Week 1/2

    This week in science methods II lab we addressed the big question - How do we make a race exciting between people who run at different speeds? To explore this we first watched a Beat The Freeze video and discussed our thoughts as a class. Then we took upon the task of creating an interesting, safe race where the competitors finish at the same time with our table members.

    My group did a fast walk race with obstacles provided to the faster walker. Then we teamed up with another group to combine our ideas into a final race. Our large group created a back and forth line race consisting of 4 exercises: bunny hops, bear crawl. speed walking, skipping. Then as a whole class we observed the final products and discussed what we saw back in the classroom.

    In Thursday's lecture I learned what science and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts were tied to our lab activities. I learned how to compute distance head starts based on personal speeds and race distances (speed = distance/time).

    In the weekly reading I learned a lot about how to help your students create questions and connecting information to each other throughout the year. The most helpful thing was what storylines were in general and what they look like in the classroom. I could use more information on how to lead class conversations towards the questions I want them to get to, but that really relies on the specific topic, grade, and situation.

    A comment that I have is that I wish my past science experiences followed fun, student-centered learning like the article discussed.