In the spirit of inclusion I decided to do have my students do a project on the  hydrologic (water) cycle that allowed them to multiple forms of intelligence and show their creative sides. In the activity I gave the students the option to write a poem, write a rap, write a song, write a news article, or create a poster to depict the water cycle. Here’s the activity handout below. The kids really loved this activity and did a great job with it. A few of the boys in my class who never complete their work with 100percent effort worked really hard and wrote and amazing rap, which once I get their permission I will upload. I had one girl write a poem that was really creative and just about all the posters were colorfully and great. Having the students create their own projects allowed the students to participate in the higher levels of bloom taxonomy. They were able to be creative and that is the highest level of blooms taxonomy. After the projects were presented I gave the students practice Regents questions on the water cycle for homework to complete. Today we when over the questions and about 85 percent of the students got all the questions right. This was a powerful experience. It shows that you can allow students to have fun and be creative and still prepare them for their Regents exams.

The Hydrologic (Water) Cycle Activity

You will have a total of one class period to complete this activity (half of a period today and half of a period tomorrow). Any work that cannot be completed within the given class time will need to be completed for homework. Complete Assignments are due Tuesday February 2^nd in class. No late assignments will be accepted because knowledge of this information is needed for Tuesday’s class.

Water is continually cycled between the lithosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere. This movement of water is called the water cycle. Use your Physical Science text book pages 589-596 and the information packets given to complete your choice of the following activities.

1. Write a poem about the water cycle
2. Write a song or rap about the water cycle
3. Create a poster/drawing that shows the water cycle in detailed
4. Write a news article that’s designed to inform people about the water cycle

Be sure to include and define or provide examples of the following terms

• Evaporation
• Precipitation
• The water table
• Ground water
• Transpiration
• Condensation

Be sure to include and define or provide examples of at least 6 of the 8 terms below:

• Infiltration
• Permeability
• Saturation (zone of)
• Aeration (zone of)
• Porosity
• Runoff
• Aquifer
• Capillary

You may work with other students but everyone must turn in their own individual work.

Recently I have begin filling out the online application for Rochester City School District (RCSD). Which is located at the following website . In order to fill out the application I have been faced with the challenge of updating my resume. I find the task of updating my resume very difficult because I have never had a real job. I worked all through college but since I was a full time student I only worked part time. I fill as if my resume lack and this kind of scares me. I have had participated in a lot of volunteering which I use to fluff up my resume but the online application does not really allow for this. So my question to anyone reading this is how do I sell myself better when completing an online application?

Second dilemma that I have been facing this week is getting my coaching certification. In order to get your coaching cert you need to complete the following and providing proof to Boces:

1) Copies of current CPR and First Aid cards

2)Certificate of completion for FREE child abuse identification and
reporting seminar.
(The child abuse workshop is part of coaching class component #2-Health
Sciences so it is unnecessary to retake if you have completed Component #2
already since 1991 and show documentation)
Otherwise you can do it for FREE online at:
http://www.nysmandatedreporter.org/
click on “New online Trainings” and click on “Self-Directed Online
training”.  It is the first one listed.

3) AND the Safe Schools against Violence workshop.  This can be done
online for $25.00 on:
https://ideas.gstboces.org/training/online/save/

4)  Completion forms for any coaching classes you may have taken already
through BOCES #2 or BOCES #1 or another BOCES OR official college
transcript if you took coaching classes through a college/university in
NYS.

I have completed all the requirement and mailed the information to the Boces office and currently have not been able to get in contact with the Boces office to get the okay. This is so frustrating because currently I am volunteer coaching with the Wilson team, which is a LOT of work and if I get this certification I can get paid for my work. Seeing that I am a full time Graduate student with no source of income getting paid would be a wonder gift!

When creating quizzes I think it is important that we allow for authentic assessment. Multiple choice test just won’t cut it! I do think that its important that students are exposed to regents type question because they will have to take a regents at the end of the year but that doesn’t mean our focus should be on only regent type question because authentic assessments will allow us to see our students process better and more conceptual learning.

During my series of three I created a quiz to assess students’ knowledge on topographic maps. The quiz I created consisted of all opened ended discussion type questions. I decided to avoid the use of multiple choice questions because multiple choice questions typically do not show conceptual learning. I really enjoyed correcting the test because the last question on the quiz allowed the students to be creativity and apply their knowledge to a real-life situation. The question asked “If you were a hiker planning to hike Ash or Oak hill, which hill would you choose to hike and why?” I was able to get really funny answers like “Ask hill because it’s taller and I want to work my calfs”. The students really had fun with the question and many of the students displayed an understanding. There were a few students who were not use to having question like this and one stated “this is an opinion question, how am I ‘pose to answer that”.

I have to say I was really proud of my group and our girls at the STARS conference. Sabrina ran into a lot of issues with the video but it still came out great and I appreciate how much time and effort she put into it. Mike and I drove to pick up students and I could tell  she really appreciated it and all of us grow from the experience. Meagan drew a great picture of yeast which was lot happier then the monster yeast I had drawn for me Overall what I am trying to say PINK team is GREAT JOB I really enjoyed working with each of you and I’m going to miss spending time which you guys!

Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Levels

Authentic Assessments

Bloom’s Taxonomy defines six different levels of thinking. The levels build in increasing order of difficulty from basic, rote memorization to higher (more in-depth and sophisticated) levels of critical thinking skills. For example, a simple multiple choice test require students to recall (remember) facts. Answering an essay question often requires that you comprehend the facts and perhaps apply the information to a problem. Analysis of subject matter can occur by having students break a complex historical process or event into constituent parts. Higher level thinking occurs when students are asked to create or synthesize an argument. In order to do so, students must evaluate evidence, making judgments about the validity and accuracy of primary sources.

Knowing about the different levels of thinking can help you create test that assess a deeper conceptual learning.

Revised by LaToya Dunbar From: http://faculty.chass.ncsu.edu/slatta/hi216/learning/bloom.htm

Hey,

If you find your self teaching isobars and/or isotherms here’s a great website were you can get the local current reading. Great way to connect the activity to real life (make it relevant)

http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/wx/surface.rxml

This is direction I gave out for a creating topographic maps activity.

• Divide into groups of two or three
• Each person creates model of different feature to investigate: (choose one)
  • Volcano
  • Mountain
  • River
  • Hill

(Multiple trials to compare)

• Create feature of your choice out of clay
• Create topographic map of features, using clay model  (Cut at different intervals and trace bottom onto a plain white piece of paper)

• Compare different topographic maps created by group and create a list of basic facts of contour line (topographic maps)

This activity went very well. The students enjoyed being active and playing with clay. An important thing to note is to talk to students about how rivers are not flat strips of water, they cut into the land and flow from higher elevations. If the student create accurate rivers the v line on the topographic map will come out great.

Sometimes a second try is necessary and that just what we did at STARS with distilling our solutions.

Our girls are very chatty and easier distracted but during the actual distilling they were very interested in the process. I assigned one student to be in charge of keep track of the temperature and making sure the temperature does not go above 98 degrees. She took this job very seriously and monitored the temperature and made sure none of the other student disrupted the heating up process. Assigning the job of temperature monitor worked so well, I think in future lesson it would be beneficial to assign jobs to all the students so they can get involved in the process.

The News was here this week at STARS to watch us and it our lesson worked out really will. Two of the girls were interviewed and were able to show an good understanding of our investigation and reducing our foot prints. I was really impressed with them. Also while the cameras were filming the girls were little angels. After the cameras left one of our girls made the comment “The cameras ain’t on no more” cause I was expanding distillation to them. I relied that science does not stop when the camera go off and I thought it was a great moment.

Near the end of the day the girl got really distracted by a fish in the classroom fish tank that that thought was dieing. This shows me in the future the girls need more structured activities so theres not down time in which they can find something distracting.

Everything that cool go wrong went wrong. The pizza arrived late to East high which got us off to a late start. After pizza we climbed to the third floor and were surprise to discover the door locked. We searched the halls desperate for a few minutes until we were able to locate someone to unlock the door. In the room where we were located none of the sinks with nipples worked. With some effort we were able to remove the nipple from one sink and attempt to place it onto the only working sink in the room. Unfortunately there was a gate over the one working sink and we were unable to use it.  At this point Kim who was supposed to me observing my decided to help and go search for a room with a working sink we could use. Therefore I was unable to be observed. Kim found a room and when attempting to set up the distill in the new room we discovered that the flask we were using was coated with a smelly plastic layer that began to melt once placed on the hot plate.

During the distilling disaster Mike and I were able to complete the boiling water and coffee grinds demo and had the girls complete video interviews in which they were asked about the process. In order to make up for the time that distilling would encompass, we briefly discussed data spread sheets and data analysis using graphs. The silver lining to the distilling disaster was that we were adjusted well the changes and were able to think quickly on our feet.