Morgans blog

What did you learn this week?  This week I learned more about the eight core characteristics of living things, which are cellular composition, genetics and heredity, maintaining homeostasis, growth and change, movement, responding to stimuli, metabolism, and reproduction. I also learned more about how to structure an argument and how to use evidence and data to support an argument. In class we used the example of "Is a virus a living thing?" to write an argument over, which was very educational for me since I have written very few scientific arguments.  Are you able to relate what you learned to what you already know?  I found it easy this week to relate what I learned to what I already know, because I already knew some of the main characteristics to living things. For example, I knew that living things grow and change, reproduce, metabolize, and have their own genetics, but it was good to be reminded on the process behind those characteristics. I think making the poster ...

  NGSS example picture          This week in class, we learned about NGSS, which stands for Next Generation Science Standards. In class, we discussed how to read the codes for the standards topic, and discussed how NGSS is a fairly new development for science classes in school, and how it benefits students learning. I plan on applying what I learned this week about NGSS to my future teaching by following and implementing NGSS practices in my future classroom. I like how NGSS is more hands on for students and how it allows them to learn by doing. For my future class, I would like to follow NGSS objectives because I believe that their hands on learning standards are more beneficial for students understanding. A remaining question that I have regarding NGSS is if there is any professional development with teachers in regard to learning more about NGSS. Since this is a fairly new development with teaching in schools, I feel it would be beneficial for teachers t...