DUNCAN MASTER’S PORTFOLIO 1

Science

Andrea Duncan

698 Master’s Portfolio: MAT Elementary

Fall 2023

University of Alaska Southeast

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Standard #4: Content Knowledge

The teacher understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the discipline(s)
he or she teaches and creates learning experiences that make these aspects of the discipline
accessible and meaningful for learners to assure mastery of content.

Standard #5 Application of Content

The teacher understands how to connect concepts and use differing perspectives to engage
learners in critical thinking, creativity, and collaborative problem solving related to authentic
local and global issues.

Science: Candidates demonstrate and apply understandings and integration of the three
dimensions of science and engineering: practices, cross cutting concepts (differentiation and
technology), and major disciplinary core ideas – within the selected content area(s) of science.

The sample artifact of practice I have chosen to demonstrate my understanding of the

science standard is my lesson on patterns in weather for the ED – 617 Science Methods course.

For this lesson I used the Alaska state standards for science on weather and climate, which

according to the Alaska Department of Education & Early Development (n.d.) states that

kindergarten students should be able to use and share observations of local weather conditions

to describe patterns over time. This science lesson on patterns in weather provided me with one

of the best learning experiences I had during the practicum courses. What began as a small two-

week project, steamrolled into a much bigger curriculum that has been integrated into the

Montessori classroom that I work in.

The lead teacher in my classroom already had the kindergarten students tracking the daily

weather in their writing journals by drawing a graphic to indicate what weather we were having

that day (i.e., rainy, snowy, cloudy, sunny, cloudy with sun). I decided to build my lesson around

that, but extended it out to help create an awareness for the students that they are able to track the

weather in a different way in order to find patterns and learn about our local weather. For the

lesson we took a two-week period in February to track the weather. I taught the kindergarteners

how to graph their work using graph paper and their weather graphics, used their writing journals
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and the weather website to find the weather for the two-week period, and then once complete

they answered the three questions I provided about the weather: what weather did we have the

most in February? What weather did we have the least? What did you find interesting about our

weather? Scroll down webpage to see Student Work Samples for both the graph and their written

responses.

Living in Juneau, Alaska means our students live in the largest temperate rain forest

where we see a lot of gray, rainy days. We have winter with lots of snowfall, but we still receive

more rainfall during the entire year. Our students have recess outside for about an hour each day

no matter the weather. Tracking the weather not only helps bring an awareness of the patterns we

can find in weather, but it also helps them know and understand what gear they need or should

wear to protect them from the elements. Each day the students ask, “what is the weather like?

What do I need to wear today?” To capitalize on this inquiry, I had my students observe the

weather and document what was happening outside so they could make more informed decisions

to help protect themselves while playing outside. Contant et al. (2018) noted that “in inquiry-

based instruction, students build conceptual understandings, investigation skills, and

understanding of the nature of science through inquiry procedures that mirror methods used by

scientists (p. 85). Their inquiry into the weather and how to prepare for recess led me in creating

this science lesson to help them better investigate, understand, and prepare for the weather.

My lesson not only focused on the students inquiry into science, but also into science and

the academic achievements of the students. Contant, et al. (2018) also noted that “among the

many variables that affect learning, students’ personal interest, experience, and enthusiasm have

been shown to impact academic achievement as well as future educational and career choices”

(p. 15). The lesson I created had students graph their data to determine what weather occurred
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the most in the two-week period, along with what happened the least. To help improve my

students’ academic achievements and provide an additional ability to apply what they know, I

taught the students how to make a column graph. Moline (2012) notes that graphs “are concerned

not only with comparing information, but also with ranking and measuring it” (p. 181). This

lesson made it so the students could see their data, measure the data, and then compare what they

graphed.

To support the inquiry-based instruction, while utilizing visible learning for academic

achievements, my instruction also focused on science and the three levels of learning (surface,

transfer, and deep). In the book Visible Learning for Science, Almarode et al. (2018) stated that

“surface learning is an essential and necessary component of the learning process” (p. 44). My

lesson focused on my students surface learning of graphing their work to find patterns. Almarode

et al. (2018) then went on to explain, “for learners to effectively engage in deeper learning then

transfer this learning to new and different contexts, they must have acquired, and consolidated

initial learning of the specific science content and process skills associated with a particular

topic” (p. 44). For my lesson, the science content was finding patterns in weather, so I had to

provide direct instruction on how to draw graphs and how we use the graph to document the

data. This was the first time my kindergarten students had ever made a graph in class, so it was

important that I help them process this new skill. The idea from this instruction was for students

to be able to transfer what they learned and be able to look at other graphs in order to read what

the graphs are saying.

Inquiry-based instruction converges well with the Montessori method because in

Montessori we are guided by the interests and inquiry of the child. Lillard (2017) notes that

“Montessori education is set up to create interest in topics and to capitalize on the interests
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children already have, thereby optimizing learning” (p. 176). The small group of kindergarten

students I worked with had already showed interest in the weather, so I used their interest to

optimize their learning and connect what they already knew (tracking weather) and linking it to

something new (graphing their data to find patterns). After this lesson, many of the students

wanted to graph other data, creating new graphs, finding different items to graph (i.e., favorite

animals, favorite color), and comparing their data. Graphing work is now an option that is on the

shelf for children to choose, once they have had a lesson on the work.

With all of the textbooks and content we learned in the science methods course, I had a

lot of fun thinking about how I wanted to integrate science lessons into my classroom. With

inquiry-based learning and visible learning, I was able to design three lessons that followed the

interest of the students, provided fun and engaging ways to learn the content, while also helping

focus on my students’ academic achievements. As I stated before, this lesson on patterns in

weather started out as a small lesson, but as I moved through the master’s program I was able to

take this lesson and build a large curriculum on weather and climate. I found in my lesson that

the graphing component of instruction needed to be its own mini lesson where they are only

instructed on how to draw the graph. A separate lesson would be to show the students how to

find the weather data and track it on the graph. The original science lesson took a lot longer than

it should have because of the need for direct, focused instruction on the new concepts. I took this

experience and later designed a larger curriculum for a separate course where I made each new

concept its own mini lesson and put it all together in the end.
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References

Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (n.d.). Science standards

https://education.alaska.gov/akstandards/science/science-standards-for-alaska.pdf

Almarode, J., Fisher, D., Frey, N., Hattie, J. (2018). Visible learning for science: What works

best to optimize student learning. Corwin A Sage Publication Ltd.

Contant, T.L., Bass, J., Tweed, A., & Carin, A.A., (2018). Teaching science through inquiry

based instruction (13th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.

Lillard, A. S. (2017). Montessori: The science behind the genius. (3rd ed.) Oxford University

Press.

Moline, S. (2016). I see what you mean (2nd. Ed.). Stenhouse Publishers.