Short but busy...
That would be the best description of this week. Both the 7th and 8th-grade classes had their hands full. In 7th grade, to go along with our studies of Newton's laws of motion, the students worked in 8 stations this week, completing short tasks and hands-on activities that they needed to connect to Newton's laws. However, I made a judgment call with the stations, and I decided that it would be more manageable with this particular group of 7th graders if only half of the students did the stations at a time. With a class of 27 students, it would be quite a bit of chaos going on all at once. So, we did 4 stations over 2 days, and while one half of the class was going through stations, the other half was playing a science-themed game site called Legends of Learning. The site is pretty cool because it has games that are linked to the standards, and I can load certain games into a playlist and "assign" them to the students. So, I located the standard we were working with, identified some games that that would fit the level of the students, and away they went. It was a great way to manage the class as a whole, the students were engaged, and the site gives me data on how the students perform on the various tasks they do in the games. The site has games for all of the NGSS standards at both elementary and middle school levels--I would recommend checking it out!
In 8th grade, the students were wrapping up our lessons for the section on changes to particles due to thermal energy, and this was a creation week. The standard that we were dealing with has the students develop and use a model that predicts the change of particle motion, temperature, and state of a pure substance when thermal energy is changed. The lessons prior dealt with reinforcing the concepts of the standard so that the students would understand what a pure substance is, recall particle structure in various states of matter, and see first-hand how temperature affects particle motion. Now, combining all of that into one, the students had to make their models. The thing that made this standard tricky for the students was the PREDICTION part--when making models, the students are oftentimes used to simply displaying their information on posters and presenting the poster. So, to build in the prediction aspect, I made the model need an element of interaction for a user to be able to make a prediction based on a given situation. Many of the students made interactive posters--a "lift the flap" model that reveals the answer--while others created interactive Google Slideshows. One group made a Jeopardy! game, but we'll see if they will fully follow the expectations of the project and implement some visuals--they were stuck on that one when we were going over their progress. I have a feeling they will figure it out, though. I'm looking forward to seeing the models in action next week!
Mindfulness thought for the week--If you own your failure, you own your success. --Jon Taffer
In 8th grade, the students were wrapping up our lessons for the section on changes to particles due to thermal energy, and this was a creation week. The standard that we were dealing with has the students develop and use a model that predicts the change of particle motion, temperature, and state of a pure substance when thermal energy is changed. The lessons prior dealt with reinforcing the concepts of the standard so that the students would understand what a pure substance is, recall particle structure in various states of matter, and see first-hand how temperature affects particle motion. Now, combining all of that into one, the students had to make their models. The thing that made this standard tricky for the students was the PREDICTION part--when making models, the students are oftentimes used to simply displaying their information on posters and presenting the poster. So, to build in the prediction aspect, I made the model need an element of interaction for a user to be able to make a prediction based on a given situation. Many of the students made interactive posters--a "lift the flap" model that reveals the answer--while others created interactive Google Slideshows. One group made a Jeopardy! game, but we'll see if they will fully follow the expectations of the project and implement some visuals--they were stuck on that one when we were going over their progress. I have a feeling they will figure it out, though. I'm looking forward to seeing the models in action next week!
Mindfulness thought for the week--If you own your failure, you own your success. --Jon Taffer
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