THREE years with Barrie

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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...

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...

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...

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.

                                             

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8Gs_First_Fishbone.zip (1467 KB)

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

                                             

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8Hs_First_Fishbone.zip (1471 KB)

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

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

Thoughts?  Comments?

One of the techniques discussed by Dr. Bennett is the use of Fish Bone diagrams to help students develop specific concepts.  Below is a fish bone template borrowed from an elementary teacher in our district.  My only concern with this diagram is that "Am I telling my students how many headings I want?", "Am I taking away from their learning experience?". 

And lastly, to help students here is an example of a completed fish bone.

The above information has also been placed inside of a smart notebook file (see attached file to this post) to help guide students through the process of using a Fish Bone Diagram to discovering "Separating Mixtures" as seen in Unit 1 Topic 3 of Grade 8 Science in Alberta.  As well, here is a mini lesson guideline that shows our basic implementation of this idea:

http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddmqct2t_265dt8mbmf5

And lastly, lastly, to get myself and my class ready to try and implement Fish Bone Diagrams for concept attainment in Science 8, I found this old 80's video by Barnes and Barnes...  ENJOY...

Let me know if you have any ideas that can be used to enhance this approach...

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U1 T3.notebook (363 KB)

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Applying Integer Operations.notebook (147 KB)

After attending my first session with Barrie Bennett I decided to try the Yes/No technique to help with concept formation.  I integrated this technique with Think/Pair/Share to help.

I have attached the Smart Notebook for this lesson.  It is important to note, that students were specifically placed around mt room for maximum effect, as well they were given a specific partner (designated by the teacher) to maximize high/low pairings.

I hope to see indicators of student success on the upcoming Integer's test to take place on October 21st, 2009. 

October 15th 2009

I realize the approach that I tried today is not exactly found within Beyond Monet, however the graphic organizer known as the Frayer Model (a modified concept map) was shown in the new Math 8 curriculum and certain Beyond Monet approaches, such as Think/Pair/Share, can be added to make this experience more meaningful to the students. 

To show what my students accomplished today, I have attached the original Smart Notebook file that was used to help the class through this initial exercise.  I have also attached images showing some of the completed Frayer Model's showing the concept of Integers.

Also, had reviewed the following information provided through Google Docs with my class to help them understand the process of completing a Frayer Model:

http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:OpRRgxDMUQcJ:www.lkdsb.net/program/elementary/intermediate/di/files/31Strategies%28The%2520Frayer%2520Model%29.pdf+frayer+model&hl=en&gl=ca&sig=AFQjCNHDPnfEjJ8vsPEM81ehJDBfxPtEPA

Enjoy the process, and please comment if possible...

                         

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Initial_Attempt.zip (10113 KB)

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Frayer Model.notebook (4 KB)