Week 4

What did you learn this week? 

Although we did not have an in person lab this week, I was still able to learn a lot, specifically I learned more about the 5E's. The 5E's stand for engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate. These 5E's are teaching strategies used to help students better understand new material presented to them. I learned that you can use the 5E's in many different activities, which I like because this can be practiced for many different subject areas in science. I also was able to explore more with NGSS and finding a performance expectation that aligned with the 3rd grade activity given to us in the document. Each step of the 5E's has a function that can be related to the activity students are participating in. For example, a way to have students get engaged in the first part of the activity is by asking them questions, allowing them to share their knowledge on the relevant subject, etc. 

Which parts did you find clear and which were confusing? 

I had a very clear understanding of what the 5E's are and how to apply them to an elementary science class. I also found the reflection questions to be very clear and thought it was easy to answer with the provided document. A part that was confusing to me was if there was more than 1 right answer that could be used when asked to give the performance expectation and the SEP, DCI, and CCC. Although I am confident that I chose a PE and SEP, DCI, and CCC that were all relevant to the lesson, I wonder if there were others out there that could have been just as relevant or more so? Overall, I thought this lesson was clear and precise and allowed good practice for getting familiar with the 5E's, and I liked that we were able to practice finding examples of where they were shown within the lesson. 

How can you apply what you've learned to your teaching in the future?

I plan on using what I learned today to my future in teaching by applying the 5E's to future activities. I think the 5E's set students up for success because it covers each essential part of learning and retaining new information. I like how students can work together and elaborate their ideas, learning from each other and showing each other how they got to their understanding. I also like how this is an activity and not just forcing students to read straight from a book or an article, because by working in groups or discussing with others, it make the activity more engaging for the student and can help form a clearer understanding. In my future when I am a teacher, I would love to incorporate many activities that follow the 5E's setup.