Discovery Box

Two weeks ago, I implemented a university assignment with a group of my students. It is known as a discovery box. All items were planned, inquiry-based, and coincided with the current science unit of the human body. My discovery box focused on coordination of the body systems students had investigated and learned over the last month. Some of the investigable questions included were: "How can you balance easiest?" and "What ways can you catch an object?" Students were able to test their own questions too.

This group's testable question: "What is the easiest way to jump rope?" There were attempts forwards, backwards, and one-handed. 

Later the two groups switched experiments and were tasked to replicate each others. One group had the same findings as the original experiment and the other group's findings were contradictory to the original. At first, these students were concerned they had done something incorrect. I explained that this discovery part of science did not have a right or wrong answer as long as they would be able to explain their reasoning. The groups each had a mini worksheet to fill out the procedural steps they conducted to reach their findings that were also written down. 

Students are recording final observations for the "Put it Together: Coordination" Discovery Box.

Although it was somewhat time-consuming to prepare the discovery box, I would recommend its use is the classroom. It kept students occupied in experimental learning. The four students who participated in this activity greatly enjoyed it and wanted to do it again in the future. Using discovery boxes would be a great way to introduce a unit lesson in science, rotate through different science centers, and even scaffold levels of students for higher and enrichment learning.

Greatest Hits!

Greatest Hits: Website Edition

TEACHER RESOURCE:

1. Read Works

This website houses a wealth of reading selections. Reading passages are categorized by reading strategies, grade level, and lexile level. It is also novel units of study by genre. Some passages have follow-up questions for students to complete. This website is well designed for teachers and parents to increase their students reading comprehension.

2. Khan Academy

This resource for teachers and adult learners allows you to add a classroom set of learners to your private page, mark their progress, grid assignment scores, and offers tutorials in 5 topic areas with different subtopics. Khan Academy is a free website that is funded through Google and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; both highly support education.

3. TED Ed

Searching for educational videos on YouTube can be a hassle, but this website makes it happen! Incorporating technology and videos into the classroom is a great teaching tool to open a lesson, discuss a new topic, and easily engage students. There is an available “Flip this video” option, which allows a teacher to alter parts of the video and insert questions for students to answer.

CLASSROOM USE: (Teacher and Student benefit)

4. Smithsonian Education

This is an incredible website for virtual field trips! Along with being kid-friendly, this website organizes by subject areas with games, interactive activities, and bits of information scattered throughout each webpage. There are separate sections for parent, teacher, and student use.

5. Google Earth

Google earth offers many viewpoints for classroom exploration and virtual field trips. Space, 3D buildings, Oceanic perspectives are a few of the places you can visit. There is even an option travel back in time to see the world at different points in history. This would be great for centers time at the computers with specific locations or buildings to learn about or a walk-through with the entire class on a social studies unit.

6. Popplet

This website offers free membership and is a resource tool for teachers and students. Popplet is a design website for concept maps! It can also be downloaded on iPads from the app store; there is a free version and a $4.99 version. This website is fun to use on the computer or iPad and allows student to create their own concept maps during Daily 5 time, for a project, or as a class study guide. A study guide use of this program could be a concept map made by the teacher and printed off or made with students and saved to be printed or emailed home.

STUDENT PRACTICE

Improving Lesson Plans

     In one of my courses at Auburn, we are looking into the technology aspects of a lesson plan to improve and build upon. The lesson plan I chose is based on a virtual classroom environment when the teacher introduces Google earth and students learn to operate this website, find certain places, and must be able to use several tools in the program. Social studies is my favorite subject, so I was pleased to find this lesson idea about a virtual classroom using technology.

Where you can read the lesson plan I am discussing: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q9YNTTs3-j75odGnLYGXCryt1XCjYt0gfq0h_ccjTqI/edit 

 
    However, to improve upon this lesson plan, I am going to discuss what uses of technology are implemented in the before, during, and after stages.

Before: Several higher level thinking questions can be included in the lesson plan while it is being implemented. It has the state standards written out for anyone looking to use this lesson plan or adapt it for another grade level. Depending on class size and technology available, the teacher needs to have computers for each student, know what group sizes to split kids into, or have enough tablets/iPads for his or her class to complete this lesson.

During: The steps to carry out the lesson plan appear more as guidelines than procedures. There is not a numbered list where a teacher could easily replicate this lesson. The steps of this lesson plan should be more explicit, state what the teacher should be doing at all times, and what students will be doing. It appears there is a general walkthrough, teacher and student, of Google Earth and then students are sent to work with their groups to master the program. Working in groups is great, but guidelines should be set so the time is well managed, productive, and all group members are engaged in learning about the geography and technology aspects.

After: A more extensive rubric should be used to evaluate the students' comfortability of using Google Earth. There should be a pre and post assessment of their use in Google Earth to prove an increased skill in operating the website. There are next steps to take with this lesson providing a higher scaffold with the program which is great for high achieving students. The scavenger hunt details should be included more into the lesson rather than a list. Perhaps finding a specific part of the Atlantic ocean or its length from North America to Europe would be a better use of time after the initial lesson.

I love the lesson idea, but believe more details and connects to amplify this lesson's technology and geography impact on the students.

Always improving,
Ms. Childs