Astronomy

Over the last couple weeks, our class has had to gather together 7-10 different articles about astronomy.  I've always liked astronomy, and found space to be incredibly interesting.  The fact that we can look up into the sky and think that it could essentially go on forever, really makes you think.

Ever since I was a kid I've always been fascinated with what happens above us.  Each year in school I'd pretty much bomb every science test with the exception on two: astronomy, and weather.  Weather always interested me, simply because of where we live.  In the northeast, we experience every season, and very rarely is the weather the same, even two days in a row.  Also as a child you tend to watch the weather channel more cause you just have to know when the snow is coming for an all important snow day.

Astronomy on the other hand was something that wasn't as accessible in the realm of facts.  As a child, all I could do was lay out on the grass and night and simply look up.  All you could see was stars and the moon, so it was up to your imagination to figure out what else was there.  As I got older, my questions began to be answered, however those answers usually just led to more questions.  The unique thing about astronomy is that it is the only scientific field that will never be complete.  Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science all have questions remaining, however those questions will be answered.  With Astronomy, and space, it never ends, and so questions will always remain.  

A never ending list of technology

Our class continued this week to explore the realms of the internet by continuing to use different websites and apps to further ours, and our future students educational experience.  As someone who is technologically behind the eight ball, these classes invoke a range of emotion from pure joy, to honest frustration.

The joy of this, is that we are learning new methods and interesting ways to teach our students, that perhaps myself wasn't offered in school because of a lack of technology.  The frustration comes from there simply being so much of it to try and test out.

However when you really break it down, most of these websites are the same thing just packaged differently.  A long list of websites may look intimidating at first, but when you start to examine them more closely, you'll realize they all do the same thing, and learning to master a new one takes no time at all because you've already been there in the first place.

A week 10 jigsaw

This past week saw the coming and going of the 10th week of class.  It's hard to believe we're just 5 weeks from the end of the semester.  It seems like just yesterday I was up all night trying to figure out a lesson plan for 3rd graders back in the 2nd week of class.

Anyway, this past week had us return to our classroom that we haven't seen since week one when we were introduced to the class with strange animal toys.  This time, the toys were left home and a jigsaw puzzle was brought out in its place.

What I mean by jigsaw puzzle is different type of teaching method.  The activity calls for the class to be broke up into two groups.  Each group then assigns roles to each person, and then finally you are to work with the other person in the other group who was assigned the same role as yourself.  You then do all the research and become an expert of the topic, then go back to your respective groups to teach your other teammates all about it.  After each group member has talked about their respective topic, you present your findings to the class.

While it may sound slightly confusing at first, believe me I was in the same boat, once you try it out it actually is a great idea, and one that I will probably use in my classroom at some point.