NSTA Preservice Science Standards Paper

Standard: K-2, Science is a way of knowing… Science knowledge helps us know about the world.

The WebQuery, the 5E lesson plan, and the field trip guide, are examples of through which students engage in investigations that enhance learning and that helps them meet the NGSS. These artifacts also indicate my ability to develop lesson plans that promote the learning of science; that align content to the NGSS; that demonstrate the use of assessment to ensure that the students are meeting the standards; and that showcase the use of literature to support grouping strategies and lesson rationale

Standards and curriculum are the core pieces of teaching. Basically, the curriculum is the meat of the course and the standards are how it is prepared. The meat of the course is the substance and the tools of instructing. It encompasses the material, lesson plans and literature. It also incorperates how the instructor decides to present the information, how they alter it to the students, and the order in which the content is delivered. Each instructor may choose to serve a different piece of meat; or rather, decide on a different method of demonstration, but the way the material is prepared must follow a common denominator.

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.

In math, the standards that are addressed are measurement, numbers and counting, sorting and compare and contrast. In measurement, the students take part in an activity where they measure water and compare and contrast the difference in the amount of water used for each action. In numbers and counting, the students learn to count apples on trees, raindrops and snowflakes. One activity has students counting the number of coins used to make water overflow in a cup, and further explore volume in mathematics. For science, the standards addressed are using senses to

National Science Educations Standards A through F from the National Committee on Science Education Standards and Assessment, National Research Council (1996) was compared to the lesson plan to determine alignment.

Scientific-based instruction is something that teachers use all the time in their classroom. Teachers are consistently assessing and evaluating students’ performance, creating and amending individual education plans, lesson plans, and reflecting on their practices. As teachers, we should be doing rigorous research and building hypothesis to base further teaching practices on.

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

There are different methods to teach science. Before adopting any strategy teacher must consider some important points. Before starting any lesson teacher must assess student’s previous knowledge about the topic. Give a short description of the topic and link the new concept with the information that students already knows. Allow students to take part in the class discussion and help students to find the correct answers themselves.

The standards attached to this lesson plan states the student should develop abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry and understand scientific inquiry. Students should also be able to develop an understanding of science as a human endeavor and the history of science. Again, the formative-assessment doesn’t

Curriculum as a term has various representations and levels that were being further discussed in Jan Van den Akker’s article The Science Curriculum: Between Ideals and Outcomes. This chapter started by defining curriculum from different scholars’ perspectives as a term and its type (typology); scholars have defined curriculum each providing different aspect about curriculum. The typology of curriculum provided 6 curriculum representations; it is designed in an attempt to differentiate between different curriculum representations while ensuring the curriculum reform is reducing the gap between the ideal curriculum and the attained one. In this chapter, Akker circulated his discussion around three factors that are substantive, sociopolitical and technical-professional, whereby in substantive we identify the most worth science knowledge that should be present in the curriculum, while in technical- professional we identify how the development and the implementation of the science curriculum will occur. Both factors are being controlled by sociopolitical conditions. Under these factors, the chapter was divided into three sections: Historical overview of science curriculum development, Current instructional school and classroom practices in science education, and Recent science curriculum development and reform initiatives worldwide. In the first section, the historical overview of the science curriculum development was composed of two waves the era of project

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

This lesson will cover many of the Colorado State Academic Standards, not only science-related (Physical and Life Sciences, Science as an Inquiry, and Science in Personal and

Despite the distinction being made between the arts and the sciences in the curriculum appearing definite, there are a number of aspects of Science education in primary education which make it more similar than different to music education. The first aspect which provides a link between science and music is the idea of exploration and discovery through science. Contrary to the beliefs of many, science is not only about discovering “truths” as there are no scientific truths, only probable theories. Science therefore, like music, is about discovery and pupils having a combination of directed and undirected learning. Knowledge in science can also be propositional or procedural. Propositional knowledge similar to in music is mainly subject specific and knowledge such as the number of planets, the names of chemicals or the ability to describe an electrical circuit all require knowledge of fact. This too is often driven by the desire to help pupils to gain an understanding and a vocabulary which is suitably scientific for them to be able to articulate their thoughts and views regarding an experiment or theory. The Curriculum for Excellence outcomes state that an aim of science education is for pupils to become “a scientifically-literate citizen with a lifelong interest in the sciences” (CfE, 2013). However, skills such as measuring or the ability to create a hypotheses are more procedural and transferrable. The main aim of science education in the

According to Duane T.Gish(vital articles on science/creation) Define science as search for truth. The single most important principles of science education is the one that instruct students to identify assumptions, use critical thinking, make logical deductions and consider alternative explanation. Also in more elaboration, For the purpose of my study, Science subjects are among lessons which learnt in secondary school which prepare individual to be scientist in the future. Those lessons are Biology, Chemistry and Physics.