Dana, I really like the idea of the summary chart as well. I was also thinking of science talks paralleling our number talks, like I have set up in math. We could even use the same partners that we use for number talks.
As with all new learning, I will be doing pre-teaching about participation in collective thinking activities. Before we try something new like this, I usually spend a day giving behavioral expectations, usually in the form of a looks like/sounds like chart. This usually scaffolds students enough and sets them of for success in that subject area or activity.
Evidence-based argumentation is a very important skill in every adult career, but especially in STEM careers. STEM careers are much more objective than subjective so being able to effectively communicate concrete data or observation driven data is important to support all hypotheses.
I like the idea of the Frayer organizer as well. It seems like it can have a lot of flexibility and be either highly scaffolded or very open-ended. It is something I'm planning on trying with my class as well.
One of the strategies I would like to use to incorporate new ideas into my next unit is the Frayer graphic organizer for concept building. At first glance, it seems a little too complicated for first graders, but if introduced in first-grade language, I think it could be very beneficial and concise. For instance, we are working on light and sound in our next unit, so the concept could be sound, the definition could be "vibrations that travel through the air or another medium and can be heard when they reach a person's or animal's ear." These we would do day 1. As we learned more about sound, we would add examples and an illustration. By the end of the part of the unit on sound, we would be able to come up with non-examples together. This leads right into teacher vs. student led instructional strategies. With the Frayer organizer, the first time we use it, it would be a lot more teacher-led because of its newness, but as we progress through the unit as well as in units further in the year, it could actually be introduced to students and done with groups or partners. I also might use it as a pre/post assessment to evaluate the knowledge base.
Alynne,
This is a GLAD strategy, right? I've been meaning to try to incorporate those more into my science units where I can. I remember doing those for marine life as well. Thanks for refreshing my memory!
I really enjoyed watching this video on scientific models. Last year, we had a science training, in which our district science leader showed us a few different ways to do scientific models at an elementary level. To be honest, I haven't explored scientific models with my class independently. With this being the second year I've taught the TCI curriculum, I have been sticking close to the curriculum. The closest thing to a scientific model in unit 1 is designing a play house where the sun shines in all day. Students hypothesize where they want to put their windows so that the playhouse gets light and sun all day long. Then, they build the house and cut out their windows. After reading the AST book and watching the video, I would like to explore scientific models a little more in-depth. There is so much research around letting kids explore and come to their own conclusions. I would like to give my students the opportunity to really design their own playhouse and draw a diagram, instead of leading them to how we will be making the model. The intelligence and out of the box thinking that first graders possess often surprises me, an I would like to give them a little more freedom in that regard.
Catherine, this was the practice that resonated the most with me as well. I like your idea to help students represent their ideas with difference sentence stems and the blanks. This seems like an awesome way to scaffold and build confidence with speaking publicly.
Helping Students Represent Their Thinking Publicly, practice 2 was the practice that resonated with me most. First graders can have some difficulty when they try to present ideas publicly. Either they get caught up in speaking in front of a big group, completely forget what their thought was, or don't have the confidence to say what they want to in front of the teacher and the class. One way that i am going to make students more comfortable with sharing is to do a "heads together" approach. As a table group, we will do discussions and then I will have the put their heads together with their table group. That way students can have the ability to share their ideas first in a small group, and then have more knowledge, ideas or material to share with the whole group if they raise their hand.
Hi Catherine,
This is great, since i will be wrapping up the same unit soon, I'm going to try that lesson you outlined. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Catherine,
I also teach the units out of sequence, with Sky Patterns first. It is definitely the least rigorous unit, and it makes perfect sense to start with it! I love the idea of taking observation walks throughout the seasons. Thanks for sharing!
![[Avatar]](/images/avatar26.png){kind=avatar}
Invention