Joyner,+Christi+Michele

Cool Tools Review and Reflection

The most useful cool tools session for me was the Cool Tools Carousel. I enjoyed seeing all of the different example of cool tools, and I think the way in which these were presented was good in that the presentation categorized the tools. The session led by Laura Fogle showing ways to creatively synthesize, publish and share was quite informative as there were many tools presented that I had heard of but was not as familiar with. The Prezi and Glogster tools were two of the presentation tools that I think that I will implement in my own classroom. In addition to the Carousel section, I also attended the Cool Tools and Hot Topics session titled "Problem Based Learning" led by Gail Holmes. I really enjoyed this section as I truly believe that this is a method of learning that inspires students to achieve success based on their own internal motivation. The instruction in writing a compelling question in this session was quite useful. In the session I learned that the question should be one that the students could relate to in a personal way, and I think that this would be very important in ensuring that the students' take ownership of their own learning. Upon leaving this session, I felt inspired to change some of my current lessons to problem pased learning ones. The next cool tools session that I attended was the science session led by Bethany Smith. This session featured a simulation and the main prupose was to use the simulation to show experimental design. This session gave me many ideas to use in my own classroom. The particular simulation that we used was Physics based, and this is not my area of expertise, but the overall idea I thought was excellent. Instead of merely having the students complete the simulation, this session showed how a simulation could eb used to show experimental design. This could be used with many different simulations, and I think that this would be very effective in teaching experimental design. In this session, we developed an experiement using a particular variable. The next step was for another group to review our experimental design and suggest changes. The final step was for another group to actually perform the experiment and collect data and then analyze the data. I think that this would be a very effective way to teach experimental design as the students would see many different designs and could collaborate to develop different experiments. As I thought about all of these sessions, I wanted to develop a lesson for my students that could be imlemented at the beginning of the school year. My contextualized lesson will be one involving experimental design as this is one of the first topics discussed in my AP Environmental Science class. The lesson plan is as follows:


 * PBI Compelling Question**: How can experimental design be used to test environmental effects in a real world application?
 * Prior lessons**: Prior to this lesson students have been given some instruction on experimental design.

Students will view the following video on Fish Farming. media type="custom" key="20345450"
 * Activating Activity**:
 * Students will be given the following scenario**:

You have been hired by a company interested in starting a Fish Farming operation. The company would like to have the best environmental conditions in which to raise the fish so that they can be profitable. They have hired you to provide them with the best environmental conditions.

Students wil be divided in to groups to design experiments to test different environmental conditions. The following environmental conditions will be used: temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, amount of food available, and space available. Each group will be given the following assignment.

Your group will design an experiment to test the effect of ___ on fish growth. Please design your experiment and include all of the following: hypothesis independent variable dependent variable control A step by step experiment to test your hypothesis the method that you will use to collect and record data the method that you will use to analyze and report your data


 * From the Cool Tools Sessions:**
 * The students will use a Google Document to collaborate and synthesize as they are completing their experimental design. Once they have all of the necessary information, each group will publish and share their experiment using Prezi or Glogster.**