Michael Massad
Patton Elementary School - Austin ISD
TX

Methods and Strategies: Making the Climate Connection

Wed, Jan 11, 2017 10:19 PM
Practical Ideas for teaching Climate

Bruce Larson's article provides multiple resources for teaching climate to students across grade levels. I found these suggested resources to be the most valuable information from the article. Larson also lays out a framework, or grade-level-spanning sequence, for teaching climate to students. He calls these sequences 'learning progressions', and they make sense. They spell out what skills are appropriate to teach at what grade, or cognitive, level. While I found myself wanting more detail, or a broader breadth of skills included in the progressions, the do provide a good snapshot of the big picture of which climate concepts should be taught. Again, though, my biggest take away was the many resources Larson suggested. To clarify, some of the resources are websites or organizations, but many of his suggested resources are actually engaging, easy-to-implement activities. I'll be able to run with these resources. They will enhance and expand what i teach with regards to climate and weather.

Claims, Evidence, and Reasoning

Tue, Jan 26, 2016 6:38 PM
A Clear Explanation of CER

I found this article very helpful in describing what the claim, evidence, reasoning framework can look like at the elementary level. I teach fifth grade, so I especially appreciated that this is the featured grade. I would be curious to see how this framework might look in lower grades. I plan to use the rubric as it appeared to be very straightforward. I like how Mr. Martin used the rubric at first to inform his own instruction, and later supplied it to students to help with their own self-evaluations. I would like to hear more about the "rebuttal" stage, as I'm confident my fifth graders would benefit from healthy critical peer examination.

Five Good Reasons to Use Science Notebooks

Sun, Jul 12, 2015 9:00 PM
Makes Sense

I found myself being very encouraged after reading this article. It encouraged me to work harder to find ways to bring writing into my science instruction. I especially connected with the idea that science notebooks are a thinking tool. I am very into the idea that, just like we are all reading teachers, we are also all thinking teachers. I also connected with the idea that science notebooks can drive and inform instructional choices.