8/15/11
A big "thank you" to everyone who has signed up to help out in the Science Lab this year! If you have done this last year, you know that the students can tend to get a little excited in here. "A little" is a good thing, but the key is to keep them focused, and that is so much easier to do when I have a second set of hands, so your participation is invaluable to me.
This year the class periods are longer: 45 minutes instead of 40. Time between classes has compressed from 10 minutes to 5. Five minutes between classes, especially when they are different grade levels doing vastly different activities, is not a lot of time. It will be very important to spend the last 5 minutes of each class period having the students help to clean up the area, put materials away, etc. The tables should be spotless and ready for the next class when their teacher arrives to pick them up. In most cases, the next set-up will be staged and ready for the Lab Assistants in the next class, but for more complicated set-ups I may need your help for a few minutes after the students leave.
During class time, I usually begin by reviewing what they learned the previous week and creating a bridge from that lesson to this one. They love to participate in this as long as we keep it to 5 minutes or less! I then introduce the lesson of the day, and begin passing out materials. Each class should have 2 assigned "lab assistants" to help, so your job will be to help the lab assistants get to the supplies and get them distributed.
Once the directions are given and the students begin work, your help is needed to walk the room, helping those who need it, clarifying instructions, keeping voices to a low volume, etc. Because most of what we do is team-oriented, the students must be able to talk, but they have to work cooperatively and as quietly as possible.
Periodically throughout the lesson I will be asking the students to "Give Me 5" while we assess how the activity is going, add some insight, get feedback from the students, etc. They are expected to get quiet the FIRST time I ask them to; doing so earns them a "tally." At the end of class, tallies are added up and communicated to the classroom teacher, who can use that info in conjunction with his/her own discipline system in the classroom. Additionally, small squares of paper are handed out to students who are working cooperatively and participating well. They write their names on the squares, and hand them in at the end of class; I then draw 2 names at random, and those 2 students are next week's Lab Assistants. The more slips of paper they earn, the greater their chance to win.
Please have fun in here, get involved with what the kids are doing, ask them open-ended questions to get them thinking, etc. And always, if you have feedback for me regarding your thoughts on the lesson, I'd love to have your input. I hope you enjoy this as much as I do!
Thanks again,
Karen Jarvis