Resource Blog #5: Generation Genius

www.generationgenius.com

I found this cool website for science content. It puts me in a mindset of Bill Nye with the fun entertaining videos, but it’s more current. Bill Nye started back about 25 years ago so a lot of the videos are old. A major difference I see between Generation Genius and Bill Nye is that these videos have 2 students about high school age who look more relatable with a younger scientist who loves to dance. It also aligns with the Next Generation Science Standards which is also a plus. I was able to watch a sample video towards the bottom on physical and chemical change. Within the video, they did cool experiments that corresponded with the lesson. They also provide discussion questions, interactive activities, a lesson plan, a teacher guide, and even a quiz for the various lessons. It’s a website that, like BrainPop there is a paid subscription, but I think this would be worth subscribing to for science.

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Strategy Lesson Reflection: Dramatic Roleplay

I think the dramatic role-play strategy went a lot better than I expected. Jessica wanted to take the lead on this project and she did absolutely amazing especially with all the props she provided for this activity. I was a little skeptical about this strategy because I know what kind of person I was in school and I still am not very fond of being in front of class for things such as skits. I really enjoyed every group’s skits and how everyone participated and had fun. Everyone added comedy to their skit which made it really fun. I can see how it can get out of control in a middle grades classroom so there would definitely need to be some ground rules but also an understanding that it will be somewhat chaotic in general. I like how it gives students a chance to be creative and can slightly think outside the box. This is a good “before the reading” strategy to activate visualizing when reading. Once students begin to read they are easily able to visualize parts of the skits and how they connect to the readings. It also makes the reading more feasible to read and understand. After seeing this strategy in full effect in class today, I could see myself utilizing this strategy in my classroom. It allows students to engage with their peers and having various roles allows students to choose what they feel comfortable with while also participating.

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Content Differentiation

I believe differentiation in the classroom is vital and all teachers should implement teaching in various ways because we all learn in different ways and aren’t all on the same level. I think the observer did a great job with giving constructive criticism. She was able to give the teacher pointers on how to improve with letting the students be more interactive with the smart board and asking more application type questions. This made me think about the test questions we had to write up for our science methods class. We had to create test questions for a unit and needed to included knowledge, comprehension, and application-based questions. It can be difficult to think about questions that are application-based, but it allows students to think deeper and gives teachers an understanding of whether or not the students are able to apply what they have learned to answer questions of things they haven’t necessarily learned or experienced. Something so simple as including pictures with the vocabulary words was a good tip given to the teacher as well. It helps students who may not understand what the word means, and it also helps students like me to visualize or have a picture to associate with each of the vocabulary words. The puzzle activity was a great way for the students to work together as a group. I was glad to see that the students in each group weren’t grouped together based on their cognitive levels and yet they were given questions that were on their level. I could see myself doing something like this that targets the various cognitive levels of my students so that I am meeting the needs of all of my students.  

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Resource Blog #4: Math Scavenger Hunt

https://www.scaffoldedmath.com/2018/02/percents-scavenger-hunt.html

I’ve always found scavenger hunts to be fun because I like a challenge, so I found this math scavenger hunt that would be fun to incorporate in a classroom. Students are able to work in pairs or alone at the teacher’s discretion and can start at any card around the room. Students must read the problem and solve it. After they have solved the problem, they have to find the next card with that solution on the top. I would definitely use this in my class as a fun activity for students to go around the room, but they are also practicing word problems, so they will need to know how to read and understand them and be able to solve it in order to move on to the next card. Teachers could also use standardized test questions in their scavenger hunt to familiarize their students with those types of questions.

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