Engineering Lesson Reflection

On Tuesday, I taught my final lesson at Brigham Elementary School. It was an engineering lesson and my co-teachers and I taught in the preschool room. The standard we worked with was K-2-ETS1-3 Analyze data from tests of two objects designed to solve the same problem to compare the strengths and weaknesses of how each performs. For this lesson, we read a book about parachutes and how they worked. We then divided the class into two groups so we could work more individually with them. In our groups, we talked about parachutes and different objects. We then compared the speed of an object falling to the floor versus the speed of an object falling to the floor with a parachute. We tested several objects like a marker and shoe. And we also tested two objects with, both with parachutes on. Overall, I believe that our lesson was successful and the students took away a greater understanding of the what parachutes do and how they work.

            My goal this semester to work on while at Brigham Elementary was to meet and interact with the students who are English Language Learners so I gain some insight on how they learn best. I feel like this was hard to do because we only saw the students every other week or twice a month. And we were not in the same classroom every time. We were either in preschool or kindergarten because we alternated classes. But, I feel like I did start to get to know them a little more towards the end. Through this experience I have learned that English Language Learners learn best through hands on activities. Also, not just English Language Learners, but just young children learn best in hands on activities. For example, during the lesson while we were teaching, I noticed that some of the students were not really paying attention to our demonstrations. We would ask them questions and they would not answer, they would just sit there! So, as we were teaching, I let the students have more control and be more hands on. Instead of asking, “Which one do you think is heavier? The rock or marker?” I would say, “Here, hold the rock and marker, which one is heavier? The rock? So which one will hit the ground first?” This made the students more interested because then everyone wanted to touch the objects we had and participate. I feel like another way to help them learn is to learn simple phrases in Spanish. Sometimes, the students will start talking to each other in Spanish and I do not know what they are saying. I feel like this could be missed learning opportunities. Learning their language would not only support their learning but it would gain more trust with the students as well. I know that in the future, I will encounter students that may not speak much English at all, so I need to find ways to accommodate them so they can learn to the best of their ability!

Science Post #5

            This past week I had the opportunity to observe and help teach in the kindergarten classroom at Brigham after being in and teaching in the preschool room. I enjoyed it a lot and I could immediately see numerous differences between preschool and kindergarten. They were much more mature and outspoken. They were definitely more outgoing than the preschool class and wanted to participate more in the activities and discussion.

            My goals that I have set for myself were mostly geared toward the preschool classroom but they still apply for kindergarten because there were still some English Language Learners in the kindergarten class. The goal that I came up with is, to meet and interact with the students who are English Language Learners so I gain some insight on how they learn best. Since the kindergarten students were much more active and participated more than the preschool students, I was able to work more on my goal. I got to interact and talk more with the students during the activities. Although, it was hard to do a lot of interacting because of the note taking that we were required to do. In the preschool room, when we would give the students directions, probably about half of them would not do anything and the other half would follow directions. So the teacher would repeat our directions in Spanish and then everybody would participate. But in the kindergarten room, barely any Spanish was spoken which was really great to see because that means that they are understanding English better. Although I did see many directions, labels, etc. around the room in both Spanish and English but that is something that is needed and very helpful when there are English Language Learners in a classroom.

            I think that a big part of my goal was to really get to know individual students and I feel like I did not achieve this aspect of my goal. It is really difficult to try to get to know students when you only see them maybe once or twice a month. I think that this is difficult for the students too because it is important for them to have routine and for us to come in and have different teacher each week could be stressful for them. But it is definitely hard for us to make progress with them.

            But it has been beneficial to learn about and try to accommodate young English Language Learners when writing lesson plans. In my clinicals so far, I have not had a lot of experience with teaching English Language Learners so this experience so far has helped me learn as a teacher.

            I think that the teachers that taught this week did a good job when it came to accommodating English Language Learners. They included a lot of visuals when teaching and I even heard one of the teachers speaking a little bit of Spanish to the students. This is a great way to connect and get to know the students better. It shows that you care about them and their learning. Learning simple words and phrases in a different language that your students speak will be beneficial to you and to them!

Brigham Teaching Reflection

            Laura and I recently planned and implemented a lesson using the 5E template to teach a preschool classroom at Brigham Elementary School. In the two weeks prior to us teaching out lesson, there were other groups of ISU students that did an overview of the five senses and taught a lesson about the sense of touch. For our lesson, we narrowed it down and taught about the sense of smell. The groups after us will then cover the other senses: taste, hear, and sight!

            I think that were a lot of things that well throughout this lesson and areas that we could have improved on and that I would change if I would teach the lesson again. One of the strengths of this lesson is that Laura and I worked really hard on the lesson plan. We struggled a little bit with the 5E format but we pulled through and really thought about every aspect of our lesson. I believe that it was a strong idea and good activity! I think that the book that we read to the students was a good fit and developmentally appropriate for them. It had few words and a lot of big pictures. And for the most part, it was relatable to the students. They had examples of things that you smell like flowers, hamburgers, and fresh cut grass. It was evident that the students liked the book and were relating to it when they would shout out things they smell and the places they have smelled them. The students were excited to relay to us everything that they have every smelled.

            Although I think that this lesson plan was good, there is always room for improvement. There are several things that I would do differently if I were to teach this lesson again. This includes: using another or a different video, more interaction with the video and/or book, more interaction with all of the students instead of just working with one group, and more instruction on what to do in the activity.

            I liked the video that we used about smelling with the students. We had them tap their nose to the beat during the song. I would have liked more interaction with it though. Maybe Laura and I could have come up with some fun dance moves that the students could have had fun with and learned at the same time. Another change that I would make is working with all of the students. In our lesson plan, Laura and I did not specify if we would be working with both of the groups or just one of the groups. And during our lesson, we ended up just staying with one group and working with them. At the beginning and end of our lesson we were in a large group on the carpet but we also had them in small groups and we only got to work with half of the class this way. Laura stayed with her group and I stayed with mine. I think that this happened because were both just preoccupied with trying to make our lesson run smoothly that we were not thinking about interacting with both of the groups. The last change that I would make is giving more instruction to the students before they started their activity. I explained that they would be smelling bottles and then they would be circling on the worksheet the smiley face if they liked the smell and the frown face if they did not like the smell. I modeled how to smell and I showed them the worksheet that they would be doing but I feel like I could have done more instruction. For example, telling the students that we are only smelling what is inside the bottle, not trying to look inside of them or dump any of the bottles out onto the table. One of the students that I was working with in my group decided to try and squeeze out the substance in one of the bottles and honey went all over the table. But I quickly redirected the student and gave him better instructions on what to do. Also, most of the students circled both the smiley and frown face and just drew all over their paper. So then at the end of the lesson while we were reviewing, they did not know whether they liked the scent in a bottle or not.

            I think that mine and Laura’s knowledge of the topic was strong. We did research on smelling while writing the lesson plan. Because of that, we were able to better explain to the students how smelling works and answer any of their questions. Our organization during the lesson was good but could have improved. I think that we could have had smoother transitions. But something that contributed to this was not being familiar with their classroom. We wanted to divide the students up but were not sure if they sat a certain seat at a table or were already in groups. So we simply asked the students and they divided themselves into two groups.

            Overall, I think that the students understood the basic concept of this lesson. They know what it means to smell and what we use to smell. They also gave examples of things that they smell with a little bit of prompting. Some example of things that they said they smell include: flowers, their dog, hot dogs, and grape. Although there was one student that I worked with when I asked him what he thought was in the bottle, he said hot dog. And then he said hot dog for every scent the he smelled in the bottles. There was little bit of a language issue for the English Language Learners but they understood the basic concept we were teaching. I could tell that they were because when I would ask the class questions like, “Do you think this girl likes that smell?” or “Have any of you been to McDonalds before and can smell their hamburgers or French fries?” they would shake their head yes or no. I think that this lesson was successful and the students understood most of it.

Exceeds: Went over required word count 

Clinical Lesson Reflection

            The science lesson that I taught in my first grade PDS classroom was about camouflage. The students had already learned the vocabulary word and written the definition in their science dictionary books. But my cooperating teacher wanted me to go more in depth with the meaning and make the lesson fun and hands on.

            I started out my lesson by reading Mister Seahorse by Eric Carle. Eric Carle is an amazing illustrator. In the book, he does a really good job of camouflaging animals in the pages. The students were really engaged while I was reading it. I knew that they were because they have not ever paid that much attention to me and stayed quiet for that long. They even verbally expressed they liked the book with “ooh” and “ah”. After reading the book, I explained to them the activity that they were going to be doing. For this lesson I gave each of them a paper with an outline of a butterfly. I gave them directions to color in the butterfly with crayons to camouflage it somewhere in the room. Then they also needed to cut it out. I had already done an example and hidden my own somewhere in the room. They found it quickly once I told them to look for it. Before they went back to their seats from the carpet, I told them to look around the room and think about where they wanted to put their butterfly and what colors they would need to use and the patterns that they would need to draw.

            One strength of the lesson was that it was really engaging and hands on. The students were really understanding the concept when it came to camouflaging their butterfly. I noticed a couple of students who would go to put their butterfly somewhere and then say, “This doesn’t blend in, it needs to be darker.” And they would color in their butterfly darker. It really showed that they were understanding the concept. I also noticed that some of them got really upset because the colors they had were not matching with the colors that they were trying to camouflage with. This was an unavoidable problem because I could not supply them with all of the colors that they wanted. They only had the crayons available to them in their desks. When this happened, I tried to brainstorm with them if they could blend in with somewhere else in the room. I had them walk around with me and look for a different spot that would match with their color more.

            Something that I could have improved on is explaining the book more. My lesson was towards the end of the day and I did not have a lot of time to go over everything that I wanted to before it was time to go home. I would have liked to stop more throughout the book I was reading to ask questions and point out how the animals in the book were camouflaged in their surroundings. I would have really liked for more time to explore the book. The book also talked about how seahorses have their babies. This is very different from the way any other animal has their babies. I think it would have been beneficial if I had more time to talk about the way that seahorses reproduce. Another thing that I could have improved on is explaining more about why I used a butterfly. I would have explained more about how a butterfly is an insect that camouflages very well into its surroundings. I would have also liked to read a book about butterflies but I knew that I would not have time to do so. I would have explained to the students that there are many different animals and insects that use camouflage to survive every day. I think that it would have also been really interesting if I showed the students a video about camouflage. But the factor of time played a big role in my planning and implementation.

            Another thing that I could have improved on is grouping the students. I had them in a large group while reading the book to them. Then I had them work at their desks to camouflage their butterflies. I would have liked to also have them in small groups. From what we have been learning in our courses, it is always beneficial to have the students in large group, small group, and working individually throughout a lesson. But I could not think of a fun way to have them in a small group for this lesson. I had them working individually because I thought it would be fun for them to make sure no one else saw how they were coloring their butterfly so they could hide it somewhere without it being noticed.

            I felt that I was very knowledgeable throughout the lesson. I made sure to review the definition of camouflage as the students had learned it so there was no confusion or differences in the definition when I discussed it. The students had first learned about camouflage on a day that I was not at the site.

            My cooperating teacher and I discussed the lesson after I had implemented it. She had the same concerns as me when it came to the time constraints and expanding on the book more. Her suggestions were to spend more time throughout the book to stop and ask questions. I also could have spent more time just discussing more with the students about camouflage and using their prior knowledge. Since they had already went over the vocabulary word in the day prior, they should have had a lot to contribute. But overall, my cooperating teacher enjoyed my lesson and she said that it would be something that the students would remember, which is important to me. The butterflies are still camouflaged throughout our classroom and I feel like I am still finding some that I had not seen before!

Science Post 2: Brigham- Getting to Know the Students

            It is very important that we are able to set goals for ourselves when working with young children. Whenever we go into a classroom, we should always have a reason and purpose for being there. Although it was hard to set a goal without even meeting the students first, it is still important to have one. The goal that I came up with is, to meet and interact with the students who are English Language Learners so I gain some insight on how they learn best. I also hoped to observe and notice any signs of discomfort from the students because of what we have heard from the previous group already being in the classroom. I was able to observe those things when we were in the classroom. All of the students in our preschool class speak English so I think that their hesitation with us was just due to shyness, which is understandable because this is the first time that they had met us.

            When we were in the classroom, we first introduced ourselves. Then we did a get to know you picnic activity where we had the students tell us their name and then a food that they would want to bring on a picnic. Next we read a book about the five senses and closed with a song about the five senses. All of our activities that we had planned for the thirty minutes in the classroom only ended up taking us around ten to fifteen minutes. When we planned for this lesson together and with the instructor but were not prepared for how quickly it went by. None of our activities really required a lot of interaction or things for the students to do. This only occurred when we sang the song about the five senses and we had them point to their eyes, nose, etc. Also our activities did not require transitions because we just stayed on the carpet the whole time. I think that before going into the classroom, we could have talked more about what we could have done. But now we know that we should definitely always be prepared and have an extension activity ready. Something else that could have been done but would be difficult because we had not read the book before that day, would be to stop during times in the book and ask the students questions. For example ask the students, “One of our senses is taste. What are some things that you taste?” Another thing that I am reflecting on is our excitement. I know that we all felt a little weird walking into the classroom at first because it was our first time being there and meeting the students and the students were so small! Also there were almost as many teachers in the classroom as there were students so that is a little weird to get used to at first. But I think that being more excited during our next visit and every visit from now on would help the students to get talking a little more.

            Something that I noticed about the classroom was the mixture of English and Spanish words. We learned that a few of the students are English language learners so I think that it is great that they are incorporating Spanish words in the classroom. I think that something we could do in the future is teach the students the five senses sign language. I have been teaching my students some sign language in my PDS site and I have observed that it is really helping them understand some basic concepts!

Exceeds: Went over word count and suggested some ways to improve in the future. 

My Science Autobiography

My name is Ali Spitz. I am from Monticello, IL which is about twenty minutes from Champaign, IL where I was actually born. Monticello is a small town of around 5000 people. My whole high school had around 500 people in it! I think it's safe to say, i'm from a small town. The earliest memories I have of learning science come from around 3rd grade. I had the best 3rd grade teacher, he was always trying to make learning interesting and fun. One day we had a lesson about gravity. My teacher filled a bucket halfway with water and took us all outside. He started swinging the bucket in circles and we were all amazed that the water was staying in the bucket. While he swung the bucket, he explained gravity to us and we all learned about and remembered that lesson. There have been many other science lessons that I remember that were hands on and fun. We had chicken eggs and kept them in an incubator until they hatched, grew different kinds of plants, studied the solar system, and did different experiments.

I went to Monticello High School where everyone knew everyone because it was so small. We only had a few AP classes and not very many options for different levels in each grade. Science was never my favorite subject, but most of the time I didn't mind learning about it. One of the classes I took was anatomy and I found that I really enjoyed learning about the human body and how we work. Another science class that I enjoyed was Principles of Engineering Technology or POET. That class included many hands on projects that made learning a lot of fun. We built bridges out of tape and popsicle sticks and had a contests to see whose could hold the most weight and we also built our own rockets and tested them to see how far they could in the air. I think hands-on learning, especially with science, is the best way for students to learn and understand.

I transferred to Illinois State University when I was a sophomore. When I came here I was still undecided on what my major should be. I have always loved working with kids. I have always babysat for my family and I used to work as a camp counselor in the summer. But I decided that I did not want to go any higher than 4^th grade so Early Childhood was perfect. The science courses I have taken in college include Astronomy and Biology. Astronomy was really interesting to me but biology was a lot of lecture notes and the labs were not very interesting.

I am still unsure of what grade level I would like to teach. In my clinical experiences I have spent time in a 2 year old classroom, preschool, kindergarten, and am now in a 1^st grade classroom for PDS. I think I am leaning towards the older grades 1^st-3^rd but am still deciding. I have not yet seen science in my classroom but my cooperating teacher has talked about some science lessons she has planned. She has also talked about how much they cut back on science and social studies to make more time for math and literacy. It seems really hard sometimes to make room for science. For this year and in years to come, I want to make science fun like I remember when I was younger. I want to do a lot of hands on activities, not just read from a book and do a worksheet which I have seen so often done. 

I was raised in Monticello which is a small town. I grew up with the same people my whole life. Mostly everyone was in the same social class and the same ethnicity as me. I did not experience a lot of diversity in my life until I came to ISU. Learning about diversity in some of my education courses has helped me a lot to better understand it when teaching. I feel better equipped to deal with and teach a diverse group of students.