The Elements of Teaching Science

 Virtual Teacher Resources      During this semester I was introduced to various online resources that have helped me as a student and teacher. In this post, I want to share with you the multiple resources I used in my course and fieldwork. These resources are all free and easy to use, they were extremely helpful. Zoom- A virtual classroom. For the majority of my courses, we held over zoom sessions. This allowed us to meet as a class from the safety of our homes while the campus was closed. It was also a great resource for meeting with professors and fellow peers to complete assignments and lesson plans. Google Meets- A virtual classroom. I used this resource to conduct fieldwork for Science Methods and RTI. Similar to zoom it allowed me to meet with my students, peers, and professors. Paired with Google Slides it allows you to display a presentation with the members in order to teach a lesson. Google Slides/ Google Docs- Both are great resources for completing group...

 The Struggles of Teaching Virtually      Due to the pandemic schools around America have been closed forcing schools to be taught remotely. Teachers and students have to adjust the way they teach and learn in order to stay successful during this new time of schooling. I have had a first-hand experience with this being a student myself taking virtual classes and a teacher candidate teaching lessons to my students virtually.       This semester I have learned so much about teaching virtually and how to create effective engaging lessons. Through my fieldwork experience in Scientific Methods as well as my RTI course I have become familiar with various programs and tools that allow me to create effective lessons. It can be a struggle having to adjust a lesson to be taught online and keep students engaged but it's not impossible. If there's one takeaway I could take from this whole experience is that the method of teaching is constantly changing and as...

 Virtual Fieldwork Experience: Teaching Climate Change          T hroughout the semester in Science Methods, my fellow teacher candidates and I have been conducting virtual fieldwork sessions on Google Meets with a few students. Every week on Tuesday and Thursday a group of teacher candidates teaches two lessons on a new aspect of climate change. Each lesson focuses on informing students of the effects and results of these conditions and how we can stop them. Each group works together to create a direct instruction lesson and an inquiry lesson.     Each group created a unique lesson to educate our young scientists on the many factors of climate change. before the session started we discussed various ways of teaching science in an effective way. one aspect we focused heavily on was assessments during and after the lesson. Assessments throughout the lesson allow the teachers to evaluate the student's understanding of the topic. This can help us make...

 Technology Safety: Keeping Student's Safe on Technology      With the way students are being taught switching from a classroom setting to a virtual setting due to the pandemic, new concerns have to be taken into consideration to protect student's safety. My professor shared an important article by Amy Roberts, " How to Keep Your Students From Viewing Harmful Content " the article discusses the importance of educating students on the dangers of online activity and how a software management system in your classroom can help.     It's important for students to know what they post online will be seen forever by their teachers, peers, and future employers. what you say online can follow you for the rest of your life so it's important to be aware of what you say and always use professional language when speaking to peers online. there's also a risk of cyberbullying that can become seriously harmful.     As educators, there are steps to prevent these is...

 Inquiry Climate Change Lesson 11/3/20     On November 3rd my co-teacher partners and I taught the final part of our climate change lesson. This lesson was a continuation of the previous lesson taught on the elements of climate change: Flooding, Forest Fires, Water supply loss, and rising sea level. In this lesson students complete a crime scene activity to show their knowledge of each element.      The lesson did not go as expected but that's to be expected when your teaching a lesson virtually on Google Meets instead of in a classroom. For this session, we had the same student from the first lessons and a new student. Our main issue throughout the lesson was that the new student struggled to complete the assignment because they did not attend the first lesson, however, the first student struggled to remember information too. My co-teachers and I had to help guide the students through each crime scene to determine the element that caused the crime. Because...