WEEK 7 - Chris Baugher, Patricia Bankins and Alison Burns - First reading. "This paper investigates how pre-service teacher education can provide a strong literacy foundation for content area teachers. Pre-service teachers emphasized their growing awareness of how literacy strategies can enhance student learning in their specific subject areas." (Orr, Kukner and Timmons, 2014)

This article gives an interesting insight to content area literacy and infusing literacy into science and math classes. I was particularly interested in the different ways the sample teachers incorporate literacy strategies into their teaching. They talk of expanding notions of what learning and assessment can look like in science and math. Teachers must have a solid content knowledge themselves to be able to express "the most useful forms of representation of those [topics to be taught in the subject area and] ideas, the most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations, and demonstrations-in a word, the ways of representing and formulating the subject that make it comprehensible to others. (Schulman, 1986, p. 9)

"The results of the research provide a different picture of student learning and different strategies for teaching physics. The recommendations are aimed at changes required for improvement in student performance in physics and science in general. "

WEEK 8 - (Chris Baugher, Patricia Bankis and A. Burns) Assessment is the key to good instruction. It shows us what students know and allows us to adjust our instruction. Assessment is tied to learning goals and standards, but students must own the assessment process as well, as they must be able to articulate what and how they are being assessed -- and its value.

point 4 - Formative assessment and feedback along the way - "Formative assessment allowed students to experiment and, yes, sometimes fail. However, they were given the tools, both through feedback and instruction, to improve and move forward to success." In the video it is mentioned that we often grade students on a paper, tell them what they have done wrong, but do not let them go back and rewrite the paper. Students should be able to experiment and fail... but need to be able to take these failures as lessons to go forward and succeed!

Linda Darling-Hammond, professor of education at Stanford University "A false distinction has cropped up in the United States which seems to suggests that it is ok for outside summative assessments to just be multiple choice." She goes on to mention other countries that use project based summative assessments as well as essays, performance and oral examination to allow students to show understanding or learning im more real world methods.

This 8-day multimedia unit explores the fundamentals of electrical circuits in a highly interactive format for the beginning learner. Folder " Shared Folders " Alexandra Grizinski " Member Directory "

Nuffield Foundation " Practical Physics " > Electric circuits and fields " Simple electric circuits. Practical activities designed for use in the classroom with 11- to 19-year-olds. Have also developed resources and approaches that underpin effective educational practice. These are freely available via our teachers page.

Tests show that pre-service teachers have unscientific ideas about "source of stationary current", "The concept of current, energy and potential differences are used one another by mistaken", "current usage" and "sequential reasoning".

Build your own series and parallel circuits and measure voltages and currents with the brilliant Circuit Builder interactive. Offers voice and text instructions.

I thought I could read my students' body language. I was wrong. As an experiment, I used Socrative when I taught binary numbers. What I learned forever changed my views on being a better teacher. Formative assessment is done as students are learning. Summative assessment is at the end (like a test). The importance of formative assessment. 5 tools for formatively assessing your students.

A website for the Florida standards and resources to teach these across grade levels and subjects. This website can be used to research standards and find lesson plans that correspond. I was interested in simple circuits and came across this: http://www.cpalms.org/Public/PreviewResourceLesson/Preview/76115

This is a video explaining simple circuits. This video could be used in instructing for simple circuits.

This is one page on the site called All about circuits. It describes an experiment in simple circuits which could be used for a unit on simple circuits. This resource could be used as a handout or guideline for a unit on simple circuits.

Phet is a website that provides interactive simulations for science and mathematics. The simulations can be downloaded or used online for instructional, homework or review purposes. They are free and easy to use and a great learning device. An instructor can use the simulations to introduce information to students as well as using them as instructional methods to help students grasp ideas. Having students work on simulations in class or as homework can help enrich understanding.

Not every school has the resources necessary to take their students on an airplane . . . or spaceship. The iPad can bring the world to your students' fingertips in ways never before possible. Many national parks and museums have apps designed for onsite visitors.

Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum.