Course assignment - Reflection 6

This week we read a chapter about service learning. What is service learning? A more specific definition of service learning is a research-based teaching method where guided or classroom learning is applied through action that addresses an authentic community need in a process that allows for youth participation and provides organized time for reflection on the service experience and demonstration of acquired skills and knowledge (Kaye, 2010). In other terms, service learning is a teaching method that allows students to perform community service in order to learn knowledge and acquired skills connected to the curricular objectives. Students then are involved in planning and implementing service activities. As we have read in chapter 1, these activities can range across all curriculum fields beginning from kindergarten to post-secondary education, some examples are: putting together a community canned food drive in health class to emphasize healthy eating for kids, middle school social studies students doing research on their local social service food bank agency and developing a plan to better supply and meet the needs of the community, younger students working to plant vegetables in a community garden, students developing a proposal for their school to reduce the carbon footprint, and students helping the elderly (Kaye, 2010). From a student’s point of view, they become engaged in the ecosystem and become more diverse through the practice of citizenship. Regardless of students’ strengths or weaknesses, service learning lets them be intellectually invested and motivate them to learn in and out of the classroom. Therefore, service learning allows students to carry on their learning and become fruitful. Service learning differs from community service because it allows for student ownership and reflection in an academic nature by relating to the curriculum to provide emphasis on service activities. From a teacher’s point of view, it is important to design a plan that identifies the need, considers the community and what best works in your classroom, student participation in the entire process, researching the underlying issue, the purpose of the content, and fulfilling academic standards (Kaye, 2010).

Three different types of service:

1.     Direct service – is face-to-face interactions that directly involve the recipients. Students in direct service learn about caring for others who are older or younger than them, have different experiences, or working with refugees. Students develop problem-solving skills by following a sequence from beginning to end and seeing the big picture of a social justice issue (Kaye, 2010).

2.     Indirect service – are indirect activities where students do not see the recipients however their actions benefit the environment or community as a whole (Kaye, 2010). Through indirect service students learn through cooperation by working in teams. Some examples from the reading are donating books to a preschool literacy program, stocking a food pantry, and donating clothes to families living in shelters.

3.     Advocacy – creates awareness of or promotes action on an issue of public interest. This type of learning must be authentic, meaning it must respond to genuine community needs (Kwak, Shen, & Kavanaugh 2002). Through advocacy students provide a voice for those who can’t speak for themselves. Examples of advocacy activities are public speaking, promoting a town meeting, and writing letters. Advocacy ensure student engagement in their community allowing them to participate in civic citizenship and diversity sceneries.

4.     Research – involves students finding, gathering, and reporting on information in the public interest (Kaye, 2010). Research-based service learning permits students to gather information and make discriminating judgements. An examples of research-based service learning is students gathering information to conduct a survey on water or soil contamination.

After reading this chapter, I discovered that I would want to know some things about my own community. I want to know about how to make sure safety is optimal at schools and what to do about promoting a better safety program in schools not just during “safety week” but throughout the school year. The reason I bring this up is, I have been working with a community in EPISD and parents are constantly complaining about the lack of EPISD officers patrolling around their elementary and middle school. Also, parents have witnessed adults drinking and doing drugs on the street corners by the schools and using abandon homes in the neighborhood to distribute their drugs. A proposal idea for me would be based on how to get the community involved and provide better safety and health promotions. A concern I have is, what happens when service learning grows from mixed motives and conflicting emotions between diverse populations? How can that conflict be resolved between two or more individuals that do not agree with the community?

Kaye, C. B. (2010). The complete guide to service learning: Proven, practical ways to engage students in civic responsibility, academic curriculum, & social action. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Publishing.

Kwak, C., Shen, J., & Kavanaugh, A. (2002). An Overview of the Practice and Development of Service-Learning. Educational Horizons, 80(4), 190-194. Retrieved from http://0-www.jstor.org.lib.utep.edu/stable/42927127

Course assignment - Reflection 5

Problem-based learning has been used for over 40 years. Problem-based learning (PBL) is characterized as an instructional method that initiates students’ learning by creating a need to solve an authentic problem. During the problem-solving process, students construct content knowledge and develop problem-solving skills as well as self-directed learning skills while working toward a solution to the problem (Hung, Bailey, and Jonassen 2003). The problems usually consist of a description of observable phenomena, situations, or events. Problem-based learning was first developed in medical education in the 1950s (Hung, Bailey, and Jonassen 2003). PBL was implemented to provide a foundation for students’ unsatisfactory clinical performance. In the 1980s, the wider spread of PBL in the United States was accelerated by the GPEP report (Report of the Panel on the General Professional Education of the Physician and College Preparation for Medicine) sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges (Muller, 1984). PBL has become a prominent pedagogical method in medical schools and health-science-related programs throughout the world, including North America, the Netherlands, England, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and India (Hung, Bailey, and Jonassen 2003).In medical education for instance, these problems often take the form of a description of a patient, presenting a complaint with a number of signs and symptoms (Schmidt 1994).

In the 1990s the adoption of PBL in education outside of the medical field occurred in K-12 grades. Since then PBL has been used by a number of scholars and educators. PBL is effective in a variety of content areas – mathematics, science, history, literature, engineering, and microeconomics (Hung, Bailey, and Jonassen 2003). A proposal idea can be based on how to implement problem-based learning in engineering classes. Also, how to effectively use PBL in technology designed lessons. Another proposal idea is how to find multiple approaches to problem solving with relation to real world significance in science.

In science education, the problem may consist of the description of the behavior of a block of wood on an incline plain (Schmidt 1994). Groups of students are tasked to discuss problems and elaborate on undefined explanations for the phenomena in terms of some underlying process or mechanism. Most of the learning occurs within small groups rather than lectures. While working on the problem, the group is guided by a teacher or tutor. The teacher or tutors task is to stimulate a discussion to provide students with some subject-matter information that is necessary to evaluate the progress being made and to monitor the extent to which each student contributes to the group’s tasks. The progress then should be based on the knowledge that students acquire around the problems rather than the discipline so how is PBL learning assessed?

The PBL learning process normally involves the following steps (Hung, Bailey, and Jonassen 2003).

• Students in groups of five to eight encounter and reason through the problem. They attempt to define and bound the problem and set learning goals by identifying what they know already, what hypotheses or conjectures they can think of, what they need to learn to better understand the dimensions of the problem, and what learning activities are required and who will perform them.

• During self-directed study, individual students complete their learning assignments. They collect and study resources and prepare reports to the group.

• Students share their learning with the group and revisit the problem, generating additional hypotheses and rejecting others based on their learning.

• At the end of the leaning period (usually one week), students summarize and integrate their learning.

PBL can be used in a wide variety of student populations such as those who are gifted and talented or special needs students throughout all grade levels. To sum up PBL learning, the steps are:

1. Problem identification

2. Identify the information

3. Generate possible solutions

4. Identify most viable “best” solution

5. Report best solution to the class.

Hung, W., Bailey, J. H., and Jonassen, D. H. (2003). Exploring the tensions of problem-based learning: insights from research. In Problem-Based Learning in the Information Age, edited by D. Knowlton and D. Sharp, pp. 13–23. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Joyce, B., Weil, M., & Calhoun, E. (2011). Models of teaching. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Schmidt, H. (1994). Problem-based learning: An introduction. Instructional Science, 22(4), 247-250. Retrieved from http://0-www.jstor.org.lib.utep.edu/stable/23369986

Course Assignment - Reflection 4

Scientific inquiry is a process that involves generating questions, designing investigations, making predictions, finding answers to questions, gathering data, and using evidence based on conclusions to explain the phenomena. The priority is for learners to be engaged in scientific questioning and exploration. This is when learners are able to obtain evidence and connect the explanations to scientific knowledge. It is also important for students to be given the opportunity to construct or critique the evidence through formative and summative assessment. Teaching in a manner that ensures scientific inquiry along with the times that are changing. It is evident that we are living at a time when technology plays an important part of our daily lives. In this reading we are introduced to the four objectives in the process of scientific inquiry.

The first objective is made to help students understand the process of science investigation. What stands out about scientific inquiry is the fact that it allows for flexibility. There doesn’t have to be just one particular method, there can be different types of methods to ask and solve questions. Long ago we viewed science as something that only consisted of experimentation however, we must consider that science also uses other techniques such as observations, surveys, and other non-experimental approaches. The evidence learners collect can change their perceptions about the world and increase their scientific knowledge (National Research Council, 2000). The second objective ensure that students receive the opportunity to practice and fine tune their critical-thinking skills. The reading points out that this step is important not just in science inquiry but also for making informed decisions on a daily basis. The third objective is based on the purpose for scientific research. This action is vital because it affects how all learners understand the world around them. Scientific research provides a foundations for improving our choices about personal health and the health of the community through investigation. Lessons in this module encourage learners to think about the relationships among knowledge, choice, behavior, and human health (BSCS, 2016). The fourth objective, makes certain that students think in terms of scientific inquiry objectives as they grow to be fruitful throughout their lives. Students are able to critically think, problem solve, partake in self-reliance, and reason. As it has been noted, our fast paced and changing world requires elementary and secondary students to acquire the skills to be life-long learners. The Next Generation Science Standards, have already outline the science practices for us through the 3 dimensions essential for creating and guaranteeing students partake in inquiry throughout grades K-12.

Scientific inquiry is a revision made to teach the nature of science in a way to understand (Lederman & Lederman, 2004):

• ·       that science involves creativity
• ·       that it is socially and culturally imbedded 
• ·       that science knowledge is adaptable to change
• ·       the difference between observation and inference
• ·       the difference between laws and theories
• ·       that science is based on observations of the natural world.

My concern is whether scientific inquiry is more effective when doing group work or individual work? Or does it depend? I just had the thought that depending on the lesson or activity one method would work best. A research proposal idea can be based on helping students better understand life cycles through the use of scientific inquiry. Many students want to study about how their bodies function, the solar system, and about other living mammals; this means they want to understand the nature around them therefore the scientific process can help.

BSCS. (2016). Doing Science: The Process of Scientific Inquiry. Retrieved from https://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih6/inquiry/guide/nih_doing-science.pdf.

Lederman, N.G., and Lederman, J.S. (2004). Revising instruction to teach nature of science. The Science Teacher 71(9):36-39.

National Research Council (2000). Inquiry and the national science education standards: A guide for teaching and learning. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Course assignment - Reflection 3

This week we take a look at the BSCS 5E Instructional Model that was developed by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study. The 5E model provides a planned sequence of instruction that places students at the center of their learning experiences, encouraging them to explore, construct their own understanding of scientific concepts, and relate those understandings to other concepts (Bybee 1997, p. 176). The BSCS 5E instructional model or the 5E’s embrace a constructivist view of learning that allows learners to test new ideas against what they already know or believe to be true. The 5E’s of the instructional model are engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate.

The goal of the engage phase is to capture the learners’ attention and interest. The teacher is to ask questions, pose a problem, or present conflicting events to promote engagement amongst all learners. If students are puzzled raising questions such as “How did that happen?” or “I have wondered about that,” and “I want to know more about that,” they likely are engaged in a learning situation (Bybee et al., 2006). The exploring phase provides learners with a foundation of experiences with a description of concepts to investigate, observe, and formulate explanations to develop their cognitive thinking. An example of this is, learners completing a lab activity to ensure prior knowledge is activated and the exploration of new ideas are ignited. The explanation phase of the 5E instructional model is prominent due to the fact that at this stage learners are able to now make comprehensible and clear explanations of their prior experiences. During the explanation phase, teachers address key concepts such as scientific, engineering, technology and explicitly explain while using prior experiences. If we were to relate the explanation phase using the NGSS, this would be the crosscutting concept clearly explaining core ideas. The elaborate phase ensures students are involved in their learning experiences that extend and expand their concepts made in prior (engage, explore, explain) phases. In the elaborate phase, teachers must provide all students with material that challenges them but encourages an achievable learning outcome. Students should be encouraged to interact with other students and have access to other resources available (databases, tools, web interactions or searches) to partake in additional activities. In the evaluate phase, from a teachers point of view, observing and assessing learners as they apply their new skills and new concepts takes place in this particular 5E stage. Students should receive feedback and explanations from the teacher on their adequacy of their understanding. This is important to not just students but also for teachers to evaluate or adjust their teaching practice to promote a better learning outcome.

I find the 5E model is extremely effective because it provides a basis for multiple lessons and an entire thematic unit. It also can be used throughout all grade levels and for any subject. The BSCS model state that it can be applied at several levels in the design of curriculum materials and instructional sequences of a yearlong program, to units within the curriculum, and to sequences within lessons (Bybee et al., 2006). A proposal idea can be based on the use of the 5E instructional model in a specific science subject and/or lesson to implement and observe or collect data on how effective the lesson and learning outcome is compared to it being taught the traditional way.

I do see a conflict when using the 5E’s for class periods that are 45-50 minutes long because each phase takes up a certain amount of time that is needed therefore it is not most effective when the 5E lesson requires more time. This type of model does require a specific amount of time to make sure each stage is efficient and students get the best learning experience. My concern is, can teachers shorten the lesson to fit in one class period or does it take away from the constructivist learning outcome? Or can you provide a lesson that only includes engage and explain, and omits the rest of the 5E’s?

Bybee, R. W. 1997. Achieving scientific literacy: From purposes to practices. Portsmouth, NH: Heine­mann.

Bybee, R.W., J.A. Taylor, A. Gardner, P. Van Scotter, J. Carlson Powell, A. Westbrook, and N. Landes. 2006. BSCS 5E instructional model: Origins and effectiveness. A report prepared for the Office of Science Education, National Institutes of Health. Colorado Springs, CO:  BSCS.

Course assignment – Reflection 2

The authors present to us a theory in a manner that includes the conceptual change description and a study that explores the conceptual change of physics students. The models used in the article portray a physics lesson that concludes what manner students use their existing concepts to sort out new information; this is known as assimilation. When students’ concepts are inadequate they must restructure the central concepts through accommodation. Based on the data that was provided, the physics students work on a complex lesson that reveals dissatisfaction and gradual conceptual change. We learn that in order for students to change their central concepts the following four conditions of scientific conceptual change are necessary (Posner et al., 1982):

1.     There must be dissatisfaction with existing conceptions.

2.     A new conception must be intelligible.

3.     A new conception must appear initially plausible.

4.     A new concept should suggest the possibility of a fruitful research program.

Dissatisfaction with existing concepts are conditions that scientists or students at first are not making changes in their concepts because they do not believe they will work, then understanding new terms for what they are really saying rather than just knowing words. Students have their own judgments, metacognition, and empirical beliefs that are significant to what they find plausible therefore forming their conceptual change. Once students are aware of the new concept, or referred to as successful accommodation, they can go forth and expand their views throughout their lives. The conceptual change theory is aimed to provide a rich bases for all students to continue to grow each new school year. Teachers play a role in applying teaching strategies that create cognitive conflicts in students such as lectures, demonstrations, problems, and labs to raise anomalies (something they can’t comprehend) [Posner et al., 1982]. Teachers are to design an instruction diagnoses errors in student thinking and further help students make sense of the science content by helping students translate from mode of representation to another (Clement, 1977). It is imperative that teaching and learning goes hand in hand.

My concern for the reading is about those students whom do not have prior knowledge on a given topic, would that throw off the process of conceptual change? There would be no dissatisfaction with an existing concept other than simply being perplexed, amused, or accepting and it being plausible. Therefore in a situation like that, prior knowledge would not be added, it would just be filling the gap in their existing knowledge? Additionally, when one student thinks different than the other, one of the two students must have to give up or reject the learning objective from a science core concept?

A possible proposal idea can be about science literacy (science vocabulary) and the process for conceptual change to take place. Taking a further look into how the conceptual change will affect these students achievement in the science classrooms. Also, how their previous literacy affects their success by overcoming the four conditions necessary for change discussed above. Science students can read their textbooks but they may not understand all of the science words. 

Clement, J. J. (1977). Some types of knowledge used in understanding physics. University of Massachusetts, Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Posner, G. J., Strike, K. A., Hewson, P. W. and Gertzog, W. A. (1982), Accommodation of a scientific conception: Toward a theory of conceptual change. Science Education, 66: 211–227.

Course assignment - Reflection 1

            The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are K-12 science standards that can be incorporated in the curriculum. These new science standards were designed because of a rising need for research-base, science-inquiry instruction. They were developed by the states to improve science education for all students. These standards will help all students, no matter of their career choice, to obtain a solid K-12 science education by refining their skills in a way to be critical thinkers and know how to make sense of the world they live in. The world has change a lot compared to when the education standards were fist designed. The NGSS is needed now for the purpose of our world being so complex, innovative, and the advances for technology and health as well as developing an in-depth understanding of problem solving. Also, to provide a rich content and practice for living today’s world. The goal is to provide a science education for students to always remember and practice throughout their lives. It is important to keep in mind that the Next Generation Science Standards are objectives that reveal what a student should know and what a student should be able to do. There is no obligation to adopt these standards however, only that educators should seriously consider them for the betterment of students’ education and careers. The NGSS are also designed to provide information to teachers and give teachers the flexibility to provide classroom experiences that stimulate learning. These learning standards do not take place of teaching strategies though they can be used alongside district, state standards and objectives such as Texas essential knowledge and skills (TEKs).

            A unique feature of NGSS that are different from previous standards is the NGSS outlines a framework that has three dimensions: disciplinary core ideas (DICs), science and engineering practices (SEPs), and crosscutting concepts (CCs) [NRC, 2012]. Dimension one is designed to engage in scientific investigation, build models, and theories about the world. Dimension two establishes crosscutting practices across all science domains. Dimension three makes certain to not teach but to expand scientific knowledge during the K-12 years; it provides for all students to gain sufficient core knowledge so they can later acquire additional information on their own. The previous standards cannot support and prepare students for high school, college, and careers in the way in which the NGSS can. For example, NGSS is unique because they deliver science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to provide foundation and skills connecting through concepts that are meaningful. The NGSS includes core concepts such as physical science, life science, earth science, space science also including engineering and technology. The NGSS follow a state led development without intervention of the federal government. The framework for the NGSS, K-12 grades follow a path in which state experts of science, engineering, teaching and learning, curriculum, assessment, and educational science were responsible for writing. In addition the National Research Council (NRC), the National Science Teacher Association (NSTA), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) are other partners who paved the way in the development of the NGSS movement. The Next Generation Science Standards are exclusive for the reason that the standards were finalized and released in April 2013 (NRC, 2012).

NRC (National Research Council). (2012). A framework for K–12 science education: Practices,   crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Solar Flare

Here is a video of a Solar Flare. I think it looks beautiful.