Neely - Post #2

Teaching practice set: Eliciting students’ ideas and adapting instruction (http://ambitiousscienceteaching.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Primer-Eliciting-Students-Ideas.pdf)

·       With the goal to change students thinking about a topic you must first start with finding out what students know.  To do this at the start of a unit or topic an anchoring phenomenon where current student understanding can be discovered through questioning.  Then general steps for that include there being an introduction, a student hypothesis and then group/class explanation. 

o   Thinking about this and next year I almost want to make my room a ship theme, where I am the captain.  As a captain everyone is responsible for their own work and the crew/student rely on me as I rely on them to make it through the year together successfully.

A Discourse Primer for Science Teachers

(http://ambitiousscienceteaching.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Discourse-Primer.pdf)

·       Productive discourse must be facilitated as it is not what normally occurs in students’ lives.  Steering students to answers will get them to understand it in a way different that simple hearing it.  Students talking can easily give insight to those participating.  To help all feel comfortable talking a safe classroom must be established first and kept (students should be encouraged to respectfully disagree when appropriate).  Being tactful with it all a classroom environment with frequent discourse is possible. 

·       IRE (“initiation-response- evaluation” discussions) is common in classrooms and after having read about direct instruction I am afraid is often what I do.  For me I have a paper in the back of the room saying 5-seconds as I know I can suck at providing wait time.  Reading this I am wanting to add more of the turn and talks as I can in classes to have students help each other.

Using Interviews to Explore Student Ideas in Science

(https://ite404.weebly.com/uploads/7/6/1/6/7616101/russ_interviews.pdf)

·       To teach one must first learn what students know, interviews work for this purpose.  Direct questions may lead to recitation of “school-based knowledge,” whereas putting questions in a context can get a deeper understanding of a student’s understanding of a concept. Asking for clarification may give an idea of what surrounding concepts on a topic students are familiar with.

·       I most recently failed to ask for clarification for what students actually know about atoms, when they mentioned they had already learned about them.

Getting to student learning seemed to be the theme of this week’s reading, not the teacher lecturing or students reciting.  It is not a goal of having students be able to answer basic questions with school-based answers, but to have the understanding to explain topics. For me entering into this next month and having to review for the EOC I am asking myself about how to do it best. 

Applicability question/thought… I am thinking with students working in pairs to explain a topics relations to Biology may allow students can in part reteach each other as needed while allowing potential discourse.  Then in having students on different topics switching I may be able to get some insight as to what may need to be retaught as a whole group.