Back at it again! Headed for Home!

Wow, I can’t believe it’s actually here. I student teach in January. I have already met my students that will be in my class. I’ve already been in the classroom where I will take over. It’s all beginning to feel so real. Blogging through this journey has been interesting. It has allowed me time to reflect on the week and what I experienced. It’s a time to let out my feelings, think and talk through some things that I got to see. It’s been a time for me to get to know my classmates on another level. There were weeks where I had so much going on that I dreaded blogging, but looking back, it’s been so beneficial.

The first full week of classes at Gardner-Webb is now complete and the first full week of school is complete as well. I am tired, but it’s a good tired. Going into Science Methods for the first time, I was excited. Teaching students about science is always so much fun. There is so much to do with them and it’s so hands-on. They truly learn so much more that way. I couldn’t wait to learn ways to teach them. One of my favorite things about this class so far is that we are actually having the opportunity to be the student again. We learn by doing, so why shouldn’t we take part in the same activities that we will have our students do? We began building our ecocolumns this week and it brought me back to 5th grade. I completed this same project as a student and now I am completing the project again, but with a different purpose in mind. How can I use this in MY classroom to teach MY students?

One of my struggles this week came with being in the classroom first-hand actually taking a part in the student’s learning and realizing that science and social studies are often times pushed to the side if time doesn’t permit. That’s why integration is SO important. If we see that our students needed more time on their reading chapter, or more time on their math, we have to accommodate that. That’s why it’s so important to integrate social studies and science into math and reading to know at the end of the day that my students got a well-rounded curriculum.

This next week I want to look at what resources my teacher has for teaching science. I want to see if she is given any at the beginning of the school year or if she has accumulated some over her teaching years. I hope to use some of her resources when planning. If I find some that are really helpful, I hope to share those with my colleagues so that they may use them in their classroom. Sharing is caring.

One of things that I learned outside the classroom this week is that the school where I am placed gets Scholastic Monthly Readers for the students to use. These are newspapers with articles relating to science and social studies. These are a great resource, but I wonder if they are enough. I wonder if the students are actually getting something out of them. This is something that I want to discuss with my CE and get her thoughts on it.

My learning this week relates to NCTCS Standard 3. A part of standard 3 states that Teachers recognize the interconnectedness of content areas/disciplines. Realizing that there might not be enough time in the day for science/social studies was hard for me to grasp. However, it's a reality that I'm going to have to face. It's so crucial for me to connect science and social studies to math and reading. My students need all 4 subjects and I can't eliminate one just because I don't have time.

Twitter has become a great resource for me. It’s a cool way to interact with other educators. I can go on there to find inspiration if I’m having a bad day, a resource/strategy for teaching math, language arts, science or social studies, keep up with the current events in the education world and so much more. Here are three tweets relating to science education that I found this week.

This first tweet was amazing to me. This is a robotic arm that was invented that allows scientists to work on Mars without ever leaving the lab. Crazy right?! The video attached to the tweet is awesome to watch. Technology has improved so much that we can work on other planets without even leaving earth! 

I love watching children learn and experiment. It's so fun to watch their faces when they figure something out or learn something new. This is a tweet from Discovery Education all about young scientists. This is a group of students that has worked on a science project this summer and what they did. Looking at all the student's science projects reminded me of the science project we are completing in science methods.

Another crazy invention! These sensors are built to mimic real organs and perform the same functions that they would. For example, they have created a sensor that mimics the lungs, so it transfers oxygen from the air into the bloodstream. Mind-blowing!