First Week Frenzy

This week has been so hectic! On Monday, Cleveland County Schools started back. I am so happy that I was able to be there and meet my students. I am so excited to have a class of 21 young minds ready to learn. It was an interesting experience to be in the classroom on the first day. I haven't been a part of that since I was in elementary school. It was chaotic, hectic, and a lot of fun! On the first day of school, one big thing that I saw from the entire faculty and staff was that they had all established a respectful environment for diverse students. My CE as well as everyone in the school really demonstrated standard 2 of the NCTCS in that they created a positive and nurturing environment for their students. I look forward to being in a community that does that.

One thing that was a struggle this week was trying to stay on task. Being at the school all day long on Monday was exhausting and it was so hard to come back home and then keep up with all of my schoolwork. However, I know that this is something that I must get used to when I am in the classroom everyday.

In class this week, we created ecocolums. Over the next few weeks, we are going to be observing this ecocolum and the small ecosystem that we have created. We have been talking about phenomena this week and this is a great way to experience some naturally occurring events. Simple experiments like the one that we began in class today can really help students understand the naturally occurring events that happen in nature such as photosynthesis and the life cycle. I know that in my classroom in the future, I would love to include many different hands-on activities to help my students understand the science that occurs around them on a daily basis. I did some outside research on the NGSS and using phenomena in science and found a great blog post from Alissa Berg. In it she lists the six steps that educators can take to include engaging phenomena study in science units. The link to the blog post is at the bottom.

In groups this week, we began talking about our science fair project. I'm excited for what my group is beginning to do and I look forward to continuing to work with them. Overall, I think we have all contributed really well to our decision making this week as we begin to create our project.

One current event that is happening this week is Hurricane Harvey. This has affected many people in Texas and as the weather changes, it is even beginning to affect us here in North Carolina. In class today, we were unable to do everything we had planned due to the rain that the tropical storm is bringing. Weather is something that occurs everyday and sometimes it does affect your lesson planning. However, as teachers we can use that phenomena to create an engaging and exciting lesson for our students!

Top Tweets:

My first tweet this week is an infographic that includes critical thinking questions. It is important to have critical thinkers in our classrooms and especially in our science classes. This image gives teachers some very basic questions to ask our students, but they are questions that require our students to begin thinking critically about the subjects they are studying.

My second tweet this week is something that I believe is very important. Like we have mentioned in class, some our students were born in 2012. It is absolutely essential that our schools be 21st century schools and this image provides a lot of information on how to ensure that our students are being taught in the most relevant ways for them.

My final tweet this week was on positive school culture. Like I mentioned above, it was so amazing to see how all of the faculty and staff at WES created a positive environment for all of the students on the first day of school. I believe that a positive school culture is essential to get students excited for learning and ready to be at school every day.

https://www.teachingchannel.org/blog/ausl/2015/04/15/6-steps-to-coming-up-with-an-engaging-phenomenon-to-anchor-your-next-ngss-unit/

Back At It Again

Well the semester has just begun and once again we are hitting the ground running! I get to meet with my CE tomorrow and I am so excited about it. I know that I cannot wait for my student teaching journey to begin and I am sure that I am going to learn so much in such a short amount of time. I am proud of how far I have come on this journey and I look forward to finishing strong.

One thing that we did in class today was a short experiment about water density and buoyancy. I realized very quickly that I am definitely rusty on my science terms so that is something that I will need to be doing further research on and getting caught up on. It has been quite a while since I have been in a science class! Hopefully over the next few weeks and months that I am in science methods, I can get familiar with common scientific terms once again. I know that once I fully understand what I am talking about, I can be more confident in preparing my students for their big science EOG in fifth grade and hopefully get them interested in science outside of school as well. It was neat being able to do a hands on activity with my classmates and being able to help contribute to building different shaped boats and test their ability to stay afloat was a great way to start off class.

Since it is the first day of class, I haven't completed any outside learning information. However, I know that once I meet my CE tomorrow morning, I am going to have lots of new information that I can research on.

One specific current event that relates to science was the solar eclipse that happened earlier in the week. This is something that happened right in our students backyards! As teachers we could use this opportunity to talk about planets and orbits. Location and geography could be talked about and how different places saw different phases. You could even discuss with students about plant and animal life and how many animals reacted differently to the eclipse. It is incredibly relevant to our students since it is something that they most likely watched happened just a few days ago!

I connected the NCTCS in my learning while in class today. Under standard 3: Teachers know the content that they teach, it states that teachers make learning relevant for their students. I realized today in class that science is all around us. It's in the plants, cars, buildings, even buckets of water have so much to do with scientific learning! Relevancy is definitely something that I hope to bring into my future classroom one day to get my students excited to learn about science.

TTOTW:
 Two of my tweets this week have to deal with the first day of school. I know for Cleveland County students, their first day in on Monday. I found these two infographics great for both teachers and students.

The first tweet is the twelve questions that you should ask your students on the first day of school. I think by asking students these questions or types of questions like these, you can really get a feel for how students learn and act in a classroom setting. Then, as teachers we can respond in a way that best fits our students.

The second tweet includes some words of encouragement for our students. The first day can be stressful and students need to hear motivation from their teachers and know that we as teachers care about more than just their grades.

My third tweet this week directly relates to science. Hurricane Harvey is about to hit Texas and this is a current event that can really help teachers make science more relatable to students. By keeping up with current events, we can help students realize how science is all around us in many different ways.