Kelly Anne McKinley

Properties of Matter Collection

Fri, Oct 28, 2016 2:44 PM
Collection Review

I feel that this is a great collection of resources for all teachers, students and even parents trying to teach their young students about the different properties of matter. The first thing that struck me about this collection was that Lissandra used a great variety of resources. She has two SciPacks, two journal articles, a book chapter and even a podcast within her collection. Having a variety of resources for students and teachers to pull from is such a great idea because sometimes students learn better just reading and highlighting important information from an article, but other students learn best by physically interacting with the source material (like they would using a SciPack) or listening to a podcast where someone could explain it to them. By having all of these different resources, the collection will really appeal to a wide variety of learners and give them options when choosing how they want to learn about the topic. In addition, I really enjoyed the two articles Lissandra chose to include in her collection. Each article gives two examples of different 5E lessons that teachers can do with their students to help them learn about the properties of matter. The articles provide step by step instructions on how to conduct the lesson in class and even offer great probing and higher order thinking questions to help the students reach their optimal level of learning. These questions provided also allow the teachers to spot misconceptions among the students and clarify them right away. Finally, I thought the podcast was a great addition to the collection because it talks about the different disciplinary core standards and ideas from the NGSS and how they tie into teaching about properties of matter. This is a great resource for teachers to use because it shows them how to really focus on teaching the concept during their lessons and avoid straying away from the science core concepts and standards, which many teachers often do when it comes to teaching science. Overall, I feel that this was a great collection and very well put together. It is evident to me that a lot of thought and consideration went into picking these different resources. As a future teacher I will most certainly come back to this collection when I have my own classroom and have to teach about the properties of matter.

Properties of Matter Collection

Fri, Oct 28, 2016 2:44 PM
Collection Review

I feel that this is a great collection of resources for all teachers, students and even parents trying to teach their young students about the different properties of matter. The first thing that struck me about this collection was that Lissandra used a great variety of resources. She has two SciPacks, two journal articles, a book chapter and even a podcast within her collection. Having a variety of resources for students and teachers to pull from is such a great idea because sometimes students learn better just reading and highlighting important information from an article, but other students learn best by physically interacting with the source material (like they would using a SciPack) or listening to a podcast where someone could explain it to them. By having all of these different resources, the collection will really appeal to a wide variety of learners and give them options when choosing how they want to learn about the topic. In addition, I really enjoyed the two articles Lissandra chose to include in her collection. Each article gives two examples of different 5E lessons that teachers can do with their students to help them learn about the properties of matter. The articles provide step by step instructions on how to conduct the lesson in class and even offer great probing and higher order thinking questions to help the students reach their optimal level of learning. These questions provided also allow the teachers to spot misconceptions among the students and clarify them right away. Finally, I thought the podcast was a great addition to the collection because it talks about the different disciplinary core standards and ideas from the NGSS and how they tie into teaching about properties of matter. This is a great resource for teachers to use because it shows them how to really focus on teaching the concept during their lessons and avoid straying away from the science core concepts and standards, which many teachers often do when it comes to teaching science. Overall, I feel that this was a great collection and very well put together. It is evident to me that a lot of thought and consideration went into picking these different resources. As a future teacher I will most certainly come back to this collection when I have my own classroom and have to teach about the properties of matter.

Organisms and their Environments Collection

Sat, Apr 09, 2016 7:24 PM

This is a great collection of resources for all teachers and even parents trying to teach their young students about organisms in their environment. I like how each of the articles selected all centers around one central theme, yet talk about the different aspects of the subject. This makes for a very dynamic collection and one that would appeal to all different kinds of teachers. I specifically enjoyed the one journal article that talked about incorporating various process skills into a lesson about organisms and their environment. Having students use different process skills is a vital part of science and I feel that article was a useful tool for teachers. In addition, I liked how the articles gave different ideas for lessons about the overall concept of this collection. Each of the lessons were inquiry, focused around an investigable question as well as was fun and creative for the students. Overall, I feel that this was a great collection and very well put together. As a future teacher I will most certainly come back to this collection when I have my own classroom and have to teach science.