Formative Assessment (rough rough) Ideas

Topic: Tress (forests) or Oceans
This is a very rough draft/idea of formative assessment ideas.

• 3-2-1
• Students will write three facts, ideas or concepts that they may know about the topic.
• Students will write two examples that support the topic
• Students will ask one question that they want to know about the topic.

• Odd One Out
• This idea puts multiple groups of words together. The students have to pick one that doesn't fit in the group and be able to describe why it doesn't fit with the rest. I will be able to use words that are connected with the topic that I will be teaching to know if the students know the relationship between the words. 

• Commit and Toss
• This strategy is student based and is a quick way to see what the students think and know about the topic or question posed. The students are given a question or are to define something. They write it on a piece of paper then crumble it up. On teacher signal they will  throw it to the floor in a designated area. Then students are to grab the paper and have to share the idea that was written on the paper they picked up. 

• Paint the Picture
• This strategy is done by the students to be able to show understanding without the use of words or labeling. A question would be posed and the students would have to answer the question and be able to depict it without words or labels. They are encouraged to draw what is in their head. 

These are just some ideas that I found when I was looking around tonight. Nothing is final yet, just starting to think what would work best with my class and being able to get the best results. 

Stay tuned. :)

M&M activity

First off, I enjoyed this activity as a senior in college, I can only imagine how those elementary kids would like it. I think this is a good example of learning when you're not even consciously aware of it. Giving the students a physical example of what is being talked about in class and being able to see where the numbers and data are coming from can make a big deal. Some students might be able to read an article and be able to mentally see what happened in an activity like this, but for students to be able to see a hands on example could make a world of a difference.

Students also get to see what skills that scientists use in real life while categorizing and taking in data. Allowing the students to be able to act as much like a scientists will allow them to connect to this activity. The students will be able to choose how they want to look at the contents in the bag and find a way to take in the data to look at it from the scientist lens. This allows the students to be able to be creative and work together as a class/group to be able to put this information together.

I like this activity that there was a beginning count and then it changed after throwing the the M&Ms. This allows for more discussion about when/why the scientists have to look at the data and make a conclusion why the data changed. I think this will promote some good classroom discussion and be able to listen to each other and come up with the best reasoning and ideas about what happend to the data.

Nature of Science

These readings and the questions that are throughout them are making me so interested. Why did people/scientists do the things they did?!

After reading "People Behind the Science," my head still continued to spin. I had to read it multiple times just to make sure that I understood everything it was saying. The questions at the bottom continued to make me think. These scientists have to use their imagination and creativity to try and figure out the explanation for the "stuff" that makes everything up. Scientists have to stretch their minds to think about all the things that other scientists have been able to prove to see if they agree or if there is more to it. I think the process of science could take a very long time. There are so many different factors and things that could have gone wrong or might even have a better idea and change halfway through the process. I dont think there is one process that will end up the same as another. There is always something new that could be mistakenly stumbled over that take the whole process in a different direction. I think people who do science have got to be curious and love when they stumble across new things or ideas that weren't in the "original" plan. But I guess I dont know if all people of science would like a surprise discovery or not.

Reading "Historical Science Story" was just as interesting as the first. I find myself thinking about how over time people are trying to get to the same goal but finding newer and not exactly better ideas but different ways to be able to study the same thing that scientist and other people have looked at before. Scientists are trying to take a different approach at the same subjects to find out more about the things in the world. Hopefully piecing everything together to be able to create one big bank of knowledge about the same subject, and in this case the plants and animals. This story covered many many years like the first one, but scientists are taking information from one another to be able to come up with an explanation for why things happen the way that they do.

The last article I read was "What's in a Word?" One of thing that stuck out to me right away was where the article said "Learners should understand that scientific knowledge is developed through a variety of approaches, and not one “scientific method." When I think of science and back on my science experiences all I can remember talking a whole lot about is the scientific method. There are so many more ways to go about discovery and science that the scientific method is only a small portion. The science language that is taught in the younger years will carry on through the rest of the students science careers. If we as teachers go about it in the way suggested in the "Introducing nature-of-science
concepts and terminology" section of this article then students might think a little bit differently about how they talk and think about the nature science. I think it would be important to keep the two tables that are in this article close by to and correct yourself as a teacher if this ever happens.