The 5 E's

The required textbook for this course is Seamless Assessment in Science: A Guide for Elementary and Middle School Teachers by Sandra K. Abell and Mark J. Volkmann. This is a great book with a lot of vignettes for different grades and different topics.

In the readings the authors discuss the 5 E process that ensures effective lesson planning and activities that are suitable for your students.

The 5 E’s are mentioned in this entertaining video that I was able to find online. 

The 5 E’s are:

Engage- This is the hook that gets the students excited and motivated about the

topic and lesson and focuses the students attention on the upcoming

activities and learning outcomes.

Explore- This is what could be considered the hands on part of the class where

students actively take part in their learning by playing a leading role in the experiment   or task.

Explain- This is where the students explain what they experienced in the explore

section and allows them to use proper terminology and past experiences to describe what occurred.

Elaborate- This is an extension of the lesson and allows students to deepen their

understanding by allowing them to consider what would occur in different situations and applying he concept they learned to different contexts.

Evaluate- while evaluation can occur at the end of the cycle, it should occur

throughout.  Evaluation could occur in a variety of ways, whether it be

written, verbal, creative or artistic, any way you feel would be beneficial

to your students and to yourself.

Here is another visual aid that is useful in explaining the 5 E’s. 

Photo retrieved from: http://web.wnlsd.ca/rocketry/teachers.htm

  * Although elaborate is replaced with the term extend, the concept is still the same.

I chose this image because it shows the 5 E’s plus the importance of evaluating at every level to ensure the students are learning and to allow you, the teacher, to make any changes necessary based on the needs of your students.

P.O.E

For some reason whenever I hear the term POE I think of the Teletubbies, specifically the red on who is named Po.  While Teletubbies have some entertainment value, although it is very minor, these POE activities are definitely entertaining, even for a class of university students.

POE stands for Predict, Observe, Explain, and provides students the opportunity to play an active role in their science class. Students are presented with a few objects or supplies and asked to predict what will occur when the objects interact.  Once the predictions have been made, the students take part in the activity to see what happens and they observe what happens.  Next they explain what happened, why they thought that their prediction would happen, and they discuss what scientific concepts were present in the activity and use their observations to explain what forces and concepts were present.

My cooperative learning group titled our station Give Me A Hand and this is what it looked like.

What our station looked like

The task is to remove the gloves from the jar and the students are able to follow the instructions.  Next they observe whether or not they could remove the glove.  

Removing the glove

 Once every student in the group has had a chance to try, they are asked to explain what they observed.  They are then further questioned as to what happened and why that happened. This is a great activity that is easy to set up and I encourage you to try it and see what happens.  I won't tell you what happens so you can make your own predictions, then observe what happened, and then explain why that happened.

Learning about the Curriculum

         Today’s class was a great experience for me.  I had never looked at the Saskatchewan curriculum for science in depth before today and Dean Elliot, a science consultant with the Saskatchewan ministry of education presented to us on the new curriculum that was released online last week.  The curriculum for science classrooms in Saskatchewan can be found here, just click on what grade level you are interested in.

It was great seeing how the curriculum documents are set up and getting a peek at the new textbooks for grades 3,4, and 5. The pictures and activities within the book looked exciting and definitely caught my attention so I am sure they will be a great tool in any classroom.

            One point I took away from this presentation by Dean Elliot was his image of a materials list for a unit in a science course.  At first I thought the colours on it looked great, but the concept of this chart is what really struck me.  There was a list of materials needed and this could be done for one experiment, one lesson, or even an entire unit.  Once all of the materials are written down they are colour coded based on whether the school has them in a resource room, the school could order them, the teacher already has some or knows they could borrow the item from another teacher, or they are a low cost item and could be picked up by the teacher.  I think I just liked how this chart was organized and how it shows that the teacher who plans in advance will ensure they have the supplies and materials needed when the time comes.

            A second point that I found interesting was the discussion of The Scientific Method. I remember having the scientific method pounded into my head in my school experiences and how you had to follow this method to do well and do things correct. As was mentioned though was that there is no one method for art, so why are we limiting science to only one method.  Science, although usually viewed as a linear subject with linear process, is able to be flexible and can allow for individual interpretations and unique experiences based on the individual student.

            Overall this guest lecture was a great experience and put me a little at ease, especially when I realize I will be responsible for teaching students science.

What do you mean Aboriginal values and concepts in my science classroom?

Maybe this is just me reflecting on my past experiences in science, but until I came to Regina to work on my after degree, I had never considered including aboriginal concepts in a classroom. I did not realize science could have an aboriginal, maybe this is just me not knowing, but to think how to include it in the classroom is beyond anything I can think of.  I feel like I don’t know much about aboriginal beliefs or how to include them into a science class.

* Update
After a trip to FNU (First Nations University) I have been shown how to include one aspect of Aboriginal culture into a science class.  We went to the garden at FNU that contains Native Prairie Plants. It would be a great location to bring elementary students to see what naturally grows on the prairies and to discuss the features of the various plants that allow them to survive the weather.

It would be even better to meet with an elder and have them describe the value of these plants and what they are used for.

Learning Outdoors!

Today was a great day.  We played a game we called Gopher, but the game goes by many different names including Oh Deer, Animal and Habitat, and many other names depending on the animal used.

How to Play

1. The class is divided in half (Animal Group and Habitat Group)
2. They line up in two separate lines with a few feet between them and turn their backs to each other
3. Each team is instructed to choose (The individuals in the animal group chooses what they want, the individuals in the Habitat Group choose what they want to be)
1. Our options were Shelter, Water, Food, and Space
4. When the teacher says so, both lines turn around and face each other, and the animals must find an individual in the habitat group that matches their need.
5. Not everyone’s need will be met or used.  The animals who did not match with someone on the Habitat line are now a member of the habitat group while the animals who did match with a habitat person take that person back to their line and they are an animal for the next round.
6. The teacher or a student volunteer will count after each round the animal “population”, and will eventually make a graph plotting the rise and fall of the population.
7. This game can continue for as short or as long as wanted.
8. At the end a class discussion can occur with the presentation of the graph.  Students can discuss why there are ups and downs in the graph and what their experience was being an animal and not matching up.  This activity will provide students with the ability to experience what happens to animals when their needs are not met and the impacts that could have on an entire ecosystem and the food chain.

Photo retrieved from:http://www.free-extras.com/images/gopher-8187.htm

This activity demonstrates how to make a graph and show the various interactions within an ecosystem and how limited resources influence population sizes.

            Shows that we cannot control what resources are available to use and that resources may not always be available if we need them.

            Depending on the grade level of the students playing this game could be altered by adding more variables, such as a hunter or an environmental disaster or even human impacts. This activity can show the students what impact the things they do in their lives can have on animals and the environment around where they live.

One Day of Learning Down... how many more to go?

What did I learn about being a teacher, about myself, about science?

After attending one day of classes I have realized I have learned a lot about myself, about what it means to be a teacher, and my eyes have been opened to what the area of science includes. My personal realizations have helped me realize I am in the right program because of the variety of courses I get to take, yet how interconnected all the courses are. Aboriginal people have been discussed in every class I have taken and the short film Two Eyed Seeing  has shown me how important it is to consider the world view of native people and how valuable their views are and the importance of combining my personal views, the views of western society in general, and the views of aboriginal people in order to create a well rounded view of an area or even of the world and how understanding can develop concepts and create ideas that I would have never considered unless I opened myself up to be accepting of other people and their culture.

Until now, I never realized that science was so culturally related, tied to differing world views.  What I remember from my school experiences didn’t involve looking at non-western views, but science was about theory and what one person had shown to be true, and how we could still show the principle at work in today’s world.  The science I remember was very euro-centric and did not focus on alternative views or factor in various world views from different cultures and belief systems. I don’t ever remember discussing an aboriginal view, or even considering different cultural views in the science class, I am sure those views were discussed in social studies or even language arts class if the opportunity arose, but never in science.  This has shown me that even in the past few years education is becoming more holistic, rather than focusing on one subject and one specific part, it is attempting to combine the cultural aspects, the language aspects, various parts of other subjects and teaching them alongside science to ensure that students are involved in their studies and that the classroom is an inclusive one.

Welcome to My Blog

I have survived my first few days of classes at the University of Regina.  It is definitely a strange feeling being in third year courses with students who have known each other for the past 3 years, and to know no one and hear references to other courses that I have not taken.  It’s definitely a unique experience being a BEAD (Bachelor of Education, After Degree) student.  In my last degree, a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Alberta, I avoided most science courses because I did not want to do labs, but now I have a course teaching me how to teach science staring me down. Even though I have only attended one class, I know I will enjoy this course and I am looking forward to seeing what is involved when teaching science. and am interested to see how my personal view of science courses will be changed by this one course.

A concept we discussed on the first day of class was that of Cooperative learning. I have enjoyed reading the articles posted on the course website about cooperative learning because it is interesting to read about the concept.  I have taken numerous courses at the U of A that had a cooperative component to them, although it was commonly referred to as Team Based Learning.  The concept is similar from what I can gather so far, except the team based learning had individual tests/assessments followed by the team completing the same assessment.  The team assessments showed how important it is for team members to work together and the scores on the team assessments were generally higher than the scores individuals received on their personal assessments. I am very interested to see how the team based/cooperative learning will work with the content in this course, and I am excited to see how different professors view and implement cooperative learning.

A recurring theme in a lot of my courses at the U of R is that of inclusion, or an inclusive classroom.  I feel as though a large number of the people in my cohort have had these terms and the concept of inclusion drilled into their head over the past few years, and this is something I will have to define and determine for myself. At this point in time, from my past experiences and from what I have heard other students talk about, an inclusive classroom is a very large concept.  To me it could be called an engaging classroom, where there is involvement from all students, everyone feels welcome, no one is left behind, different abilities are worked with, different cultures and beliefs are discussed, and students are taught to be accepting of others.  The inclusive classroom would have students actively involved in not only the learning process, but the teaching process as well. Depending on the school and the make up of students in a classroom, each inclusive learning community or inclusive classroom will look different, but the concept is similar, everyone is accepting and willing to learn about others while teaching others about themselves.  In Canada, specifically Saskatchewan, it appears as though inclusion relates to Aboriginal or First Nations people.  An inclusive classroom with Aboriginal people may invite those students to share their culture with the other students, it would allow the aboriginal students to share the views and beliefs from their culture, and the teacher may even invite chiefs or elders into the classroom to teach the class about a different view.  Differing worldviews need to be considered in the inclusive classroom, because without these views of the world, there would be a lack of diversity in the classroom.