Differentiation Synthesis Blog

My favorite part of this video was when "the students were actually doing science" because they were engaging in an activity to prove a theory and concept of science. Evaporation is not something that students usually do a 'science experiment' for since its a simple vocabulary word which is how I learned it. However, this teacher has her students go beyond memorizing the meaning of the word but helping them see this concept become real right in front of their eyes. I love how engaging this type of learning is and it often is multi-modal literacy. They are participating in hands-on activities and critical thinking through technology and through their communication in groups. I believe in hands-on engagement is going to be one of best tools to use in order to keep the students motivated in learning. Gaining a students focus is more than half of the battle because when they are attentive to the topic, they will have at least some interest and an ability to learn. The students in her class spoke about how they loved school! Also I think their interaction with the technology on her board was a super effective idea for creating equal participation and engagement. Students can use the board to interact with the concepts which furthers their thought processes on a topic. I would love to see how this works in a middle school math classroom. But I do know that from the classroom I was in on Wednesday, the students do not keep thinking the way we desire when left to simply complete a couple problems. In their groups while working on math, their minds were definitely on other things and liked to talk. I think activities that require a more engaged thinking are necessary.

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