Nov. 25th

Today we ventured to Elk Point to their annual science fair. We were graciously asked to judge the science fair projects. The ages ranged from 5th grade to 8th grade. There were many amazing projects; some that even blew me out of the water. It was very rewarding to see how engaged and active the students were in their projects. They all put much time and effort into these projects and were proud of showing them off. Many projects went over my head, and I could not fathum the fact that 7th and 8th graders were doing these projects. This was a great learning experience that will help me as a teacher. It made me get invoved with the students, ask questions, and see where different cognitive levels of students were at. In all, today was really fun, and it was something different from the ususal meeting in the classroom. We always like field trips!!!!

Five Assessment Types

1. Formative Assessment: It occurs during instruction. Its purpose is to provide feedback to teachers (and students) as students engage in the leanring process.

2. Summative Assessment: It provides documentation of student learning at particular points in time, most typically at the end of a unit of study. The information is often the basis of reports to students,parents, and school administraots.

3. Norm-referenced Assessment: When assessment data for a given students are compared against a group of other students for the purpose of a score or a grade, that is considered nor-referencing.

4. Informal Assessment: These are often embedded in instruction and sometimes are not scored or graded.

5. Formal Assessment: These are typically announced to students, as such, are schored, and graded. Tests and final presentations are examples of formal assessment.

Nov. 20th

Today in class, we worked on group projects. We found out that our theme for our lesson plans was "measurement." As a group, we decided to go with Kindergarten and focus our lesson plan on having chidlren use unifex cubes and measure something that is related to them, like their stuffed animals. Being able to do this allows chidren to learn the sense of measurement and being able to know tallest from shortest. This lesson that we are planning is very developmentally appropraite and sets the stage for more progression in the later years in both math and science! Good Day! We accomplished alot!

Nov. 13th

We did not have class the 11th of November due to Veteran's Day. Today in class, the 13th, we had a working day. We first started class as usual by asking questions. There were many questions being asked, and I think the majority of them were answered. We then spilt up in our groups for our lesson plan. Danielle and I had finished our lesson plan last week, because we had so much homework this week, we just wanted to get it done. We did however, make a few slight changes to the format and added in some text. In all, today we efficeient and productive. (I left early, due to an appointment)

Nov. 6th

Today in class we went through the 5E's; Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. As a group, we went through the potato lab and did our phase on the Explore portion of the activity. We did not notice however, what each potato was suppose to do with or without the salt water. Dr. E informed us that the cup with the high mixture of salt and water made the potato float, as the other two cups did not have a floating potato. It was somewhat hard to try to write out the phase for the Explore portion because we did not notice that the potato was floating. We handed in our documentation of the phase and the activity and class was over.

Five E's

The 5 E model contains the following: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. To be able to first engage students, teachers must initiate students's prior knowledge and activate old connections in order to make new knowledge and new connections. As soon as the students have been engaged, we need to move on to the Exploration part of the model. As teachers, we will be able to present our students to work directly and actively with the materials or topic of discussion. This allows students to be able to interpret their knowledge about what the objective is about, which in turn is the explain portion of this model. After this stage is successful, teachers need to move on to the elaboration students will be exploring if their knowledge of previous thought preconceptions has been tested and is tried and true, or if they have made new connections that could possibly change their views. Evaluate is the last part of the model, this is where the teacher will assess the students knowledge and gauge to see if they have learned anything new in this process. This model is essential for instruction in the classroom because it allows an environment that fosters students in each stage. These points to a Constructivist theory where previous knowledge is scaffold and is built upon in order to make newer connections. It is up to the teacher to facilitate the constructivistic learning process. The structure of the learning environment should promote opportunities and events that encourage and support the building of understanding.

Nov. 3rd

Today in class we went outside and did the rocket activity. It was fun as a class to be able to go outside and do the activity. It was interesting to see that other rockets made it different heights when essentially, they all had the same amount of mixtures in the bottles. After the rocket activty, we went inside and asked questions pertaining to the upcoming weeks. There were MANY questions surrounding the lesson plan, powerpoint presentations, quiz, reading guide. Most of the questions were answered, but these next few weeks will be certainly REALLY busy! Dr. E then discussed assessment and how to i nteract with children when it comes to circumstances under assessment. In all, today was very productive.