Curriculum Materials Analysis

Name: Priscila Fojan Unit Topic: Light and Sound Energy

Scientific Explanation: - Sound energy travels as waves through a medium. - The lenses in our eyes bend light so we are able to see objects. Name of curriculum materials you are using: - Title: Destinations in Science Teachers Edition - Authors: David C. Brummett, Karen K. Lind, Charles R. Barman, Michael A. DiSpezio, Karen L. Ostlund - Publisher: Addison-Wesley

Instructional Model Establish a Problem Question

Criteria for Analysis Is there a relevant, interesting, motivating, understandable problem/question that addresses the learning goal? Give examples

Analysis: Support/justify your answers for each stage with examples and explain how you will modify or supplement this resource for your unit.: What things can you name that make sounds? What do you think all the sounds you have heard have in common? How do sounds differ? How would you describe light? What sources of light can you think of? These are questions at the beginning of the first chapter to find out what students already know about the chapter content. The questions are quite broad and dont include any vocabulary such as vibration, pitch, reflection, refraction. I believe including the vocabulary wouldnt be the best idea for most students, but I would address it to see if any of the students are familiar with it. I feel that these questions wont bring much conversation or motivate the students to think much about the causes of sound. Since the questions are so broad they dont seem to be able to truly relate to the students. I believe my students would be more engaged if the sound/light was focused on something specific and interesting.

Elicit Student Ideas

Does the material elicit student ideas and help the teacher understand student ideas about the learning goal? Explain how.

Misconception: caution students against thinking of sound energy as a form of matter. Stress that sounds are vibrations that travel through and shake existing matter. For example, when we speak, the vibrations move through air from us to the listener. The air particles shake, but they stay in place. The book has possible misconceptions students might have in the box at the side of the page. The chapter starts with the few prior knowledge questions and a page introducing sound energy, but it instructs us to go right into an inquiry lab about making sound without truly getting a good understanding what my students know. There is a concept map that helps break down the concepts revolving around sound. It includes all the vocabulary before we even go over it with the class. I think it is too early to mix students ideas about sound with specific vocabulary

Explore Phenomen a for Patterns

Do the students explore (have experiences with) a variety phenomena? Do the students collect data, record observations, look for patterns related to the learning goal?

Explore Activity - Purpose: To observe how different sounds can be made. - Process Skills: Inferring, making models - Group Size: 3-4 students The students will be taking part in a hands-on activity in which they will be making instruments that make guitarlike sounds using tissue boxes and rubber bands. The students will be collecting data in relation to their own instrument and will be comparing their data with those of other groups instruments. Possible observations would be that the students felt vibrations when they plucked the strings and that vibrations produce sound. Possible patterns would be that the harder you pluck (greater the force), the

Explore & Investigate

louder the sound and that the sound became higher as the strings got tighter. Explore Activity - Purpose: To shine a light through a course made with index cards and a mirror to observe that light travels in straight lines. - Process Skills: Observing, predicting - Group Size: 2-3 students The students will be taking part in a hands-on activity in which they will be using four index cards, a pocket mirror, and flashlight to test their prediction of the path of light. Possible patterns would be that the path of the light is always straight and that the light reflects off a mirror.

Explore Student Ideas about Patterns

Do the students explore, justify & share their ideas? Explain how. Does the material build on student ideas, challenge student ideas when necessary, and give students opportunities to revise their ideas based on evidence?

What Students Need to Know - Vibrations are back-and-forth motions that cause sound. - We hear because sound vibrations reach our eardrum, and our eardrums send a message to our brain. - Sound varies in pitch and loudness. What Students Need to Know - The eyes cornea and lens focus light and enable us to see. - Light is a form of energy. The curriculum material doesnt include much time for students to share their ideas outside of the group activities. Within the group activities the students are asked to share and discuss their findings with their fellow classmates in their group and other groups. In regards to the text, after exploring a new idea the teacher is to give the scientific reasoning for such idea. In-Text Questions -In your family, whose voice has the lowest pitch? Whose voice has the highest pitch? Compare and contrast the frequencies of low and high voices. The material does take into account the students funds of knowledge and experiences in order to connect to the material about sound but not light. I would try to find real life examples of the main ideas in the light portion of this unit to discuss with the students.

Students Explain Patterns

Does the material provide opportunities for my students to explain the patterns they find?

As I stated in Explore Phenomena for Patterns above the students take part in several activities in which they look for patterns in their data and discuss with their classmates. I would like to make it into a whole class discussion as well so all the students can hear one anothers explanations.

Explain

Introduce Scientific Ideas

Does the material present scientific ideas related to the learning goal? Are the ideas represented effectively? Does the material introduce new terms in the context where they are useful?

The curriculum material actually does a wonderful job at making sure the learning goals are properly discussed. It chapters are straight forward and not full of random facts that dont pertain to the learning goals. The teachers manual also includes teaching options at the bottom of each page for extra activities or information pertaining to the learning goals. Teaching Options -Making a Graph: have students measure the distance (in meters) over which they can hear various sounds with and without the sound focuser. Have students make a bar graph showing their measurements. Teaching Options -Demonstration: place one sheet of black and one sheet of white construction paper in the direct sun or under a bright lamp. After three or four minutes, have one student put one hand on the white paper and the other hand on the black paper. Which paper is hotter? Why? There is not an opportunity to compare new science ideas to their previous ideas in the material. The assessments are very vague questions at the end of each chapter which go over a lot more than the learning goal material. The assessments are all multiple choice so you truly are not able to see your students thinking in order to help modify instruction. The assessments go over so much more than needed that it would confuse my students and they would get hung up on the questions that they didnt know that much about. I will be having the students write journals describing how they have changed their ideas after comparing what they used to think to what they think now. Then we can have a discussion after so students can share how their ideas have changed and why.

Compare Student Ideas

Does the material provide opportunities for the students to compare new science ideas to their own previous ideas and note similarities and differences? Does the material include effective assessments related to the learning goal throughout and give the teacher opportunity to modify instruction based on

assessments? Apply to Near and Distant Contexts with Support Does the material allow students to apply their new ideas to new situations related to the learning goal? No new situations present in material. I will provide students with challenging questions that include a situation in which they will have to use the new ideas they learned to answer the question. You have a plant that requires a lot of sunlight. There are three places where you could put the plant: in front of a window, in front of a frosted glass window, or in front of a wall. Where would you put the plant and why? The material is very teacher directed. I believe my high achieving students would be able to succeed but the rest of my class will struggle. There needs to more connections to real world situations that they experience. I will have to look for material and suggestions from internet sources or my CT to further set up this unit for my students to succeed. Apply Apply

Apply with Fading (Evaluate)

Is support for student performance provided and gradually reduced? Are my students set up to succeed?

Summary of Curriculum Analysis: Strengths of materials: When analyzing the Destinations in Science book I found a few strengths. The curriculum material does have many hands-on experiments that would allow students to explore the patterns. My students love to get their hands on science or any subject for that matter and so these will allow my students to become engaged and motivated to learn the content. The other strength of the textbook is that it does contain a lot of content over the topic, the key vocabulary words, and many diagrams that will help my students to visualize the concepts around light and sound energy. Weaknesses of materials: When analyzing the Destinations in Science book I found a few weaknesses. The curriculum material doesnt help students build a strong central question. The question at the beginning of the unit is very broad. The textbook does not give many interesting discussion questions. It has a lot of questions for the teacher to ask the class but there is only one right answer. I also noticed that there arent any authentic connections in the textbook. Students are rarely given an example or opportunity to relate the material to their everyday lives. My material does not allow my students to reflect or revise what they have learned. It only allows them to give their initial idea and then the teacher is supposed to just tell them the correct scientific answer. Last of all, the assessments for the unit go over the vocabulary and skim over the core concepts. They also do not allow students to apply the concept to their everyday lives. I

feel that this textbook is lacking almost all of the IAIM components and if I were to teach using only the components in the curriculum materials my students would not understand the learning goal of my unit. Other resources you will use to supplement materials and why: I will be using simulation videos on the internet so that my students will be able to view the movement of sound and light waves. I am also adding an activity in which students will be shining light from a flashlight into their eyes to observe how their pupils change in size. This was a suggestion from my CT. I also want to discuss why the deaf cannot hear and the blind cannot see. I want to show the students diagrams from the internet showing why those people cant see or hear. I believe that these resources will help my students connect to the content and allow them to make deeper conceptual connections.