Thanks for sharing the results of your first inquiry science lesson and posting a question that you still have about how to "inquirize" your teaching. For this week's blog, we'll begin by considering these questions. Choose one of your classmates questions and offer them a suggestion. Be sure to refer to the reading on "inquirizing" your teaching as you answer the question.
Next, think about our exploration of culturally responsive science curriculum last week. Take a moment to explore the curriculum resources for implementing Indian Education for All (IEFA) on the class wiki, then consider your current field experience placement. Which IEFA curriculum could you use in your current field placement? Why? How would you use it? What would you want students to learn? (Don't forget that this includes an exploration of the OPI Indian Education website as well.)
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I would like to make a suggestion to Erin Cases question; how do you make sure that all students are making individual predictions when they are working in pairs or in small groups? My suggestion to this would be Think, Pair, and Share. First give students a little time to work and think by themselves, and then have students move into pairs and discuss their thoughts together. Last I would have students move into small groups and compare and share their final answers or thoughts with the class. I think this method would make sure that every student was involved in answering a question for themselves, a key element in inquiry according to the article.
I think I could use the Understanding Place Based Education or the PlaceNames Project curriculum in my current sixth grade field placement. I think the students are capable of fulfilling the curriculum's expectations. I feel students at this age have an OK sense of place already and with this curriculum it could be deepened, I also think they would take great interest in this curriculum. I would try to incorporate as much outdoor and environmental education into the curriculum as I could. I would really like the students to learn about the animal and plant life cycles of Montana. I would also like the students to learn how to be more ecologically aware of their surroundings.
My suggestion is for Sarah and Heather. Their question was: when doing predictions and testing an experiment is it better to work individually, pairs, small group or whole class? Students should work on their predictions individually. The article on "iquirizing" your teaching says students should have their procedures approved before they begin by individually sharing their plans with the teacher. This way the teacher is able to guide each students thought process before they begin the experiment, which should be done in a small group. Students will be able to get hands on experience and work together in small groups.
There are many useful IEFA resources on the wiki. I would use the Four Directions Teaching video in my current placement, because it is an interesting way to learn about different reservations. I would use it as a hook to get the students interested in learning about the subject. I would want students to learn about the ideas and ways of different cultures.
I chose to respond to Sarah’s question, which was: “When doing predictions and testing an experiment is it better to work individually, in pairs, as small group or as a whole class?” I would have to agree with Lindsey who recommended using the think, pair, share method in our science lessons. First have the students work individually, which will encourage and give them time to think for themselves and develop their own opinions before collaborating. Then, in small groups, the students would each hopefully have something to bring or add to the discussion. In reading the article about inquirizing your teaching, it states that students bring different amounts of prior knowledge to activities, which is expected. This can be a wonderful tool, because students learn a lot from their peers in these types of settings. They readily share their background knowledge with their group, thus expanding the knowledge bank of others. I think this method would naturally ensure that every student was involved.
When exploring the IEFA resources, I would implement the Place Based Curriculum. I chose this because the content is specific to the geography, ecology, sociology, politics, and other dynamics of that place. Our students this year are studying Montana, so this would tie in perfectly with their curriculum. Ryan and I recently taught lessons on Global warming and how they can become more “earth-friendly” citizens, and our thematic unit is going to be on rivers. Most of our students are quite active and outdoorsy, so I think that environmental education would provide meaningful experiences for them. Students could observe both natural and constructed environments to deepen their understandings, and also we would hopefully teach students how to live in a place without destroying it. Implementing a placed based curriculum would teach students how lucky we are to live here in Montana, and helps them make connections between our environment, to themselves and the community in which they live.
Sarah asked whether it is best for students to work individually, in pairs, small groups, or as a class. I think it is good to incorporate a mixture of these. She mentioned that in working as a whole class, many students rode on the coattails of others, neglecting their own ideas. In "inquirizing" your classroom by following the Explore phase, the students (as a class) may view a demonstration and/or be asked an open ended question. Their responses then become individual when they are prompted to write their own predictions or evaluations. As Lindsey mentioned, students may also be put into pairs at that point to share and compare their idea with a partner. It is definitely important for students to be aware of their own ideas and for instructors to be able to identify them as a possible type of assessment.
The understanding place based curriculum resource would suit our current placement well. The students in the class could highly benefit from learning about the relationships between humans and our environment, as well as developing a respect for that environment. I think that such knowledge could create a more holistic science education as well as to create citizens who respect and understand their relationships with the environment and its importance. The OPI website lists many literature-based activities that involve plants animals and their relationships with the Earth and humans. These types of activities are a good way to engage students in a positive experience with American Indian views and culture.
To answer Brittney’s question, as to what you do if a child’s experiment doesn’t give them the “normal” results and how do you explain this: In the “inquirize” article, they specifically explained that in the Explain stage of the inquiry lesson, kids should be doing reading from text or other sources to solidify their understanding. I would say that even if a student doesn’t get the desired result from their experiment, it should be possible for them to see the benefit of the experiment they did. Through group discussion, a teacher could help students explore “why do you think your answers were different than others?” After exploring this, students should do some reading on their own to help themselves find and understand the science concept being addressed.
While exploring the wiki, I found the Fire History link. When I looked closer, I found that it would be a perfect science lesson for the integrated unit my partner and I are planning on teaching. We wanted to base our unit around the Flathead Indian Reservation and its tribes, and this site contains tons of information about the Flathead Indian Reservation Fire Management Plan. The site was created by the Salish and Kootenai Tribes Fire History Project. I had no idea that for hundreds of years native people had purposely set fires as a way to manage habitat. After years of this being prohibited, the Flathead Reservation is re-introducing the process. The site has many useful tools, such as “then and now” pictures, Fire Ecology and information as to where the plan is being implemented. I thought this would be a great tool if I were to make a science lesson about fire ecology, and it perfectly ties into the unit we would like to explore.
One question that I still have about teaching science is,how,when you are teaching an inquiry based lesson, do you make sure that each student is doing their own work and developing an understanding of the content?
Last week Ashley had a great question pertaining to making sure the student's grasp the concepts that are being presented to them in a given science experiement. To answer this question, it is important to create science experiments that are fun and entertaining but it is imperitive to maintain a high level of content information. To guarantee comprehension of each individual student a pre-assessment and post assessment are an obsolute necessity. Post-assessments can come in a variety of ways. They can be expressed through a test, quiz, journal, or even and oral presentation. To ensure that each student gains the information it is important to give an assignement to each student and not just the group. A pre-assesment is also a great way to see where each student's ability level is.
After witnessing Harmony's and Ryan's lesson that dealt with the greenhouse effect and global warming, I also feel that a place-based curriculum would be a very good placement. In this type of curriculum it connects the students to the environment and the impact we have on it. Educating student's on environmental topics is very important due to the overwhelming changes that are taking places in the world today. If we as teacher's can educate them on the importance of our enviornment, we can be part of the solution and not the problem. American Indians have always valued the importance of respecting our environment and this would be an excellent time to incorporate a Native American lesson plan.
In regard to Lindsey Lewis and Erica Foreman’s question: I would suggest narrowing in on specific questions to individual students during the inquiry-based lesson. During the engage and explain phase of the inquiry-based lesson it is important to allow students to formulate their own ideas before sharing them with a partner, small group or the whole class. I would suggest implementing science notebook with a required writing portion where the students are prompted with questions and able to examine their own beliefs about a concept in the science world. Having this part an individual activity would hopefully allow every student to formulate their personal ideas before sharing them with others. You could check to make sure each student is actively engaged by looking over their science notebooks. You could also carry this to the explain phase of the inquiry process by requiring the students to write up their explanations and understandings of what happened before they discuss it with their class. I must note that it is important for students to share ideas and share the process of developing scientific concepts, so it is still necessary for them to work with their classmates during the lesson as well as working individually.
In my current field placement I could implement IEFA by focusing on place-based multi-cultural education. By focusing on the place and learning about the area that we live in and why this area is important to the American Indians we would be honoring their culture without degrading them. We could do this by integrating the perspectives from the local tribes into our study of the land around us. My thematic unit is going to be focused around the Lewis and Clark Expedition. There are many ways to integrate IEFA into this unit by making sure that we spend a large portion of our time on teaching the expedition from the American Indian perspective and not to bias the unit on the white man’s story. If we spend time studying the plant and animal “findings” of Lewis and Clark we would need to complement that with teaching why those plants and animals may have significance to the culture of the American Indians in this region. Building background knowledge would also be an important part of this integration into the curriculum because we would want to dismiss any stereotypes that any of the students have regarding American Indians. According to the OPI website and the Essential Understandings, it is important to understand that both the American Indians and the US Government (both parties in the treaties) were sovereign powers. In thinking about planning our unit on Lewis and Clark exploring the American Indian’s land it would be critical to our understanding of what actually happened in regards to the take-over of land by the US government.
To answer the question how do you make sure all students are gaining an understanding of a concept and not relying on others ideas there are several things a teacher can do. I think it is important to make sure children are individually submitting an assignment or journal write explaining their thoughts. This was teachers can see the way students are building the concept as well as help to clarify any misconceptions. Brooke and I were worried about the same thing when teaching our science experiment so afterwards we had the students write a paragraph explaining the process of yeast and then we led a class discussion so we could make sure all students were gaining correct information. This was an easy way to assess all students and made each child explore the concept on their own.
While looking at the wiki I saw many great ideas for IEFA. Our class is participating in a Montana poster contest on the Native American tribes in Montana so I thought a great resource would be for the students to watch a movie so they can get a better understanding of reservations and tribal life. This would be a great way to catch the children’s attention as well as develop a deeper understanding of other cultures. The class can explore tribes through many sources (movie, text book, OPI, biographies) to see the different views and perspectives of culture and history.
In response to Sarah and Heather's question about students making predictions individually, in pairs, small groups, or as an entire class: I agree with Lindsey L. in the Think, Pair, and Share approach. This approach of starting out working individually then moving onto group work would help to get all students involved in predictions. I also think that it may be beneficial to have the students write their initial individual predictions down to be handed in to ensure each student is thinking as an individual and not just going along with the class. This may not be necessary with all classrooms but would be beneficial to any classroom. A nice tool I found while exploring the OPI Indian Education website was the
'Connecting Cultures and Classrooms' area. It suggests using American Indian traditional oral stories about caring for our planet as a direct link to environmental issues of today. This method would fit in perfectly with my classroom field placement. Harmony and I just taught a lesson on pollution/global warming and using any one of the various American Indian stories would have fit in very nicely. From this I would want students to learn that the current pollution/global warming conditions are not just affecting "us", but is in fact a situation that affects everyone on the planet and we need to learn from each other different ways to lessen any negative impacts we are making on our planet.
Sarah's question regarding working individually, in pairs, groups, and as a class really made my think. In my current field placement the teacher utilizes each of these methods of work. The students do not sit at individual desks, but instead at tables of two-four students. Depending on the assignment/lesson the students are told whether they're allowed to work together. Their seating arrangement does change frequently to encourage students working in pairs/groups that differ rather than choosing their best friend each time. The seating changes are also a method of my cooperating teacher to manage behavior. She places them according to behavior, motivation to work and pay attention, as well as taking into consideration impairments such as vision/hearing problems etc. In order to ensure specific work is done individually the students use cardboard "cubicles" to divide their work spaces. I've seen and graded student work done individually as well as in groups and pairs and believe switching it up and allowing paired/group work promotes social health as well as allows students to help teach each other. During the science lesson Michelle and I taught, two students had already learned the concept in their homeroom class and were able to explain it to their classmates during class discussion. This was a great way for their peers to see it was a concept easy enough to understand and it reinforce what the two boys already knew by allowing them to teach it.
Like Michelle already said, our fifth graders are working on a Montana poster contest. This contest is through the state and promotes state parks as well as history, culture, the present, and the future. Our cooperating teacher thought this was a wonderful opportunity for the class to learn about Montana's American Indians and the places they call their own. After exploring the PlaceNames Project I think it is the perfect intro and curriculum to teach our fifth graders. The curriculum relates their knowledge, cares, and beliefs to those of MT's American Indians and allows them to expand their previous knowledge of the native people. Because our fifth graders are extremely tech. savvy I think allowing them to explore PlaceNames on their own would be very beneficial. They could also perform other various related internet searches.
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