Batteries, bulbs and wires

1.       Formative assessment – I thought you could use one wire strip to light the bulb.

2.       Ms. Stone’s lab – a very prescribed set of directions with everyone being told what to do and what they should have learned.

Simple circuit

Ms. Travis’ lab—presents several ways to indicate students understand how electrical circuits work.

 

Simple circuit

Series circuit

 

3.       Ms. Stone’s lab

Strengths

Weakness

·         Students all can see how an electric circuit works. ·         Students can see the difference between a simple circuit, series circuit and a parallel circuit.

·         Teacher gives students definitions to vocabulary words with little context or connection. ·         Learner engages in questions provided only by teacher. ·         Learner is given all other explanations. ·         Learner is given steps and procedures for communication. ·         The lesson has very little transference of knowledge to other applications. ·         There is no evaluation of data with outside resources.

 

Ms. Travis’ lab

Strengths	Weakness
·         Learner selects among questions, poses new questions. ·         Learner formulates explanations after summarizing evidence. ·         The lesson allows students to transfer knowledge to other applications. ·         Learners formulate own explanations and how to communicate them. ·         Lesson should have deeper meaning because students were allowed to conduct own investigations.	·         Learner directed to collect certain data. ·         There is no evaluation of data with outside resources.

 

 

4.

Standards/Benchmarks	Learning Goals: What should student know	Formative Assessment: What do students already know?	Learning Performances: What do you want students to do to show they’ve learned?
Standard B-Physical Science Students should develop an understanding of light, heat, electricity and magnetism. Electricity circuits require a complete loop through which an electrical current can pass.	How do you complete an electrical circuit?	After being asked how many wires it would take to light a light bulb to complete an electrical circuit. The student understood that a light bulb can be lit with only one wire.	Students will complete an electrical circuit and light bulbs will light.(Stone) Students draw the circuits they have constructed. Students label the two types of circuits. Students write about findings in notebooks regarding findings on series and parallel circuits. Students develop own questions they want to investigate. Students explore internet to compare fluorescent and incandescent bulbs and groups report information. Students complete worksheet with electricity investigations. (Travis)

 

5.       Because I had to complete the lab at home I had to improvise my equipment. As I have done some minor electrical work in my home I had the supplies. However, the lab was a challenge to complete because I had to improvise the holders.

                My daughter used kits during 5^th grade when they studied electrical circuits. She said she liked helping me better, when she got a chance to figure out how to the circuits herself.

 I was able to help a second-grade class with a lab. It was pretty teacher driven but they were allowed to choose their own questions and answer some of the questions themselves. With younger children they all seemed to want to ask the same question – How far can I make the balloon go? After I started asking other questions they began to see they could hypothesis and then see through experimentation if they were correct. However, they usually came back to – How far can I make the balloon go?

I can see that with 5^th graders, it would be much easier to allow them to pose the questions and independently examine other resources to form explanations. I think all lessons should be structured so the learners understand why the lesson is relevant and can transfer from one situation to another. Ms. Travis’ lesson was clearly a more transferrable lesson, and probably more enjoyable for her students. I would assume that her students came away with a much better understanding about electrical circuits and why it is important for students to understand them.

 

6.       Any ideal science lesson assumes that the learners have a certain amount of self-motivation, intrigue and can thoughtfully create scientifically oriented questions. In order for this to be the most ideal lesson, the students would have to be familiar with creating their own learning environment by posing appropriate questions, deciding suitable evidence, knowing how to research other explanations and creating appropriate ways to communicate their findings. With that stated, after performing a formative assessment probe (and assuming most students do not fully understand how electrical circuits work) students should be presented with all the materials they need to create several different kinds of circuits and then be told the lesson for the next several days  is “How do you complete a circuit?” Because this lesson is mostly student driven, I have outlined the plan in the following chart.

7.

5-E Criteria	Part(s) of lesson that addresses this inquiry criterion	More teacher-directed or student-directed? Explain.
Engage	Students are divided into groups of 4 and are given the materials and told to formulate questions about electrical circuits.	More student-directed. Students will investigate what they want to know about electrical circuits and electricity.
Evidence	Students can use several different wires, multiple bulbs, switches, multiple and different size batteries to create different circuits.	More student-directed. Because students formulated their own questions they will determine what constitutes appropriate evidence.
Explain	After students have collected their data they will write in their notebooks about their hypothesis, the evidence they collected, and what happened during their experiments.	More student-directed. The learners are formulating their own explanations with the evidence they created.
Evaluate	A local electrician can be brought into the classroom so students can discuss their findings and compare their evidence to how an electrician wires a light, a room and a house.	More student-directed. Although the student is directed toward the source, they still can form links to their explanations.
Communicate	Groups will present their findings to the instructor and the other groups in the class using whatever means they feel is appropriate.	More student-directed. The learners decide how and what they are going to communicate and explain.