Bio Apps Reflection 5

How have views of writing questions changed?

In inquiry based classrooms, questioning is the driving factor that leads to the construction of meaning. Students have the freedom to explore whatever questions they may have on a topic as it is the teacher's role to direct their learning through series of questions rather than lectures. I have been working with the concept of questioning in science education for the past few semesters and still feel as if I have so much more to learn. I understand that questioning is essential but still need work on creating the most appropriate questions to foster the gaining of knowledge. It was helpful to dissect questions we originally created and decide what parts were good to keep and which ones needed tweaking. I think that if we are to promote getting hands on with concepts in science education, that we as teachers in training need to role play and actually go forth in doing these tasks.
 I find that it is somewhat challenging to create questions that do not directly ask "what am I thinking in my head?" but give enough background for students to build off of. I still believe that questioning should be the very first thing done by the teacher in a lesson to probe for prior knowledge which could also be misconceptions. Something that I vere off from but was reminded in class last week, was to make every question asked match the big idea. Of course every question asked is going to have a purpose but it is easy to stray away from the big idea when trying to get specific.
A prominant change or reinforcement that I've acquired is that it is extremely important to create questions before hand but leave a lot of room for flexibility knowing that students have minds of their own and will change up the situation in a split of a second. This then relates to making questions something that I would want to/be able to answer. When questioing students, we want to propose questions that engage students in exploring the big idea, creating evidence for their responses and the option to evaluate their own findings as well as their peers. This will get the students to construct knowledge on a deeper level rather than simply recognition and recall.
As the wise Albert Einstein once said, "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning."  

Bio Apps Reflection 4

1. How does the Lion King ecology inform our big idea? (how organisms interact with eachother)
The Lion King's main theme is "the circle of life." Therefore, it directly informs our big idea of organisms interacting with one another. It references the importance of vegetation and water to keep the roaming animals alive as well as how the roaming animals utilize eachother to maintain life. It also touches on the fact that once one living thing dies, another one is created to fill the void. For example, when Scar is finally sacrificed, not only is the good spirit of Pride Rock rejuivinated but another baby cub is brought into the circle by Nala and Simba. This relation of ecology and the big idea to the Lion King is a great way to visualize and conceptualize the rather large big idea in terms that can be expressed to all ages.

2. How have your ideas changed (if they have) as a result?
My ideas of ecology have not so much changed but been reinforced. I feel as if I know can use this reference as a basic idea to remind me of how organisms interact with eachother and the importance of promoting the "circle of life." It has also strengthened by belief of using big ideas rather than specific and distinctive information to teach, so a variety of lessons can be taught through a variety of mediums. Showing ecology through the Lion King is one way to get the overall big idea across but that is only one way of many that science educators can explain to students how ecology functions. I must admit after watching this movie with an analytical eye, I found more relations to science than ever before and most likely forsee myself utilizing this and other animated movies to get similar points across to young learners. Whether it is the characteristics of organisms, how they interact with their environment or how they interact with other organisms, ecology is always around and always to be explored.

Bio Apps Reflection 3

Learning is the process of building knowledge about concepts done through questioning, exploration and negotiation of relateable ideas. Every learner has 100% control over their learning and will construct meaning to the fullest with the motivation to make applications of situations. Learning is the exploration of why and how things are happening.
Teaching is the probing of student understanding through the creation of questions in which foster the negotiation of ideas that build a conceptual framework. Teaching includes presenting opportunities for students to explore their questions and providing the outlets for connecting prior knowledge to new.
Science education is driven by the foundation of big ideas. The big ideas are what unify the standards to lessons. They drive understanding and give relation of content to students real lives. If a science unit begins with an overall big idea, it doesn't matter where the students decide to go next with the lesson because every concept will match up to the big idea. In simple terms, the big idea is the foundation of a lesson (possibly unit), or the statement to continue building off of. Teachers must make sure to address the big idea first thing after probing for misconceptions and prior knowledge as well as at the end once students have constructed new understanding.

Bio Apps Reflection 2

Learning to read and reading to learn is a favorite educational quote of mine. This can easily be transformed into learning to write and writing to learn. Even though reading and writing are known to be subjects of their own, they are integrated within every subject and every act of communication we as humans complete. Most commonly reading and writing is through script or text of letter formations on paper however language can be read and communicated through symbols and sounds understood by others. This means that in no way can people communicate without any form of language. Even worse, how could anyone learn without languge? It's so necessary!
A cross-curricular way to integrate writing and science I found to like is and idea from Prain and Hand's "Writing for Learning in Secondary Science: Rethinking Practices." It supports the constructivist learning theory of student-centered instruction to have students "write 'translations' of their emerging understandings of science concepts in a variety of genres using their own words," (Prain and Hand). It serves as physical proof for conceptual understanding and is attractive to a wide-range of students by the diversity and freedom chosen by the student(s). As physical writing denotes communication of conceptual understanding, verbal confirmation through evaluating and negotiating claims involve language and are imperative. Communication is the transfer of knowledge that all humans must encounter.
*Important: Focuses on word-choice and selection are fundamental to a fully understanding student. Example: data versus evidence; Students must focus on the differences between to two in order not to confuse them or use them interchangably without caution. Data is gathered information from an experiment and evidence is the relative information gathered to back up an original inference or question. Evidence is always data, but data is not always evidence.