Teaching Strategies:
Preparation, Kickoff, Visuals, and Parent Communication
Before the start of the 10 lessons, it is important to establish norms and routines. Doing the following preparation will increase student engagement, excitement, and parental support. 1) Decorate the classroom with a space theme, a space library, an International Space Station as a learning center; even a few signs and posters will generate excitement and anticipation. 2) Establish a science student journal and make subtitle pages: GRAVITY, LAWS, SOLAR SYSTEM, EXOPLANETS, GLOSSARY for easy reference and retrieval. 3) Request an online or in-person interview with an astronaut, astronomer, physicist or biologist to talk about the impact of gravity. Skype A Scientist is a free service to match scientists from all over the globe with classrooms. Sign up at https://www.skypeascientist.com/sign-up.html and allow two weeks for a match. Have students brainstorm interview questions. Students can also submit questions (limited to 250 characters) to NASA at https://www.nasa.gov/content/submit-a-question-for-nasa. Use these headings to guide student inquiry: Becoming an Astronaut, Career at NASA, International Space Station, Mars Program, NASA History, and Solar System. 4) Assign solar system topics for individual research and/or experiment about gravity. Send home a parent letter about the unit, and include resources like a NASA webpage for parents to explore with their children at home, https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/menu/parents-and-educators/. NASA has a lot of free printable, fun activities, games, and videos that can be downloaded as classroom and homework assignments. Download a free 17-page activity book titled “Become a NASA Space Place Explorer” at https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/activity-books/en/.
Hands-on Activities and Science Journals
During the unit, kickoff the topic of gravity by focusing student inquiry with the three essential questions, activating prior knowledge and debunking common misconceptions, set up further inquiries and independent research ideas based on student interest, and use hands-on activities, real-life scenarios, videos, anchor charts, and graphic organizers like a KWL chart to make complex concepts more student-friendly. Provide ample opportunities for student talks, active participation, peer-to-peer teaching, team collaborations, individual inquires to engage students beyond lectures and direct instruction. Give students choices, and allow them to make good and bad decisions that may lead to success or failure. For example: Under “Classroom Activities,” I’ve listed 4 different methods to make a scale model of the Solar System to challenge students’ perception of how big our Universe is. Table 2: Our Solar System lists both relevant and “less important” data, and students must decide which data are crucial in building any scale model.
Celebrate, Display Student Works, and Post-Assessment
After the unit’s lessons, have a public or private celebration with culminating activities such as student presentations of their learning, informational research and argumentative writing. Assign a gravity concept for each student to become the expert-communicator. It can be as simple as explaining Kepler’s 1st law, and showing a parent, a guest from the community or another student how to draw an ellipse with two push pins, a string, and a pencil. Other possibilities are a bulletin board display, a fun night sky show with hand-held flashlights and/or old projectors (see Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience, a 360º digital art exhibition for ideas), or dress up as your favorite astronaut/scientist, planet, exoplanet, or an alien. Survey student understanding with Post Assessment questions: 1) Do you feel that your knowledge had improved about the topic of gravity? Why or why not? 2) Name three facts that you have learned; 4) Describe your favorite activity; 5) Suggest three ways to improve this learning unit.
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