Week 11 Blog Post

 

Are you able to relate what you learned to what you already knew?

I have done lots of observations in multiple different subjects in my education so far. In my past courses, I have learned about using all of my different senses like taste, touch, smell ,etc., to make the most thorough observations. I have also created lots of explanations to my observations. I don't remember touching on this too much in elementary school, but I know as we got into middle school and high school this was a big focus. With the m&m activity, I was able to predict that the m&m would start to dissolve and the colors would mix together based on my past experiences. 

Which parts did you find clear and which were confusing?

I found the observations aspect of this lesson to be clear. I know what things my students should be looking for when making observations. I also know that it is important to not only have them do observations, but also to have them come up with explanations and questions for their observations. During the rotations, something I found confusing was the coke float activity. When we placed the two mini coke bottles in the water, they both floated, but when we put the bigger size of the coke bottles in the water, one of them sunk and one of them floated. I had a hard time coming up with an explanation for this experiment. 

How can you apply what you've learned to your teaching in the future?

I really liked doing the different stations and recording our observations, explanations, and questions. I liked that the experiments were short and interesting and were very engaging. I also liked that they weren't all things that we were able to explain. I think it allowed us to think a lot deeper into the science behind each observation.