May+5,+2011

Group 2 Poster day Thursday May 5, 2011 Today we were working with group two again. One of the five experiment groups did not come down today because their experiment needs to sit for a week. So we only had four groups to work with. It was exciting for us to have all of our students present today. To start the lesson, we reviewed the scientific method again. Today was much quicker than our review yesterday because it was still fresh in their minds and they had a detailed list written down in their lab notebooks. The first thing the students did was finish up writing their results. Then we moved into their conclusion. In the conclusion, we told the students that they needed to have three sentences: 1. if their hypothesis was correct or incorrect, 2. what happened in their experiment and 3. if they were to do the experiment again, what would they do. This was a very simple format for the students to use while they wrote their conclusion. Once all the conclusions were completed and approved by one of us, we returned to the scientific method on the board and used it as a checklist. We asked the students what they had done and checked it off. This was a good way to show the students what they had done in the last two days with us. The students were surprised that they has accomplished as much as they had. Next, we gave the students the six box scientific method worksheet and had them transfer the information from their lab notebooks to the worksheet. We told them that this was a rough draft and that Amy or Brianna would correct it for spelling. After we approved all of the rough drafts, we handed out the rubric. Similar to the last write up session, the students did not know what a rubric was. We explained the rubric to the students in the simplest format and made sure they understood what we were expectation out of them. We had a final produce that would receive the full 30 points to so them. The final step was to give the students their board so they could copy the information onto it for the science expo. These groups’ posters are due back in Mr. Lewis room at 9:00 am on Thursday May 12. There were a few things that we did differently that worked well for us this week. The first major difference was that we had the boards already written on with were we wanted each of the sections to go. Last time, we ended up do this at last minute but it was nice to no rush while finishing up the lesson. For today, we also put together a board that was the same size as theirs and we hand wrote the information. Last week we had printed off the information and it was not formatted very well. It was helpful to have written posters that we could demonstrate how we used a ruler and how to have it colorful. One that that we are going to change for next week is the order that we do the last few things. Last time, we did the rubric, the rough draft, and then the posters. This worked out well and we are not sure why we changed it today but next time we will go back to rubric, rough draft, and posters. This allows the students who are done with their rough draft early to return to their classroom and begin their other work for the day. It also allows us to focus on the students that need the extra assistance. We can’t wait to see these groups’ final products next week. When we went upstairs to pick up group ones posters, we were very disappointed to be only given one. Only one of the four groups had finished their homework assignment for today. Even though it is the students fault for not completing the assignment, we are also taking part of the blame. We have never told Mr. Kes’va that they had an assignment. So, we moved group ones deadline until Wednesday May 11.