Instructor: Jonathan Dietz
Contact Information:
Class time:
Location: Online
Course Description:
This course offers an analysis and practical look at the most effective methods of planning and teaching Science Education in a Middle and Secondary Classroom. The major emphasis of the course is the development of a subject-area instructional unit appropriate to candidate’s teaching situation (urban, suburban, or rural) that will include activities and strategies in such areas as cross-curricular, differentiated instruction, cooperative learning, integration and indirect teaching methods. Instructional experiences in science will be in keeping with the Massachusetts Science and Technology/Engineering Curriculum Frameworks, ESE Subject Matter Knowledge (SMK) and the MA Professional Standards for Teachers (PST).
Course Goals and Objectives
1. Teacher candidates(TCs) will create a science unit of instruction that include a variety of instructional formats, a range of materials, and are aligned with the state Science and Technology/Engineering Curriculum Frameworks. This unit will be shared as it is created with other TCs for comment, discussion, and revision, and submitted to AIC through Blackboard . The unit will include at least 10 lessons( 5 in detail), some of which may be multi-day.
2. Teacher candidates will develop science and technology/engineering lesson plans by writing objectives, selecting materials, referencing the MA Science and Technology/Engineering curriculum frameworks and designing an appropriate instructional sequence.
3. Learning experiences will include text- and video-based instruction, active learning, simulations, laboratory investigations and/or engineering design, and an extended project. At least one lab will involve multiple iterations.
4. Student work products for these lessons will include note-taking, a laboratory journal, a lab report, collaborations with other students, and assessments of various types.
5. Teacher candidates will apply basic concepts of learning theory and student motivation in the design and implementation of science lessons in the classroom.
6. Teacher candidates will research, select and adapt curriculum materials in science, both traditional and technology-based, appropriate to the diverse learning needs of students.
7. Teacher candidates will evaluate the effectiveness of science lessons through observable, measurable learning responses and prescribe appropriate modifications in instruction.
8. Teacher candidates will benefit from teaching their lessons at their practicum sites, and engaging in systematic self-reflection on these lessons.
Course Content includes video lessons, examples, discussion board questions, writing of unit plan components, simulations, various pdf/web link handouts., and implementation videos.
All readings are contained within the course; there is no required textbook that you need to purchase.
Key Reference websites include:
Massachusetts Frameworks(2016) http://www.doe.mass.edu/frameworks/current.html
Ambitious Science Teaching https://ambitiousscienceteaching.org/
Annenberg Learner https://www.learner.org/subject/science/
Edutopia https://www.edutopia.org/
Exploratorium https://www.exploratorium.edu/education
National Science Teacher's Association(NSTA) https://learningcenter.nsta.org/
PBS Learning Media https://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/
To begin, please review the syllabus and the schedule.
Next, proceed to the course content and click on "Introduction and Background" and review the information regarding STE education and what it is and what it is not. Also review the guiding principles behind STE education and the integration of other curriculum by the Department of Education.
Complete the following tasks:
Go to the Discussion Board. Create a new thread. Introduce yourself and please tell us who you are, where you're from, and a little bit about what you hope to learn from this course. Then get to know your fellow students through their posts and respond at least to twice.
Then go to the assignments section and complete the entrance survey.
Once you have done this, you will be ready to begin
This is the Benchmark Assessment for this course. Each student will design a unit of instruction (of approximately ten lessons) based upon primarily on one area of study in the sciences, but may include learning of technical skills and other academic content.
The unit ( Due Week 7) will include:
A rationale
Unit objectives for subject matter knowledge and skills
Materials, equipment, and software required
Daily plans for instruction demonstrating the use of various teaching methods (including technology)
A unit test,
A bibliography, including textbooks, websites, simulations, software, and other resources
Teacher Candidates will develop a Science Education curriculum unit of instruction that forms part of a course. The total unit should comprise at least 10 lesson plans(5 detailed) and it must demonstrate a variety of pedagogical strategies. You will submit 1 lesson from your unit prior to Week 4 so that you can get feedback from the instructor before the final due date. Please specify the grade level that you are teaching, assume that you have a heterogeneous classroom of about 25 students, and assume that you have access to educational technology such as Google Classroom, WeVideo and Chromebooks. Make sure you specify the MA Science and Technology/Engineering/DigitalLiteracy Curriculum Frameworks
Choose any topic that fits within these standards. You may organize your unit chronologically or thematically.
The Science Education Unit of Instruction plan should include the following (the following shall be considered grading rubric criteria):
A.Cover page: Write the name of the unit topic on the cover page, along with the student grade level(s) and your name/program name & level (i.e. John Doe/Secondary Biology/8-12).
B. Overview: Include a 2 page overview of your unit that provides a rationale for the unit (why did you choose this topic, why did you organize the lessons in this manner, what should students be able to know and understand with this material), the educational principles you used (how are methods used in class reflected in your unit plan), the essential question that frames your unit, and the MA Science and Technology/Engineering Curriculum Framework content standards to which your unit is tied. Finally, describe the way(s) in which you assembled the unit together within the unit topic area.
C. Introduction:
Title of the Unit.
The MA Science and Technology/Engineering Curriculum Framework content standards addressed and unit objectives.
A description of the essential question, design goal or main idea(s) the unit addresses.
Developed objectives for the unit.
A rationale for the unit.
A list of preliminary materials (bibliography)
D. Blocking Plan: You will submit a Unit Plan Outline ( a “blocking plan”) as part of your unit. The purpose of this plan is to help you conceptualize the order and organization of your lessons. The blocking plan should include the following:
A day-by-day one paragraph outline of your unit (10 lessons).
A description of your formative assessments and end-of-unit summative assessment.
E. Lessons: Include five(5) detailed lessons students will take part in over the course of the unit--the 10th lesson should include some kind of culminating activity/assessment to the Unit, which could be a traditional exam, a student-made video, or other Presentation of Learning to the community. Each individual lesson in the unit should be about 2-3 pages and should follow the guidelines in the AIC Lesson Plan template.
F. Make sure your lessons are clearly "tied together" - a unit should be cohesive and the connection between lessons should be evident. Begin each lesson with a review of previous content and ending each lesson with a review and tying new content to future lessons.
G. Include all sources/worksheets/hand-outs you would use in class. For example, if your procedure notes "hand- out the worksheet on climate zones," your unit plan must include that worksheet. If you plan to use PowerPoint, please include a copy of the PowerPoint presentation.
H. You will submit one blocking plan and one lesson plan prior to the 4th class for feedback and a grade. This will provide you with ongoing feedback on the shape of your unit plan - due week 8.
I. Bibliography: Include at the end of your unit that lists all the sources that you consulted in planning the unit and all sources that your students will use when you teach the unit. We will cover the concept of “quilting” and the necessity of citing curriculum you use within your unit.
J. Additional Unit Design Rubric criteria:
Evidence that you have incorporated and applied different ideas/concepts discussed in the methods course.
Evidence of high student involvement in each lesson and student engagement in appropriate inquiry-based activities for the discipline you are teaching
Evidence that you use a wide variety of primary and secondary sources in your lessons appropriate to the discipline you are teaching and meaningful integration of technology.
Clarity of thought and organization of unit plan, evidence that the unit "holds together" well under the overarching theme or essential question; that is, your lessons logically follow one another and develop rationally. I would suggest starting/ending each lesson with a review that helps you tie the lessons together and connects them clearly to your unit.
Evidence of creativity and challenge in your lesson ideas
Attention to proper punctuation, grammar, syntax, and spelling.
Evidence that care and thought have gone into your work.
The Science Education Unit of Instruction plan will be submitted electronically by the teacher candidate to their LiveText account as well as shared with the class via Google Drive.(Due class 7).
Learning Management System
Teacher candidates will also create a Google Classroom for the unit, where assignments to K12 students will be posted(utilizing documents from Google Drive), and student work collected. This can either be done through a school district-based account or through a personal Gmail account.
Benchmark Assignments are culminating course assignments designed to demonstrate and measure a candidate’s successful application of the Professional Standards of Teaching (PST) and the Subject Matter Knowledge (SMK) aligned with the course competencies and program learning outcomes.
Therefore, all Candidates must successfully pass the course (B- or better) AND receive a summative score of 3(Proficient) or 4 (Exemplary) on the respective writing and content Benchmark Assignment rubrics in order to pass the course.
Candidates who do not achieve a summative score of 3(Proficient) or 4 (Exemplary) on the course Benchmark rubric/s must fill out the Benchmark Re-Submission form within business 7 business days, and will have one month to resubmit the assignment to the course instructor and the program director via email and be in compliance with all stipulations noted on the Benchmark Re-Submission Contract form, if approved.
Applications for a Benchmark Re-Submission extension are not subject to automatic approval. The review team reserves the right to deny a Benchmark Re-Submission Contract request form under any circumstance.
1. Integrated Practicum Experience (Hour Log, Observation Journal, Reflection Paper) (points TBD)
See:
DESE: Pre-Practicum Gateway Tasks http://www.doe.mass.edu/edprep/resources/pre-practicum.html
In conjunction with this Methods course, teacher candidates will complete an Integrated Practical Experience(IPE) culminating in evidentiary documents including:
a. An Hour Log documenting 25 hours of focus and submitted to the college on the AIC log of hours template,
b. A Journal documenting the experience (see Journal example form), and
c. An Observation Reflection paper synthesizing the observations.
A. Your IPE will be multi-faceted. You will observe in a mentor teacher’s classroom in the same field as you for at least ten hours. Part of growing as an educator is observing the practice of others in order to grow in our own practice. You will also count one hour towards interviewing/meeting with the teacher you observed in order to better understand their processes and systems. You will generate your own questions for this task. (Total 11 hours)
B.You will count 4 hours towards assisting or full role instruction. If you are assisting, you may assist in the classroom that you observed. If you are doing full role, you are going to document some new practices that you are implementing based upon your work with the mentor teacher. (Total 4 hours)
C.You will count ten hours full role in your classroom with two conditions. Your mentor teacher has to come in once to do an observation and provide you feedback. This will be only 30 minutes. After this, you will implement some changes based on the feedback.
Your mentor will come back and do one more observation about the changes you have made.
Your mentor may use the observation form F which is used in the practicum experience or they may write it on a paper. (You will provide this feedback as evidence of experience completion).
You will videotape yourself during this section of the IPE and then post it as a discussion thread.
The 25 hour requirement must be met during the eight (8) weeks of this course. Course incompletes will not be approved for failure to meet this requirement.
A. I.P.E. Timelog: The 25 hour requirement can be accomplished through a combination of classroom observations, interviews, and full role teaching. See above.
B. Observation Journal: Your observation journal is a 1/3 – 1/2 page on what you are observing for each observation session. The information recorded will be factual in nature.
C. I.P.E. Reflection Paper: Classroom observations are the foundation for writing the reflection paper. The reflection paper uses the observation journal as a basis to reflect on what you observed to determine if what you observed was considered good practice or not. You will also indicate what you learned as a result of this experience. Following from your classroom observations, you can include your takeaways to be those practices that you want to get better at or even what you would never do in your class because you felt it was ineffective. This paper should use APA format for headings and citations.
E. In your observation journals and reflections, note some of the following information to be used in your three page paper:
i. What are some scaffolding techniques you observed for assisting Special Education/ELL students to comprehend content-specific knowledge?
ii. Was prior knowledge accessed? How?
iii. What are some of the instructional strategies used for improving learning?
iv. Comprehension in the content areas for Special Education/ELL students.
v. How was academic language (subject-specific language) developed as a pre-cursor for the content area for Special Education students?
vi. What are examples of Formative Assessments to use with Special Education/ELL students to gather data for improving instruction?
vii. How does attitude, knowledge, and understanding of different disabilities by teacher’s impact instruction to Special Education/ELL students?
ix. How does the teacher handle classroom management? Are the students all treated the same or is there a difference? How do you know?
x. How is digital literacy incorporated into the instructional/learning practices?
xi. How is literacy incorporated into the instructional/learning practices?
General Questions about embedded hours can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La8L20Rp27w
Teacher Candidates will know:
Content related to the MA Science and Technology/Engineering Curriculum Framework. engaging science teaching approaches, assessment and presentations of learning in the domains of science, epistemology of and approaches to teaching science education.
Teacher Candidates will understand that:
Effective Science teaching requires disciplinary/content knowledge, and knowledge of pedagogy; that teaching Science requires knowing students, engaging students in critical and higher-order thinking, teaching students "life-long learning" skills, and presenting students with multiple perspectives.
Teacher Candidates will be able to:
Develop lesson and unit plans in science and technology/engineering, develop assessment tools, reflect on teaching practice and focus on practical investigation and modeling of student-centered and activity-based methods designed to meet the individual needs of a diverse student population.
Engage in critical analysis of goals and objectives, instructional materials, teaching strategies, assessment and evaluation techniques for middle and secondary school science, including attention to the MA Professional Standards for Teachers (PST). These will be placed in the larger context of: (1) learning about student learning/thinking, (2) addressing the needs of a diverse student population, and (3) developing "habits of mind" that foster participation in society as informed, confident, and responsible citizens of the world.
Acquire knowledge and skills that will help you to help your students develop their abilities to use communication skills, apply core concepts, become self-sufficient individuals, become responsible team/community members, think and solve problems, and integrate knowledge of the MA Subject Matter Knowledge in Science and Technology/Engineering.
Local school districts require candidates undertaking embedded observation hours or practicum experiences through the program to undergo a criminal history offender information (CORI) check and a district may determine that a candidate is ineligible for placement based on the outcome of the CORI check. Any candidate who is refused a placement by a district as a result of his/her CORI check is solely responsible for finding his or her own practicum placement which, in the sole discretion of the College, meets the academic requirements of the program; a candidate’s failure to timely identify an alternative practicum placement (by the end of the following semester) meeting the program’s academic standards will result in termination from the program.