THREE years with Barrie

Here are the copies of my students Science 8 Unit 1 Mind Maps.  These were used by the students to review and cement the knowledge of important topics from the first unit.  Overall, my students did a very good job throughout this process, as shown in this post, and the post titled "Science 8 Unit 1 Mind Maps Final Copies - Part 2".  Overall, my students after this review process did better than I expected on their Unit 1 Exam.  This could be attributed to the graphic organizer, the overall ability of the students, or my instructional ability (doubt it is the last one).  However, this approach will be enhanced for the next unit, by having the students create concept maps instead of mind maps.

In the near future, my class will be using Venn Diagrams to compare and contrast Plant and Animal cells.  I hope to be able to show you the results shortly. 

Remember, please make comments, or suggestions as you see fit.

                                   

Click here to download:

Science_8_Unit_1_Mind_Maps_Fin.zip (18450 KB)

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Here is the second group of Mind Maps...  Gmail it appears has a 25 mg attachment limit...  oh well

                                     

Click here to download:

Science_8_Unit_1_Mind_Maps_Fin.zip (19247 KB)

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My students have started to review for Unit 1 - Mix and Flow of Matter using a Mind Map.  I decided to take a picture of each students early work to have a record of where they started, and then I will post again to see where they ended up.  Enjoy the pics...

                                                                                 

Click here to download:

Science_8_Unit_1_Mind_Maps_Rou.zip (12170 KB)

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Click here to download:

U1 T4 No Video.notebook (218 KB)

In the attached smartboard file students investigated the concept of viscosity throughout video, hypothesis, mind maps, and virtual experiments.  Throughout this lesson, the word Viscosity was not mentioned, however students clearly stated that the thickness, and rate of flow of a fluid is an important factor in both liquids and gases.  By having students explore the concept, they determined the key elements.  They were then asked to look up the word Viscosity, which matched the definition (or key elements) that they had determined.

By utilizing this approach, with Think/Pair/Share group work my students quickly understood a key concept in Science 8 Unit 1 Topic 4.  If you have any ideas or suggestions to make this or future lessons better, please let me know.  I would love to share...

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Recently I have begun to take the concepts presented from our Barrie Bennett sessions regarding Instructional Intelligence and trying to incorporate these ideas with educational technology (more specifically SmartBoards). 

I have had some success utilizing Concept Attainment Strategies of Yes/No and Testers.  And have begun exploring the introduction of Mind Maps to help formalize concepts the students are exploring during the lesson.

Personally, I have had times when I needed to totally redo an entire file, because I left little hints throughout the lesson as to what the concept was...  For example, when the first slide was titled "RATIOS", and then I asked the class what concept they were exploring one student politely told me Ratios.  I asked them how they knew this, and they told me it was on the first slide... 

Throughout this experience, I will realize that I have been spoon feeding my students too much...  And that it is easy to rely on this method...  However I am getting better.  In the next couple of posts I will be posting some of the SmartBoard files I have created, with a brief explanation in how they were used, and what was done, and how the students performed on the development of the specific concept the lesson was about.

However, I will point out that all video's have been removed, for either FOIP or other legal reasons.  I will mention in the post, what the general video was about, and if you so chose you will be able to locate a video of your own choosing...

Let me know how I have done...

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After a couple of blog posts I decided to create a visualization of the idea's that have been expressed so far...

I hope to do this from time to time, to see if my idea's and hopefully my educational approaches change...

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After two intensive periods this morning, both my 8G and 8H class finished their Fishbone Diagram's on the science concept "How to Separate Mixtures". 

These pictures represent the completed Fishbone Diagrams for 8G.  The effort my students put forth can be clearly seen, however at this point with a new approach I cannot clearly say the overall effect this approach will have towards student achievement.  In my future summative assessments I hope to be able to accurately judge the effectiveness of this instructional approach.

                                             

Click here to download:

8Gs_First_Fishbone.zip (1467 KB)

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Here are pictures of the completed Fishbone Diagrams for 8H, please enjoy.

                                             

Click here to download:

8Hs_First_Fishbone.zip (1471 KB)

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Today was the initial attempt at using the Fish Bone graphic organizer in my classroom.  While it took the students a while to brainstorm ideas to include in the Fish Bone (which may be in part related to the fact that is was a Monday morning), the students were quite receptive to the project.  It will be interesting to see the final results!

Stephanie Werner

Math & Science

Alexandra Middle School

403.527.8571  ext. 3107

www.teacherweb.com/AB/AlexandraMiddleSchool/MissWerner

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The video below provides a clear and quick explanation for "Concept Attainment":

Thoughts?  Comments?

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