Ronilyn Aquino EDUG 899 EDUG 899: Final Reflection

4/29/14 Spring 2014

Now that the semester is rapidly coming to a conclusion, I can confidently say that I am much more comfortable and knowledgeable about teaching and most importantly learning in the content area of science. At the beginning of this course I was a little apprehensive about some of the topics that I would be immersed in within the physical science realm, however together, with my peers and my instructor, we have created a positive learning environment, and have all learned to best interpret information for ourselves and use it to teacher our students and future students. Based upon my interest within the content area, I have gained a substantial compilation of teaching and learning experiences within the content area and I have thus been able to grow and evolve as a better science special educator. Teaching One of the key instructional strategy or approach that I have not only learned about in this course, but find an essential piece of this course would be the construction of the scientific notebook. The science notebook was introduced to the class on the first day of the course and was meant to represent a compilation of the work that we would be doing and the gathered resources that we have collected. Throughout the course I have recorded notes that have been presented by my instructor and my peers, important strategies and differentiation techniques, vocabulary words, and diagrams and charts, which can all be easily accessed by my

table of contents. I really thought it was extremely beneficial to see how this document functions in the classroom. When I teach science in my future classroom I will certainly implement the science notebook strategy. Students have the ability to organize their information, express their information in a unique way through picture, diagram, cut and paste, words, etc., and can always refer to their science notebook as a reference. Both teacher and student can see the amount of growth a student has made, the type of learning style the student has, and the strategies and approaches that work best for that individual. This information can be and should be used to then guide future instruction. Another approach that I have worked with much more in this course is centers. During the lesson and the article presentations, many of us have implemented this strategy very effectively into our instruction. I feel as though centers work really well especially in the content area of science. Another benefit of implementing centers into instruction is that the groups of students working on a certain task are smaller and the instruction in many cases can be more easily differentiated to target specific students needs. I would implement this strategy in my instruction typically during a culminating activity or a review before a test in mathematics or science where there are usually subtopics where students can be broken up to work on mini-activities in their small group centers. This is also extremely beneficial to keeping the students engaged through constant movement and changing of activities. One of the techniques that I have found extremely helpful in differentiating instruction is staying focused on higher order questioning and being mindful of

Blooms Taxonomy. This is one thing that many teachers have a difficult time differentiating based upon different students entry levels during the course of the lesson. I feel as though it extremely important to be mindful of what questions we are directing to which students, and always offering scaffolding and extra support whenever it may by necessary. I also feel as though it is crucial that we are differentiating for students based on the unit or lesson, so students will be able to move fluidly from remedial group to on-level and enrichment, depending upon the skills presented within that particular area. After this course I am now much more aware of how I write my questions in my lesson plans and I can easily refer to them and ensure that I am meeting all of my students learning needs and styles. Another techniques of differentiating in my future classroom would be to vary the type of differentiation that is being implemented in the instruction presentation, process, or product. Depending on the individual student and their skill set, the type of differentiation necessary will vary depending on the topic and this needs to be taken into consideration when differentiating lessons most appropriately and efficiently. The Learner Throughout elementary school, throughout middle and high school, and even into my college years, I have always been very interested and engaged by the content area of science. Although I have had some struggles within the content area, specifically chemistry, I was always still curious and driven enough to always make my hardest attempt to understand. I was extremely fortunate to have a chemistry teacher that was dedicated to her job and helped my through the semester. Looking back however, I felt as though she only presented me with strategy to solve the

problem instead of trying to present the concept differently. With this being said I was extremely apprehensive to touch any kind of equations such as heat during the course of this semester. Maybe the material presented to me in this course was broken down, explained, or differentiated to my skill set more effectively. I was able to move past my bad experience with Chemistry and solve the equations and get the correct answers. This was an extremely important learning experience for me as a future educator. This experience made me realize that as a teacher, I sometimes need to teach concepts the way that I learn or understand them. Concepts that may be difficult need to often be broken down to simplest most essential piece, scaffolded and supported through differentiation, and then built back up to the overarching bigger picture in order for understanding and learning to occur for all students. The field trip was another excellent learning experience. We were encouraged to look at the field trip through two lenses one as teacher and the other as student. Through the teacher lens we focused on all the different materials that you would need to prepare for a trip, all of the documentation, general care for the students on the trip, as well as how to differentiate the trip for not only the atrisk and disabled student, but also for different grade levels. Through the student lens I was able to learn about the different concepts covered in class through various different representations of the information video, diagrams, small activities, posters, pictures, models, and text. As a student, this brought the classroom concepts to life and allowed me to interpret the information through many different learning styles.

As a result of class discussions and activities my perspective towards teaching the content area of science has changed a great deal. I am much more comfortable overall with the information and my understanding of a lot of the concepts, and therefore my teaching will certainly reflect that. I am also much more comfortable differentiating science instruction for those students who are at-risk and disabled, or simply need to be presented with a concept slightly differently. Throughout the course not only was I able to gain knowledge about many different strategies and approaches but I also have been able to collect and abundant amount of resources through both direct instruction as well as collaboration with peers that I will certainly implement in my future classroom. Physical Science Content This semester we covered a large portion of physical science. We began the semester by looking at the scientific method and the different components of an experiment. After discussing these two concepts we then practiced by creating our own hypothesis, going through the process and conducting our experiment. We then moved into matter and energy. We discussed the states of matter, types of matter, mixtures, compounds, and pure substances. We worked then with the heat equation and specific heat, followed by a heat transfer experiment. As a class we then took a look at kinetic and potential energy, as well as weather. In my instruction I will certainly implement the scientific method and experimentation into my science instruction. I feel as though there is so much to learn simply just based on the questions a classroom community can come up with and then answer themselves as a learning community. Through experimentation

and the scientific method, students can create experiments or activities, just like we have based on these different concepts, such as the Dunkin Donuts vs. Starbucks experiment and the Cloud in a bottle. The crater activity where we dropped rocks from different distances allowed us to make connections between craters in the flour and craters on the moon. Activities such as this that bring the context to life for the student are the experiences students and teachers need to have alongside one another in order to foster learning and understanding.