Scientists: The Stereotypes

Every person has their own idea of what a Scientist looks like. Scientists are very over stereotyped. The article I chose to review was called "Breaking Science Stereotypes". In the article, it talked about a 4th and 5th grade group of students who were asked to draw a scientist. Their drawings were compared to the Draw-A-Scientist Test-Checklist (DAST-C). This check list was derived from a study of typical scientist stereotypes in 1983.

Some of the most common stereotypes in all of the drawings were:

• Scientist working indoors
• The Scientist was wearing a white lab coat
• The Scientist was wearing glasses

After the children's drawings were compared to the checklists, a scientist visited each class. The fourth grade class was visited by a female chemical engineer. She assessed the students prior knowledge and discussed with them what an engineer does. She made it very clear that an engineer does a lot more than just build things. She also encouraged female students to not be turned away from the profession of an engineer. There a not many women in the field of engineering, but there is no reason that they shouldn't be. Something that intrigued the students is that the woman wore a blue lab coat made of nannex, a fire resistant fabric. She then engaged students in a hands on activity and then compared them to the engineers of Silly Putty.

The fifth grade class was visited by a male physicist from a local university. Instead of wearing a lab coat, he wore a white shirt and a tie. He as well, assessed the students knowledge and learned that they consider themselves scientists because in their opinion, scientists make observations of things. With the fifth grade students, he performed a variety of physical and chemical reactions and then prompted them to do simpler ones, inferring and hypothesizing all of the way through.

After the scientists left, the teachers went on with their normal teaching. Then after four weeks have passed, students were asked to draw a scientist again and describe in words their characteristics as well as their work setting. The table below shows the difference between the students drawing before the scientist visited their class and after.

The second table was the same study done in two other schools. It is interesting to see how the scientist visiting impacted the students so greatly. 

The end of the article also said how in some cases, the scientists came back to the schools and visited the classroom on a monthly or every other month basis. When the scientists visited frequently, teachers saw that the students inquisition was higher and made inquiry lessons much easier. 

I think this activity is very important in a classroom. It is especially important for girls and children of any other decent other than caucasian. They need to see that they can be scientist too; you don't have to be a white male to be a scientist. With a study like this, eliminating the stereotypes of scientists can be done one elementary school at a time. 

Resources:

Bodzin, A., & Gehringer, M. (2001, January). Breaking Science Stereotypes. Retrieved March, 2016.

Science Fairs and Gummy Bears

This semester my class was assigned to create a Science fair project to bring to the Science Fair at Bishop Dunn Memorial School. Before we created our experiment and came up with our big question, we got to judge the middle school science fair. Judging the science fair in my opinion was more fun than making my own science fair project. Some of the middle schoolers had projects that were way beyond their years of intelligence. Some of the projects also inspired my project that you see above.

The project I chose to do was Gummy Bear Osmosis. My experiment consisted of me seeing if gummy bears would grow or shrink when I put them in different types of water. First I measured and weighed the gummy bears. Next, I measured out the water for each cup. I did two cups with pure water and two cups with salt water just to make sure my results were accurate. I placed the gummy bears in the cups and I left them for 24 hours. I checked them every few hours just to see if they were growing or shrinking. The gummy bears that were placed in pure water were starting to grow within the first few hours. The gummy bears placed in salt water, it was hard to see a difference at all.

My hypothesis was "If a gummy bear is placed in pure water, then it will grow. If a gummy bear is placed in salt water, then it will shrink." After 24 hours I took the gummy bears out and remeasured and reweighed them. My hypothesis of the gummy bear that was placed in pure water was correct. Those gummy bears doubled, possibly tripled in size. My hypothesis of the gummy bears placed in salt water was wrong. I thought the gummy bears would shrink, but the gummy bears actually grew a little bit.

If I could do my science experiment again, I would place gummy bears in more than just pure and salt water. I would place the gummy bears in other liquids such as lemon water, vinegar, oil and even milk. I would repeat the experiment the same way and see what gummy bear is the biggest at the end, which is the smallest at the end, and if some gummy bears have no change in size and weight at all.

Judging the science fair was something I would love to do again. It was so heart warming to see some of the children's eyes fill with passion as they told me about their projects, why they chose to do it and their trials and errors of each. Pictured below are two of the student projects that really stood out to me. They were well designed and far beyond the knowledge of what their peers did. These projects left me utterly impressed.

The Ecosystem of Fieldwork

It was so great to be back in front of the 5th grade class teaching whole class instruction! I certainly missed it over the winter break! This semester, my group taught about Ecosystems and Biomes. The direct instruction went great! The students were so into what they were learning and they really seemed to retain information. They learned about different Biomes as well as some of organisms in them. They also learned about some changes in the ecosystems as well as how the weather effects the plant and animal life and why some animals and plants couldn't survive in any other biomes that the one that they live in. Our second lesson was an inquiry lesson. The students had to work in groups to research why specific animals belong in the Biome that they do and then prove to their classmates why they think their animal belongs in their specific biome using the reattach that they had compiled.

Having the privilege to teach in the classroom is most certainly a learning process. By no means did my lessons go perfectly. There was some error in the way that the lesson was run and the organization of it...but its certainly something fixable and something I would definitely take into consideration next time I am planning or teaching any sort of lesson.

As far as assessment went, the students were given a pre-assessment beforehand and that served as the diagnostic assessment. The formative assessment was how well the students were taking notes in the direct instruction lesson. In the inquiry lesson, it was how well they were working with their group and coming up with information for their posters. The summative assessment of the direct instruction lesson was a vocabulary crossword puzzle; and for the inquiry lesson, the students wrote a letter to an imaginary pen pal about a biome of their choice. They were given guidelines to follow and the assignment was collected and graded.

What was somewhat upsetting is that some students took these assignments really seriously and other students couldn't have cared less. All of the teacher candidates put too much time and effort into these lessons and activities to have them not be taken seriously.

Preparing for fieldwork is always stressful; especially when an entire lesson is to be taught. This experience gave me great practice noticing the difference between direct instruction and inquiry. Direct instruction is teacher centered and inquiry is more student centered. Having to plan different types of lessons is a lot harder than it sounds, but having to do it gave me great practice and a more efficient understanding of it.

Implementing the lessons is definitely not as easy as it sounds. No matter how well a lesson is planned out, if something goes wrong, it goes wrong and as the teacher, you always need to be prepared for it. It doesn't matter how well the lesson is scripted or planned; the teacher always needs to have a back up plan. I know I had back-up plans for fieldwork. I can only hope that my co-teacher candidates did as well.

Watching my classmates teach as well made some of the mistakes that I know I made more obvious in a way that allowed me to be more aware of them and work on fixing them. Seeing their lessons also gave me many great ideas for my future classroom. It also showed me that it is obvious when effort is put into each part of the lesson and when effort is lacking in an area. I think all of my co-teacher candidates as well as my classmates did a great job in the classroom. We all need to remember that this is a learning process and we all will learn and grow from the experiences we took part of and the ones we watched.

All in all being in the classroom makes me very excited to be just a little closer to attaining my goal of becoming a teacher. I am looking forward to my next opportunity to teach a whole class instruction.

Alternate Forms of Formative Assessment

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE A QUIZ! 

I repeat, FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE A QUIZ!!! 

A huge mistake that many teachers make is taking time out of their class and their lessons to have students take a quiz. Quizzes every now and then are good, but a students' grade should not be based off of quizzes. After students study and take these quizzes, the information they "learned" is gone. They never really learned the information; they just memorize the information and regurgitate it onto the quiz. There are so many ways to make formative assessment engaging and memorable for the students.





Alternate Forms of Formative Assessment:

1. Index Card Summary/ Question.
    The students will receive an index card. On one side of the index card they will be asked to give the unit topic and an example of a big idea that they understand. They will be asked to write a small one sentence summary. On the flip side of the card they will be asked to write something that they do not fully understand yet. They will be instructed to pose it as a question.

2. One Minute Essay
    The students will be given a question that they will be able to answer in one minute that can display whether they clearly understand a concept or don't.

3. Exit Ticket
    This is similar to the One minute essay except the students will not be timed. Students will be given a question and they must answer it to the best of their knowledge. Students should not be able to use any notes, they should be able to answer the question from memory.

4. Journal Entry
    In this assignment, students will write about a topic or lesson in their journal following a lesson that is taught. Afterwards, the teacher can look at the journal to make sure that the objectives set forth are met as well as to check for understanding of the topic.

5. One Sentence Summary
    This assignment can be creative and engaging. Students are instructed to create a one sentence summary of the lesson. Ideally it would include who, what, when, where, why and how. It is great to see students creative side when it comes to this.

Those ideas are engaging and different from quizzes. I think quizzes are important, but the monotony of them needs to be broken up and I think these are great ideas to use. Of course as a teacher you will be walking around the room and observing the work of the students. You will be listening in on their conversations and seeing their ideas be put on paper. There is also the option to set up student conferences. These conferences will be used to ask students how they are doing and to focus them or refocus them . They could also be used to set up a time for a student to come and receive extra help on an assignment or topic.