Peer Observation

Observing Nicole McKamey – Kapa‘a High School

Being from Kaua‘i, this was actually my first time visiting Kapa‘a High School and I really enjoyed the atmosphere. When I was about to graduate from receiving my Bachelors in Education, Kapa‘a High School’s principal called me to offer an interview but had to deny because I already got hired from Waipahu High School. It was very interesting to visit the school and how different it is from Waipahu. First, the school is walking distance to the ocean and my cousins also attend the school and it was amazing to see one of them during lunch! When I first got to the school, I noticed that the bell was actually a song and I thought that it was a very great way to transition to different class periods.

The classes that I was able to observe Nicole in was her two physical science classes, which is the freshman science class. To start out the lesson, Nicole asked the students probing questions in order to introduce Forces. She used a PowerPoint to talk about forces and had the students draw a boat and label the forces onto their notes. This allowed the students to pay attention to the first part of the PowerPoint, but it did get difficult to read. When this happened, she started to write on the board which allowed the students to follow her with the notes and take them easier.

After the PowerPoint presentation, the students worked on their VoiceThread for their Engineering Boat part of the project. There were enough laptops for the students to each have their own, which is such a great resource. She walked around the students to individually help them with the use of their technology. The students also needed to use Google Maps in order to pin the points where their ancestors were from. The purpose of research their ancestors was to find and research boats that their ancestors could have used in the past.

The entire lesson had Nicole teaching the first part and then facilitating the students in the second half of the class period so that the students are able to work on their projects. I could tell that the lesson was based off of physical science standards by going over the different types of forces involved with the motion of a boat and allowing the students to individually work on their projects allows them to provide space for their ideas and opinions. I do feel that their ideas and opinions could have been brought up more when she was talking about forces, but still love that they needed to drop the boat.

I really liked her students’ use of technology and the ancestral part of the lesson, very awesome. I could also see her lesson taken to a new level by adding GIS programs in order to pin where their ancestors are from. In order to check for assessment, Nicole would ask the students to show whether they understood by the show of their thumbs. All students participated in showing their thumbs, however, she didn’t really address their responses too much. She also asked the students questions in order to check for assessment, but sometimes the same students would respond. After her lesson, we debriefed on what she did well and the things that she could improve on. The lesson was great, it’s just that the students did have a hard time paying attention to her and a lot of them were off task. I helped her and walked around and that was better, so I gave her advice on how to help with the classroom management.


Observed by Nicole McKamey at Waipahu High School

Nicole came to see me for the entire day and was able to observe my introduction to engineering, integrated science, and physics classes. Panda also came to observe with Nicole, which I and the students seemed to enjoy because they don’t get too many visitors. The lesson that they were able to see that related to my Plan B was the prototype testing for their wa‘a. At the beginning of the lesson, I introduced the students to the anemometers and we got to talking about measuring speed and acceleration. Then the students got their wa‘a ready and then we went outside to test and get used to the anemometers. We then went inside to test the students’ single and double-hulled wa‘a and during the process, the students gave verbal suggestions to improve each other’s wa‘a. To wrap up the lesson, they did a written reflection on what they learned and worked with their groups to redesign their wa‘a as needed.

Nicole and I reflected on the strengths of the lesson and we both liked that I took the students outside to experience technology. While we were outside, I also talked about how the wind direction changed and asked the students questions about which direction does the wind usually come from and how they could tell if it’s kona winds or trade winds. One student actually mentioned that it’s kona winds when the room stinks because of the dumpster south of my room and the wind blows the stink smell inside. This was such a great observation that the student made and I was very impressed with him. She also liked that I had the students tell each other how to improve their wa‘a, I never gave them one answer, I just waited until the students responded. Nicole would even be tempted to answer my questions for the students but she knew to not.



When I was talking with the students about the difference between velocity and acceleration, it did take them a while to catch on. I showed the students the units and the mathematical equations involved, however, it was suggested that instead I could visually show the students the actual difference with the timing between the two concepts. I also realized that since a few of the freshmen were excited that they had visitors, they were a lot more energetic and I needed the students to refocus their energy to project a lot. However, I think that overall it went well and I do wish that the advisors were able to see it but that’s okay J You can read about it in Nicole’s observation.

My Plan B... How's it going?!

To get a really good idea of what my Research/Plan B is looking like so far, I think it would be best if you take a look at my Spotlight Presentations:
First Spotlight = http://prezi.com/0msi7v6j8zyk/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy
Second Spotlight = http://prezi.com/doeznmfzbvq_/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

As of today, I am very proud to say that I am finished with the unit. I am proud and happy to say that because now I can really focus on my data and writing up my entire research. The products that came out from my unit are awesome. My students have really made me happy with their final assessment/project that they submitted to me. For their final project/assessment, they needed to turn in their STEM Notebooks. For their notebooks, they needed a Team Biography/Autobiography, Individual Weekly Reflections, and an explanation of how their project related to STEM. The great thing about it is that I allowed the students to choose how they wanted to turn it in. They had a choice between Google Docs, Google Slides, a Picture Book, a Video, and a Website. Many of the students actually did a combination of these options. 

Actually, here's a website example (because the website one is the easiest for me to share) for my Freshman: incj.weebly.com
and Upperclassmen: physicswaaproject.tumblr.com

I honestly think that the students summarize the unit really well through this, so that's majority of my research! Enjoy my students tell you about it =)

My Plan B Research Question

The process of developing my Research Question has been an experience where so many whirlwinds of voices and ideas are going through my mind. When initially starting to develop my research question last semester, I had no idea what it was, what was it's purpose, why we had to make a research question, etc. but I just found out and realized last week of it's purpose. Actually, I also realized the purpose of a Master's and the purpose of a Plan B, crazy huh? I want to share this light bulb "aha" moment experience because I feel that I needed this realization in order to pursue and create a meaningful Plan B and research question. I am the first from my immediate family to receive a Bachelor's Degree and first of my entire family that all my living relatives are aware of to purse a Master's Degree. Therefore, I had no advise and no prior knowledge to what is expected from receiving a Master's Degree. Talking to Tara about it this past week and doing some extra research and reading (nobody really likes doing that but it helped!), I have come to find that getting my Master's is giving me the push that I need to find out what I have been wondering about education, about my curriculum, about my passion for STEM, and about our students.

From figuring out that our Plan B is research on our great wonders of education, I have decided that I really want to influence my students' careers and future opportunities. I want to teach my students skills that will allow them to do well in anything that they want to aspire to. Therefore, I am tweaking my original Plan B Research Question. Originally, my question was, "What are the differences and similarities of the student engagement between my upperclassmen and underclassmen in a STEMSS unit?" I wanted this to be my research question because I wanted to see when I could use this STEMSS unit, however, I am already seeing the answer to this question and don't see it as something that is as worthwhile as I intended. I'm not entirely changing idea of studying both my upperclassmen and underclassmen, but I am going to focus specifically on the skills that I would like to see my students gain within my classroom. I would like to study their ability to work within a group and make difficult decisions from my STEMSS unit, just like they would need to in the future when they need to work with others to make things work. Therefore, as of right now, my research question has transformed to, "Does my STEMSS Unit allow my students (both upperclassmen and underclassmen) to increase their communication, cooperation, and problem solving skills desired for future STEM classes and/or careers?" 

The reason for changing my research question is because I have honestly already figured out how to get my students engaged. I see no point in asking a question that could has been already answered and studied. What I really want to know is if my STEMSS Unit is worthwhile and even meeting standards that the DOE would like for the students to achieve. I would also like to share my STEMSS unit with other teachers and I feel that these are skills that could be applied to every classroom at every age. The only struggle that I have for changing my research question is that I am about halfway into my unit and I didn't do a written pre-assessment on the students' communication, cooperation, and problem solving skills. Nevertheless, I have known the students for a while now and can do reflections on their skills. I can also have the students reflect on how they felt where their skills were at the beginning of the unit till now. So I don't think it's too late, but just a little stressful. Hopefully I don't change my research question again! Thanks for reading :)

My Research Project Design

As being the first from my immediate family to get a Bachelor's Degree and the first from my entire family to be striving for my Master's Degree, I had no idea what a Plan B Project Design entailed. These initial readings and meeting with my adviser, Tara, has made things a lot clearer to me and I am excited to get started, but still have a lot to think about.

First, some background of my Plan B Project so far is that using my STEMSS Unit, I will be measuring the engagement of both my Upperclassmen and Underclassmen (specifically Freshman) students. My Upperclassmen are my Physics students and my Freshman are my Integrated Science students. The type of engagement is the part that I am struggling with the most but am deciding between measuring the students' engagement through the amount of participation in the class, the quality of work that the students are doing, and/or even the interest in a possible STEM Career. One of the outcomes that I would receive from my research question is to determine if I should be teaching a STEMSS Unit early or later on in my students' high school days and the other outcome is to allow the students to see STEM in a more desirable light by relating it to culture and the world around them.

The type of research that I am doing, according to Creswell, would be Qualitative Research because my data will be coming from my students as they are participating within my classroom. I will be having my students reflect on certain aspects of the unit as well as how they feel are benefiting from the concepts learned. So far I have had my students do a reflection on one of their learning journeys and from what I collected, I found that the learning journey was very beneficial but I still was not able to determine if learning journeys could be more beneficial towards the upperclassmen or underclassmen.

The type of Philosophical Worldview, I feel that I may be leaning to more of a Social Constructivist Worldview because I am relying a lot of my data on my participants and how they feel about my unit and how it is affecting their levels of engagement. I do feel that I need to continue researching on this type of Worldview so that it will help to drive my research better.

For my Qualitative Strategies of Inquiry, I plan to use Ethnography and Case Studies. Ethnography allows me to observe the students in my classrooom setting, which is both inside of my physical classroom and outside on our learning journeys. Case studies will be more specific towards my research than ethnography though because I create the activities that the students experience and I collect data based off of their experiences.