Ashley+White

7/26/10 I enjoyed learning a few new tricks today. I liked the idea of the three questions about science and the VASS survey. I enjoyed learning some new tricks in Excel. I gained some more clarity and insight into my first week of school lesson plans. It is always so difficult to review measurement, graphing techniques, and scientific method. I will definitely use what I learned today to focus my efforts and intentionally choose the questions I ask.

I know that the introduction of today's circle group was a difficult concept for some today. I can see how logistically it would be difficult to implement if you had a large class size or permanent seating structures. But today I saw through to the deeper concept. Most students do not participate in class discussions simply because of the barrier in front of them, their desk. You remove the desk and they are more likely to participate. Even going to the board, intimidating for some, still can be considered one-way communication. I can see how being on the same level opens the line of communication even more when they are all sitting at the same level, facing each other, open to talk.

I am excited about getting into the content tomorrow. Not so excited about the homework tonight, but we will see.......

Ash

7/26/10 Reading 1.11- I really took home what it said on pg. 10: "Students should not be confronted with these graphs all at once in some remedial orgy. They should be led into building up the representation in homework problems whenever the situations arise in the normal sequence of the course work. This allows for spiraling back to the modes of thinking and spreads the encounters out over weeks of time; both spiralling back and the time spread are essential for effective assimilation. In each encounter, they should have to interpret the representations in their own words".

This reading and today's experiences taught me how much more important it is to teach over time. I often get hurried in my teachings trying to get it all in and then get frustrated when the students do not 'learn' the material. In the past I have taught all the graphs at once to my pre-ap students and suffered through the consequences and can only cringe now at what I put my students through in my misplaced expectations of them. I will, from now on, teach the graphs as they come naturally over time in the course. This coupled with the strategy of students explaining everything in their own words that they 'own' (know the meaning of) will help me to increase student success and increase retention.

I have never thought about the mental models that we possess and interpret the world with before today. Honestly, my science specialist forwarded the flyer for the workshop and I thought it was a great opportunity to attend a physics workshop for ten days so I signed up. But now I have idea of how students come up with their initial hypotheses and misconceptions. I feel better equipped to not only help them identify this misconceptions but help them to build a more factual mental model.