October 24-28

This week has been a good one. The students started building their roller coasters on top of or inside of their shoe boxes. As I walked around the room, I could hear them using some physics terms such as friction, kinetic energy, and potential energy. This makes me SO happy! We have briefly discussed some of these terms in class, but they are actually using these concepts to build and adjust their roller coasters. The goal is to build a roller coaster that can roll a marble from one end of the track to the other. Some of my students are being so creative with their roller coaster designs by including jumps and loops that actually work. Some of my least motivated students are staying on task and working as team players within their groups. I am still struggling to keep my lower level students involved with the physics. One of these students keeps falling asleep and the other is refusing to work in his group. To solve both of these problems I have given these students more independent work to keep them on task. Now both of these students are building Lego roller coasters that model the one that their group is making. As we finish these roller coasters next week, I hope to see an improvement in their behavior and willingness to work on this assignment.

October 17-21

This week, we got through the rest of the notes. Hooray! I gave out a lot of homework this week, so my students weren't too happy about this. At least they had the opportunity to practice their equations for physics. (If only they could see it this way.) At the end of the week, the students took a quiz on the physics they learned and finally got to insert the rest of their Prezi pictures from the Buckwheat festival. I utilized my student "experts" by having them help students who were struggling with inserting the pictures.

As this week progressed, I found that it was becoming increasingly more difficult to differentiate the math portion of physics for my very low level students (those students who are on 2nd-4th grade levels). I began searching for material that I could use for them for physics, but physics is not a covered in grades 2-4. I have been seeking the advice of my mentor teacher and the 7th grade science teacher who have both told me that this is something that comes with practice. I did purchase a few science workbooks that are geared towards the elementary grades so I can see what type of activities are appropriate and see how to "word" the physics worksheets in a way that can be more easily understood by my lower level students. I am hoping next week's project (building shoebox roller coasters) will make all of the physics from this week make more sense.

October 10-14

This week, we began with a lab activity in which my students rolled a tennis ball down a ramp (the ramp was a book that was held at various angles). The goal for the students was to see the connection between a steeper ramp and a faster rolling tennis ball. We also did my least favorite thing...Notes. We began notes on various equations in physics. This included Force, Work, Power, etc. I tried to spice up my notes by including example problems involving my dog Carol and my cat Indy. I also included an example problem with my mentor teacher drag racing out of the school parking lot. My students really loved that example problem. I am finding it difficult to teach the "math part" of physics with some of my students because some of them are in lower level math classes and have a very difficult time doing very basic math. For these students, I gave them an equation sheet ahead of time and gave them guided notes so they could spend more time doing the word problems and less time writing down everything on the slides. Overall, the week went by fairly smoothly. Next week we will finish the notes and take a quiz on the math portion of physics.

October 3-7

This was a very short week for students. There was an ISE day on Monday and Tuesday was election day, so I only saw students for three days this week. Students put their finishing touches on their Prezi presentations and some of them even became "Experts". By this, I mean that those students who had finished earlier than others became "experts" and went around the room to help other students with their Prezis. It was amazing to see how motivated other students became once they knew they would be deemed "experts" if they finished their Prezis early. Students were more than willing to help as "experts" and became vital to the success of their peers in completing the Prezis on time (by the end of class Friday). At this point, students have been unable to include their Buckwheat pictures into their Prezis, but this is due to technical problems and not lack of student effort. As we continue on with Physics, my students will soon be assigned the task of building a roller coaster to show their conceptual understanding of Newton's laws of motion, the conservation of energy, and etc.

September 26-30: Buckwheat Festival!

This past week, my students have been working with Prezi to create a presentation all about simple machines and their real life applications. This project was developed in anticipation of a field trip to the Buckwheat festival!

This past Friday I accompanied my students to the Buckwheat Festival in Kingwood, WV. What an experience that was! I had never been to this festival so I was really excited to be able to attend this year and finally get to try Buckwheat Cakes!

For this trip to be considered educational, each teacher had to create an assignment that involved students taking pictures while at Buckwheat. The 8th grade team planned an all-day picture scavenger hunt and put together a Buckwheat Packet that explained what the students needed to look for. For science, my mentor teacher and I came up with the idea to have students take pictures of the simple machines found in the carnival rides at the festival.

While at the Buckwheat festival, it was interesting to see the reaction of the students to various sites that would seem "normal" to me, but very foreign to my students. Some students had never seen a cow in "real life". Some had never seen cow poop in real life. Some had never even been to a festival of any kind in their lives. It was amazing to watch them have those "firsts" as we walked around to different exhibits and vendors.

September 19-23

This past week, my students researched Rube Goldberg and then designed and drew their own Rube Goldberg machines in the form of a blueprint. The creativity that went into these blueprints seemed to be only at one extreme or the other - some were the most creative ideas I've ever seen from 8th graders while others were as bland as low sodium Ritz crackers. I thought this assignment would be fun and boost students' desire to be creative in science class, but for many this was not the case. I wonder if this assignment was less effective because it was NOT a group project. When the students worked in groups on their bridges and made their news report videos they all were so creative. This time around many students could not even begin their Rube Goldberg machine because they said they didn't know where to start. Maybe this mini project was too open ended, but I did provide a series of guidelines and criteria that they had to meet. So, I'm stumped as to why there was such a gap in creativity. Perhaps the Prezi's they will be working on next week will show less of a gap.

September 12-16

This week was full of technological crises. The students were wrapping up their videos and putting the finishing touches on them. We had issues with editing due to file type compatibility with MovieMaker. Some videos would only play sideways on the computer screen. Then the videos would not play at all, because they were saved in a file on the server which made them VERY slow and glitchy. The students thought they'd never get to see each others' videos. It was just a mess. But luckily, my mentor teacher is a tech savvy genius.

Note to self: When using any technology, make sure software and file type are compatible, make sure you have a safe place to store files, and make sure you can open and effectively use those files. Ugh!

The videos, for the most part, were very creative and thorough. The students loved watching each others videos, but when it was one of their own turns to show their video they did not want to be in the room while they were on the big screen. It was interesting to see their reactions to their own videos. Embarrassment was probably the most obvious reaction, but that is middle schoolers for you. Secretly, they were proud of themselves and their videos.

I also gave a quiz on the material covered in the bridge project (Scientific method steps, variables, etc.). The Bridge Project is OVER! Here we come, simple machines.

I have changed my bulletin board. Previously, I had a contest with scientific method graphic organizers and had posted these on the bulletin board. Now that the Bridge Project and the scientific method unit is over, I have decided to put up student drawings, newspaper clippings of students, and other random student work that they are proud of enough to want posted on the bulletin board. The students seem excited about this, so, we shall see how this goes. I hope this shows them how invested I am in them and that I appreciate their doodles! :)

Highlights of this week include:
- SMS dance on Friday - These kids can Dougie!
- Watching one of my special needs students grin the entire time his video was being played on the whiteboard.
- Watching a student-made video with a student rapping about "Earthquake Dowling".

Thing I should work on:
- Backup plans when technology fails.
- More concise directions for students when using technology or doing a BIG project
- Patience with technology.