Strategy Lesson Reflection

I really enjoyed our lesson and the math was fun! I resonated with the comments that our
worksheet was confusing. We should have used indentations or a differentiated numbering
system to help make the worksheet more understandable and easily comprehended. I felt
like the math was “easy” and not to difficult. I thought there would be more questions
about inequalities and the significance of the closed circle versus an open circle. It is
important for students to make that distinction because it means that the value is either
inclusive in the inequalities or excluded from it. I felt like we had trouble with the
document camera and it took us too long to set up. I think we should have reviewed
the assignment prior to our presentation because we had planned it out when we
wrote it up but it was so long since we planned it. Definitely reviewing our presentation
prior to it would have helped us solidify our roles and the content being covered. I
enjoyed this lesson because it helped me apply what I had learned from the strategy
given in a tangible way. There is something to be said about real life experiences with
strategies. I really enjoyed doing this project and in a class like this I would love to do
another one or two of them to solidify different strategies and how to interact with them.
Another positive of doing these lessons is helping us as teachers anticipate what the
students would say when interacting with the strategy. 

Resource Blog #5

Data Nuggets is a site designed by researchers and teachers for teachers and students. The site is
dedicated to research that is happening right now! There is an interactive map that allows for
teachers to find scientific research that is going on near your own location or maybe in another
location if needed, for instance when working on a cross curricular unit focusing on a particular
area. The website also provides teacher guides, student activities guides, rubrics for grading,
youtube videos, and texts to go along with content including both texts to read and worksheets
for the students to engage in. The website it very upto date which is probably what I love most
about it. Students need to know what is going on in their world today and this website helps
teachers with this. This particular site focuses mostly on ecology and adaptation versus space or
physics concepts so it can be considered limiting in those respects. The website also lays out the
appropriate levels for the activities, level 1: elementary, level 2: middle school, level 3: high
school, level 4: AP subjects including biology. This allows the teachers to break down the
activities further in case they need to for younger children. On this site you can search for
specific subjects/ topics or the site does provide a sort of “word wall” type thing on the side
column which allows for subjects with more content to have a bigger word on the “wall.” It is
great when looking or searching for popular topics. I like how the content is laid out and user
friendly and the site is free! 

Cross Content

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Resource Blog #4: PHET Simulator Lab

https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/category/physics

This resource helps students understand physics principles by allowing them to use computer
simulations in place of real life. This allows for schools who have less resources to be able to
provide for their students a hands on way to interact with physics. There are multiple
different simulators that show a variety of ways to explain the physics principles such as
Newton’s laws of motion. For example the “Energy Skatepark,” shows the user the
differences between kinetic and potential energy. This simulator also lets the user use
friction and shows how the skateboarder slows down because of friction versus continually
skating up and down the ramp, in this way, the user can see what happens in real life. This
website also has practice exercises and games with some of the simulators. A lot of physics
has to do with math and calculations, in that sense some of these simulators can be cross
curricular because they can be used also in math. For instance, one of the labs is the
“Balancing Act,” where you have to figure out which weights balance the scale and also where
to put each weight.  This website also provides lesson plans, guided worksheets, and labs that
follow with the simulators. There are also math simulators available on the site. 

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Science Article Post:: Synthesis Blog 4

"Tearing Down the Wall: Literature and Science"

By Warren B. Westcott and J. Everett Spell

This article looks at how science and english are interrelated subjects and how they can
teach units together. The article examines how different books can be viewed
scientifically and thus giving us (science teachers) a head start and a direction in
which to follow if we were to study these books across multiple subjects. Westcott and
Spell make an excellent point that one does not need to read a book strictly about
physics in order to accommodate this integration of literacy into science. No! We as
teachers can integrate books like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Jurassic Park.
In these books we can draw from their scientific thoughts be where are also enveloped
into a story of people's lives and their personal stories. 

This current literacy class helps me see this connections and make it seem feasible to
integrate science and math and literacy practices. I think especially when it comes to
word problems and vocabulary practice, these literacy practices can really help
students learn content. 

There is still a strong focus on english as the main subject. Often a lot of texts for math
and science are written for the upper level scholars in the subject so content wise, a
teacher of these subjects has to pick a book that only eludes to various math or science
concepts instead of exclusively mentioning them. I love the books about the knight Sir
Cumference and how the math concepts are literally what he is and what he does. I
think if more books came out like those they would make cross curricular reading and
literacy strategies even easier to incorporate. 

This article is important because it provides some easy examples of strategies and
books to use when discussing cross curricular content with other teachers. There are
hands on examples in the article which are easy to apply and see the connections
between them. Also, this article shows that sometimes the science connections are a
little far reaching. Some of the scientific concepts are not always staring you right in
the face. 

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