Science Super Star: Paula McGlone
We spotlight Paula McGlone, CRS Science Super Star honoree, who teaches at Monarch Academy in Oakland. Paula sparked her students' investigative abilities to seek answers for their questions about the world around them.
April 1, 2020
We are delighted to add Paula McGlone, a 2nd Grade Teacher at Monarch Academy in Oakland, to our 2020 Science Super Star roster!
From a classroom reading of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, arose many wonders in Paula's classroom as to why a palace could not actually be made out of chocolate, or clothes be made out of paper. To find answers, Paula led her students to learn about the materials that make up the world around us, and uncover their uses and origins. During the experiment, her students would use target language, such as "I predict," along with sentence frames to focus inquiry, such as "If we ___, then ___." Paula encouraged her students to use science notebooks, graphic organizers, and whole group discussions to synthesize learning. She observed that they grew stronger in their abilities to build upon what others were saying, which excited her as most of her students are English learners.
Paula wants other teachers to know: "It's not about getting the answer that you think the students need to get from science, it's important to remember that students will get what they need from each experience, even if it's just the opportunity to work in a group successfully. Many students have had limited exposure to scientific phenomena, which makes allowing them to explore incredibly important, as a means to find out how the world works."
As her students live in urban East Oakland, Paula highlighted the importance of experiencing wildlife and expanding their knowledge of Californian animal classifications. Her classroom was able to interact with naturalists from Wild Care Bay Area, who helped turn her students into animal fanatics.
"I have one student whose questions cannot be quelled. They are always finding things in books that we have talked about, writing facts in their writing (regardless of topic) and searching for more information on the internet. They also have a wonderful critical thinking ability, which allows them to look at problems from different ways. After our plant unit, they continually dug up and replanted seeds to see if they could trick it into growing downwards, until it died."
Thank you Paula for bringing meaningful science and real-life applications to your students!
Paula has been a CRS Science Super Star in 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017