Week 4

Week in Review

This week was an interesting blend of tried-and-true sciene pedagogy mixed with student-centered tech pedagogy. Since ended 1st quarter last week, we a workday Monday and only four days of with students this week.  In addition I had a student council field trip on Friday so I really only had three days of face time with students.  That being said I think you'll be interested to see what I did on Friday to maximize what my students could do with a sub.

Monday

Teacher work day.

Tuesday

Coming off a 3 day weekend I decided to review vocabulary with students from last week by having them complete another GoogleDoc assignment.  One thing I modified this time around was having my 7th period students go back and comment on the previous periods Google Doc before they worked on their own line.

Click here to see the entire GDoc in context

I really liked this modification because students began at the top layers of Bloom' taxonomy and there was a lot of buy-in from students since they were able to evaluate their peer's work. Of course I had to first show them what the context and style  of the comments should be but that only took about 45 seconds.   And the next day 6th period was itching to revisit their GDoc because everyone knew that someone had reviewed their work.

Wednesday

Wednesday we spent the whole class doing a teacher-centered density demonstration....and I wouldn't change a thing. This lesson may be the top 5 lessons I teach the whole year because its as much a well-planned one-act play as it is a lesson.  The demo involves 3 separate elements, each one setting up the next.

Element 1: Coke vs Diet Coke

• Students are asked to predict what will happen when both cans are simultaneously dropped into the water. After writing the predictions down they all hold up their hands - left hand their "coke" hand and right hand their "diet coke" hand - at the same time to indicate their predictions. At a glance I can look around the room and see the room is split with some kids holding two hands high above their heads and others holding one hand high and one hand low. After the cans are dropped we learn the coke sinks because it has 39 more grams of mass (sugar) than the diet coke, hence its density just surpassed that of water.  Kids record in notebooks: The two cans have the same volume but coke had more mass and was heavier so it sunk. 

Element 2: Large block vs Small blook of wood

• Students are asked to predict what will happen when a LARGE and SMALL piece of wood is tossed into the water. I let a few kids hold the two pieces and ask them if one is heavier than the other, and they all reply the large one is definitely heavier. Students write their predictions down and hold up their hands in a similar fashion and I can see the room is split again - some students thinking the larger piece will sink because it is heavier (just like the coke can) and other remembering that wood floats no matter the size.  After the wood is tossed in and students record their observations they write in their notebooks: A substance's density remains the same regardless of size (ex: a tree floats as good as a pencil does).

Element 3: Clay vs Clay boat

• I then drop a block of clay in the water and students watch it sink.  I then hold up a clay boat made with the same amount of clay and ask them to predict what will happen when tossed in. Students write their predictions and raise their hands and I see again a split in the room - most thinking the boat will float but a good number also thinking it will sink (because they had just written down it doesn't matter what size an object is...if it sunk once, then it'll always sink).  After it is tossed in and it floats we talked about how stretching the clay into a boat didn't change the mass but it changed the volume and made it less than the density of water. Kids write in their notebooks: Heavy steel boats can float because they have a huge amount of volume which keeps their density less than the density of water.

In summary , I thought this lesson was a great example of how technology is another tool in the teacher tool box, not the tool box itself. I've come across several online simulations of how I could teach density - phet.colorado.edu for example - yet I have yet to find one that is equally fun and equally powerful in its ability to help kids experience density.  Today, old school wins.

 Thursday

We applied our knowledge of density from Wednesday and conducted a density lab where students made predictions over which mineral sample - Galena, Fluorite, and Quartz - had the highest density using the displacement method.  Fun, interactive, and busy, students were applying their inquiry method from unit one and were able to further enhance their understanding of density.

We did use a Google Spreadsheet on the projector to record group data. Students really liked seeing how their data matched up with other groups (and classes) and it led to a discussion of error, outliers, and consistency.  Not only that but I had a GSpreadsheet from last year and we could compare data from multiple years. Cool!

click here to view the spreadsheet

Friday

Friday I was on a field trip to William Jewell's Tucker Leadership Lab with Congress's student council and while I was away, the students completed their entire lesson on D2L.  This is what they saw after logging on.

According to the sub, students were well practice in getting their laptops as they came into class, and getting to work watching and recording their notes off YouTube.

You can watch the notes by clicking here.

Then they jumped onto their GDoc assignment and quickly got to work since they had practice making GDocs before.

click here to see the rest of the page.

Lessons Learned

Technology has its proper place. Some days it is forefront, like on Friday when I had a sub. Then students could receive comparable instruction to my being there, since on that particular set of notes there was little I could add to in person versus watching on YouTube. However on Wednesday it made little sense to use technology since it would have added anything to the lesson.  Thursday was a day when it enhanced the lesson, but it was not center stage.  Every day different.