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Inquiring Into Temperature / Physics
Robertson, S. (2007). Inquiring into temperature. Unpublished manuscript.
Giancoli, D.G. (1980). Physics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc. p. 233
Assignment
Read and Respond to the Two Articles:
a. What Pre, During, and Post reading strategies did you utilize while reading these pieces?
b. What was something interesting you learned from reading these articles?
Student Responses
| XXXXXXXXXXXXX | A. Reading Strategies | B. Something Interesting |
|---|---|---|
| Student 1 | My pre-reading strategies consisted of reading the title. Considering the author of the article. Because I have met Sage Robertson and know that she is the elementary teacher we did our moon lesson with I was automatically more interested in reading the article. I also went through and read the bold text throughout the article. While I was reading I highlighted important aspects that I felt could benefit my learning. When I completed the article I went back through and looked at the highlighted sections. I had also taken a few notes in the margin that I looked back over. The highlighting really helps me to stay focused on the reading so I do not space out and think about other things. Lastly, I gathered all of my thoughts and did a self reflection on how I thought the article could pertain to me as a teacher. | I learned many interesting things from this article. Most importantly I learned that it is okay if things don't always work out the exact way that you had planned. The children are always learning from anything you do, and if something didn't go quite right there are many more opportunities for the children in your class to learn. I learned from the latent heat article that heat of vaporization refers to the heat required to change a substance from the liquid to the vapor phase. |
| Student 2 | Before reading, I looked at the title, author and headings. Once I did that I realized that it was by Sage who's class we did the moon project with and she was using the probes that we used in class. I thought right off that it was going to be neat reading about her real life experience in a classroom with something similar to what we did. I read her piece from beginning to end and then reflected on what it was she did, when I finished. | I thought it was really interesting that she introduced the class to the probes that we used in our class. Aside from the science aspect, I thouht it was neat that she allowed the class to write a letter to the company. I thought that was really neat of her, because that is teaching children that they can be part of a change, no matter how big or small and that everyones opinion matters. For her lesson though, I can see why she was somewhat unsasisfied or frustrated that the lesson didn't go like she had planned, because often times you think that it was a failure. But in all reality they learned a lot through their play and fooling around. I thought it was really neat that she was able to look at the situation and see that there was a positive outcome and the time they spent was very valuable. It's really nice being able to read about a real classroom and teacher that I know exists and have been in. It makes the whole situation much more realistic and relatable. |
| Student 3 | Before I started reading the text, I looked at the picture, read the caption. I also read the title and looked over the bold words. During the reading I looked for new, interesting information. After the reading, I looked at the picture again and I wrote down what I learned. | As the heat changes from a solid to a liquid, it is called the heat of fusion. As the liquid changes into vapor, it is called the heat of vaporization. Although the temperatures of these two phases are different, values of these points are called the latent heats. Also, it was nice to see that even though the exercises did not go as planned, the teacher was still able to roll with the flow and try new things. She was able to still make it an educational experience. |
| Student 4 | Pre: I looked at the author and title and guessed that this paper would be about a science experiment she did with her class that related to thermal phenomena. During: I read start to finish. If i had printed this article out I might have underlined or highlighted, but it was a short and I thought it could hold my attention to derive it's message. Post: I did my homework. These questions are an effective reflection tool for me. If I have any questions on how to phrase my answer I skim back over the material until I find the passage I need. | I really enjoyed that she tailored her assignment to meet her classroom's interest. I thought that this flexibility showed a lot of her skill as a teacher. Also, I think that this is what caused her students to be so thrilled about science! I would probably talk to a mentor educator and ask if they had any tips or clues on how to approach this material. I am planning to print out Robertson's paper and use it as a guide and reminder to be flexible. I will try to cater my lesson to what most interests my students. I like what Robertson says on pp. 4 “These students do not understand everything there is about temperature, but how much would they really have understood if we had read it from a textbook either?” |
| Student 5 | As far as pre reading goes, I first looked at the title and all of the main bolded words. I also thought about the fact that Sage Robertson is a teacher who also took this class, and how that might effect how engaged I am in the reading. While I read I highlighted all of the main ideas and things that I found interesting. Post reading I simply took a second to look back at the things I had highlighted, and in a few places jotted down other thoughts that occurred to me while I read it the first time but didn’t think to write down. | I learned many interesting things from this article. I suppose I already knew this but its nice to hear that no matter how well you plan, things don’t always work out just how you had imagined it, but that this is ok, the children still learn valuable lessons, even if they may not be the one you had in mind. In the latent heat article i learned that heat of fusion means the heat required to change 1.0 Kg of a substance from a solid to a liquid state. |
| Student 6 | When first looking at Sage’s article I read the title and tried to brain storm about what this article is probably about. I used the beginning sentence of every paragraph to get a feeling for what that paragraph was going to be about. Then I highlighted things that stuck out to me throughout the article. For post reading I tried to go over the key points I remembered and tried to get a grasp on the main reason for this article. XXXXXXXX Giancoli article for pre reading I looked at the title of the article and also the graph on the page and what the description of the graph says next to it. The bold print caught my eye and I saw the main terms of the article. During reading I did not really do anything to the article. Since it was shorter and it already had things bolded I did not see a purpose. After reading it I tried to figure out the main topic of this article. | I loved how she just taught the kids how to use the probes and then let them make pretty much their own experiment having to do with temperature. It is important to allow children the freedom to explore things without having step by step directions on how to do it. With how much technology is being used now a days and how much children really enjoy using it, it makes kids excited to use a thermometer that is computerized and that they can see the results on the computer. That makes it a lot more exciting than just using a typical glass thermometer even though we found out glass ones are not very accurate. XXXXXXXX His article was confusing for me. It was harder to follow along than Sage’s article. Some of the words I did not really understand and that made it harder to make sense of the whole article. After reading I still do not really understand and I hope it becomes more clear through class. |
| Student 7 | Pre- Before I read it I looked at the title to get an idea of what the article was about. I also looked at the headings to all the different sections and previewed the first couple lines of each new section before I started reading. During- I took down notes of what I thought was interesting and what really went along with the title. I also highlighted a lot of phrases I either liked, found interesting or thought were different. Post- I was able to figure out what exactly the article was about and wrote down in general what the paper was about and its main points. XXXXXXXXX Pre- I looked at the diagram that is on the page and the graph annotation on what it said. I also looked at the bold print on the page and the larger print at the top of the page titled Latent heat and told me about what I would be reading. I also came up with a couple of questions I had about the reading. They were: 1. What is this article about? 2. What is latent heat? 3. What causes latent heat?During- I underlined the bold print and phrases or words I thought were important because of what the title was. I also wrote down phrases or thoughts that I felt were important to the purpose of the article. I also looked for things to underline that might answer some of my questions I had before reading the article. Post- I looked at what I had underlined and saw if there was anything that answered my questions and if there were any new questions I had that I wanted answered after I finished. I also organized my thoughts and looked to see if there was anything that I knew before I read the article. | I really liked seeing that initial ideas about experiments might not be the best way to go. We see using glass thermometers not working too well, then the teacher fixed the idea and even made it more interesting for the kids by making them computerized. Using technology in this activity really seemed to be a good idea and really got the kids involved and interested. I have found that involving different aspects to your teaching is always useful, and in this case it seemed to get the students into it. Also, when the students were performing their experiments the next day and things were not going the way they were supposed to it is always good for a teacher to question what happened and how it can be fixed. I feel that being able to question what you have taught, especially when it does not go as planned, is very important. If you do not change the way you explain things or do things, the kids will not learn anything, or as much as they could if they fully understood what they were supposed to do. XXXXXXXX What I learned- Well, I did think this article was a little confusing. I didn’t know some of the words and didn’t know how this language related to heat because it was confusing. I did learn though that it requires energy to change a material from a liquid to a gas. I already sort of knew that but it was good to see confirmed in this article. I also learned that the heat that’s required to change a solid to a liquid is called the “heat of fusion”, and that the heat required to change a liquid to a vapor is called “the heat of vaporization”. One more thing I learned that was something I was interested in before reading this piece was latent heats refers to the heats of fusion and vaporization.This was an interesting article and I did feel I learned a bit, even though I was still a bit confused in the end. I feel though we might be talking about these things in class so I am more than ready to get to a firm understanding. |
| Student 8 | In the Robertson article, I first read the title and the bold headings to get a general sense of the piece. During reading, I used the first lines of each paragraph to give be a sense of what it was about and read through completely the first time, but skipped down for review as I re-read it. Post reading I summarize the key points in my mind and generally form some kind of opinion of the piece. XXXXXXXX For the Giancoli article, I looked at the graph first, looked at the axes and description and interpreted what I understood by it. I saw “latent heat” and the bold words “heat of fusion” and “heat of vaporization”. I then tried to remember what I knew about these terms before reading the passage. As I was reading and I came to the rate of heating I had to stop and interpret what was meant by the units and refer to the graph to understand it. I was puzzling over why they had the degree symbol before the C (for Celsius) is it said “Celsius degrees per kilocalorie”? I was referring to the graph as the paragraph explained what it meant to clarify my understanding. I then went through the graph to summarize the key changes in my head. | I thought that it was interesting that the teacher did not have a much definite plan for the lesson other than modeling the use of the temperature probes and setting the children lose with some general ideas. I think that the exploration portion is very valuable and I liked that she was able to do this. I found that whenever I tried to do this kind of lesson in my student teaching I was slammed for not giving precise directions and students being off-task. I’m hoping that having my own class will give more opportunities to do this, but it seemed that everything that I taught had to have some kind of assessable objective at the end. XXXXXXXX I thought it was interesting that the heats of vaporization and fusion were also the amount of heat released by a substance changing state. This means that the heat is given to the substance and then lost in the change of state. It makes sense, but I had never really thought about it beyond adding energy that is used up, not where the energy is released afterwards. |
