Science Self Evaluations

I was grading papers this weekend and had the pleasure of reading the kids' self evaluations for science. We are almost half way done with our Land and Water unit using stream tables (STC Land and Water) and at this point their workbooks have them fill out two pages about how they are doing - how they are working with their group members, how they are performing on their own, what they are doing well and what they can improve on. They had some great things to say, and I feel really proud of them.

Here are some particularly cute excerpts in response to the question, "How well do you think you and your partners are working together?"

"Good and bad because one time I worked with girls and it turned out nice but when i work with ____ it is terrible! When I was working today I was overjoyed." - Dem

"Well I think we work great together a lot of team work is involved." - Nol

"I think we are working good together because I am understanding what is happening." - Tia

"When I was in my group I learned a lot more!" - Eth (YAYYYY!!!! I was so excited to read this... Eth did work really well in his group during this and I'm glad he is able to recognize it as well.)

"Horrible!!!!" - Har (Yes, that's 4 exclamation points - I wrote him a note to come talk to me about this and I hope he does.)

"I think that my partners and I work together well because we share everyones ideas and we write them down and everyone gets to talk." - Moh (Double Yay for taking notes on each other's ideas!!)

Everyone answered some variation of "I did really well on my observations and my record sheets" - for the most part, they are right, I think they have been doing really well, and their observations are definitely improving.

It seems that they write more, say more, think more, and are more excited during science than during any other time of day. They love the "hands-on" (or, as NLB would say, "materials-based") aspect of what we are doing, but I am not always sure that they are really getting all the points we are trying to make about how stream tables represent real life watersheds in our world. I know they are having fun and enjoying the activities and working well together - they make beautiful drawings of the stream tables and are able to label and describe what they see.

I guess I'm just concerned that they're not fully aware of the big picture. This is the first time that Mrs. C is teaching Land and Water using stream tables like this - and we're both kind of figuring it out as we go. I would really like to teach it again next year, I hope that I will get to do it with my class. now that I am familiar with the unit I think I would be much better prepared and would be able to make it more fluid and cohesive.