Today started off great because it was the first day that I didn’t arrive at 7 am, so I was able to sleep in!. We met in groups with teachers from our subject areas, and talked about our lesson plans. It was great and reminded me of grad school; we used a rubric and thoroughly reviewed other’s plans.
We were asked to think about 3 questions:
How has this experience changed your perspective of research?
How has it impacted your idea of your own competence in research?
How do you envision changes in your own classroom as a result of this experience?
From my experience of research during my undergraduate days, I wasn’t a huge fan. It seemed like research wasn’t very relevant, and that you would have to spend years doing others research before you can get to something meaningful. The Boston University Photonics RET has changed my perspective and made me feel research can be fun and you can do your own research. I feel like I am at a level of research that I wouldn’t have achieved without completing this program.
My classroom is also a changed place because of this experience. I envision having a classroom in which students do more individual research as opposed to already created laboratories. I will also be using the Lesson Plans that we developed this summer to get more of a physics approach into my intro Biology class.
Otherwise, we worked on our powerpoint presentations, which we will be presenting on Wednesday morning, and our posters, which will be presented from 3-5pm on Thursday.
Lunch was provided and we had the opportunity to talk with the REU’s; Undergraduates who were completing summer research experiences. They were completely awesome at being able to talk about what they wish they had learned about Science in high school. I will take back their lessons (scribbled on pages in my notebook) and apply them to my classroom.
Fjodor and I completed a rough outline of our powerpoint, with the plan to finish it up Monday. I can’t believe I only have 5 more days left in this program!
Oh yeah…and Stephanie made this. While I’m not a Physics teacher, everything else is accurate
