You are here: start » strategies » reflections » applyingwhatyouhavelearned
Student Reflections About What They Have Learned
Navigation Links
Instructional Strategy-Reflection
Toward the end of the term, the students were asked to respond to a few questions about how their perceptions of science phenomena have changed, and how they are using that information in their everyday lives.
Questions
- What connections can you make among the topics we have studied this quarter and your experiences during this holiday weekend?
- For example, in what ways, if any, are you understanding about light and shadows, heat and temperature, the sun and the moon, and/or force and motion that differ from what you would otherwise have noticed?
- In what ways, if any, are you using what you have learned in this class - the science content, the ways of thinking, and/or ways of speaking that we have been developing?
Student Responses
| General_Concepts | Written Reflections |
|---|---|
| This student discusses how his perceptions of heat and temperature have changed the way he thinks about a hot spring. | During thanksgiving break I went down to Napa Valley, California. I stayed in a Resort that had a heated outdoors pool. The interesting thing about this was that even though the temperature at Napa was 50 degrees at the time, the pool did not have a heater to maintain the pool at a nice temperature but it had a cooler. It was geyser water that came out of the geyser at extremely high temperatures and it had to be cooled down before filtering it to the pool. I knew that for that amount of boiling water, you needed a large amount of cold water to even the temperature out. But then I took a look to where the water is mixed to cool it down, and there the amount of cold water was not large but it was water below freezing temperature that did the job. I would have thought that the only possible way to cool down amounts of water like that you would need amounts of cold water just as large, but a lower temperature makes up for the lack of volume. I used what I learned in class in the way I though and my approach to the question of how. I knew how the process worked from the moment I saw it; had I had gone before I took this class, a lot of doubts and questions would have been the outcome. |
| This student has valued learning about topics such as light and the sun and moon. They continue to influence the way she thinks, and the way she wants to teach in the future. | Since I have taken this class I now understand more clearly why we can see things. I never thought about how light gets to our eyes but because of this class I have the confidence that I could explain it to someone. During this holiday weekend I saw so much family and I know why I am able to see their faces is because light rays are bouncing off them and traveling to my eyes in straight lines. When I look at the moon I always think about using my arms to find out when the moon will rise. I love that I am able to predict when the moon will rise, when it is high in the sky, and when it will set. I think knowing the sun clock is a valuable thing to know. I am not going to be a teacher any more but I think I would like to teach the things I’ve learned about the moon to my future children. I volunteer in a 2nd grade class and one day they went outside to look at the sky, and I was so amazed that they were doing the same things as we were doing in class. It was so cool to see what were learning in class be applied in an actual elementary classroom. |
| This student explains the connections from the past, present, and future that he is making about science phenomena. His knowledge of both science and teaching strategies have increased. | The connections I made are impressive in my opinion. I looked at the moon over the last few days and knew exactly which phase it was in. about 2 nights ago I saw it in California and knew it was a waxing crescent because it was getting bigger and was lit on the right side. Knowing not only why there are different phases for the moon cycle, but being able to tell which phase it is was pretty awesome. It was impossible for me to understand in my last astronomy class, so now that I know what indicates the moon getting bigger/smaller or if the moon is big/small turned it into an easy system, rather than regurgitating info. I remember in high school we learned about temperature equilibrium. It was a great refresher, but it basically covers how a middle temperature is reached when two masses of water at two different temperatures are mixed together. I need review on motion and force, because I really struggled in my high school physics class. I really was interested in the material but always failed tests. My participation was 100 percent in class and during experiments, but I have never been a math guy as far calculating the increasing velocity of an object as it falls from a 10ft ledge. I understand light phenomena and am able to explain that thoroughly. I liked learning about the flipping image though a TP roll with wax paper and a small hole in tin foil. \\In my mind, I see all newly learned things as reinforced scaffolding. All the new things I learn, and all the new ways I learned on how to think are supports into how I see everything. I have learned how to thoroughly and specifically explain each step of a process a little bit better through the explanation of light phenomena, the phases of the moon, etc. For example, light does not simply come from the source, off the object and to our eye. It goes in all directions and some of it hits the object we are looking at. The light hitting the object goes in all directions, and some of the light comes into our eye. Thoroughly explaining what we can AND cannot see is way more informative. This weekend I was explaining to family members about which camera I was interested and why. Although they do know how it works, I still thoroughly explained the mechanisms, and how that changes the feature statistics. For example, the aperture of a lens is based off of how far it can open. The more it can open, the faster the pictures can be taken, lowering its number. The lower the number, the wider it opens. It’s like filling up 2 cups of the same size with water. The lenses represented by the cups, and the water is by light. While one cup is filled with a trickle of water, the other is filled by a bursting fire hydrant. When the cup is filled, the picture is taken. As you can see a bigger opening for water, like an aperture letting light in, can effect how fast the picture can be taken. Explaining this allowed my family to understand why it is important to invest in nice lenses, so when you photograph at night, you can take pictures without making them blurry. |
| This student explains how her knowledge of heat and temperature are applicable to every day life events. Because she had learned about science phenomena and about teaching strategies in Physics 111, she was able to teach her family members . She also points out how her confidence has increased from taking this course. | There is a little back story as to how I have used the heat and thermal connections in my life this past weekend. My father recently bought property in Washington that, though he has transformed much of it into a cabin, still has concrete floors. This has been a great topic of conversation in the family considering we have all holidays and many weekend trips in the place, many in the family want either carpet or hardwood floors. I had never really thought about why the concrete was always so miserable to walk on without shoes, until this class. I woke up on Thanksgiving and walked into the living room and ran back into my room to grab socks because the floor is just too cold to handle. I then thought about how this relates to what we have talked about with thermodynamics, about how different materials absorb heat at different rates. I brought this up to the family over dinner, that though the concrete is almost painful to walk on, wood flooring would be uncomfortable as well in the cold weather, because of how the two materials are absorbing the heat from our bodies. But that this could be nice during summer. At this point everyone looked at me in a “okay….who cares?” sort of way, but I enjoyed knowing some of the back story to the science involved with the logic of which flooring to choose. I think that this course has mostly changed some of the things I plan on doing in the classroom. I am so looking forward to talking about the moon with my future students! I definitely have changed my mind about the fears I had about teaching science to my students, at first I was nervous that it would be uninteresting to the kids and that I would turn them against science forever! …that may be a bit extreme but I was nervous. I think now I will have more confidence when it comes to fostering science learning in my classroom! |
| This student discusses how breaking concepts into easy to understand pieces has been beneficial to her own learning, and how it will be beneficial to her future students. | I have a clearer understanding of the topics that we have studied during this term. Even though the concepts that we studied were already familiar to me, I had basically taken them for granted in there complex yet simple powerful ideas. Over the holiday weekend, I was not able to discuss any of the concepts with a child, but I did share with my husband how interesting it is when you break them down into individual powerful ideas and how they make more sense. I expressed that by re-learning how light and shadows work, how heat and temperature transfers, understanding the sun and the moon and how motion and force work. Since I would like to teach 4th grade learning how to explain these concepts is critical to being a good teacher and having students walk away fully understanding the concepts.Before this class, I didn't really understand inquiry learning, and found it difficult to do as an adult. But now I realize how critical it is to having the students learn in this manner and how it really does help to form a concrete understanding that the students can use throughout the rest of their schooling experience. I was also able to witness this in a practicum class this term, while working with 7th grade students in a science class. |
| In the context of light and shadows, this student explains that with patience and inquiry-based teaching practices, learning occurs! | This Holiday weekend my knowledge of what we have studied in class has not changed, but rather been solidified. As I spent Thanksgiving with my family I explored the idea of light and shadows with my 7 yes old nephew Joshua. We together played with a light and a small object in my room. I had him move the object closer and further away from the light and describe what's happening. He said things like “as I get closer to the light the shadow turns bigger and lighter” and “when i move the toy to the right or left the shadow stretches.” We discussed what his thoughts were on why this happened. He stated “I think the light moves right out of the light, like in a forward way.” I restated what he said back and said, “so you think that the light travels straight out of the source, the flashlight right? He said yes. Doing this with my nephew showed me that if you take the time to have patience with a child they can understand way more than you think! I find myself throughout the day commenting on why a shadow looks the way it does, the phase the moon is in, as well as why when I touch metal it's cold! This class has broadened my knowledge of concepts I would have never considered, and I love the fact that I can explain so may phenomena now to others! |
