Life in the Science Classroom

The "Ways to Earn Beads," extrinsic
motivation that really worked!

On Friday (1/19/2018) I had the opportunity to head over to Manheim Central Middle School and shadow Mrs. Weneck who teaches life science to eighth grade students. In my visit I made some cool observations.

1) I was very surprised that the eighth graders only had their science class for about 25 days. I had originally thought that they would have a science class for much longer!

2) In middle school a large goal is to prepare the students for high school. This includes intense practices that force them to develop organizational skills and turn in their work on time.

3) Extrinsic motivation is key! In Mrs. Weneck's classroom the theme was "ninjas!" The back wall was decorated with posters that explained characteristics that ninjas possess and students should strive to obtain. I appreciated the system that was set up where each kid had a small bottle with a face on it and they received a bead for their good acts. I have added the photos of the system! Once their "ninja" would get 15 beads, they would go up a belt level. The kids really like this system and it works!

Each student had a bottle and an assigned number. Their ninja
could change belt colors as they earned more beads. 

4) I loved the size of Mrs. Weneck's classroom! There was so much room for activities and for the kids to move around. This allowed for more interaction and attentiveness.

5) In summary, teaching the same class for every block or period of the day would make preparation much easier than prepping for 3 or more different classes. Science and agriculture are closely related and knowing that the kids learned a basic foundation of a few things that I will be teaching in class was good to know!

Core class teaching is similar but different than teaching ag classes! It was great to see a different age group of students and a bit of a different content approach than what I have learned so far.