I DID IT!!!!

It's May 10th and I've submitted my final assignments for all my classes!! This means it's finally summer and I can relax. I can't believe this semester is over. This whole year flew by in the blink of an eye and I can't wrap my head around that I'm going to be a senior!!! 

I feel like just yesterday I was a little freshmen moving in and absolutely terrified because it was a new experience and I didn't know anyone. I've completed all my education classes expect for one which I will be taking in the spring of 2019. Since I am an English major I do have many more English classes to take, so next semester I'm taking 5 English classes. I was supposed to student teach next semester but due to all the English classes I have left to take I had to put student teaching off until the semester after I graduate. I was a little disappointed at first when I found out, but now I realized that a lot of my friends are in the same position as me.
I can't believe that I'm done with all of my methods classes. Last semester I took social studies and this semester I took science. Although I was very nervous about taking them because I heard that these classes are where you teach full lessons to elementary students and I had never done that before. But I'm happy to say I survived and feel very confident about how I did and the knowledge I gained through it all. Throughout this course I learned how to create engaging lessons and incorporate technology into my lessons. Teaching students through technology has become such a huge part of teachers lives because technology plays such an important factor in children's lives and incorporating it into lessons makes students more engaged and eager to learn. I loved the various websites and techniques Dr. Smirnova taught us to use during our lessons. Some of the ones I really enjoyed were Thinglink! I have never used this website before but it's an amazing way to get students to critically think and work on their own rather than being lectured by a teacher. Another thing I learned throughout this course was the importance of reflection. Having time to reflect on how you taught allows you to see the mistakes you made, what you did well, and where you still need to improve. Not everyone is going to get in front of a class and be an excellent teacher, they have to go back and read watch themselves and be critical of their work. Taking constructive feedback from your peers is also important. They may catch something you did not or give advice that you may not have thought of. I always take my criticism to heart because I want to become the best teacher there is.
I also liked the practice with edTPA. Before this class I had only briefly heard about edTPA but was never taught or shown anything about it. I liked that we got to practice it before going into student teaching and knowing what is expected of us. As they always say practice makes perfect!!
On May 5th I got inducted into Kappa Delta Pi the International Honors Society in Education and I could not be more proud of myself. I've come a long where from where I was freshman year and I know I still have a lot more learning to do but I'm very excited and proud of my accomplishments thus far. I want to thank Dr. Smirnova for all she taught me and for the great feedback and help throughout my lesson planning. I truly think she's one of the best teachers here at the Mount and although this is my last class with her I will be sure to stop by her office to visit. Now it's officially summer, so time to have fun on the beach and relax before senior year begins!!!

Exploring Our Thinglink Challenge

Cierra

The benefits of insects in a Garden

My three pluses and a wish:

• I really liked the video about gardening and pollinators.
• I liked that you used websites other than google docs. I’ve never used Linoit but it looks really cool!
• I liked how you spaced out the tabs so students can see the whole picture.

One wish: I wish you used something other than arrows for pictures with the tabs. I really loved it!! 

James McVey

1. My three pluses and a wish:
   • I really liked the amazing world of worms video!
   • I liked the you used a KWL chart.
   • The pictures you used were really engaging.
   One wish: I wish you has less tabs because it might be confusing for students. I loved it though!

Tara

The Power of the Garden Worm

My three pluses and a wish:

• I like that you put the steps in one tab then added the links that followed those steps in another tab.
• I like that you asked students to write a letter to a first-time farmer.
• I really liked the life lab website!

One wish: For step 2 I wish you provided a chart for students to write their answers on. Great job!

Ganny

Insects and Birds in a Garden

My three pluses and a wish:

• I love the bee gif in the first step!
• I really like the beneficial insects and birds website. It was really informative.
• I like that you asked students to write a letter at the end rather than them sharing what they learned in the lesson.

One wish: I wish you thought of a more creative name for the thinglink. Great job as always!!

Olivia Green

The importance of worms

My three pluses and a wish:

• I like that you used a KWL chart in the beginning to assess students prior knowledge.
• I like how you used pictures that have step numbers on them so students know which tab to go to next.
• The websites you used were really informative!

One wish: I like how you used the arrows but it may be too busy for students to follow. But overall great job!!

Comments about my Thinglink!

A Journey Through Different Habitats

Ganny’s Comments:

• Playing Kahoot is a fun way to engage students to the lesson.
• I really liked all resources in your ThingLink Challenge especially I liked the video about Animal habitats.
• I liked Adobe Spark website so students can create their own video.
• I wish your tags are in order.

• Nice use of the Kahoot. I also like the way you had multiple mediums for student projects-T

Cierra’s Comments:

• I like that you included group work for the students to interact with each other.
• I like that the student were able to record a video about the needs for survival.
• I like that they had the chance to be creative by making a poster.

Wish:

• I wish you used more technology for the activities.

James’ Comments:

• I got so excited I just couldn’t hide it when I saw you used Kahoot! Top notch!
• I liked the wide pool of resources you used
• Excellent selection of supplemental imagery
• Wish tags were easier to follow (for inept people like myself)

Olivia’s Comments:

3 Pulses

1. I enjoyed that you are giving the students an opportunity in the beginning to create what they think the giraffes habitat may be. It is a good way to then make a transition into the topic.
2. The source given at your second stop was very child friendly and easy to navigate through, I love that you used adobe for the students to use.
3. This source is also very organized with many different links that the students can navigate through to collect information. I think breaking the students up into groups was a good idea as well.

1 Wish

1. I wish that they layout of the thinglink was more organized because I was not to sure of the order of the tasks! Other than that great job.

Marie’s Comments:

1. I loved that you included a fun Kahoot Game in your Thinglink ! this is a great way to assess student knowledge and keep them engaged in the activity.
2. I loved the links you used you used for student’s to gain information. They were very informational and easy for students to read.
3. Great images!! They were colorful and very engaging!
4. I wish you had more tags.

5 E's of Inquiry and Reflection on the ThingLink Challenge

What to remember when writing a lesson objective:

• Use measurable verbs
• For direct instruction
•   low level verbs- given blanks that the students will fill in with 4 out of 5 correct from the word bank
• define, explain, list, match
• use 4 out of 5 for direct instruction grading 
• Create is used in inquiry and cooperative learning 
• Criteria- following the rubric, when you have a create project you should have a rubric  
• Don't use percentage in the condition!!!

5 E's of an inquiry and cooperative learning lesson

1. Engage 
• This is the very first thing you do to start the lesson
• You want an attention grabber to get the students interested in what they are learning
• You also want to assess students prior knowledge on the topic
• This can be done by creating a Kahoot or a google forms with a few general questions about the topic
• Start out by telling students why this information is important and where they would need to use it throughout their lives
2. Explore 

• This is the second stage of the lesson
• Give students either a website to explore, an article to read, or a video to watch on the topic
• Have students write what they learned and some things they are still wondering
• Make sure to have students write it in a different color to differentiate between the two
3.  Explain
• This is the third stage of the lesson
• Give students a website to explore 
• Have students answer a question based on the content of the website
• Let students explain themselves in a creative way either by creating a video or acting out a mini skit in front of the class
4. Elaborate
• This is the fourth stage of the lesson
• Students are given a picture or video where they have to create something based on the lesson
• This is where they have to critically think 
• For example students are learning about habitats so they are given a picture of an animal and have to create an appropriate habitat for it and include things that are critical for that animals survival
5. Evaluate 

• This is the final stage of the inquiry/cooperative learning lesson

• You want to assess how well the student know the new material

• Do this by creating a Kahoot or orally asking students questions 
• If you orally ask questions you must make sure to check with the whole class after a student answers that way you know all students understand the concepts
• You can have students write a letter or create a powerpoint slide about the topic 
• Do not ask students to say what they learned because all students learn differently and it is a poor way to assess

I thought this Thinglink project was a great way to create another interactive lesson that students will really enjoy. Thinglink is a great way for students to work hands on with the material and explore different websites and videos on their own without the teachers help. Students can work in groups and individually to explore the links and create the projects. Students will love this method because they aren't being lectured and will enjoy learning more! I will definitely be using Thinglink in my future classroom and even when I am student teaching!!!

Sensory Garden Thinglink

For my sensory garden thinglink project I had a couple of ideas in mind. I think this thinglink challenge is really cool because it's very interactive and students will love it rather than being lectured. I've never used thinglink so I'm excited to see how it works and create a very fun and engaging lesson for my unit plan! 

Thinglink sensory garden challenge outline: 

5 E's of a lesson 

1. Engage- ask a question, put a picture 
2. Explore- video then report what they learned 
3. Elaborate
4. Explain
5. Evaluate

• Create a topic with a question- use adobe video and let them report what they learned 

Topic:

Pollination and habitat 

Pre-assessment- Kahoot

• What is pollination?
• What is a habitat?
• What makes a place habitable?
• How do birds help in a garden?

Activity 1:

https://youtu.be/9AuVm1jpKEA -pollination video 

• Have students fill out a chart about what they learned and what they are still wondering about pollination

Activity 2: 

http://eekwi.org/nature/habitat/index.htm - all about habitats, different habitats to explore 

• Break students up into 4 groups give each group a habitat to explore and make a poster about and report back to the class about what they found interesting

Activity 3:

• Use this picture of a giraffe to create a habitat for it using what you learned about what makes a place habitable. 

Activity 4:

http://eschooltoday.com/science/needs-of-living-organisms/five-things-living-things-need-to-survive.html

• Read through this website about the basic needs of living things 
• Create a video about what each basic need does for plants and animals using https://spark.adobe.com 

Activity 5:

• http://www.edenproject.com/learn/for-everyone/what-is-pollination-a-diagram-for-kids- Read about pollination in this link then choose an insect from the picture and write a poem about how it helps with pollination in a habitat 

Post-assessment:

• Create a powerpoint slide about what you learned in this lesson about pollination and habitats and what you found interesting about this project 

Kahoot questions- How does sunlight help plants survive?

-  What are the male and female part to help in pollination?

- What insects help with pollination?

- How many things are needed fro survival?

- What are the 5 main things animals need to survive?

- Why is pollination important for humans?

Exploring Earth Science

Taskstream: 

• changed its name to watermark
• you can go to taskstream right from eclass by clicking the green puzzle piece 
• go to childhood UG (fall 2017 and forward)
• ED 2520 
• can upload your lesson plan and reflections 
• click on what's in blue and you can see the instructions for the assignment 
• go to evaluation method and you can see the rubric of how you'll be graded
• DRF-direct response folio 

Reflection about this experience: 
I liked the Earth science activity a lot because it taught me how to make interactive lessons and get students involved in the lesson and they will enjoy it more rather than being lectured.

As a teacher it allows me to interact with different resources and getting the right resources for students to use and expand their knowledge on the topic. It also allows me to think of how I want students to show their learning based on what they learned in the resources. I like that my project had us interact with Thinglink which I have never done before. It will help me later in this course when we do our project for our unit plans on Thinglink. You can add a lot links such as videos, websites, and mini facts about each topic within the Thinglink. I liked writing what I learned from the video and what I still wondered about it because as a future teacher I can know what my students still don't understand and what I have to go back and reteach. What I learned about violent weather is that there are many different types of violent weather that happens throughout the world but doesn't happen in other parts of the world. Even though these types of weather storms can be dangerous, if you take the right precautionary measures you and your loved ones will be safe. Education is not how much you know it's how you share your knowledge!!

Kelly and James

• explored planets
• they had to learn about all the planets such as who discovered it 
• how the planet compares to earth, the temperature, the different features of it
• had to create a planet and convince people to come to the planet 
• they liked the project because they had a lot of questionaries to fill out about planets and how 

Amanda, Ganny, and Marie

• explored weathering/Erosion 
• they had to watch a video and fill out a KWHL chart 
• had explore sections where they had to compare what they learned about the two ideas
• had a lab to complete about an experiment 
• did it based on how it would have went since they didn't have time to do it 
• KWHL can be a pre-assessment tool 
• had many different resources to go through
• can be used as an inquiry lesson 

Olivia and Bailey

• explored the atmosphere
• watched videos about the different layers 
• they watched a video about a guy skydiving out of an airplane through the different atmospheres 
• had to make a video about a layer of the atmosphere 

Cierra and Meghan

• explored soil formation
• had to create a flipgrid 
• would be good with kids and they can share it 
• viewed slides about the process of the formation of soil 
• had to read an article and write a response to the article 
• had to explain the soil formation in New York State 
• can be used for inquiry lessons 

Severe Weather

Severe Weather Project 

3 things I learned on the video

• Tornado is a fast-spinning air that stretches all the way from thunderstorm.
• Severe weather any dangerous act of nature fueled by changes in the atmosphere
• Blizzard- storms with blowing or falling snow
• Droughts- cause wet lands to dry up and fewer plant life

3 wonders from the video

• Where can animals go when theres a drought?
• What is the geosphere?
• Where are mudslides the most popular?

What questions do you wonder when you see these pictures?

1. In the 3rd picture how would you get a car out that is stuck in the cracked ground?

2. In the 7th picture how did all those cars get stuck on the road like that? Shouldn't they have been off the road.

3. In the 5th picture what kind of weather would case that?

4. In the 1st picture how did they get so close and move quick enough away from the tornado before it hit near them?

How do these pictures make you feel? Explain…

These pictures make me feel very scared because the weather looks very dangerous. What happens if you can't evacuate in time and get stuck in one of the storms and are unable to get out for a few days. 

Pick one of the pictures that interests you: ___1___

Why did you pick this picture?

I picked this picture because I think it's amazing how a whirl of wind like this can cause so much damage. It moves so fast but it destroys so many things and it only happens in a few states so it isn't that popular where we live. Some tornados start out as very small and can get bigger over time as they move throughout the areas.

Hurricane Cassandra

All about hurricane

Swirling winds blow trees

Lots of rain causing flooding

Leave your home right now

Things I wonder from Thinglink:

1. Where are floods most common?

2. Can different types of movement in the earth cause specific natural disasters?

3. Why are tsunami's so common in Japan?

Thing I learned from Thinglink:

1. $1.7 trillion in damages due to natural disasters 

2. As tsunami waves travel through the ocean they are not very strong, but gain strength are they approach the shore. 

3. Natural disasters fall into three different categories; those caused by movements of the earth, weather related disasters, and floods, mudslides, landslides, and famine. 

Learning About Misconceptions and Objectives

In class today we made a powerpoint presentation about misconceptions on the assigned topics. My groups topics were human reproduction, mammals, and the solar system. The misconceptions we had to come up with were ones that we had as a little kid. After we created the misconceptions we had to create objectives based on our topics. This task was challenging because we were still unclear on how to write objectives but we learned a lot from it. I learned that you need to have a condition, criteria, and something you can measure that the students are doing. Another thing I learned is that you have to write "the student" not "the students" because you want to make sure that all students understand the topics and will succeed in the learning outcome. Also you should make sure you only have one measurable outcome as to not confuse the reader of your lesson or overwhelm the students. I noticed that as we went on throughout the presentations the objectives got a lot better! I think we realized our mistakes and were fixing them throughout the class.
My groups misconceptions were:


The Solar System

• The earth is round like a pancake.
• The moon can only be seen at night.
• The sun will never burn out.
• The sun disappears at night.
• The sun/moon follows me.

Mammals

• Humans are responsible for the extinction of the dinosaur
• Human beings did not evolve from earlier species of animals
• No mammals live in (or around) Antarctica
• Polar Bears live in the Arctic and Antarctica   
• Humans are not mammals 
  Human Reproduction
  • Babies come from a stork.
  • Acquired characteristics can be inherited.
  • Boys and girls have the same bodies.
  • Parents were born as they are.
  • There is only blood and bones in my body.

Our objectives were:

7. Communication

Objective: Given a jigsaw activity on 7 planets and a task to work in groups of three, the student will create a poster following the criteria on the rubric scoring 3 out of 4.

Objective: Given a task to create a poster on human reproduction, the student will work respectively, give back positive feedback, and follow the group processing form.

8. Inferring

Objective: Given an article about the solar system, the student will write a statement on the characteristics of the planets following the criteria of the rubric.

Objective: Given a venn diagram of a body of a man and a women, the student will insert 5 differences and common features.

Objective: Given a chart on mammals and the task for a second grader, the student will write a persuasive letter about why humans are mammals following the criteria of the rubric.

Hypothesis

Objective: Given a mammal heating experiment and a task to write a hypothesis, the student will write a conclusion following the criteria of the rubric.

Objective: Given a task to explore the human body and the task to follow 5 stations in a group, the student will write a conclusion following the criteria of the rubric.

Objective: Given an article about 7 planets and the task to follow the steps of inquiry, the student will write a report about the characteristic of the planets following the criteria of the rubric.

Here is my 3 pluses and a wish for each group:
Group 1
I liked how creative they made their misconceptions
I liked that they included a link to a website they would use to teach the lesson
I thought the objectives were very detailed and clear.
One wish
I wish that the misconceptions were a little simpler

Group 2
I thought the objectives were creative
I liked the misconceptions on the green plants!
Great objectives for the measuring skills.
One wish
I wish that they named the handouts they wanted to give the students

Group 4 
I liked that they included the link to the virtual museum tour.
I liked the misconceptions for the seasons.
I liked that as they went through their objectives they saw the mistakes and self corrected.
One wish
I wish they had more clear objectives.