Jess - Term III Science: States of Matter Observations In response to a student saying that the clay was cookie

dough, Jess said: This is not cookie dough. Do not put this is your mouth - She took the time to review safety precautions with her students. Lets go over some rules - Jess went over the thumbs up rule and she physically modeled what type of thumb she wanted to see. A student was waving his thumb back and forth and Jess responded by saying, And that is exactly what were not supposed to be doing Jess opened up discussion by asking what engineering is. One student M answered Someone who makes new things. M seemed to have prior knowledge of what engineering was. After the discussion, Jess gave the formal definition of what engineering is. She reinforced class norms when she talked about what good vs. bad engineers do (Good engineers listen to each others ideas, etc.) Jess prompted another student discussion by asking, Who knows what matter is? From discussions I saw Jess incorporate what students said into her own explanation of scientific content. Consistent in enforcing her thumbs up rule. She had the additional rule of thumbs not being raised in the air but Recommendations

<- I liked how you gave them a task, but I would have also given them paper and pencil to write down the five words as a way of keeping them focused and to have a sense of where everyone is in their thinking.

resting on the table. Jess passes out the solid objects for the students to observe. Each student got a different solid. Keeping track of time - Im only giving you one more minute and you have to give me five words Thought it was good that she gave them a task instead of simply giving the students the solids to observe. Has poster chart ready to organize students thoughts as a visual. Theres a lot of talking going on but good scientists listen to each other. Students start having side conversations. Jess redirects them by encouraging students to model good scientists. New question is Do you see anything thats common about all of these things? Jess keeps using the what do good scientists do question to keep the students from not listening to each other and going off on into side conversations. Student E disagrees with Student M when he shouts no! I saw this as argumentation. Jess consistently asks students why to get the students to explain their reasoning. Then she asks Who agrees? To get the students practicing argumentation. Students start to play with the solids instead of paying attention to the lesson. Jess starts collecting the material one by -> I think students might ahve had less distractions if you took away the objects earlier when you moved the class into discussion. -> Ask students to reiterate what other students have just said to not be the only one having to do it, and also to keep them accountable for listening.

one as the need arises. Jess does a good job of reiterating student thoughts that helps students learn about matter. Jess goes over the rules before students get set up for the next activity of building structures from solids. She asks, What are all these objects? They answered, Solids. By doing this Jess performed an informal miniassessment. When a student asked for permission to move to another area of the room to work. Jess let him do so. I thought this was a good example of being flexible and practical since the students would have more room. Student C seemed to be struggling with getting started on her building. C asks for help and Jess tells her she needs to figure it out on her own. Jess encourages C to be independent, but she did give her hints when she said, Ok, well maybe you have to use something else because that solid doesnt bend Some students have been asking if they can work with another student to make their building after they some students had already started. Jess says students can work together. She tries to get Student M to work with C who was struggling before. They did not end up working together. The students then switched partners because M kept wanting to work with One thing I noticed during the presentations

-> I think I might have determined whether the students will work in partners or not ahead of time and commit to the plan. If the idea comes up from the students before they started building then I might have been flexible in letting them work together. -> Its great that you modeled what you wanted from your students, but it may have been more effective if you had this example before you set the students on this task. -> Honor time restrictions to show youre serious about time and being on task.

-> Have something students can be doing after they finish the task at hand. -> I would not have cleaned up for the students. I would have stopped until everyone was on the same page.

->During the presentations, I would suggest giving the students who are listening an incentive to listen. Perhaps a compliment/suggestion note system?

Student N. However, Jess stopped them from partnering up because he had a near-complete structure. Jess starts building a structure herself. The students see what shes making and they take some of her ideas. Jess says there are only five more minutes left. But it seems like shes not strictly keeping track of the time. Finally there is a two-minute warning. One student is making a pizza with clay because he is done with his structure. She says its time to clean up but some of the students are still playing with the materials instead of cleaning up. Presentation: E presents the little house he made. Jess asks why did you use those materials? E explains that he used the clay as glue and the cardboard for the roof. C presents hers but she is barely audible. N was asked, why did you use the box instead of making the box N answered that he used the big box because you can cut a door out of it. After the presentation, Jess ended with some concluding questions: Why couldnt we make buildings out or liquid or gas?

was that the students kept changing what they called their structure. To avoid this I might have had students write down what type of building they are constructing so that they are committed to following through on the task.

Everyone answered you couldnt and one student said, because it would drip Another question was: what do we build things out of? Everyone answered solids.

Jess - Term III Math

Observations Jess took the time to establish the rules that she wanted the students to follow before she started her lesson. From the introduction, I could gather that she had worked with this group of students before. She said that even though they had worked together in the past she just wanted to remind them of the thumbs up rule. At one point student S said, were guessing about the dot flash card activity to which Jess replied, are we guessing or counting? While Jess was doing the flashcard activity all of the students were following the thumb rule. At one point, Jess asked a question and three out of the four students gave their guesses and she made sure to ask the fourth student. This student was hesitant to answer, but eventually said, the same thing E(a student) said.

Recommendations

-> It may have been more helpful to have the students write down what they thought the answer was in order to ensure that students would express their own thoughts and conjectures.

When Jess held up the 8 card, student L shouted out the answer. Jess paused and told L to follow the rules. She asked him What is the rule again? Now everyones disappointed because they knew the answer too The question was more of a rhetorical question, but I think the explanation of why Jess needs the students to use the thumb rule helped L understand that he should not call out. Jess attempted to get student discussion going by asking what is similar about all the cards she showed them. She had a specific answer in mind (doubles), but the students shared answers that were not necessarily about doubles. So the reason that Im doing this lesson is After the discussion, Jess made it a point to make it clear to the group that the point of this lesson was to talk about doubles. One student said, Oh I know, 3+3=6 This student seemed to have some prior understanding of doubles. At one point in another discussion, student S said, No dont tell us, just give us a hint. I saw this as a sign that the student is really invested in finding the pattern himself. Once they knew what the pattern was, Jess had students circle the two groups of the same number (visual representation of doubles) Students started to play around with the markers so Jess took them away. N started making train noises and making hand motions. Jess seemed to ignore this

-> Give students something to do to get them to pay attention to the student who goes up to the front.

->Even though Jess did say that the students should be listening, the students slowly

behavior at first, but she eventually said, I can wait For the next activity Jess had the students pick a card with a number on it. Then they had to take out that number of blocks and then had the students double that number. When N came up to the poster to fill out the class chart, the other students at the table seemed to not be paying attention to what N was doing To address the students not paying attention, Jess said, everyone should be looking while students come up After one student was done, Jess asked the class, Can someone remind me what we are doing? to get the class refocused on the goals of the lesson. It was another students turn to go up to share their work. Before he got up to the front Jess said, Wait before you go up. I want you to show everyone what you got This got everyones attention while the student shared his work. When this student stopped explaining and went up to the posterboard, student E and N at the table swapped seats for no apparent reason. After the students had written all their work on the chart, Jess led the student in a discussion by asking how they got the doubles. Then Jess showed them a number line representation of the doubles. The

started becoming distracted again. Jess did not address this and went on with the student at the front of the room. Again, I would give the students a reason to listen to the other students or I might have stopped until she had all of the students attention.

-> may have been even more effective if you had 4 red blocks together and another group of four red blocks and an extra block added onto on of the groups of 4 red blocks in another color to visually represent the concept. ->When the students go up to the front, I would also have them explain what they are doing instead of just writing the number sentence. This may also help in getting the students to listen because someone is talking to them.

students made a connection with doubles and counting by twos. For an extension, Jess asked addition problems that could be solved more quickly when using the knowledge of doubles. When Jess asked what 5+4 is, N said 5+5=10, and you take away 1 and its 9 Hearing this answer, Jess engaged the class in a demonstration of the strategy N just did in his head with his blocks. She ended up demonstrating 4+4 and one more makes 9. The students were also asked to write their number sentences on the chart, but again the rest of the class was not paying attention to the student up front. Jess tied the lesson together in the end and made it a point to emphasize the importance of doubles and how it helps the students to add faster in their heads.