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Welcome to the first couple of days of 8th grade science and engineering. The goal of our first two class periods is to create a team and establish our team work norms. Day 1: Paper Towers Students began be creating our classroom good teammate norms. Click the link here to see what they came up with! To test these qualities out, we engaged in our first engineering challenge! Our task was to create a structure capable of holding the most mass off of a table 1 inch using nothing except 3 pieces of printer paper and a "Noffy" length of masking tape. Students were given 20 minutes to build and test their structures and then another 20 minutes to rebuild/redesign to see how much they could grow. The team that achieved the greatest mass held 270 pounds of books. The team that achieved the greatest improvement more than doubled the amount of mass their structure could hold. Here are a few of the teams solving this problem! Day 2: Breakout EDU Teamwork Today we practiced using our norms by participating in our first Breakout EDU game on Teamwork. Breakout EDU is like an escape room--students must solve puzzles and clues to break into a box that has many, many locks in it. Check it out! Today the students had 8 locks to solve in 30 minutes or less. They were unsure of it when they began, but by the end of the day they all wanted to do another one at least once a week. We will be playing Breakout at least once per month for the rest of the school year! Watch the video below to see what they did!
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Summer is slowly drawing to an end, so it time to start planning and focusing on the 2016-2017 school year. I am SO excited to start the year and share with my students some of the amazing things I have been planning over the summer. Last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, I attended the NSTA STEM Forum here in Denver. Presenters from all over the world came to share their ideas of what STEM education can look like. Here are a few of the highlights! 5. Learning STEM is a Social Endeavor The keynote speaker was Derek Muller of the youtube channel Veritasium. A physics educator from Australia, Derek has spent his professional career studying how educational technology can be used to teach students. His findings were fascinated. He has found that having people share their ideas (and misconceptions) and then showing the answer is very effective. This is because it allows us to engage with our learning rather than being passive. We want to know if our idea is right or if others are. This is definitely a strategy I have used in my own classroom and will focus on using more in the future.
4. Bigfoot Might Just be Real A few years ago, my team and I taught students about Pseudoscience with a lesson on Cryptozoology. We thought it was a fun way to engage kids in the difference between fact and fiction. I was surprised when I saw a session on the evolution of Bigfoot, so I decided to check it out. The presentation focus on whether a creature like big foot could have evolved. As students learned about 10 essential question about evolution (based on this book), kids learned about the latest scientific theory of Bigfoot. I was super impressed with the presenter who had great instructional strategies. By the end, I was more open to the idea that Bigfoot just might have evolved. 3. Twitter makes for Great Learning I have been on twitter for quite a while now, but never saw the big appeal. Until this conference, I thought it was just a lot of random noise. However, at the conference, using the hashtag #STEMForum gave me an opportunity to learn what others were seeing and doing. I started following many teachers who were at the conference and now each day as I scroll through my treats I am finding new and exciting ideas about science, stem, and nature! I may be coming late to the game, but I'm glad I finally showed up! 2. Maker Ed is gaining traction The Maker Movement has received a lot of notice lately across social media and educational circles. I had heard about it, seen a few examples, but was still not sure what it was all about. (Honestly reminded me of STEM education about 5 years ago). Then, during the Forum, I went to a couple of great sessions on what Maker Ed is, why it matters, and how to execute it! I was pleasantly surprised to find out that we do a lot of maker ed in our "hammer room" each year. The most interesting notion that I gained from learning about Maker Ed movement is that it is about creating anything--music, poetry, prototypes, programs, etc. A lot of my own engineering philosophy matches exactly! It is becoming a force in education--MIT even allows Maker Portfolios now as part of their application process! Want to learn more? Visit Makered.org! 1. Giving is better than receiving My favorite part of the STEM Forum was presenting to other teachers. This year I gave two presentations which were both very well attended. The first presentation "PBL Start to Finish" filled a huge meeting room at the convention center and the energy in the room was amazing. It was fun to see people light up at the possibility of doing this kind of learning with their students in their own classroom. The second presentation "Engineering Deeper Scientific Understanding" was fun as people got excited about different projects I had done with my students. It was very fulfilling to give back to teachers and see them get excited! Students in the twenty-first century are presenting original content all over the place. From Instagram to You Tube to blogs to class presentations, students are putting their thinking out there. Put how do we teach them to take pride in what they produce? Each spring we finish the year in my classroom with a Design Your Own PBL. Students select a problem and create an engineering solution to it. At the end of their learning, student produce a tri-fold board to show off their thinking. Over the years I have learned many lessons that help students to make these boards a work of pride. Lesson #1: Create the presentation along the way At each step in the process of this learning experience, students were required to submit a typed final draft of their work. Then, at the end of the project, all students had to do was print their work off to put on the final presentation boards. If students are creating a power point or a prezi, they can create their presentation at each step along the way too! Lesson #2: Plan for aesthetic appeal Students are wildly creative and will take great pride in creating--if we give them the proper tools, time and space. For this presentation, we use the Cricut to make titles, encourage the students to consider how they will make their work pop, and ask how they will help the audience visualize what they are trying to communicate. From there, it is all them. This year students created hand drawn logos, made lions from paper scraps, and developed many ways to accent their work. Lesson #3: Practice Makes Perfect Before students present to their audience, have them practice, practice, and practice some more. In our classroom, we present to each other and give "grows" (areas to improve) and "glows" (areas that are already awesome.) My goal as a teacher is to hear each student present along the way too. If I can't do it in person, I have them video their presentation on an I-Pod or phone so I can give them virtual feedback as well. Lesson #4: Use anchor charts for students to reference along the way As we begin presentations, we create a chart together of what all should be in the presentation. It is then hung in a prominent location so that students can refer to it early and often to make sure they are meeting the criteria. To generate the list, it works well to hand out the presentation rubric for students to analyze. Lesson #5: Provide Exemplars
Students create what we model for them. Provide students exemplars so that they know what you are expecting them to produce. If you are doing a new project with students, you may have to create the exemplar so that they know what you are looking for. After completing a successful project, ask students to keep examples for your next group of students or take lots and lots of pictures! |
AuthorMrs. Noffsinger is the 8th Grade Science and Engineering educator. Archives
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Photos used under Creative Commons from Howdy, I'm H. Michael Karshis, r.nial.bradshaw