Annotated Bibliography

The process skills approach to teaching is defined as the educator helping children develop science skills and processes to confidently undertake their own investigations (Campbell, 2012). These skills are developed through: communicating, science language, asking questions, making sense of phenomena, predicting, modelling, conducting investigations, planning, testing, observing, reasoning, and drawing conclusions of science concepts (Campbell, 2012). When the educator assist children’s learning, it is important to put the emphasis on the nature of science and scientific concepts. Guided discovery approach to teaching requires the educator to ask effective questions that encourage children to explore and extend their investigations throughout science learning (Campbell, 2012). This can be developed through play experiences as children explore their world around them. An interactive approach to teaching children is based on questions that lead explorations and the educators to provide essential resources to guide these explorations (Campbell, 2012). It is the educators’ responsibility to support children’s development, ideas, questions, ways of thinking, and develop scientific thinking. Furthermore, an inquiry approach to teaching relates to children investigating the answers to their own

Thesis Statement: Research suggests that attending a smaller school is a better choice than attending a larger school because of more meaningful connections between teachers and students, more parental involvement, increased safety, and higher graduation rates.

Throughout this fall semester, as a Preservice Middle Level Educator, I have been observing and engaging in Ms. Mahdi’s 7th grade Science class. It is at this placement that I have collected artifacts for a portfolio to illustrate a competency and achievement related to the Association for Middle Level Education standards. In this portfolio summary you will find various artifacts that help demonstrate these AMLE standards. The AMLE standards as a whole, cover academic growth and set an expectation for middle school teachers to be mindful that their middle school students are continuously experiencing social and cognitive changes that should be addressed thoughtfully, just as much as their academic needs.

As a future elementary teacher with an endorsement in science it is important to understand the six NSTA Preservice Science Standards to accurately teach the sciences to P-12 students. Within this paper, the each six NSTA Preservice Science Standards will be examined and described in order to gain a better understanding of teaching the sciences.

Second graders will be a Brassica plant investigator, or botanist. This will also provide students with a deeper look into the plant kingdom. Students will care for plants to see what they need to grow and develop. They will observe, investigate and discover what plants need to propagate and grow. Throughout this Cornerstone they will be their very own Brassica investigator by planting, observing and taking care of their own Brassica plant. They will record their work in a Plant Observation Journal. Teachers will need to help students understand the necessity of proper care for their plants in order for them to survive and grow. They will need to learn the vocabulary a botanist would use to write observations.

The purpose of this article is to inspect the possible link between teachers’ visions of the growth of scientific knowledge and the methods they use to help students construct a knowledge of science. Teachers’ views about science influenced not only lessons about the nature of science but also shaped an implicit curriculum concerning the nature of scientific knowledge. The study used sampling to find seven teachers. During the interview, the teachers were questioned about their syntactical knowledge. Syntactical knowledge refers to by Brickhouse as the methods used in a discipline to construct knowledge (e. g. , how experimentation and evidence influence the generation of scientific theories, how theories are used in generating new knowledge,

The earth is a web of complex interdependent relationships in ecosystems. For example, in order for plants to survive, they rely heavily on other parts of their environment for their energy and food sources. They also rely on the wind, water, and animals to help disperse their seeds so that they can grow in many different areas. All of this occurs in the ecosystems and habitats that are here on earth. Within each habitat, there is a great diversity of the species of plants and animals that live there. At a young age, children become curious about how all of these things occur. The Next Generation Science Standards have compiled this information into three performance expectations for second graders. The first expectation, 2-LS2-1, is that they must “Plan and conduct an investigation to determine if plants need sunlight and water to grow” (NGSS). The second is 2-LS2-2 which states that students must “Develop a simple model that mimics the function of an animal in dispersing seeds or pollinating plants” (NGSS). And the final one is 2-LS4-1, which states that students must “Make observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats” (NGSS). Educators of these students must familiarize themselves with the performance expectations and all of the concepts that go

The first chapter in our biology textbook covered much of the background to science that is taught in prior science classes. The chapter starts off by talking about the general definition of science, which is a body of knowledge that covers the natural world, and is more than just a large abundance of data. We learn that the scientific method, also known as the process of science, consists of observation, hypothesis, predictions, tests, analysis, and either rejecting, accepting, or modifying the hypothesis, and lastly communicating those result with fellow scientists. We also went over the difference between correlation and causation, because those two can be mistaken as synonyms for each other. Correlation means that two or more aspects

Even children are capable of understanding the scientific method. On a website intended to help children with their science fair projects, the steps of the method are carefully outlined. These steps include asking a question; doing research; creating a hypothesis; testing the hypothesis through an experiment; analyzing the data; drawing a conclusion and also communicating results. The scientific method studies causal relationships versus the engineering design process, which involves creating something new. Each step of the process contains links to pages which provide further, specific details about each step, such as finding high-quality resources and constructing experiments with appropriate controls.

In first grade, I was told that a plant will grow from a little bean if you give it nutrients, water and sunlight. I just smiled and grew my plant. In fifth grade I was told that a plant leans toward the sun because it receives food by something called, “photosynthesis”. Then I start to question. What is this photosynthesis? Why did it happen? Why can’t humans stand in the sun and feel fully nourished? Couldn’t this stop human hunger? Then in ninth grade, I was explained the evolution of plants, the genetic modifications and basic structure, And I questioned further. Why can’t we modify plants to move? Why do Sequoia trees survive longer than strawberry bushes? I questioned and questioned as I realized that I knew so little. I walk into AP

Scientific misconceptions are commonly held beliefs about science that has no basis in actual scientific fact. Consequently, scientific misconceptions are also based off of preconceived notions developed through religious and/or cultural influences. Researchers Isabelle, Millham and Cunha developed an interchangeable phrase for misconceptions called alternate conceptions, “conveying respect for learners’ prior knowledge and personal experiences,” (2014). As a result of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) educators are starting to realize the value of misconception in relation to student’s building their own scientific knowledge. Student’s are able to increase their understanding of the world around them through exploration or “sense-making.” By sense-making educators are facilitating meaningful lessons that are dependent on student and authoritative ideas in a way that involves students into their own learning. Through this student are encouraged to “talk about their own thinking, compare ideas, to test these ideas, and to see if they can be used to explain natural events and processes,” (Campbell 2016). Educators and researchers are realizing that today’s students have been offered explanations about the world around them that is inconsistent with actual scientific fact. Due to this realization, we as educators are given a challenge. Misconceptions need to be eliminated and replaces with the correct scientific facts.

In Science, teachers serve as the facilitator of learning, guiding them through the inquiry process. Teachers must ask open-ended questions, allow time for the students to answer, avoid telling students what

This assignment fully put me in the mode of a teacher as I completed the following data maintenance procedures: Performing a pre and post test to measure students knowledge on the content and skills that I was teaching with this unit. This unit was taught to a class of kindergardners,so I made sure not to overstimulate the students and guide them through information that I am teaching them. Through this unit, I planned on have students to become knowledgeable about the four major parts of a flower, a plant’s needs, the steps of how to plant a seed, and to make predictions about plants growing under conditions without water, sunlight, soil, or seeds. During this unit, I engaged my students in many kinesthetic, auditory, and visual learning styles to meet the students’ needs. The following strategies and activities are just a few of the many that was implemented during this lesson: trace worksheet, sequencing, copying, modelling, guided inquiry, direct lesson, guided and independent practice, HOT questions, and much more. All students showed a jump in their grades over 20% or more. All students scored 70% or more. Out of 15 students, only two scored below 80, with a score of 70%. Based on these results, I feel that the instructional procedures that were employed for this lesson truly helped in the mastery of the content presented in this lesson for majority of the class. Students reflect a positive reaction to the instructional procedures that were used and to the

Science is, by its nature, inquiry based and science knowledge is built through processes in which discoveries of the natural world are made (Abruscato, 2000). It utilizes discovery and scientific thinking process to explore and learn knowledge and skills. Learning by doing is the new efficient method in teaching science. For kindergarten, this method leads to better understanding of science concepts and builds skills that children will use in future life .What a child can do with assistance now, they can later do on their own (Vygotsky, 1978). John Dewey (1916) stated that children must be engaged in an active quest for learning and new ideas. Inquiry is important in educating kindergarteners because it not only keeps them interested in lessons but also helps them retain more information when performing exploration and investigation. Children are naturally motivated to learn and actively seek out information to help their understanding (Piaget, 1950).The success of students who participate in hands- on inquiry activities suggests that if students have first hands experience with science, concepts are easier to understand and apply and students are generally more favorable to science and have better understanding of the nature of science .Within a conceptual framework, inquiry learning and active learner involvement can lead to important outcomes in the classroom. In kindergarten, students who are actively making observations, collecting results and drawing

The origin and improvement of scientific knowledge can be discovered by investigating children’s understanding of the earth. (Panagiotaki, et al, 2006) By interpreting everyday experience, children initially believe that the earth is a flat object. Some think that our earth is flat and rectangular while others assume that it is flat and shaped like a disc. Then, during the process of knowledge acquirement, children are exposed to the socially accepted knowledge that the Earth is spherical. Nonetheless, because of the influence of intuitive constraints, they make an attempt to constantly review presuppositions in order to adjust their original models to enable them to be more consistent with the more logical models, thus forming synthetic