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WEEK 16: STUDY STRATEGIES and MORETEST TUESDAY: STUDY STRATEGIES
In an effort to ensure that their minds were not crowded with weekend cobwebs on a Monday test day, students requested shifting our Unit 2: Matter and Change exam, to Tuesday, December 15. Unit 2 is by far our largest unit of study. It encompasses two full chapters of our textbook: Chapter 2, which deals with classifying matter, and Chapter 3, which deals with states of matter. It also includes many, many vocabulary terms: #19 through #54, to be exact! As I have emphasized to the students, it is really important that they understand - NOT memorize! - the relationships between and applications of vocabulary terms, the factors that affect gas pressure, the differences between endothermic and exothermic processes, the characteristics used to classify matter and changes, and more. The learning process is different for everyone. I have tried to provide the students with many different ways of seeing, demonstrating, explaining, connecting, and processing what we are learning. Some prefer drawing to create graphic organizers, some like my study guide packets, some need the animations available on Schoology to "see" molecules that are invisible to the naked eye. Students have had time during class to work together and with me to review for this test, and I have suggested the following review strategies: As always, vocabulary review strategies ranging from the low-tech flashcards to the high-tech Quizlet app can be extremely beneficial, and every student has a growing glossary of terms for this course. Hopefully one of these strategies works for your child in Foundations of Science and can transfer to other classes as well. MONDAY IS ADOPTION DAY! Monday's class period will be devoted to pretesting for Unit 3, which is all about Atomic Theory and Atomic Structure. More excitingly, I will be assigning students their elements for our study of atomic structure and, in Unit 4, the Periodic Table! Each of my 91 Foundations of Science students will "adopt" a different element from the Periodic Table to study and represent for the next month or more. This will give each of them a landmark on the Periodic Table, which will serve as a great frame of reference as we study properties, atomic structure, families of elements, chemical bonding, chemical reactions, and more. This will also allow us to represent almost all of the known elements as we build - both literally and figuratively - the Periodic Table in class. More details about our element adoption process and our upcoming projects to come! GOOD NEWS: WE'RE FAMOUS! The article about our virtual field trip to Aquarius made a recent issue of The Ephrata Review and is posted online. I just wanted to share the link for those of you who were interested in reading some positive news in the paper: http://www.ephratareview.com/news/below-sea-grades-fine-for-these-ehs-students/. Have a wonderful weekend, and thanks for sharing your child with me! |