Search topic:
How does the physical setup of a classroom attract more engagement and participation in a science/physics class?
Concept A:
Classroom setup and design
Concept B:
Student participation and engagement
Concept C:
Science and physics lecture
After the two school visits, I noticed that student engagement not only comes from how we teach, but the setup of the classroom is also very important. For example, in a classroom with tables where students can sit in a circle can often encourage them to have more discussions, and it is also easier for them to collaborate compared to regular classroom seating where everyone's desk faces the front of the class. Since science and physics classes often require communication and sharing equipment, I want to explore more about how to improve a learning space. I'm sure some other factors will come into play, and I would love to explore.
We went back to the garden today, and started with writing Fibonacci poems! I was going with the theme of the garden, but as I sat down, I couldn't help but think about how the degree is going so far, so the poems I wrote about were about my funny experiences in this program.
We then started making apple cider, and we split up into a production line. We got people cutting apples into smaller pieces, working on the hand crank blender, and preparing the juice press. I joined in with cutting apples, and it was fun working with everyone. We were also talking about our worries for the upcoming practicum, and how some people failed their practicum. I am pretty sure everyone in this class will be fine, but I'm still quite uncertain how it will go for me. Finally, we collected all the pulp and pressed it. From what I see, it looked like we had at least 3 liters, and everyone had more than a cup. The juice is also much sweeter than I expected, since I thought these apples from the garden would be sour. Overall, it was a great day.
As a student who graduated with an astronomy bachelor's degree, I struggled with grades a lot. I have several instances where I would barely pass a test or a course, and I don't think that is because I wasn't interested in the learning material. I love physics and astronomy, but whenever I am placed in a room with pen and paper, and am asked to write a test, most of my focus shifts from wanting to explore more on the topic to focusing on the materials that will be tested, which narrows my view on the topic. The same goes for projects; if I were to focus on my grades, oftentimes I would be focusing on hitting all the criteria that are worth points rather than being passionate about the project. These make me feel like I wasn't exploring but rather doing target practice with points. However, now that I am a teacher candidate, I am having conflicting views, since, as a teacher, other than allowing students to explore freely, we still need a method to evaluate if the student truly understood the material. Without assigning a grade, it would be extremely hard to gauge where the understanding of the students are at, and it would also be hard to catch misconceptions, which could be catastrophic to a student's learning if it weren't caught early and it snowballs.
I had my first class in the math lab room today, and it was fun. We were asked to come up with things that relate to circles and parabolas. Initially, I was only thinking about the objects around us in our daily lives, like a merry-go-round, a full moon, and a Ferris wheel, but then Ross started writing a math equation that describes ellipses and parabolas, and he also started a lecture on Gabriel's horn, on how it can have finite volume but infinite surface area. It is refreshing to see some math again after a while in the B.Ed program. We then learned about how indigenous knowledge can be implemented in math classes by teaching sequences with indigenous art, which is a great example of how we can do the same for our teachable subjects.
