Reflection on Photosynthesis

Photosynthesis is a process where plants use light from the sun, water from the roots, and carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into energy to allow them to live. It's probably the most important process that happens inside plants, because without it, plants would die rapidly.

When you look at photosynthesis in more detail, it's an example of something called a chemical reaction.

Chemical equation for photosynthesis:

The equation says that carbon dioxide is combined with water, which with the addition of light energy, produces glucose (energy the plant can use) and oxygen. The glucose is the important part for plants, because that's what they use to live - to grow, repair, reproduce etc. - but humans gain multiple benefits from plants also. Let's talk about some of those 

Probably the most obvious benefit that photosynthesis has for animals, like humans, is that photosynthesis is the reason that we have plants that we can eat. Without photosynthesis all plants would die, and that includes the fruits, vegetables, and leaves that form part (or in some cases all) of the diet of animals.

But let's say you hate eating vegetables. Maybe you're practically a carnivore - even you still have plants to thank for your existence. The energy that you eat when you eat meat originally came from plants: animals like chicken and cows eat plants, and that's how their meat gets energy in the first place. But even if you were to eat a predator - like a crocodile or lion (not that many people would) - that energy came from those predators eating animals that in turn eat plants. All the energy on Earth that allows animals to live originally came from the sun, and was absorbed by photosynthesizing plants.

Classroom Decision Making

As teachers, there is a main concern to think about in the classroom which is decision making due to its huge importance on the learning process. In fact, most teachers before were not aware of this important issue although, they were making decisions the same as teachers nowadays do. But, it was not obvious for them that these decisions is something to think deeply about them, plan for them and know their consequences to be able to make the best choice. They were only taking decisions because of authority they have and based on their view for what is right and what is wrong. However, nowadays this view should totally be cancelled. Decision making is something that should be based on many essential factors and based on professional planning, schools, curricula, programs and educational policy. Thus, official standards and schools policy should be clear enough for teachers, who in turn should be aware and skillful in making decisions that should be appropriate and give the best results for the learning process. 

School Counseling

Counselors are no longer Guidance counselors focused on graduation and course selection for students. They are professional school counselors who focus on the academic, personal, social and career development of all students. Counselors are nowadays are vital members of the school who are trained and continually educated. They always aim for collaboration with students who in elementary schools start to develop their self concept, self confidence and to develop as decision makers.
A main factors that affect this development are family and school because they are the main social groups that raise children, impose and disclose different thoughts and behaviors on them. That is why it is important to have school counseling that provide a program of education, prevention and intervention, academics, career and personal and social life to aid for future success. School counseling helps also in classroom guidance to support organizational studies, test taking skills, goal setting, decision taking, career awareness, exploration, planning, understanding self-another, peers relationships, and putting strategies in  way to help the student as a whole social, emotional, and academic person. 

Factors Affecting Planning

As teachers we have much to consider when planning lessons as well as instructions. Below are some of the initial areas that each teacher needs to think about where in general they are equally important. However, teachers can indicate the priorities between them based on their students' needs. That is why it is important for teachers, especially at the beginnings to write down their thoughts about each factor to help them focus on what is more important in their different situations.

Student consideration: students always should be the main focus for teachers because what teachers know about them individually and as a group can make huge difference in the plan. This range of knowledge can help teachers being able to motivate students, teach them what they need and what accommodations are needed for special students.

Time consideration: time is a main factor for planning where teachers will be able to know the time available for them to assign their explanations, activities, instructions. Thus teachers should know about the holidays, extracurricular activities and give his plan a little more time than needed in case of any interference occurred.

Content considerations: teachers should be aware of the ideas and concepts that are involved in his lesson, the main skills that he need to teach and the main prerequisite skills that students already know to build new knowledge on. It is important also to use the suitable methods for learning a specific content in the best way.

Teacher considerations: this factor is about the level of knowledge that teachers have regarding a certain topic and related materials. Also, what matters is to invest this knowledge for presenting the topics in terms that students will understand.
   

Reflection on Webinar

Traveling and Loco-Motor Skills for Preschoolers
In this session, Dr. Steve Sanders wanted to shed light on the great importance of loco-motor skills for the young children, as a source to gain learning instead of only moving muscles. skills of traveling for Dr Sanders are initial for all children to learn through it, and he insisted on investing these skills by parents and educational establishment to increase the rate of learning and enhance it. Dr Sanders explained the progress of traveling that normal young children pass through and also, explained  many of these moves like walking, running, jumping, hopping, leaping and classified them to even and uneven skills. Then, he talked about their influence when practiced truly on improving the motor abilities as well as on the language and learning abilities through increasing the visual field and the abilities of discovery in children. Through the session, Dr Sanders gave a big importance for chasing/fleeing/dodging games from the age of 4-5 years where as he thinks, they are very good to help the children gain motor abilities, increase their flexibility and teach them to stick certain simple rules as a beginning of learning. In addition to that, these games are related to other games that children will later learn like soccer, basketball, tennis and others where, children can learn the right way to move and run, how to change speeds and directions, watch moves and improve their attention. However, it is important to present these games in the right way where, they should be always practiced, given set boundaries, placed by variety of safe situations and demonstrated with needed cues that usually are short phrases, words or moves that should be repeated in order to be mastered. 

Reflection on my Teacher

From the early beginnings and all over the world, knowledge and wisdom were the goals for all civilizations and communities, that’s why people were very interested to have great teachers with great knowledge and abilities that can influence their students in a way to build their personality and their minds. But greatness in teaching has certain qualities that when well understood can give all teachers a standard of excellence to strive for and guide schools to retain the best teachers and reach these previous goals.

To that end, I offer the following observations about my biology teacher in high school. This teacher used to teach biology in my official high school in Bekaa Valey and he had many characteristics of the great teacher that we are going to discuss in this paper.

In the classroom, he was very polite and respectful, although he was an active teacher that walks fast into the classroom after knocking the door to alert us that he is entering and now is time to get ready for his course. Then he used to check us by asking about our health and how was our day in general, and he repeats the question for the students that are not listening well to him yet to get in touch. After that he checks our homework before going back to the board and explaining about our questions and make sure we understand well previous topics and get ready to move on to another. That was very good technique from him were we used to feel confident that we are going to understand the material, and that he cares for all of us and make us careful also for his course and information that he is going to offer. Also this had a nice impact on us where students who have caring relationships teachers are academically more successful and show greater pro-social behavior (Zakrezewski, 2012).

In addition to that, it is worth to tell that home works that we were supposed to do are not specifically mhaddadi. He never gave us certain number of problems to solve but, we were supposed to work on our topic by solving problems as much as we can, and of course students that solve more problems will gain more points. Also, we were supposed to solve some of these problems on board and explain them to our mates after he choose these certain problems to be solved by certain students. This deal gave us a great chance to challenge each other and try to gain our points by solving a greater number of problems, in addition to challenging ourselves and get ready every day to be able to handle the responsibility of standing on the board and explain these problems. This technique was very efficient in gaining knowledge, staying in focus, keeping the class in motion, and raising the challenge limits continuously to unleash the power of appropriately high expectations (Boynton & Boynton, 2005).

After finishing the problems solving, the teacher used to make a certain closure for the part that we were done with and encourage us about what we have done and what we are able now to work on. He always starts with a new topic by asking us some open-ended questions to test our knowledge and help us to have a certain configuration of the upcoming part of the material. When possible, he also used to show us some pictures and mojasam that help him to explain and put the objectives that we are going to reach at the end of the part and the skills we are going to learn. This was very helpful for us where we were able to know precisely and clearly what we are going to face with a complete feeling of secure and comfort and also it helped us to be aware if we wanted to prepare the lesson or do some searches about what limits we should not pass it (District Administration 2004).

Despite of all these great techniques that were used by the teacher, he had himself a huge repertoire in his domain. He was so confident of what he is teaching us and about the way he was teaching because of his ittilaa about the content of our book and the continuous upgrading of this content where he always used to tell us about these upgrades when found. Also, he was really able to answer any question that we used to ask because he invests much time in reading about biology and discuss it with others. This huge and continuously growing repertoire that he had was able to make students confident about their teacher and that he is making his best to be better and make them better also in this field, explore subject in a deeper manner, and get less frustrated (Mihai, 2016).  

It is good also to tell about the communication that this teacher made in the classroom where it was very effective for both the students and the teacher. We were able to discuss ideas with each other in class time and ask questions and having a great response from the teacher where he listen and appreciate these questions and try to involve all students in these discussions with a great pleasure and make it lead to points in the material of the course. This communication made learning easier for us, helped us a lot to achieve goals, increased our opportunities for expanding learning, strengthening the connection between students and with him, and created an overall positive experience (Ministry of Education, Guyana 2015).

This was my description for the best teacher who ever thought me, who did teaching not only as a job but because he loves teaching and is able to teach students to love learning, and reached the stage of being ideal from many student's point of view, hopping that all teachers reach this stage to get better in education.

Book Criticism

"Science Belongs to Me 5-Edition 2015"-Moukarzel's Collection for Science Books

From the early beginnings and all over the world, knowledge and wisdom were the goals for all civilizations and communities, that’s why people were very interested to have great teachers with great knowledge and abilities that can influence their students in a way to build their personality and their minds. But greatness in teaching has certain conditions that when well understood can give all teachers a standard of excellence to strive for and guide schools to retain the best teachers and reach these previous goals. One of these conditions are the books that are used in teaching the curriculum, which have a great influence on the way of representing knowledge and gaining it in the best ways by the students. To reach the best ways of learning, all schools try to select the best editions of books that can give the appropriate knowledge and understandings of topics and give them the opportunities to enhance their thinking in a well manner with respect to the school's objectives.

This paper will talk about a science book that is used to teach grade five of the second cycle used in the Lebanese International College which is a private school in Rashaya-Bekaa Valle.

"Science Belongs to Me 5-Edition 2015" is one of Moukarzel's collection for science books that aim to help learners to observing and understanding the direct environment and to address later all aspects science, especially biology, physics and geology by imposing the problem to the learner and helping him/her to ask about it.

To talk about the strength points of this book, one can be impressed about its topics that are interesting for students in the fifth grade. It is composed of five units: Plants and Environment, Man and Health, Animals and Environment, Matter and Energy in addition to Earth and Universe. These topics are well chosen for this class where they can be a perfect introduction for knowledge to split later into biology, physics and chemistry in the following years. They have sufficient amount of knowledge about every domain in science, which is a good thing to make the students ready for two additional courses in the near future.

There is also a "zoom on" space before every unit to show within it some figures that are related to the topics in order to get the students closer to the upcoming topics of the unit. These figures can be discussed by the students in the class with the teacher to approach the student's thinking and the level of knowledge or memory that they have to be a base for building the upcoming knowledge on it.

With respect to the design, one can be impressed about the way where information are shown. It is neat and arranged in a very well manner for the students to stop at each point of them, where the related ones are put in boxes with different colors and small drawings that are able to grab student's attention and can seriously affect the feelings, attention, and behavior of students when learning.

It is also a strength point regarding the pictures and drawings found in this book. Students can clearly see what they are supposed to, because of the suitable figures in the pages and the clarity of them whether they are drawings or photographs of simple things that can see around them in their homes or in the environment surrounding them to help the brain buzzes with extra neurological connections that are trying to establish patterns, cause and effect, and sequences with their verbal and visual nature, and offer those students a way to widen their minds.

One can also talk about the way of representing written information, where they are as points. This form of presenting information is much easier for students where they can recognize the main points that should know from each document easily and supports or develops the memorization of a single controlling idea.

Assessment in this book can be a strength point in the academic point of view, where the exercises are diverse and cover all the topics of the units in several ways whether by remembering, discussing and interpreting the information explained in the lessons of each unit. This can help teachers to recognize if the students know it, and how well can they use what they know.

With respect to the weaknesses of the book they are several also as for the strength points. One can say that the content of this book is large for the students to finish within the academic year. Although the topics of the units are interesting and seems to be present good topics for the second cycle of the group, the lessons within these units are plenty and diverse in a hard way for the students to complete as they should in three hours a week, unless they can complete it without proper understanding of the materials.

One can also criticize the hierarchy of the units. It is better if the unit titled Animals and Environment is directly after the Plants and Environment where they are related in their cycles. However, the unit titled Man and Health can be after them where it not tightly related to the environmental cycles of the nature.

For the lessons of the units, they are more than expected. Each unit have plenty of lessons which in turn expose plenty of various points in each with a brief explanations, where two figures in some designed to fulfill the whole ideas of the lesson. This means that the students are responsible to write certain extra explanations given by the teacher to complete their understanding of the topics. They are also supposed in this case to write notes, which is a skill that is not mastered yet at their age and abilities. Also, there is no space on the book to write these notes and explanations and gather all the information together with the documents which is preferred for some figures or experiments found in the activities.

In addition to that, the book has no conclusions at the end of the activities to be read by the students and help them to complete the schema building about the main ideas of the lessons. Some lessons contain at its end a small box "I remember" to shed the light on a small idea that is not enough to finish the lesson with. The conclusion is intended to help the students understand why their lesson should matter to them after they have finished it. A conclusion is not merely a summary of the main topics covered or a re-statement of your research problem, but a synthesis of key points and, if applicable, where you recommend new areas for future research

In contrast the ends of the units contain plenty of ideas as conclusions for its whole topic. Some can reach seventy six points for only eight lessons that the students should memorize at once when the unit is finished.

For the assessment part, lessons have no well assessment for the ideas that they contain and even some contain no assessment at all. Lessons with assessment have two sentences at the end with one blank space for each to be filled with one word only. This is obviously not enough in order to assess student's understanding and gives no turn for all students to be evaluated. Only few of the students are assessed this way.

Another point that could be mentioned as a weakness point is that some figures are photos of industrial products with certain logos and explanation about them, as they are in an advertisement for their companies. Children in the fifth grade cannot think like that in their age but, it is not a best way to transfer the idea for them when there are better photos to use or certain drawings for these products that shows no specific information about them.

It is also to mention that there are lots of hard vocabularies in this book. In general sciences have always new scientific terms to accomplish its teaching but, other terms that are in the explanations are clearly hard for the students to spell and write and therefore to get the meaning from to have complete understanding. However in the case of using hard terms students may ignore the location of these terms and even to ignore the content in some cases if the teacher did not transfer the meaning clearly  to them.

In general, this book cannot be considered a bad one for teaching students the curriculum of their grade level. However it can be considered as a hard book to teach with respect to others. The book needs hard work from both the teacher and the students to reach the academic objectives. As it was shown in the weakness points, the book alone is not sufficient through its content to teach the concepts. The teacher needs more given, more documents and more explanations to insure the understanding of his students. On the other hand, the students need to focus on the extra explanations that should be given by the teacher to accomplish the teaching process, which means that they should observe and the documents of the book and get the results through their critical thinking and analysis, not through spoon feeding or memorizing what is found in their books, because what is found in the book is not really enough to get the knowledge.

The closures of the units should be classified and engaged with the lessons as conclusions or reviews to each lesson alone. In addition to the points, the exercises for assessment should also be classified and putted at the end of the lessons to assess each topic alone.

Therefore the class should be always moved on and the students as teachers have lots to do. In fact, this could be a strength point for the class through using specific models in teaching rather than traditional lecturing. As stated before, this book aims to pose problems and help the students to ask about them and find their solutions in order to engage them in the learning process. But in order to do perfectly this task teacher should work hard to get extra materials to add it to the lessons, try to cover the ideas from different sides and help the students to widen their thinking skills. Thus, through teaching process teachers must have the appropriate repertoire for their major in addition to the appropriate social skills in order to make their class active and try to help students to gain knowledge as much as they can. These social skills would not have benefits for the academic propagation and the grading, rather it they are supposed to make students well liked and happy. Students then will enjoy school and look forward to coming to school. But, on the other side, if the child fails to reach a certain level of social skills he could feel disconnected and left out, which can affect the way of gaining knowledge in classroom with his teacher friends.

It is also useful to try to improve the verbal content of the book and combine it well to the pictorial. But on the other hand it should be added in a certain level that keeps the students interested to get the knowledge through the discussion with their teacher in the classroom, not only by reading. It also should be added using simple English terminology to facilitate the transfer to students.

Conclusion

 Although technology is invading our schools and curriculum, textbook is considered one of the most important references and resources for students' learning in the education system. Because of the important role of the text book content in encouraging, providing learner educational needs, and making the student's learning process easy, the school books should be assessed and analyzed with respect to construct of advancement motivation and its indexes, in order to help the teachers play their role and the students to get the best learning that they can.

References

David, B. (2017). Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: 9. The Conclusion. USC Libraries.

Gutierrez, C. (2016). The Psychology of Color. How Do Colors Influence Learning?. SHIFT DISRUPTIVE ELEARNING.

Hibbard, K., et al. (1996). A Teacher's Guide to Performance-Based Learning and Assessment. ASCDEXPRESS-Ideas from the Field.

Pierce, T. (2010). Five Reasons Why Children NEED Picture Books. Terry Pierce: Children's Author.

 Writing a Topic and Main Idea. Reading Center-MONTEREY PENINSULA COLLEGE.