Teaching Strategies
One must understand that my particular middle school curriculum does not go very deep into the subject of microbes. We are primarily attempting to introduce the differences and some minor characteristics, such as cellular vs non-cellular, sizes, shapes, and what diseases the microbes cause in the human body. The other units that are included in the curriculum I teach relates to microbes in a different context. One example is the composition of seawater as in the water unit I teach and another example is how oceans affect global warming through the carbon cycle. In my local school system's Food and Energy unit, we cover how food is converted into energy from plants, directly and indirectly. Each section of the previous background is related to the activities listed in that section.
This particular CU attempts to teach microbes as related to other topics in the curricula throughout the year and in reviewing and preparing students for the End of Grade Standardized Testing at the end of the school year. The content above was background information and interesting facts in order to attempt to broaden the horizon of the typical middle school teacher. There are an infinite number of methods with respect to teaching 8 th grade integrated science and integrating the importance of microbes in the various curricula. When implementing this unit, I believe it would be helpful to use a Socratic seminar type day for instructing how microbes relate to just about any area of a typical middle school curriculum.
As I mentioned earlier, I believe I can engage the students more effectively with a CU that relates to the adolescent students' lives. I intend to make this unit project-based with a great deal of literacy involved such as writing and analyzing texts for comprehension and knowledge. Any activities or experiments designed will demand writing at least a paragraph or more about the student's observation and interpretation of what they witnessed. Students must be encouraged and allowed to construct their own learning, using prior knowledge and creativity to learn the standards and eventually pass standardized tests which are stressed heavily in public schools today.
Again, my intended audience for this curriculum unit is 7 th and 8 th grade inner city middle school students in a large metropolitan area. These particular students today face a myriad of learning challenges including attention deficit problems due to excessive exposure to video games, excessive TV viewing, and internet usage. Books, newspapers or e-readers are looked upon with disdain. Low reading levels and transient living conditions are the norm at this school. These children face many challenges to become prepared to contribute to the world of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. As a teacher, I find it very difficult to explain the abstract concepts such as microbial interaction in seawater to an audience who is fixated on smartphones and hip hop music. Teachers need a connection that will motivate students to prepare for high-tech jobs that have not been created yet.
Another focus and intention of this curriculum unit is to enhance reading comprehension and increase implementation of higher order reasoning while providing a more effective written analysis of science demonstrations and activities. Text in the science reading can include more than just textbooks and articles. I have listed some examples of "text" in the science classroom below.
- Charts, tables, graphs
- Video files, audio files
- Works of art
- Pictures & diagrams
- Models
- Maps
- Smells, odors, textures
- Patterns that require knowledge to interpret; i.e. patterns seen in waves, spectra (light & sound), test results (gels, karyotypes, microscopic slides, x-rays, Punnett squares, etc.), land and rock formations, seismic charts
- Articles from science journals or textbook readings
Thus, resources and methods have been included to assist science content teachers in the preparation and motivation for struggling middle grades readers and writers. The focus of this unit was developed to target the specific needs of this middle school; targeting below level readers in transient living conditions. This unit encompasses higher order thinking, rigorous activities, and teaching methods to utilize Gardner's Multiple Intelligences as well as some common reading and writing strategies.
Technology is so important in our daily lives. I, along with my students, must learn to incorporate smartphones, iPads, gaggle, wiki spaces, tablets, and remind 101 into our daily lessons to engage our imaginations. In order for today's educator to effectively reach most students, we must effectively integrate technology into our students' daily classroom time through YouTube video creation, writing eBooks, creating video lessons and through Power Point lessons created by the students themselves.
I have included some of the Essential Questions students are required to know and be able to answer during the school year related to diseases. Some of these questions include: Why are viruses considered nonliving? Why are antibiotics used to treat bacterial infections and vaccines used to prevent viruses? How do parasites affect a living organism? How are fungal infections treated? What is a pathogen? What is the difference between an epidemic and pandemic? Students need to be able to answer these questions eloquently with strong writing skills and be able to analyze text and observations. And the best way to learn to write is to write and write often, perhaps every day, and receive feedback from a teacher. Just writing a sentence or two is important. It is important to note that writing about science is a little different from language arts writing. I have included the Common Core Writing Standards for 8 th grade science in the appendix and will be referring to them in the activities. My warm up usually contains writing one or two sentences to be read back to the class and teacher. Just write!
Graphic organizers, KWL charts, and read write think, are all commonly used techniques to enhance student learning. In today's technology driven world students must know how to research a topic and make sure the data is factual and authentic. This can be challenging for the student, and they must be trained in making judgments about the validity of texts and images.
Socratic Seminar
Because I have chosen five days spread throughout the year to cover this unit and complete the activities, I have included instructions for a Socratic seminar in the appendix. I want to make these 5 days special and different from the rest of the school days. The Socratic seminar can be utilized throughout the school year to relate microbes to the different standards that will be taught. Also, the combination of the Microbes Rule CU and the Socratic seminar for re-teaching is appropriate to re-loop and re-teach microbes just before the 8 th grade End of Grade Standardized Test. A Socratic Seminar is a lively discussion of an essential question in which student opinions are shared, proven, refuted, and refined through discussion with other students. In larger classes, the fishbowl setup for Socratic seminars should be used. In this format, the teacher facilitates the discussion. Only half the class, seated in an inner circle, participates in the discussion at one time. The other half of the class, seated in an outer circle, consists of the students who act as observers and coaches. Every student's participation receives a grade.
The seminar provides an opportunity for reading texts critically, teaches respect for diversity, enhances students' knowledge, creates a community of questioning, develops critical thinking, problem solving and listening skills, and encourages student participation. Before he seminar, the teacher will select a text. The text must be complex ideas that promote thinking and discussion. All students will read the text before the discussion. The teacher needs to have an essential question ready for the discussion. An effective opening question has no single "right" answer, and is to create a discussion leading to greater understanding of the ideas in the text.The teacher might share all discussion questions with students before the seminar or the teacher may share only one question before the seminar starts, depending on the length of the text, and difficulty of the discussion question(s) and ideas presented in the text, and the time allowed for the discussion. Before the discussion, the teacher must provide time for all students to record the essential question, develop their answer, and give supporting data for the answer. To prepare for the seminar students should sit in one of two circles (inner circle for participants, outer circle for coaches).
At that point teacher asks the essential question. Also, the teacher may need to ask follow up questions to lead the students to a greater understanding of the text. Students then respond to the question orally or in writing. The teacher then facilitates the discussion by guiding students to a deeper meaning of the ideas of the text, a respect for different points of view, and to follow the rules of the seminar process. Students can then give evidence from the text, ask questions, speak, listen, make connections, and add meaning or new knowledge to discuss their point of view in regards to the opening question. The teacher always takes notes for evaluation, but provides feedback that challenges what the students say. The teacher might ask follow-up questions and when satisfied that the essential question has been fully discussed, the teacher asks one or more additional questions to examine main points of the text. Students may ask new questions when the discussion is finished. New questions asked must relate to students' ideas and ideas in response to the essential question. Once the text has been discussed fully the teacher may ask a closing question, which is comes from the text but which has students apply the topic to their own lives or the world. The roles should state that students may only participate in the discussion if they have read the selection. They must support their opinions with evidence from the text. They can speak at any time during the seminar with respect for the other participants. They may whisper with their coaches if the teacher allows it and may refer to other works the class has read if the teacher allows. The students can also write notes to themselves ask relevant questions of other participants during the discussion if allowed. The teacher/leader should provide thinking time for students to respond appropriately and can only ask questions; cannot give his or her opinions or interpretations. Also, they should ask participants to support their opinions with evidence from the text and encourage participants to agree and disagree for good reasons. They might record the number and quality of student responses and decide when to stop the seminar. Allow no more than 30 minutes for the first seminar; after students have become familiar with the seminar format, 45-50 minutes may be allotted for discussion, particularly when examining more complex texts. You should select students for inner and outer circles carefully. Students should share rules, expectations, and grading practices with other students prior to the seminar.
Student participation and understanding may be assessed and evaluated using rubrics to assess student conduct, speaking, reasoning, listening, and/or preparation. Provide a checklist of positive and negative behaviors, student self-evaluation, and peer evaluation.
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