewed any questions they had. For instance, one group thought that they salt had changed colors during the mixing. We explained that what they were seeing was probably a shadow and removed the smaller cup from the larger cup to show them it was the same color. We also had a few groups that thought the rocks had changed into sand because when they were mixing the two substances together, the friction agains the rocks caused them to break down a bit. Megan did a great job asking them to think about were they still the same color? Were they still rocks? And the students understood. It was a great discussion!

I continue to be very proud of the students and can't wait each week to return to the classroom to work with them again.

You're As Cold as Ice

Welcome back to my science blog! This week's "Changes" lesson focused on ice. At the end of last week's lesson, we had the students watch as we filled an ice cube tray with water. We told them we were going to go put the tray into the freezer and asked them to think about what they predicted would happen to that water by the time we came back one week later.

Our students are really sharp, so I was not surprised that when we started this week's lesson by asking what they thought happened to the water, they all knew that it would turn into ice.

Our instructors this week were observing us and providing feedback on the following criteria: Lesson introduction, materials management, and connection to frameworks.

Well, right off the bat, Megan and I got a little nervous. We had planned an introduction that summarized what we did last week and reminded the students about a few key concepts, skills, and new information they had learned, and just as we were about to begin, the classroom teacher started talking about exactly what we were going to talk about! It required us to think quickly on our feet and readjust what we were going to talk about. Megan picked up exactly where the classroom teacher left off, and we smoothly transitioned from introduction to safety reminders to rules and overview of the activity.

The lesson plan we had for this week asked the students to figure out ways to melt an ice cube as quickly as possible. We didn't want to give them too much information for fear of giving away the answer, which is that in order to melt the ice cube, we need to introduce heat. But we also wanted to make sure they understood WHAT they were doing and WHY melting was happening, so it was a fine line to walk. We decided that we would make sure they understood that the water from last week turned into ice in the freezer because we removed the heat. We hoped this was enough of a clue without providing the answer.

We continued with one of our methods of classroom management by assigning roles to each of the students. By assigning one "material gatherer" from each group, we control how many kids go to the material center, and it helps keep the activity and excitement levels manageable. We assign the other partner in the group to be the "recorder", and that student is responsible for writing down their observations and filling out the data sheet. We use different stickers to indicate each role, and the students really love it. A few of them saved their stickers from last week but were excited to see we brought new/different stickers this week.

Once the activity began, I was so impressed with the students' ability to not only work together really well, but to be very systematic in their approach to the problem. Although no one articulated directly to me that they needed to apply heat in order to melt the ice cubes, as I approached each group to ask what they were doing, I would ask them WHY it was working, and they all were able to tell me that it was because they were using heat. Some children sat on the ice cube, and they knew their body heat was what was causing the ice to melt. Other students rubbed the ice cube between their hands, and when I asked they why it was working, most said "because we're rubbing it". So I would ask them to put the ice down for a minute and rub their hands together really fast. I then asked them what was happening to their hands when they did that, and I could see the light bulbs going off in their minds as they realized their hands were getting warm, so that is why they were able to melt the ice cube. This also allowed me to introduce the concept of "friction", a term which many of them had not heard before.

We also had the chance to tie the lesson back to the frameworks and begin to introduce some process skills. Part of our feedback was that we weren't explicit enough in defining process skills and making it clear to the students that we were teaching them new skills (such as observation, prediction, and data collection) and that in future weeks, we should make this more clear and let the students know that we'll be watching for them to use their new science skills as they conduct their experiments.

Once again, this science lesson was a huge success. All of the students were successful in melting their ice cubes in a reasonable amount of time, and all of them understood that it was the introduction of heat to the ice cubes that caused them to melt. They were all very enthusiastic about the lesson and enjoyed being able to participate in their experiments, and they all gained a lot from the experience. I can't wait to return and work with the students on combining solids. I expect to once again, be pleasantly surprised at how smart and articulate the students are!

We'll Always Remember the First Time!

Last week, my teaching partner, Megan, and I taught our very first science lesson to our third grade classroom. We were both really excited and spent HOURS prepping for our 1 hour lesson plan with the students!

As we walked out of the classroom, out of breath and sweating, we looked at each other in amazement. While we both really enjoyed it, it was a lot of work, and it was stressful, nerve-wracking, and mildly exhausting! And we had only led one hour of one day...and we split the work! We were both surprised and humbled by the amount of work it took to "pull it off". I even had a bit of stage fright just before I had to get in front of the class to deliver the intro. I saw all their little curious eyes staring at me and felt like they were going to see right through me and realize I'm not the science expert they thought! But once I started talking and interacting with them, I was quickly put at ease by their level of enthusiasm and excitement for the lesson, and I was also incredibly impressed with the amount of prior knowledge they had with regard to the lesson topic.

For seven weeks, we are teaching a "Changes" unit, and each week, we have a new activity/lesson to work on with the students that relates to changes and states/properties of matter and aligns with the Massachusetts science curriculum frameworks. It's been really exciting, overwhelming, and fun all at the same time!

Our first lesson called for the students to drop an effervescent tablet into a cup of water and observe what happened. We started the lesson off by explaining the states of matter (solid, liquid and gas) and asked for examples of each. It was interesting to hear some of the answers. During our introduction, I had explained that a solid can be hard or it can be soft, and that liquids are usually poured. I realized by some of the examples that the students shared, that I probably confused them with that explanation. One of the students thought that flour was a liquid because it can be poured. Another student wondered what a pickle was because he knew it was hard, so it was probably a solid, but he also pointed out that when you bite into it, liquid comes out. I was impressed with his ability to think outside the box like that and know enough to question it based on the explanation I had provided. We later discovered this particular kid has a fondness for pickles...he mentioned them at least four times throughout the lesson! Maybe he had one with lunch that was particularly good?!

What also came out of the interaction with the students is the realization of how helpful it is as a teacher to ask questions of the students. It not only helps us assess their learning but allows us to recognize the areas that we need to do better next time. When you hear your words returned back to you and receive answers you weren't expecting, it it like putting a mirror up to reflect your words. I found that so interesting and helpful!

Each week, we're being observed by our instructors. Their observations and feedback are designed to help us become better teachers, and they are looking at how we handle certain criteria each week. For the first lesson, they were observing: Lesson Planning, Safety, and Teamwork.

I am lucky enough to have an incredible teaching partner who is diligent, creative, organized and really great with the students. We've developed a sort of cadence to our lesson planning in that one of us writes the intial draft of the lesson plan. The other reviews the draft, filling in any gaps that may have been missed, and fixes any errors. We then put it through a review process with our peers who help by sharing their ideas and/or pointing how we can approach things differently.

Once we're both comfortable with our lesson plan, we share it with our classroom teacher, and then we assign roles for each of us. We split the lesson plan into chunks and assign "ownership" of the chunks between us. From them on, it's all about coordinated teamwork! Typically, one of us will lead the introduction, then hand off to our partner who leads the safety and rules discussion. Next is the overview of the lesson and explaination/expectations for the lesson. We assign roles to the students using different colored stickers (material gatherer, recorder, etc.), and then we begin the activity. At that point, we both walk around the room, working individually with the different groups. We make sure they're following the rules and safety guidelines and doing what is expected of them in the lesson. We help them with any questions they have, and we ask questions about why they're doing certain activities to try to strengthen their understanding of the lesson.

When the activity is done, we ask the students to sit on the carpet for a discussion. We've learned that for the younger grades, it's good to keep the students moving and change their environment from time to time in order to keep them engaged and attentive. While one partner talks to the group about the lesson and leads a short activity (such as a literary connection or a song), the other partner cleans up the materials and preps for the wrap up.

To close out the lesson, we ask the students to return to their desks, and then we go through the activity with the students as a group. We ask questions about what they observed, and what they did. What worked and didn't work and why. What they learned about or how they used prior knowledge to help them with the lesson. We ask targeted questions, tying in the introductory discussion to make sure they all understand the point of the lesson. We alternate roles and resonsibilities each week, so we each have experiences leading different parts of the lesson plan, and it's been working great for us.

I think we've done an excellent job working together, and it's so fun to see the students get so excited. They tell us they love science, and they cheer when we come into the room. It's been a very gratifying experience so far, and I look forward to future lessons!

Well, Kiss My Grits. Y'all.

Last week, I spent some time down in Georgia with my family. When it came time for meals, everyone decided it was about time the "yanks" had some good ol' southern home cookin, so we feasted on some traditional favorites. I'm lucky enough that my new sister-in-law is a southern chef, and I was assured that we were getting the full treatment. We had some grits, chicken fried steak, and biscuits and gravy, to name a few.














Now aside from the grits, I've had all of these things before, but not like this. You see, southern cooking isn't like the kind of cooking I grew up on. It's basically the same stuff, but it's made so differently, that it's hardly recognizable, and I couldn't help but think of the changes lesson that I'm about to teach to the 3rd grade students next week. If they can make steak look like fried chicken, morph grits into a tasty treat (but really, what isn't good when it's cooked with a pound of butter?) and call biscuits soaked in gravy "breakfast", they sure have discovered how to change things, and I discovered how truly good change can be.

Time to Meet the Students!

Last week, my partner, Megan, and I met the 3rd grade students we're going to be working with for our science class. When we first walked into the room, the teacher was busy with another activity, so she didn't get a chance to introduce us right away. As we made our way to the back of the classroom to sit in tiny seats made for six year olds, 23 little sets of eyes followed us curiously, and I couldn't help but think of the movie Kindergarten Cop when Arnold Schwarzenegger first enters the classroom and all the little faces just stared at him with looks of horror and amazement.

We're going to be working with the kids on a "changes" lesson where we help them learn and understand that all matter has properties and that the properties can change when they are mixed together. It should be fun.

Here's to hoping we don't end up looking like this by the end of the lesson!