Ideas for Implementation

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Hint: If you had a problem and solved it yourself, you can post both!

1. Graphing & Adding Decimals are a nightmare!

This is what I did to help with the graphing.  It's a management challenge, but it really helped.

I had them do the second graph at home, for homework (levers experiment b) and then when I circulated at the start of the period, I eye-balled their graphs and put them instantly into one of four groups:

1. didn't get appropriate data - this was only four kids who needed extra attention for reading the spring scale correctly and who had trouble following directions

2. didn't add decimals correctly

3. didn't graph correctly

4. did all of it correctly, began to write concluding statements

I re-arranged their seats so they were clustered by group, and appointed two students from group 4 to be peer tutors and help with the decimals and graphing.  Then I ran around from group-to-group conferencing on the particular skills.  The real test will be the next graphing task they have to do, but both the kids and I felt that they got a LOT done during that period and that everyone's needs were met. 

2. Sticky residue on desks from all the duct tape.

Paul suggests using paint remover to get it off.

3. Language/Vocabulary too difficult for students.

Well, as a starting point, I added the words "unit" and "instrument" to our word wall & index after I found that my students thought the spring scale was the unit used to measure force. 

4. An idea for teaching the force/distance trade-off and class-2 levers.

Have the students cluster around your classroom door (you can divide the class into groups and give half of them something else to do, like reading the Science Story on Class-2 Levers, while you do the demo with one small group at a time).  Choose one of your smaller students.  Have him or her put her palm flat against the door just above the doorknob and push.  Then have him or her move her hand a foot or so closer to the hinges, and push.  Continue until he or she is pushing quite close to the hinges - many students will not be able to open the door at all in this position!  Discuss the location of the fulcrum, load, and effort, and how it affected the force.  Repeat - perhaps with another student - and this time ask your students to look at how far the student has to push in each of the different locations.  They should be able to see quite easily that it is much farther when you push at the doorknob than when you push close to the hinges... but you can use much less force.  Send this group back to their seats and ask them to describe what they did and what they learned about force and distance, and call up the next group.

5. Increasing content-area literacy through non-fiction reading strategies.

Here's one idea that my school's literacy coach gave me: READ, RETELL, RE-READ or READ-ON. The students read in pairs.  First, they READ 1 paragraph or chunk of text silently.  Then one student FLIPS OVER THE BOOK (no peeking!) and RETELLS what they learned to the other student.  The other student decides if they understood the text and can READ-ON or need to go back and RE-READ.  For the following paragraph, they switch roles.  You have to model this strategy for them and probably make a chart listing the steps for them to refer to.