Adventures with the Lower Level

Sinking in the Ocean of SBG

2012-01-26T09:38:00.000-06:00

To say that I am struggling this year, really doesn't begin to describe this feeling.

A couple years ago I dove right in and switched over to Standards Based Grading. I loved (and still love) the idea of kids showing mastery on specific learning goals.

However, as some of you know, it can quickly become overwhelming trying to keep up with assessments, reassessments and fielding questions and criticism from the confused administrators, parents and children.

For the first month or two of a new class, I have to explain, again and again, why there is no entry in the grade book that says "Quiz 2". I think this comes back to the whole points chasing theme. We have focused so much on points and grades that it is extremely hard for those kids to let go and focus on the learning.

Some kids buy in right away. They get what I am doing. Some are even relieved. These are typically the kids who have struggled or those kids who have never needed the safety net that busy work points provide.

Some dig in their heels and refuse to come along with me. These are the grade junkies who don't really care about their education unless it makes them look good on paper. Points is points and that is what is important.

Some kids don't really care one way or the other, there is still no way I am going to make them do any work.

I also think there is a small group who simply don't get it. They seem to be so confused by the whole process that they simply accept the number at the top of the page and move on.

Try as I might, I can't keep this up if the kids don't buy into it. And it is nearly impossible to convince some kids to focus on the learning when other teachers don't focus on it at all.

Then there are the targets. I'm still not sure about my targets. I have gone through at least one year in each of my classes with the targets that I have written and I like them, or at least rewritten them to where they are less horrible than they were. They are good goals, but some are easier to assess than others.

And that right there is my big obstacle. The target must be written so that anyone who reads it can figure out what exactly it means. I had a few targets that were pretty vague. This works pretty well when I am writing test questions that I want to ask, but don't really fit in with any of the other targets.

I have also had targets that were not nearly vague enough. For example, I wanted kids to know that a milliliter contained the same volume as a cubic centimeter. So I wrote a target specifically for that. Well, there are really only so many ways you can ask that question. When a target is too specific, you kind of back yourself into a corner when it comes to assessment.

In my Chemistry and Physics, the targets are more skills based. I find this so much easier to handle than my Astronomy, Ocean, Meteorology and Geology classes where the targets are based more on the big ideas. I am pretty happy with my Chemistry and Physics targets, my big problem now is developing ways to assess them. I give tests and quizzes. I would love to use other assessments, but I haven't reached that comfort zone when it comes to the unwritten. That is one of my priorities this year is to step out into that abyss.

My other big issue, as mentioned, is my Big Ideas targets. I think my targets, for the most part are pretty good, but I don't have a cut and dried way to measure how those targets are assessed, so it always feels so subjective.

So I am slowly getting there. I only have a couple issues that I really need to work through. The thing is, they are pretty big issues and I can stare at the problem for hours and never get my mind wrapped around a solution.

Baby steps. I didn't get in this mess in a single day, so I can't expect to get out of it too quickly. This has been a huge change in my classroom that I have taken on more or less alone* in my district. I think I have a long way to go, but I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of comfort level. Once I can breathe again, I can take a step back and look at it from another angle.

*In the words of Spongebob, "Not you guys! You guys are awesome!"

Early Graduates: A Clash in Philosophy

2011-12-14T13:38:00.000-06:00

I'm going through something of a mid-career crisis right now. It's not that I don't still love my job, I do. I just feel like I am doing something wrong. Actually, not so much me personally (although I am sure there is a lot I am doing wrong), but more the whole system.

It's pre-enrollment time here at my school. This morning, we sat through an "inservice" designed to help us to help our seminar kids to figure out what classes they need to take next year.

One of our big issues this year has been getting kids (mostly seniors) to take an actual class instead of "volunteer service" or being a student aide. We had some problems with our schedule this year that caused sort of a traffic jam with certain classes and kids ended up being placed into classes they really didn't want to take or being shuttled off to be an aide somewhere.

During our discussion, this issue came up. We were being told to encourage seniors, especially, to take more rigorous classes. Don't let them slack off just because they are seniors*. Actually, encourage is not the right word, more like force them to take classes they really don't want to take, just so we can tell ourselves that we are encouraging rigor.

They are resisting. They are pushing back. I know this is not new. Kids have slacked off their senior year probably since the senior year was invented, but lately, it seems like it's a much bigger issue than it has been in the past.

My district allows early graduates. Traditionally, this option has only been allowed for a few kids a year, and those kids are usually ones that struggle and see it as an incentive to pass all their classes. Since we went to a trimester schedule, it has been a lot easier for kids to get all the credits they need to graduate before the end of their senior year. This has served to add to the list of those who can ~~escape~~ graduate early.

It has also agitated our principal (and many of our teachers) as we cling to the idea that we have these kids from August to May for four years.

I've been thinking about this today and maybe I'm in the minority here, but what I can't figure out is why is this such a big deal? For my state, funding is based on the enrollment at the end of September, so that would not be affected. Are we afraid of everyone thinking that our school is not rigorous** enough?

Maybe I feel this way because I know those kids are going to be stuck in one of my classes because they will think it is the easy way out. When a kid truly does not want to be in my classroom, I hate it just as much (maybe more) than he does.

I feel like we are doing so many things wrong in our schools. We have a system that has not changed in decades. We still require the same things that were required when I graduated. And probably more or less the same things that were required when my mom graduated.

Have you ever really sat down and thought about how much the world has changed since then? Good Lord, we've really only had Internet for the last decade or so.

Kids have different values, different home lives, different expectations. Kids have changed. Is it for the better? I don't know, but I don't think we can ignore that fact.

I think we have to adapt. We can't keep talking about "21st Century Skills"*** like they are things we will need in the future. We needed them a decade ago. We have to find a way to meet the needs of these kids. We have to be willing to realize that we have to change when the world does.

Otherwise, I just don't see how we can survive.

NOTE: Sorry about that. I realize this may not represent a string of coherent thoughts, but boy do I feel better.

*What you don't have that problem???

**I am beginning to hate that word, but that is a whole other post.

***What are those anyway? Could we BE any more vague?

****Got a little crazy on the foot notes. See NOTE above.

This is Why My Job is So Much Harder

2011-12-09T13:12:00.000-06:00

During my seminar, students are not allowed to go anywhere if they are failing a class.

Yesterday I sent a student to a teacher whose geography class she was failing. Today, she was so excited that she was now passing that class. She said that by going in to talk to him about her grade, he was willing to give her an extra 50 points just for having a good attitude.

I really can't compete with this.

Modeling: Year 2

2011-11-29T16:07:00.000-06:00

To say that this year is going better is such an understatement that I have deleted and retyped it about ten times trying to find a better word.

For one, my room is MY ROOM this year. There is no ghost of chemistry past whispering to kids that this class was so much easier last year.

I am also much more comfortable with the material. Last year, I just seemed to be a day or so ahead of my kids and really did not feel prepared enough to keep them focused. Not only were they learning how to Model, but so was I. This year, I have been able to sit down and write out detailed lesson "plans" for each day, including a list of questions (and answers) to ask during the whiteboard sessions. Having a clear goal in mind sure helps me focus and get the kids where they need to be. Who knew?*

One aspect that really bothered me last year was the lack of engagement on the part of my kids. Whiteboard sessions were still treated as a presentation to me rather than a class discussion of their results. I just couldn't get them to let go of me as their safety net. This year there have been a couple things, one on purpose and one accidental, that have made a huge difference in our whiteboarding.

After a week or so of whiteboarding "practice", I got tired of asking the same questions of every group. Seriously, did they not hear me ask the last group? So I made out notecards. These are handed out randomly and have a general question written on them.** If the presentation does not include the answer to your question, then you are to ask it of the group. This forces the kids to actually listen to the presentation, evaluate whether or not the question has been asked, and if not, then get it out there.

This has made such an amazing difference that I can't even believe it. All of a sudden, kids are sitting up and paying attention. They are asking questions, and you can bet that if the question has already been answered, someone is going to let you know. The quality of the presentations have also improved. For some reason, having me ask those questions every single time didn't seem to register with them, but now it's their peers who are asking and that seems to be much more important.

The other turning point this year was a total accident. I was gone. There were two weeks in there that I was gone for four days. The first day was typical, not-get-much-done-pull-one-over-on-the-sub-pretend-we-don't-know-anything. I came back the next day and pretty much just lit into them about responsibility and maturity and all that. They rolled their eyes and I rolled mine.

And I told them the test was still on. They panicked and they whined. "But, you are going to be gone!" Yep. So you had better figure out pretty quickly what you need to do to be ready.

I was gone the next day for their review. They whiteboarded the study guide that day and when I came back the next day, you would have thought it was Christmas morning. Kids jumping up and down, grinning from ear to ear. One boy, I swear I heard him giggle.

They had done it. They didn't need me. They could have a group discussion and learn from each other. They even kicked out a student who wouldn't quit talking. They were even relatively excited about taking the test.

Since then, my room has transformed. I can honestly say that kids are (mostly) engaged. And I feel so much less stressed about whether or not I am doing it right. We whiteboarded a worksheet today and I sat in the back and didn't say a word. Kids were following along, asking for clarification and checking each other's work.

This is actually my ultimate goal. I don't want to be the center of attention. I don't want to be needed. I want those kids to figure it out on their own, and I think they are well on their way :)

*I know, you probably knew.

**I have eleven as of right now and am pretty sure I am going to add in some lab specific questions later.
1. What is your independent variable?
2. What is your dependent variable?
3. What is the relationship between _____ and _____ ?
4. Is your y-intercept negligible? How do you know?
5. What kind of relationship is this?
6. What about the particles themselves cause this relationship?
7. Do we know what "x" represents in our equation? "y"?
8. Is the relationship constant? Direct?
9. What does your y-intercept represent?
10. What does the value of your slope mean?

The Delta

2011-11-28T13:34:00.000-06:00

Have you ever seen the Mississippi River? I mean really, truly seen it? Thought about how much power there is across those couple hundred yards? All that water, all that sediment. Some coming traveling from the tops of the Rocky Mountains, some washed off a field twenty feet away. All those particles being pushed and shoved hundreds of miles until it reaches the Delta.

And then is just stops. Heavier stuff sinks immediately. Lighter stuff just floating out into the ocean.

That's what I feel like right now.

Floating.

All the rushing has subsided.

I can breathe again.

I can focus again.

I can teach again.

I can visit my home again.

It got a little ridiculous there for a couple weeks. The insanity that is a robotics competition took all of us by surprise and left all of us more than a little shell shocked.

Everything happened so quickly that I have not even begun to process it all.

So here are my goals this week:
*Finish cleaning up my lab room.
*Reflect on the robotics competition.
*Realize the miracle change in my chemistry modeling classroom.
*Outline eportfolios for astronomy and one chemistry section.

If someone knows what I need to do, I think I will be more likely to actually get it done :)

The Robot Initiation

2011-10-29T21:16:00.000-05:00

For the third time in not very many weeks, I am watching the sunrise through a school bus window. I am taking about a dozen kids on a two hour bus ride that begins before the day does so we can do our first testing of our robot on an actual game course.

This is where I have been the last two months.

Way back last spring, I asked a couple kids if they would be interested in doing the Team America Rocketry Challenge. I got one wishy washy maybe. The other kid said he was kind of more into robots now, so I shelved that particular project.

Sometime this summer, I received some information about the BEST Robotics competition, so, on a whim, I went to my principal in August and asked if we could start a Robotics Team.

Now, I totally expected him to be cautious, tell me to wait a year, find out more about the program.

He said, "Sure, go for it."

Um...okay...right...I need a team.

Well, lucky (?) for me, I was coaching cross country at the time. So sitting around after practice one day, I recruited a good number of my runners to join my robotics team.

Looking back, I can't believe they all said yes. I was going into this blind and had no true information to give them about what we would be doing.

Kids: What are we going to do?
Me: Build a robot.
Kids: How?
Me: I don't know.
Kids: What does the robot have to do?
Me: I don't know.
Kids: How long will it take?
Me: I don't know.
Kids: What else do we have to do?
Me: I don't know.
Kids: Awesome! Let's do it!

Seriously, I had no idea what all was involved. I had no idea what all it took to build a robot. I had no idea that you had to do other things in addition to building the robot.

What I had was an amazing group of kids who were willing to follow me on this adventure and were totally okay with all of us learning together.

Our motto this year: "We'll figure it out..."

Teacher Tip #6

2011-10-15T16:51:00.000-05:00

Never.

Ever.

Under any circumstances...

...sponsor more than one activity at the same time.

How To Destroy a Really Good Idea

2011-10-02T20:21:00.000-05:00

Present it in a powerpoint presentation with 293 slides.

The Battle for Next to Last

2011-09-30T20:52:00.043-05:00

Several years ago, I was inexplicably talked into taking on the job of coaching cross country. I was a sprinter in high school and college, so the only thing I knew about distance runners was that they:

a. Left practice for long periods of time.

b. Ran outside in ANY weather.

c. Were more often than not, just a little bit weird.

"Just go run" was heard quite a bit that first year. I have since made it my job to know everything there is to know about aerobic conditioning, anaerobic conditioning, tempo runs, intervals and fartleks.*

Caught unawares, I was a stranger in a strange land at my first cross country meet. You want to see some intense competition, head over to the Wamego Invitational on the second Saturday in September. Simply amazing.

I had coached volleyball and basketball the few years before this, and was unprepared for the radical beating my coaching philosophy was about to take. At a volleyball tournament, my team had been smothered by an unbelievable group of eight girls whose coach never even spoke to them during the entire match. The girls knew what to do. They pressured each other. The corrected each other. They substituted themselves. Their coach had them trained.

Of course, being young and dumb as I was**, I jumped at the opportunity to talk to this coach in the hospitality room. He described his practices and philosophy. I can remember asking him if every girl in the school wanted to be a part of his team and whether or not he had to cut anyone. He said, no, he didn't have to worry about that because he created such an intense atmosphere that they cut themselves. I can remember thinking what a great idea that was and how that was the type of team I wanted to create. I even scribbled a note on the program about it.

Fast forward to me now in charge of a completely different world. I was digging through one of my many "Idea" file folders where I found that old program. I can remember that tournament like it was yesterday. I can see the faces and hear the voices. I can remember how I felt when I thought I had figured out the secret to a great team. I sat down in my chair and stared at that paper and thought, "what an idiot I was."

And then I thought, "what a jerk he was."

Being a part of what I am now, I can't imagine treating kids in the way that coach obviously did. I can't imagine putting a child in an environment where she felt like a loser whose only option was to quit something she once loved.

Now, I will grant you that cross country is not exactly a team sport, so the dynamics involved are somewhat different. But I will also tell you that everyone, everyone, is welcome on my team. I don't care what size or shape you come to me, you have a home here.

This year, I have Nate. Nate should be a part of our offensive line, but hated playing football. As you may well imagine, he is not one of my top runners. He is my bottom runner. Actually, he is everyone's bottom runner. Nate routinely finishes last. He's okay with that, and I'm okay with that. I put an immense focus on personal records (PRs) for my kids and would rather they improve in every race than medal***.

This year, there is a boy from a neighboring school who runs just about at Nate's pace (think turtles, only slower). This makes for some incredibly interesting finishes. The last race of the day. Everyone else is finished and possibly even cooled down. And here come the two last place finishers.

Cross country, I have found, is a sport where everyone encourages everyone else, no matter what uniform they are wearing. There is something about running several miles in a row that just makes people want you to do your best. So the scene at our last meet was just incredible. A hundred or so kids and adults lining the course, cheering on the two people left out there. Nate would surge ahead. The other boy would take back the lead. Nate would make his move. Kids are screaming. Arms are flailing. You would have thought it was for Olympic gold. It was one of the most intense sporting moments I have ever witnessed.

When it was all over, I heard not a single negative comment. Both kids were congratulated. Both kids came away feeling like they gave it their all and did the best they could do. There were no snide remarks about the last place finisher. There was no one making fun of the "big, fat kid who can't run*."

There is hope for our future.

*To become a true distance coach, you must be able to tell a group of adolescent boys to go run a fartlek and not crack a smile.

**Oh, alright, often still am.
***Don't get me wrong, I love medals and winning, but for some kids, winning is defined in looser terms.
*This is how Nate describes himself.

A Late Thunderstorm

2011-09-26T11:00:00.001-05:00

It is happening again.

Today we whiteboarded the first worksheet over density. We had discussed our lab yesterday and talked about what the relationship was between mass and volume.

The grumblings have started. I didn't teach them about density! That thirty minute discussion we had yesterday? Oh, we were supposed to pay attention to that?

The good news is that this particular rumbling is occurring a whole ten days later than last year! And it wasn't so much a mutiny as it was just general complaining.

So at this rate, in about 17 years, I shouldn't get any grumbling until after school breaks for the summer. I can't wait :)

All in all, this year is going so much better than last year. I think there are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that I feel much more comfortable with the environment I want to create. Last summer my Modeling class ended in July and I rushed in and, well, just rushed in. I hadn't taught "real" chemistry in several years, so was a bit out of practice and at the same time trying to radically change how these kids expected to be taught. This year, I at least am familiar with the material and the process and have been able to go into class with an actual plan. And I think word got out from last year's group and so the kids' expectations were different coming in.

I know it's early in the year, but I still don't have my classroom climate where I would like it to be. We were in the middle of a discussion today when an administrator knocked on my door and had to talk to me RIGHT NOW. I asked the class to continue on and come to a consensus. Um, yeah, that didn't quite happen. The discussion apparently came to a screeching halt and uncontrolled chaos reigned.

I can handle that. There is something about having a specific problem to tackle, even if you aren't sure how.

I'm just glad that this year my kids aren't openly plotting my demise.

Larger Than Life

2011-09-24T09:19:00.001-05:00

Isn't it sad that the only time I will ever know who truly loves me will be at my funeral?

We said good-bye today to a man whose full influence can never possibly be measured.

I talked Bud into taking the head track coach position a few years ago and truly had no idea what I was getting into. Bud was a unique mix of old school football coach and teddy bear. He loved his teams and he loved the competition. And he wasn't afraid to let you know either one. His pregame pep talks often ended in tears when he talked about what he believed you could do.

As we waited around the football field for his final farewell, I watched as hundreds of people gathered in memory of a person who had been so important in their lives. It was an amazing site, though upon reflection, not entirely surprising. It often took us half an hour to walk across the parking lot to get to a track meet. The man knew every coach in the state.

It's days like this that remind me of one of the most amazing (and frightening) aspects of this job. All of those eyes that are always watching me. Those kids who sit in the back and never make a sound. Kids who eagerly sign up for any activity you decide to sponsor. All it takes is one inadvertent comment about something totally unrelated. That one comment could lift a child up. Or it could tear him down. And I might never even know it.

I'm not sure I can ever hope to leave anywhere near the legacy that Bud left behind. I was blessed to have been able to coach with and learn from him. I, like so many others, am a better person because he touched my life.

And I have no doubts that he is up there, right now, teaching the angels to play football.

What He Truly Believes

2011-09-23T15:31:00.000-05:00

I have a student in one of my classes who is kind of hard to like.

Now, I can count on one hand the number of students over the years that I honestly could not stand. He is not one of them.

He is loud. He can't read. He is argumentative. He resists doing work (probably because he can't read). His normal speaking voice always sounds like an argument. But all those things don't mean that I dislike him.

I put up with a lot in my classroom. If I didn't, I would have most of my class in the office everyday. I work really hard to remember that these are kids. They are learning who they want to be and some of them are overcoming amazing obstacles simply by getting to school every day. Part of my job is to teach them science. The other part of my job, like it or not, is to model good behavior and to show those kids what is and is not appropriate in a school setting. I can't do either of those things if they aren't in my room.

Today, my "low" kids had a wonderful discussion about energy and states of matter. The kids (all of them!) were interested and participated in the discussion (where are all the administrators today?) and ended up with all the conclusions I had hoped they would.

As the bell is ringing and the kids are headed out, he turns to me, dead serious, very matter-of-fact and says, "Mrs. Schroeder, I'm really glad that you don't think I'm stupid."

I cried.

Teacher Tip #5

2011-09-01T14:02:00.000-05:00

If something like Google Earth or Stellarium is cool enough to use in your classroom, it is totally worth thirty minutes or so to let the kids play around before getting down to business.

My First Day of School and That Pesky Exploding Can

2011-08-27T11:16:00.001-05:00

Okay, so my first day of school was over a week ago. If this is how my year is going to go, I should just start hibernating now!

There has been a lot of discussion about this on every listserve you can find about what to do on the first day of school. Everyone is pretty much in agreement that reading through a syllabus is a great way to immediately cause disinterest in your class. The Marshmallow Challenge seems to be a popular choice with the physics crowd, and to be honest, I really want to try that in my classes some day. I teach Chemistry, so I kind of want to keep in with a chemistry theme and, of course, the question on every teenager's lips seems to be "when are we going to blow something up". The Modeling has an Exploding Can Demo set as the first activity to do with the kids and there has been some discussion about that activity as well. Some teachers cannot do this because they do not have access to natural gas. Some like to go over their class rules on the first day (why, why, why??). And some don't like the activity because students have a hard time explaining what is happening.

I love this demo and find that the first day of school is the perfect time to do it. My principal even came in to do a short evaluation on the first day this year (seriously???) and was pretty surprised that we were already in the lab causing a ruckus.

It's a simple demo that catches kids off guard, because about the time everyone stops paying attention and chatting about their summer, the thing explodes. I had one kid this year who actually dove under the lab table to take cover. He may never live that one down.

To specifically address those teacher who don't want to use the demo because kids can't explain it, you are absolutely correct. That is the whole idea. It's OKAY not to be able to explain something. If those kids could perfectly explain every action of every particle inside that can right now, then for goodness sake, send them to the counselor to get into a more advanced class. The whole point of a chemistry class, after all, is to learn how matter interacts with other matter.

This demonstration actually serves several purposes for me. First, most kids have reformatted over the summer and need to get some of those brain gears moving. Second, we come back to this demo several times throughout the year. After talking about reactions, for example, we go back to page 1 in our lab book and re-describe what we think those particles were doing inside the can. And finally, after the demo, the groups draw their particle representations of what they think happened and the next day we whiteboard those ideas. This is where I set up my norms for our whiteboarding sessions.

I try to pick kids that I have worked with in the past or who know a little bit about me and have them be the presenter for their group.

And then I grab my bag of chips. A snack size bag with just a few chips is perfect for this. While the group is presenting, I munch on chips. Doritos work well because they are really loud and kind of messy. I create a pretty decent distraction by crumpling up the bag and stuffing it into these mysterious little compartments in my desks. A couple swigs from my pop bottle (shake it up to get a nice loud escape of gas) and it goes flying across the room into the trash can. Usually by now, kids have noticed. I kind of look around the room, "oh, was that inappropriate?" My apologies. I then have the group make a note on the board.

The next group is a little nervous now, so I leave them alone.

Third time's a charm, so I get out my phone. I have it set to make the beeping sounds when you type so kids know what I'm doing. Of course I "try" to hide it like my students do, but pretty soon, they start to notice. "Oh, was that inappropriate as well?" Please make a note.

Now the last one is kind of tricky. I have to have someone presenting that knows me pretty well or I let them know ahead of time what I'm going to do. I don't want anyone in tears on the first day. After they present, I pretty much argue that my answer is the correct one and their group is just plain wrong. I usually have a hard time keeping a straight face for this one.

So now we have three things on the board that we as a group have more or less decided are inappropriate for the setting. They then get to suggest any other behaviors that might best be left at the door. We talk about how important the whiteboard sessions are when it comes to getting information. We talk about the difference between hearing and listening. We talk about respect. We talk about general polite behavior.

These two days are a pretty good introduction to the class as well as the general setup of the modeling classroom. The kids get to experience what the rest of the year is like and possibly more importantly, do NOT get the answers on the first day. This can be uncomfortable for a lot of kids and some do not handle it well.* I have actually had kids ask me for a textbook so they can look up the right answer. Good luck with that.

Learning in this room isn't about getting the right answer RIGHT NOW. It is about having to discover the right answer in another place and time and connecting it back to what you did on the first day. If I can get you to do that, then I have done my job and can sleep well at night.

Have a great year!

*From some of the discussion, some of the teachers do not handle it well. Get over it. Nobody knows it all. And besides, if all you do is tell kids the correct answer, you are taking all the fun out of science class!

A Letter to My Colleagues

2011-07-26T20:28:00.000-05:00

Quick, off the top of your head, why did you become a science teacher?

Now, I'm not talking about the whole, "I wanted to make a difference in a child's life" type* of answer.

I want to know why you became a SCIENCE teacher?

Was it because of the textbooks? Because you like to hear how smart you sound when you lecture? Let me guess, you like nice, neat, orderly rows of chairs, right? Good Lord, tell me it isn't because of the math....

I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that your answer has something to do with the fact that SCIENCE IS JUST FREAKING AWESOME!!! You get to build things, discover things, manipulate things, and, yes, every once in awhile, you get to blow things up.

THAT'S why we went into science, am I right?

So how the hell did we end up spending all this time writing on a chalkboard (or horror of horrors pointing at a powerpoint) and having to "find time to do a lab"?

We can blame the standards. We can blame the textbooks. But the fact remains that we have gotten away from what science truly is. It's mostly the way I was taught, both in high school and college. It's the way I knew, so it was the way I stuck with. And then, one bright shiny day, a little gargoyle crept in and whispered in my ear, "pssst...you're doing it wrong."

And suddenly, last summer, I found my way out of the abyss. I accidentally took a Modeling workshop and completely changed the way I teach my kids.

Modeling is not a set of materials that you use in your classroom. I refer to it a lot as a curriculum, but it really isn't that, either. It is a WAY of teaching, a METHOD of getting students to use their own data and observations to construct their own knowledge of the world around them.

Did you get that? Those kids OWN their learning. And that's pretty powerful.

You can describe Modeling with nearly every past and present education buzzword you can think of: cooperative learning, inquiry, student-centered, constructivism, differentiation, critical thinking, problem solving, formative assessment. The list goes on, but it doesn't need to. I have seen what it can do in a classroom, and I don't need any edujargon to convince me.

I have taught both ways to kids on every end of the learning spectrum, and I can say with certainty, that for me, this is the way to go. I have seen brilliant kids take off and run with it, reveling in the challenges the class presents. I have also seen lower kids finally have the success in school that they never would have experienced in a traditional classroom. Modeling can reach them all.

Now, I am not going to claim that there is absolutely no other method that is effective, but I do know that Modeling has been extensively researched and tested in the classroom since the early 1990s. I have met many other teachers who have had the training and have yet to hear one speak negatively about it. This is not to say that it is an easy way to teach. This is one of the most challenging things I have ever tried in my classroom but it has also been one of the most rewarding.

Oh, and have you heard of the Common Core? How about the Conceptual Framework? These documents are soon going to shape what happens in your classroom. I have sat in on sessions on both of these, and you know what the big question that is on everyone's mind? How am I going to learn how to teach this way?

Get thee to a Modeling class, that's how.

Try it, because really, what do you have to lose? It'll put you out of your comfort zone, but that's what needs to happen if you want to change. I have heard one story (undocumented and purely anecdotal) about a teacher (one) who has gone through the training not fallen in love with it. Want to know my first (undiplomatic) reaction?

Go teach math.**

*Don't get me wrong - that's an excellent reason!

**KIDDING! KIDDING! Math teachers don't hate me. In fact, want to truly integrate math and science? Go to a Modeling workshop. That's where I truly learned about the quadratic equation.

P.S. This was written as an assignment for my Modeling workshop as a way to convince a colleague to give Modeling a chance.

Good Lord, We Have a Textbook

2011-07-13T12:34:00.000-05:00

I find it somewhat ironic that our Modeling workshop leader gave us a textbook to read. Not just some quick study, tell-me-everything-you-know-about-teaching-physics kind of book, either. Teaching Introductory Physics. This thing weighs more than my car. If I were to have seen this on Amazon, I would never in a million years even have considered buying it. Even if I had an extra $118 and had seen the six 5-star reviews.

Our first read was assigned last night. The first third of Chapter 2: Rectilinear Kinematics. Huh?* Even if I had somehow managed to obtain the book, I doubt I would have ever thought this chapter would be interesting, let alone comprehensible.

Since I am being graded on this, I figured I had better at least skim through it so I could pretend to discuss it during class.

Just goes to show you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover.

This chapter is about motion (yeah, that's what rectilinear kinematics means) why kids really might not understand motion, even after you "teach" it. Basically, don't feel too bad, we aren't truly wired to intuit these ideas and the ideas that we DO have are often not quite right. These concepts are not things that have been discovered, so much as invented, and even then, we didn't really start to figure it out until sometime in the seventeenth century.

Arons has spent decades not studying physics, but studying how students LEARN physics. Instead of dryly trying to explain the concepts, he comes at it from the perspective of the student. What misconceptions do kids come in with? And more importantly, how do you get past those misconceptions and get kids where you want them to go?

For example, they probably don't have a good working definition of an instant. (Apparently, neither did I.) Arons explains what those misconceptions probably are (same as mine) and for those of use who maybe didn't get much out of our Physics 101 class fifteen years ago, offers up an amazingly simple explanation. An explanation that I could successfully use in my classroom.

Arons reiterates several times the importance of discovery when it comes to the classroom. "Teaching is significantly strengthened if one carefully abides by the precept 'idea first and name afterwards,' in the introduction of every new concept." Otherwise, you have a 'normal' classroom scene where kids are frantically trying to copy the definition of the term you just wrote on the board and memorizing the equations.

This is the whole basis for the Modeling cycle. Introduce those ideas. Let the kids discover the relationships themselves. Once they have a pretty good grasp on the concept, then put a name to it. Arons even goes so far in his discussion of velocity to suggest flipping the equation over and trying to define it, just to see what they come up with.**

I realize I have only read part of one chapter, and this is by no means meant to be a full book review, but at this point, I would encourage you to check it out.

So, tonight, I'm hoping for a reading assignment.

*Interesting fact: When I typed in rectilinear, it did NOT show up as misspelled.

**Did you know that has already been defined by geophysicists? I had no clue. It's obviously not well know as Wikipedia doesn't even have an entry.

Physics Modeling Day 1 and an Epiphany

2011-07-11T21:13:00.000-05:00

If you know me at all, you know that I fell in love with Modeling last summer. My first year Modeling Chemistry was filled with ups and downs and everything in between. It was rough. And exhausting. But I know this is one of the best teaching methods out there. I can't help but think this will get somewhat easier with time.

So this summer, I am taking a Physics Modeling class. Three weeks. Twelve days. Great discussions. Lots of goodies. I have been excited about this class since I signed up in March.

What a nerd.

We took the Force Concept Inventory today. Now, bear in mind that I haven't taught actual physics since some time in the last century. This test kicked my butt! I talked myself out of so many answers you would think I didn't have a license to teach this stuff. So when we go into "Student Mode" this time around, I will truly be able to play that part. All the better for me, I guess :)

Today we covered Unit 1. Mostly this shows the kids how to set up labs and take good measurements. We did the Pendulum Lab. Again, this is probably the same lab done in every single physics class in America.

But different. You know, backwards from the "normal" way to teach. Start with the lab and then develop the ideas.

One quote from our teacher really hit home with me today. "It is important to let students take their own data and create their own graphs and discuss it. They have to see for themselves or they are never going to believe it."

I had never really thought about it in terms of "believing" it before. Oh, sure, I am well aware that some kids simply don't pick up on the ideas and need to come at it from a different angle, but for some reason, I never considered that one of those kids wouldn't believe me. This is physics, for crying out loud, not evolution. (I know, I know, touchy subject, please don't yell at me for that one.) And besides, why wouldn't those sponges absorb everything I say in class. I have masters degree, doggone it, I'm know what I am talking about!

But that's the whole key, isn't it?

When we walked in this morning, there was a set of questions on the board for us to think about. One of them was "What is a student-centered learning environment?" It's one of those things that I kind of knew the answer to in the back of my head, but never really sat down to think about and articulate. All it took was one simple quote and a semi-coherent blog post to really bring it all home.

Those kids have to see it with their own eyes. Write it in their own hand and speak it with their own voice. Only then can they "believe" it.

This is the core of Modeling. The entire pedagogy is based on those kids seeing for themselves how this world works.

Man this is awesome.

SBG and the Nightmare that is Grading

2011-06-17T20:31:00.000-05:00

So I've implemented SBG. More or less. I have written my targets. I have savagely edited my targets. I have overcome mutinies and parental skepticism. I have brightly colored signs all over my room reminding kids what they need to learn.

Now, how in the name of everything scientific am I supposed to keep track of all this?

This is my first full year of grading by standards. While there are a lot of tweaks I need to make for next year along with a couple of major adjustments, the foundation has been laid and I just need to build on it.

Or out from it. I am so on board with all the calls to get rid of grades. I am so frustrated with kids coming into my room the last week of school wondering how they can get just a few more points. I flat out asked some of the kids if they were more concerned with grades than with learning. Talk about some blank expressions.

So here it is. A break down of the good, the bad and the ugly.

THE TARGETS
My Chemistry, Applied Chemistry and Applied Physics targets were pretty good. I ended up editing them a little bit, but this is more of a skill based class and I found that to be easier to assess. Can you balance a chemical equation or not?

The big problem I had were with my Earth Science Classes (I get to separate out into Astronomy, Geology, Meteorology and Ocean Science). I tried to make the target too skill based. This resulted in beyond epic failure. The thing about the Earth is that it is a system. Everything is interconnected and it makes it hard to separate out those ideas. And even when you do, those ideas do not easily translate into skills for assessment. For next year, those targets are going to be more ideas based. I'm sure this will probably result far fewer targets and we will circle back around several times to those ideas. How in the world I am going to teach in that way, I have no idea.

THE GRADING
Man, I'm beginning to hate that word. I created a semi-complicated way of recording students' grades. Each target was (ideally) assessed at least twice with a score of 4 points each. So each target was worth 8 points. To determine how many points each student received out of 8, I took the most recent score and added it to the highest previous score. So assume little Johnny received the following scores of five assessments on balancing equations: 3, 2, 3, 4, 3. The most recent score (3) is added to the highest (4) for a total of 7 out of 8. My kids were so stunned by the Modeling and just the introduction of not getting an actual test grade that not many of them even stopped to consider how the number was actually determined.

I like it, but I don't.

I read Marzano's Formative Assessment and Standards Based Grading. I am now reading Guskey's Developing Grading and Reporting Systems for Student Learning. Marzano's book talks about how to set up levels within each standard. So in order to get a 1 out of 4, the student must answer this question correctly. In order to get a 2 out of 4, a second, more difficult question must be answered correctly. And so on. I like this and am going to try this next year with a little adaptation. There has been a bit of discussion about binary grading lately that I has me intrigued. If I can get it set up, I would like to make a standard out of the "1" question. You either get it or you don't. A separate standard would cover the "2" question. You get a 1 or 0. To me that seems like there would be less interpretation between the levels. That seems like an awful lot of work, so we'll see how far I get with that.

THE FEEDBACK
I was pretty inconsistent on this. I got swamped later in the year and just couldn't sit down and get it done to the level that I wanted. This is going to be a main focus for me next year. I am thinking about having kids assign their own scores based on what I have written as feedback. I'm sure that will go over well.

THE RETAKES
These are gone. It became so unmanageable I took to hiding in my closet during my plan period. Especially in the second trimester (Chemistry), everything builds so much that we ended up assessing every target over and over anyway. If I can write my targets well enough, this shouldn't be a problem.

THE RECORDING
This got better as the year went on. I kept a bright orange notebook on my desk that contained a spreadsheet for each unit that we covered. The targets were written at the top and the scores were recorded. Red pen indicated a test, black was a quiz, pencil was a retake, any other color was something else (projects, etc.). I know this reveals a bit of my OCD, but it helped me keep track of why a certain kid was missing a grade since I wasn't recording it as "Test 3" anymore.

I started working on a Google docs method of recording grades that would also let me add in feedback. I know Riley has Active Grade available, but for some reason, I just never got the hang of it. Maybe if I can sit down for an hour or so without any interruptions (this seems to be my issue with a LOT of things) and just play with it I could get it to do what I want. I also see Shawn is working on something that I'm sure will shake the education table. I love the idea of getting rid of scores. I think my curriculum director might be somewhat tolerant of the idea, but my principal probably won't want to deal with all the questions it is sure to generate. He's kind of a don't-rock-the-boat sort of guy. Maybe I just won't mention it to him.

On the whole, I like the general set up of SBG. It makes so much more sense to me as opposed to the more traditional method of recording grades. I asked my kids at the end of the year if they liked it or not. 79% said they preferred it, so that is really encouraging and it also gave my principal something to grab onto other than me saying how wonderful it was.

So that's how last year stands. Now that the dust has settled and I can breathe again, I'm going to sit down and start over on my Earth classes. Chemistry just needs some light editing and it's good to go, but those big ideas are what is going to do me in next year.

Schizophrenic

2011-06-15T09:17:00.000-05:00

I follow quite a lot of blogs. I mean a lot. I'm not even sure I can count that high.

A while back, I accidentally discovered the math blogosphere. I had no idea what a blog even was, let alone that there were teachers out there using them to share ideas.

From there, I discovered that there were science teachers out there who had classrooms that had kids doing what I wanted my kids to do.

So, I began filling my Reader with teachers who know what they are talking about. There was no organization to it, I would find someone who had something interesting to say and start following.

Today, I got a chance to sit down and do a little much needed Reader organization. I wouldn't have worried too much about it, but I would sit down and start at the top. It was an emotional rollercoaster going from one blog discussing SBG, to someone else trying to explain to the world how education is failing, to still another describing their struggles in going paperless and back to another incredible teacher getting their kids into inquiry.

Looking to compartmentalize a bit, I created six folders:
1. My Classes - Stuff that specifically pertains to the classes I teach. This is mostly connect-me-to-the-real-world type information and a lot of it gets reposted for my kids to see.

2. Technology - Pretty self-explanatory, really. I've come across many incredible tid-bits that I can try to integrate into my classroom.

3. Fun - Not education related, but help my brain change gears. Some days, believe it or not, I just need to not focus on teaching.

4. Policy - Educational policy and commentary on how education is being treated by our federal and state governments. I believe it is important to have this information, but these are the ones that make me cry, cuss and spit. I honestly have a hard time believing a lot of what is being done.

This is what makes me want to quit teaching.

5. Classroom - Here are the people who matter, who make a difference. Here I find my inspiration. These are the teachers who love teaching, love their kids and are not afraid to say so. AND they are willing to let me visit their classrooms.

This is is what makes me want to stay in teaching.

I have to say, this has made a huge difference in my outlook.

Probably because I have read everything in my Classroom folder and have 285 unread posts in my Policy folder.

I can really get used to this.

The End of the First Model Year

2011-06-08T16:34:00.000-05:00

School's out.

I think.

It's been a strange year and it doesn't really feel like the end of school yet. Maybe it was the weather, but even the kids on the last day were just kind of laid back about the whole thing. Well, um, okay, see you next fall!

Now that my classroom is finally cleaned up, I've been able to sit down and think about the year. There are so many things I did differently this year that I am having a hard time sorting it all out in my head.

So let's start with Modeling.

If you didn't know, I accidentally took a workshop on Modeling Chemistry last summer that totally changed the way I teach. Well, that's not entirely true. It totally enhanced the way I teach. It filled in all those gaping holes and dead ends that I kept running into. I was so excited as I went through the workshop, and I still love the program. I am taking the Physics workshop in July and can't wait to go.

What I Like: The Plan.
Modeling isn't just a teaching method. A lot of work has gone into developing the curriculum and coinciding the information with the methods.The curriculum starts at the beginning of our understanding of matter and takes those kids through those observations and discoveries. Kids have to think about why matter behaves the way it does. They create their own "model" of matter, just like all those famous scientists did.

What I Like: The Interaction
At the end of our workshop, we were supplied with a dozen giant student whiteboards and even some dry erase markers. This is where it gets good. Instead of me standing up there telling the class what they should be getting as their model, the kids stand up there and tell the class what they got as their model. Even if you don't follow the Modeling curriculum, go get some whiteboards and have those kids work out and explain what they know. The idea here is that kids are able to ask questions of their peers in order to further their understanding. It's brilliant, it's interactive, I love it.

But...

What I Don't Like: The Interaction
I didn't do this well at all. My kids never truly took ownership in their own learning enough to be able to ask the right questions. I would ask them questions, they would more or less answer them. The other students rarely asked questions and when they did, they turned around and asked me. It's hard to create a student centered classroom when they know where I am. This spring, my Chemistry class was the last hour of the day. I would leave for track. Girls would leave for softball. Boys would leave for baseball. Don't even get me started on the FFA teams. We more or less gave up on the whiteboarding toward the end. If I would do it right, it would be a better tool. As it was this spring, it was so much of a stressor that I simply dreaded it. I'm not sure how, but I definitely am going to come up with some ways of getting the kids more involved.

What I Don't Like: The Curriculum
I have never been one to blindly follow a curriculum. There were a few things that simply were not explained sufficiently for my kids. I just needed to come in from a different angle. This wasn't a big deal, but some of my kids needed more support than what this curriculum supplied. I wouldn't even go so far as to say this is a problem with the program, just that some might need more.

What I Don't Like: Inquiry
Now, before you get all in a fit, I don't mean to say I don't like inquiry. I LOVE inquiry. I want to do more. The program allows for inquiry, but isn't really set up that way. When we went through the curriculum in our workshop, we were supplied with all the labs*, so this is what I did with my kids. It's not the worst thing I've ever done, but I would like to do better. It is hard to turn kids loose in Chemistry (well, for me anyway) when they don't know much about the chemicals in the closet. Shawn has his kids apply for a grant in order to start on their labs. I really like this idea, and am going to come up with something like that. Or maybe I'll just use his. I love the internet. When I cleaned up my room, I more or less organized my books according to subject. I have 17 chemistry lab manuals collecting dust on my bookshelf. I'm thinking that if I give kids a question, if they get stuck coming up with a procedure, they can use the manuals to help guide them along. Someone might as well use them.

Now that I have that out of my system, I can honestly say I love this program and would highly recommend the training to anyone who can possibly get it. The problems I have had I think I can chalk up to this being my first year and not knowing what I was doing. Now that I have at least tried it in a real classroom, I can focus on those things that weren't terribly successful the first time around.

It'll be here before I know it.

*Thinking on this now, it's entirely possible this was done because of time constraints. We covered the entire curriculum (including doing the labs) in two short weeks.

Academic Damage

2011-05-26T11:15:00.000-05:00

I have to thank the Crazy Teacher Lady for this term. It's something I have been trying to pin down and couldn't seem to put into words. Even though I recognize it for what it is, I'm still trying to put words to it.

Katie is a student in my chemistry class this trimester. She is what most would consider a "good" student, which means that she knows the Rules to the Game and plays it very well. She gets good grades because she can read and can figure out what it is that makes the teacher happy.

She got an A in Chemistry.

And I am simply sick about it.

Katie is a Grade Junkie, make no mistake about it. She struggled early on to find the rhythm of my class, but once she figured out which buttons to press, she flew with it.

The problem was that I had to hold her hand the entire way. I had her in my seminar (30 minute study period) and about three days a week, she would sit down with me to review chemistry. She retook more quizzes than all the others put together and in so doing raised her grade.

Now, I am certainly not going to tell a student that she can't come in and study for my class, and I don't want to sound like I don't want my kids to work hard, but at the same time, it has never been about the learning for Katie.

I think what really hit home for me in this situation was the last quiz she took. She raised her hand eleven time on a three question quiz. Seriously.

"Did I set this up right?"

"Um, do you think you did?"

"Well, I just want to make sure."

Katie has retaken quiz after quiz. I have no idea how many hours she has put into adding points to her total, but she second guesses every single thing she writes down. Her second guessing doesn't stem from wanting to learn, it stems from not wanting to lose points.

What really bothers me is that I don't even think it's that she's not confident in her answers.

I don't think she knows the answers.

This trimester has built on itself. We started with naming and formulas. We used those formulas to balance equations. Those equations showed us mole relationships, that we used to find limiting reactant and percent yield. If you didn't know your naming, you were without a paddle.

Katie didn't know how to name compounds. She would study, pass the quiz and apparently reformat overnight. The next day she couldn't recognize a polyatomic.

Katie has an A in Chemistry, but I would bet my periodic table that if you asked her any question, right now, today, about the subject she wouldn't be able to answer it.

So I have failed Katie. By posting an A for her grade, I am allowing her to leave and give the impression to everyone who cares to look that she understands Chemistry when she truly doesn't.

And I have allowed her to continue on believing that she is getting an education, when I haven't kept my end of the bargain.

Where's the Love?

2011-05-16T13:45:00.007-05:00

I was unofficially reprimanded today.

I have a student who has had a rough year. I have come to know her well from several years of being in class, as well as during extracurriculars. She stopped by me in the hall and we had a little chat before lunch. As she walked away, she simply said, "love you, Mrs. Schroeder" to which I responded "love you, too, hon." The power-that-be who was standing nearby swung around and proceeded to tell me that we are never to say something like that to a student.

Probably the biggest issue I have is that I have seen this same person not bat an eye at the disrespectful, hateful comments made toward or about other students. Some of those comments have been by students while others have been by staff members. They never get in trouble.

Why is he so opposed to expressing caring toward a student, but not the other way around?

The problem seems to be the difference between love and sex. I do not for a second believe my kids are confused on this issue. They see me more of a mother figure (their words, although it does kind of make me feel old) that is a stable force in their life and they know they can come to me if they need anything.

This summer I read Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. (All of them!) What kept coming back to me was that, oddly, the creatures in the books have no problem telling others how much they love each other. There are no sexual overtones (unless I totally missed that part) to the love, it is simply an expression of caring for another individual.

Why can't we all be like that?

Am I wrong on this?

Need. More. Inquiry.

2011-05-05T10:50:00.001-05:00

The talk of today is our baseball team. Last night was another sweep for them and we are now 16-0 on the season. GO BRAVES!!

My Applied Physics classes are in the middle of a project, but they came in talking about the games and ended up with a LOT of questions about pitching and how fast our pitchers can throw. What is a good speed for a high school thrower? What do the pros throw? Middle school? How fast do our pitchers throw? Can I throw faster?

Now, I am really not up on my baseball stats,* so I didn't have much in the way of answers. I do know that a good throw in the majors is in the upper 90s, but honestly, that mostly comes from watching Major League. I wasn't really satisfied with my answers and neither were my kids. They wanted to know if we could we test it out?

It's May.

State Assessments are over.

It IS a physics class.

It's May.

So we rounded up some baseballs and went outside.

The first question out the door was, "what about all this wind?" My first thought was to have them figure out the wind speed, but someone had an iphone and just looked it up for us. Maybe I'll have them figure out how to calculate that later.

So we took measurements throwing into the wind and throwing with the wind.

At first, everyone started throwing as far as they could. After some preliminary calculations, there were to big realizations. First off, those baseballs were not going very fast at all. But the big issue came about when the boys realized that the girls were actually throwing faster than they were.

Adjustments were made.

There was a great discussion about the number of steps each person should be allowed and whether or not there should be a minimum distance for it to count.

Aside from a narrow concussion miss by our cameraman, there were no real glitches.

We then tracked down our varsity pitchers and asked them to estimate how fast they can throw a ball. They weren't too sure, so our homework for Friday night is to find out. A couple of kids even realized that they were going to have to convert their meters/second measurements in to feet/second measurements to be able to do that comparison. The only thing I could think here was that if this was on a worksheet, a majority of those kids wouldn't even have noticed that difference in labels.

I really, REALLY want to do more things like this. Even the kids who didn't have the questions to begin with got into the project.

My big issue is what types of projects to do. I have no idea. I am not very good at coming up with open-ended questions, and a lot of the questions I have found seem to be too advanced for my kids. Although after the roller coasters and catapults, maybe I'm underestimating some of their math skills.

I also have a tough time just letting kids come up with their own questions. I don't mind the lab part and kind of thrive on the chaos, I just want to be sure there is some actual learning going on. So I need to find a way to set it up for everyone to be happy and know what the heck is going on.

Anyone have any resources or suggestions?

*I don't hate baseball, but I don't love it, either. My husband is, unfortunately, a Royals fan, so maybe that's why I don't pay much attention.

NCLB: What It Really Looks Like

2011-05-03T08:08:00.000-05:00

Today was one of the most stressful days I've had in quite awhile.

Today I gave my state physical science test to our juniors and some of our sophomores.

Just let me say upfront: I detest our state science assessment, and not just because it IS a state science assessment. The whole thing is messed up for several reasons.

First off, Kansas standards are set up to provide "a series of benchmarks, which describe what students should know and be able to do at the end of a certain point in their education (i.e. grades 4, 7 and 12)."

If you are on the ball today, you will notice that the high school standards are set up to measure what kids have learned THROUGH THE 12TH GRADE and you will also notice that we are giving the test to our JUNIORS.

It is required by our state that we test our kids before we get them through school.

And I thought we weren't supposed to leave any of them behind.

The second thing I abhor about the test is that is simply memorization. Even a couple kids today mentioned that there was very little thinking involved. You either know it or you don't. Officially, I do not know the questions on the test. However, if a kid asks me if we have ever talked about how to calculate the strength of charges, I'm going to pay attention. I am also going to go to my standards document and notice whether or not there is a little triangle next to that standard.*

If we simply must continue giving tests, I would really like our assessment to measure whether or not kids can think through a problem, not just remember the formula for gravitational acceleration. Yes, I realize these questions are harder to write and harder to grade. I don't care. I think it would be worth it.

Lastly, our test is just set up poorly. We have two science assessment portions: life science and physical science. You would think these are pretty self-explanatory, but it's not.

The life science portion has questions about biology and environmental science. The physical science portion has chemistry and physics questions. Pretty straight forward, but where does earth science fit in?

The problem arose when someone decided to add in earth science questions, but apparently didn't want to create an additional test. Their solution was to include some earth science questions on the life science test and some earth science questions on the physical science test.

That would be fine if it matched up with how we (and I'm pretty sure most everyone else) has their class schedule set up. I have yet to find a chemistry class that directly addresses any earth science standards. I have yet to find a physics class that directly addresses any earth science standards. And, you guessed it, I have yet to find a biology class that directly addresses any earth science standards.

My kids need three credits to graduate. Most kids don't take more than that (before their junior year, anyway). So that leaves something out.

Biology is required. Got it.

If students take Chemistry then Physics, they have missed Earth. If they take Chemistry and Earth, they miss Physics. Some kids take Anatomy and have missed TWO sections!

The only solution we have really come up with is to add in a separate earth science unit in the middle of biology and chemistry. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Oh, and here's one more thing. Our state science test doesn't mean squat. The state requires that we give it to all juniors and we get to see the results. Beyond that, nothing is done with this data. Apparently, lawmakers didn't really foresee the problems and costs associated with districts that were not making AYP in English and Math and ran out of money somewhere along the line. As a result Science and Social Science got pushed back indefinitely. (Notices I am NOT complaining about this.)

Now that I think about it, I can't figure out why it was so stressful for me. I feel bad for my kids because you could see them struggling through the test. The really "good students" especially probably developed ulcers in that hour. I just told them to do the best they could and not panic over it.

I don't really know what the answer is. We are doing it wrong and can't seem to figure out how to fix it.

What does your state do? Is your assessment more efficient? Good lord, is it worse?

*Our document consists of a huge list of standards. If the standard has a little triangle next to it, it is considered a "tested indicator" and fair game on the state assessment.

What Will They Take Home?

2011-04-26T15:08:00.000-05:00

I covered for our art teacher during my plan today. I always like going into other classrooms to see how the kids act in a different environment. I found out that kids in the art room behave about the same as kids in my room.

We have three foreign exchange students this year and two of them are in the art class I covered. Both were working on clay masks in a country they have lived in for eight months. My mind wandered off and for some reason I got to thinking about how they would get those clay creations home.

Would they pack them in a suitcase? On a carry on? Maybe they would mail stuff. How much did they bring over in the first place? How do you plan to spend a year away at school halfway across the world?

I don't have any of the girls in my own classes, but they have all been involved in everything they possibly could throughout the year, so I have come to know them a little bit through the track team. I know they are homesick (who wouldn't be?). I know they are all pretty smart and are taking some challenging classes. I know at home they do not have school organized sports and the whole idea of sports competition kind of freaks them out. I know they work harder than a lot of kids that live here.

I haven't had much of a chance to talk to them about the differences in school cultures, so I don't really know how we compare, but from what I gather, aside from the language barrier, they haven't been terribly challenged academically.

So I'm wondering what it is they will take home. When you go home and talk about your experience with your friends, what do you say?

"Those Americans, no wonder they do terrible on international tests!" *

"Those Americans are so lucky to have what they have and they take it for granted!"

"Those Americans, they have it made, short school days AND the school pays for your sports!"

"Those Americans are so lucky, their teacher talks to them like a person!" **

"Those Americans have lots of bad weather!" ***

"Those Americans made me feel like I have lived there all my life!"

I don't really know what they will take home. I hope it is good. I hope their experience has been one that will stay will them for the rest of their lives.

And I hope they look back at their time here as an amazing experience that was filled with everything they expected and more.

Now that I think about it, I truly want that for the kids that live here as well.

*Like I care...
**This is actually paraphrased from one of those kids talking about me.
***I live in Kansas. We have had three tornado warnings this spring, not to mention hail about once a week.
****Got a little heavy handed with the footnotes today, didn't I???

The Catapult Project

2011-04-21T15:02:00.011-05:00

We started building catapults today. Unlike the Roller Coasters, I actually came into this one with a plan.

This was based on a Science Olympiad problem that required teams to launch an object of unknown mass to an unknown target. That is a LOT of unknowns, so I have given my kids a little more direction.

I want them to build big catapults, but I want them to understand how a catapult works and what kind of plans they are going to need.

So we started off with mini catapults.

That shoot M&Ms.*

You have not lived until your kids have permission to launch candy across your classroom.

Cody is having WAY too much fun with this. (Also, please ignore the incredibly messy lab room, we are still recovering from the roller coasters.)

Today was the idea day. They got two paint stirrers, 2-4 mini clothespins, one stick of hot glue (I have discovered that this is PLENTY) and a snack pack of M&Ms. Anything else they wanted to use had to be approved by me.

After about three minutes of stunned silence, they took off with this and had a wonderful time trying to figure out how to build their catapult.

I'll give them couple days to perfect their catapult before we have a test day where they have to launch their M&Ms. I'm thinking prizes will be awarded for distance and accuracy.

*Next year, we will shoot marshmallows. M&Ms get eaten pretty quickly and shatter when they hit my floor. I had a lot of explaining to do when the custodian came in this afternoon.

Roller Coaster Success

2011-04-11T15:02:00.001-05:00

I have always been annoyed that my Applied Physics class has never actually been, you know, applied physics. We created the class to cover standards on the state assessment for kids who would never be able to pass regular physics. While a typical day in that class is spent doing labs, they have always been pretty canned.

Last week I got bored with it. I was sorting through an old pile of papers and came across a roller coaster project that someone had presented years ago in a teaching methods class. We have been talking about speed and momentum and acceleration and energy. This just seemed perfect. So off to the hardware store I went.

I gave my kids 15 feet of conduit insulation, some masking tape, a marble and some pretty vague instructions about how to build a roller coaster. The only requirements at this point were that the roller coaster had to have two hills and a loop.

They ran with it.

They talked about energy.

They talked about momentum.

And acceleration.

And velocity.

And whether or not their roller coaster was one they would actually want to ride.

This coaster was changed because of that. They ended up putting another length on the end and tried to get the marble to come all the way back to the start. It was close, but couldn't quite make the return loop.

They had incredible discussions about everything we had learned in class. I was truly amazed. There is no way these discussions would never have come out of working problems on a worksheet.

Even when I upped the assignment to figure speed and acceleration, they jumped right in. They had to pick six points on their track and determine the speed and acceleration at each point. Kids who refused to do these problems as practice showed all their work WITH LABELS in order to prove their roller coaster was the fastest.

For a project that took about eleven minutes for me to plan, it turned out really well, although there are several things I am editing for next year.*

-First off, they don't get to use my metersticks as supports. Just a little glitch if you require them to, you know, measure anything. I soooo didn't see that one coming.

-I would also like them to compare the speed and acceleration to real life roller coasters.

-Maybe make a commercial advertising their roller coaster?

-I'm thinking I could have a couple staff members listen to the presentations and pick a "best of show."

-Glass marbles shatter when dropped off the bleachers. Into millions of little pieces.

After I got them all started and I started Googling, I came across several sites on project based learning. New obsession here. While this isn't exactly where we are at the moment, we are definitely going to be doing more of this in class. These guys will be my guinea pigs this year and I think they are totally okay with that.

*Is it considered editing if I didn't have it written up??? I'm not even sure I can claim the planning part.

Teacher Tip #4

2011-03-15T10:23:00.000-05:00

When you have dozens of kids scattered around your room doing a lab with motion sensors, do not try to wander around to see if they are okay. All you will really accomplish is anomalies in everyone's graphs.

A Tale of Two Chemistries

2011-02-27T13:07:00.001-06:00

We finally closed on our second trimester this week. If you remember, we last left our hero* dangling off the edge of insanity. Come to think of it, I really don't ever seem to get too far from that edge.

My Regular Chemistry class settled down a little bit and more or less accepted that I wasn't going to change what we were doing. It helped that the most vocal mob was broken up. It also helped that our incredible librarian told her groupies to suck it up and rise to the challenge. After awhile those rusted wheels started turning and it wasn't quite as painful.

I never could get them into a discussion with our whiteboarding. They just kind of assumed that whoever was talking was right and dutifully copied down those answers. I'm not sure what adjustments to make there. I thought about requiring them to ask at least one question per day, but couldn't decide whether I wanted to fight that battle or not.

I'm not sure my class learned everything I wanted them to. Even the very last day, kids were not able to recognize when a substance had the nitrate polyatomic ion in it. While kids do need to take some responsibility for their own learning, I blame me for the most part. I need to be more aware of when my kids are not getting it and not let them sneak past me when they don't understand. I think I trusted the curriculum too much when it told me to let them figure things out on their own. Having never been in that position before, they weren't ready for that. I let them flounder for too long and I lost them and never got them recovered. And when you lose them in the first couple weeks, they are lost for the rest of the time. The Modeling people do not like you to mess with their curriculum, but I definitely need to add in something in to help them understand some of those concepts a little more. I have never been one to follow every little detail anyway, so why start now?

Probably what bothered me more than anything, though, was the last day. Everyone was so relieved to be done with Chemistry. Me included. I really don't want my kids to hate my class. I don't want them to see it as something to just get through. I want them to love it. We live in an incredible, beautiful world and I want them to wonder at it. I'm more than a little disturbed that they keep saying that they hate it. I am hoping (praying) that this is just because I haven't taught Chemistry for several years and that once I am comfortable with the material again, it will go a little more smoothly.

My Applied Chemistry took off with the Modeling. We had relatively small groups (12 in each class compared to 22 in my regular chemistry) and they were pretty comfortable with each other. The whiteboard discussion really turned in to learning most times. Of course, every once in awhile, someone would ask something like "why is your shirt green today?" but hey, they are teenagers, you can't expect a whole lot of maturity all the time.

One great thing about Modeling is it forces those kids to actually do something other than copy from their neighbor. They never know who is going to have to speak for the group or what questions I am going to ask, so everyone has to be prepared and know what is going on. My Applied kids truly benefited from this approach and, of course, this is true for Regular as well, but it doesn't seem to be as crucial for them.

Modeling is just what is says it is. You create a model of matter. We start with the basic observations that have been obvious for your entire life and actually describe them. We draw them. Instead of kids reading about these models, we create them ourselves. This has helped those lower kids develop an understanding of where that information came from. When I ask them why is H2O written that way, instead of saying "because you told us," they can look back in their lab notebook and see the evidence for why. That is what I really love about it. And that is why I will keep doing it.

*Hehe, that's me.

The Yellow Lab

2011-02-26T10:29:00.000-06:00

As you can imagine, and may possibly be experiencing yourself, our run of Snow Days played havoc with my teaching schedule. The last one we had was a week before our trimester ended, and I sat down and re-planned. I resigned myself to the fact that I just wasn't going to get through the next unit and had it figured out how to end on the right day. Looking back now, I think that may have been more planning than I have done all year.

The day we came back, our principal sent out an email asking us to vote whether or not to extend the trimester to the next week. Um, no. No, I don't. I was, however, in the minority.

I sat down again. We were finishing up with molarity, so I went in search of a project that I could use as a final.

As luck (?) would have it, my computer died. It was a quick death, with it dying in its sleep, simply not turning on one morning. This could have been a set back. However, it sent me scrambling into my backed up files. I have been teaching since 1997 and apparently have never deleted a file. I found an "Ideas" folder from early last decade that I had forgotten all about. In it I found a bunch of things I had copied from The Chemistry Coach that was run by Bob Jacobs at Wilton High School. He has since passed away and the site is no longer maintained, although I am definitely going to check to see if there is an archive somewhere. I corresponded with Bob several times (mostly to see if I could use his stuff), so he was sort of the beginning of my PLN.

One of his creations was The Yellow Lab. Its story is based on the Clue board game and the students have to go about finding Miss Scarlett's murderer. The killer either used potassium iodide or lead (II) nitrate to do her in and the molarity of that solution.

After listening to some of the discussions my kids had, I felt a lot better about what they learned this year. For all the complaining that they didn't understand what we were doing, they sure stepped it up when they were required to use that information.

My latest obsession has been project based learning. I've never done much in the way projects, but after this week, I am going to make it more of a priority. If I can get organized, that is.

I also offered the extra credit mini-project at the end. I had three students write hilarious stories and one group create a video. I need to do more stuff like this :)

If You Give Your Kids a Scantron...

2011-02-16T11:10:00.000-06:00

...they become completely different people.

I did a post-test today as part of ASU's monitoring of the Modeling curriculum. The second the first scan-tron sheet hit the desk, an eerie silence descended on the room.

Kids sat up straight. They faced forward. No one made a sound. No one even asked me any questions.

I have no doubt that this comes from years of filling out bubble sheets for our standardized tests.

While I appreciate the fact that they think a scantron equates to serious business, I can't help but feel a little sad about what we have done to our kids.

I Never Thought I Would Say This

2011-02-15T18:28:00.000-06:00

I'm tired of Snow Days.

I know, I know. One of the perks of being a teacher is not having to go to work when the weather is too bad.

We have missed seven days since we came back from Christmas. We come to school for a day, are out for two and come back for a couple. And then have a weekend.

I have no idea what day it is, and neither do my kids. Even the days we are here it's really hard to get anything done since we spend so much time just getting re-oriented.

That darn Groundhog promised me Spring. I am so ready.

Mass Numbers for Dummies*

2011-02-07T17:17:00.000-06:00

I have come to believe in the manipulative. It seems that anytime you can get kids to touch something they are learning about, it sticks so much better than if they just listen or read about it.

Trying to get my kids to understand the structure of an atom had always been a struggle. How to you picture something you can't see?

A few years ago, we had an Easter egg hunt for our track practice, so I had a hundred plastic eggs sitting in my cabinet. One day, while trying to explain the atom, I picked up an egg and asked the kids what we would find if we could open it up. This set off an amazing chain of events that led to the creation of this activity.

Each colored egg represents a different element.

There are three eggs of each color and each egg represents a different isotope of the element. Each element has three isotopes. I wrote the isotope notation on the outside of the egg.

Inside each egg is a "nucleus" and electrons. I bought a bag of beads at a craft store and it just so happened that each bead had a mass of one gram. Seriously. I couldn't have done that if I tried. This lets me use the eggs as models again when we talk about atomic mass. The electrons are tiny little beads (relatively no mass) that constantly have to be replaced. I'm working on that.

I tied the big beads together to form the nucleus of each atom. The tying is important, otherwise your kids end up doing nuclear chemistry and that isn't our goal.

For example, the purple eggs represent Hydrogen. The red beads are the protons, while the green beads represent the neutrons. Each element has three versions with different numbers of neutrons, Hydrogen-1, Hydrogen-2 and Hydrogen-3. Everyone starts with Hydrogen to get the feel for the activity. I labeled the protons with a "+" sign so they can distinguish between the protons and neutrons. I did not do this in the other elements because I want them to realize the isotopes all have the same number of protons.

The kids then go through and answer questions about the atoms.
Structure of the Atom

This leads us into mass numbers and atomic masses. We keep these out for most of the unit and the kids are free to use them whenever they need a visual. While I haven't got any hard data to back it up, I can definitely tell a difference in overall comprehension.

What do you do to help kids understand those abstract ideas?

*Please note that when I say "Dummies" I don't mean my kids. I am actually talking about me.

Teacher Tip #3

2011-02-01T08:57:00.000-06:00

Make a sub folder. Have an extra activity available for each class. The activity needs to be something that anyone can do and doesn't require any special equipment. Videos are nice.

Because there will come a day when you are simply too sick to go to school.

Or even hold your head up long enough to type out sub plans.

To Praise or Not

2011-01-31T08:51:00.000-06:00

I have Collin in two science classes this trimester. He's a "band member" in every stereotypical sense of the word. That's what he wants to do in life. While I do happen to believe that you might want to be sober for a good portion of that lifetime, far be it for me to squash his dreams. For the first half of the trimester, he was either asleep or copying work from the person next to him.

The last couple weeks, though, he has woke up. Turns out, he is a pretty bright kid. Who knew?

He's excited about his Astronomy Observation Notebook and thinks it's just awesome to be able to identify objects in the sky. He has been participating in class discussions. He has been helping other students when they get stuck. His grades have come way out of the failing range.

Every day, I want to say something to him in praise of his new effort. I want him to know how good it is to see him working to his potential.

But then I don't. I have this sneaking suspicion that bringing attention to his behavior might just bring about the end. He seems to be right on the fence, and I'm afraid of upsetting that delicate balance. The very few carefully chosen comments I have dared to make to him have resulted in this really strange look where I can see him closing up and looking around to see if anyone overheard. It's almost like he is angry at himself for doing well in class.

Why is it such a stigma for some kids to succeed?

Manic Monday

2011-01-16T10:22:00.000-06:00

My kids have tapered off on the whole reassessment thing. No, that's not true. I think they may have forgotten about the whole reassessment thing.

I, however, have a feeling that the last few weeks of the trimester will have everyone panicking, coming in to my classroom at all hours, trying to raise their grade. I would really like to avoid that if at all possible.

We also took a test last Friday. It was okay, pretty much what I expected. My kids are very good at balancing equations, but can't write an ionic formula to save their lives. We have gone over it and gone over it and still, nothing.

So on Monday, we tried something crazy. The night before I made out review sheets for each of my targets. This included naming and writing formulas for ionic and covalent compounds. Turned out we only got through ionic, but it was nice to be somewhat prepared.

Anyone (all but two kids) who wanted to retest over ionic compounds got into groups of five and each got a review sheet.

Bonding 2

One of the key parts to this was that instead of plugging in their iPod and working in isolation, they took turns working the problems while explaining their thinking to the group. So not only did each student have to speak the words, they had to hear it over and over (and not from me!).

When the group finished the problem set, I scribbled (literally, I hadn't gotten far enough to print out) out a quiz on scratch paper and let them reassess. This is totally against my fight against short term memory learning, but I am making this up as I go.

The goofy guy in the coveralls (it's REALLY cold here!) is my nephew. He is extremely smart but doesn't seem realize it. He is sitting across from my other nephew. He is extremely lost but doesn't seem to realize it.

This went over really well, although there are a few things I will tweak.

Groups of five are too big. That could just be a space issue in my room set-up, but there were a few individuals that didn't seem to really be a part of the group.

I also think next time I will give each GROUP a review sheet instead of each KID. There were a few that I kept having to get after to work with their group instead of on their own.

The response to this was overwhelmingly positive. There were more light bulbs going on during this hour than I have had for quite awhile.

I Think I'm Missing the Point

2011-01-12T11:13:00.000-06:00

We took a test on Friday over Chemical Reactions. It was okay. Better than I thought it would be actually.

Mary (one of my brilliants) made a small, inadvertent mistake on one of the questions. She did not put a coefficient in front of one of her reactants. I know this was simply an oversight on her part, she just forgot to go back and write it in. I know this because I know that Mary knows how to balance equations. I have seen her do it. I have watched her work with unparalleled focus to balance the most difficult equation I could throw at her.

Yet, on the test, she missed it.

I started using SBG with all my classes this year, so it is kind of my test run. My rough draft with my standards and how it is I want to really have everything set up. Ideally, I would have all my targets perfectly written with a rubric to go with each one*. I would also have each target set up so a "3" means they can do the skill and a "4" means they can apply it.

I'm not there yet.

Right now, my "4" means you get it and "3" means you kinda get it. I have been assigning a "3.5" when you make small mistakes or miscalculations, just like Mary did on her test.

After I recorded all the grades, I sat down with my hot chocolate and while thinking about something totally unrelated, suddenly felt bad about the grade I had given Mary. I tried to ignore it, but it just kept coming back to me.

Yes, she made a careless mistake. Does that mean she can't do the problem? No, like I said, she has mastered the skill. Does that mean her grade should be lower because of that? At the same time, a perfect score suggests she was able to do the skill perfectly. Her reaction upon seeing the test was simply to roll her eyes and say "that was stupid."

I don't know. It seems like such a gray area. I could leave it up to teacher judgement and just give her the "4," but what happens when Taylor makes the same mistake? There seems to be a lot of subjectiveness that I wouldn't be able to defend one way or the other. Although if a student complained, I could just ask him to show me the skill. This is definitely an area I need to work on (probably over the summer).

Ugh, I have such a long way to go.

You know what's good in hot chocolate? Peppermint schnapps.

*This is per request from my principal, but also a pretty good idea.

Teacher Tip #2

2011-01-08T19:55:00.000-06:00

Always check your trash for something that may not want to be thrown away.

Modeling Update

2011-01-04T10:55:00.000-06:00

At the last minute, I decided to try the Modeling curriculum with my Applied Chemistry. I have 21 students in 2 sections. Only a few of those students come to my class without an IEP.

I debated for a long time as to whether or not I wanted to tackle modeling with these kids. Every indication I had up to this point simply screamed to me that the kids didn't like it.

But, being who I am, I ignored all that.

Actually, I looked long and hard at the arguments presented by those kids. What it boiled down to was that these kids were out of their comfort zone. They knew how to work the system and were upset that the system had changed. Having taught (almost exclusively) IEP and At-Risk kids for many years now, I am fairly confident that most of those kids don't really have a comfort zone when it comes to school. They were going to resist me no matter what I did.

So, modeling it was.

We are following the exact same curriculum that my regular chemistry class used in the fall trimester. The only modifications I have made have been to the math sections. A lot of my Applied kids haven't taken Algebra yet, so it didn't really seem fair to ask them to make those connections. We are focusing on the study of the particles and their behavior.

I did show them how to find the slope of our graphs (some even had a faint idea of where this was going!) and talked about what that slope meant. Several of them made connections to mountain slopes that my chemistry kids never even considered. That IS why it is called a slope, after all. I did not ask them to write the equations or try to come up with the constants on their own.

I do feel like I am walking them through a lot more than I did my chemistry kids. Whether I am doing this because of the makeup of the class or because of my experiences in the fall, I really can't say. Probably a little of both.

The big problem I have (and this is not new) is kids just not doing work. I had three lab notebooks turned in blank. BLANK. Nothing. Seriously, why even bother turning it in?

But that annoyance aside, the big thing here is that these kids are doing great. They are actively involved in the labs and the data interpretation. They discuss the results with their small group and participate in the large group discussion so much better than their "smarter" peers.

Overall, the experience has been so much better than last fall. I've even got kids wanting to read out of the text book.*

Direct quote: "Miss, I had no idea I was this smart!"

I'm so glad I took this chance.

*Most of these kids are in our Tier 2 or Tier 3 reading intervention classes, which means they are way below grade level. We have readings in the textbook as a reinforcement AFTER we do the lab and discussions.

Still Kickin'

2010-12-31T13:13:00.003-06:00

Oh my.

Wow.

A month or so ago, late at night, my dad called me and asked me if I had locked the doors to the house. Um, I think so. He said go make sure. Now, if you have ever been to my dad's house, you know that he never locks his doors. I'm not even sure his door are equipped with locks. I still am not sure on the details, but the gist of it is that my brother-in-law snapped. I don't know what triggered it. All I know is that there were many threats made, some veiled, some explicit about what he would do if my sister didn't make him happy. I have never before been so afraid for myself of the people I love. Not only is my dad locking his doors, he has been carrying a gun around with him. Again, if you know my dad, you know that the likelihood of him shooting himself in the foot is much greater than him actually defending himself.

To say the last month has been a struggle really doesn't begin to describe it. Slowly, we are starting to wake up from the nightmare and get back to life.

Oddly enough, during the last few weeks, school was least stressful part of my day. Sort of. Have you ever tried to teach while in crisis? I would say that it is extremely difficult, but I really don't remember through all the fog. Autopilot got me up through Christmas break.

Editing lesson plans? Didn't get done.

Word wall? I think I was supposed to put one up.

Reflection on teaching? Was I teaching?

But it's a new year. A good time to step back, take stock in what I am doing (right and wrong).

So Happy New Year everyone! Hope it's the best one yet :)

Teacher Tip #1

2010-12-09T10:43:00.001-06:00

Don't wear your squeaky shoes on test day.

Last Minute Change of Plans

2010-11-15T16:25:00.004-06:00

I had decided last week that I wasn't going to use modeling to teach my Applied Chemistry. This is a lower level class that is mostly taken by kids who have an IEP or are considered at risk. Essentially, we go through the first half of chemistry. I have taught it for several years and more or less have it set up where I am happy with what I do and how the kids handle the material.

So, today we started our new trimester. Can you guess what I did? My first class starts at 8:25. At 8:15 I decided to abandon everything I was comfortable with, everything I had worked so hard to build for the last five years.

I think they can do it. I think I can do it. The clencher for me was my class sizes. Both sections have less than 13 kids, so I am pretty sure I can give each kid the attention and help they need to get it.

I briefly thought about modeling one section and not other, but that seemed really insane.

Modeling Reflection

2010-11-14T09:52:00.000-06:00

Whew.

Okay. So, I've made it through my first trimester of modeling chemistry.

I like it. I like it a lot.

I'm just not very good at it. Yet.

We have a monthly PD session with everyone that was in the workshop this summer that has been my saving grace. It is wonderful to know that other people are having the same struggles as I am and to be able to get some ideas about how to deal with them. Our leader keeps telling us to be patient and that it could take about 5 years before we are truly comfortable with it.

Wait! FIVE YEARS??? I want to be good at it NOW!

I know, I know, patience is a virtue.

There are several things I need to work on. On the surface, they seem pretty straight forward, but they are key points and in practice, aren't so simple to correct.

-Kids do a lab and present their results to the class. This forces them to pay attention to the lab and try to work through what the results actually mean. This also has greatly improved our lab skills and measurement precision.*

-The explanations of the ideas is refined through questioning by me and ideally the other kids. At this point, I haven't been able to truly get my kids to ask questions of the presenters. They still turn to me to ask the question. One of my focus areas this trimester is to get more of a class participation during whiteboarding. They also expect me to summarize the lab and basically give them the analysis. I want them to feel comfortable writing their own analysis, but I'm not exactly sure how to take away that safety blanket. I think maybe I need to change the way I grade them. Maybe not so much whether they came to the correct conclusion, but whether the conclusion they have makes sense with their data. But, then, I want them to see the correct relationships, so I'm not sure how to find that balance.

-Modeling takes a LOT of time. We are half way through the course and we will start talking about bonding on Monday. If I had been following along in my textbook, I would have finished that up weeks ago and already been through chemical reactions. I would be lying if I said I wasn't starting to panic a little bit about that. According to our district curriculum** (and state standards), we should be way past that. I'm feeling pretty secure, however, with the knowledge that I truly believe my kids are coming away with a better understanding than they would in a more teacher-centered classroom. I wasn't so sure of this until we took our final on Friday. I set it up so that there was one question for each target that we covered this semester (SBG reflection to come). Basically, it was a giant retake and an opportunity to raise their grade on any targets they wanted. They panicked about which targets to test. They whined about how their grade could go down. They didn't study at all. They did wonderful on their tests. For all the "discussion" we had about how to teach and learn, in the end, they overwhelmingly DID get it.

-Our leader keeps talking about how modeling uses inquiry to learn chemistry. It doesn't. Guided inquiry, maybe, but true inquiry, no. Students do not come up with their own investigations, let alone their own questions. Those are all given. Maybe with time, it could evolve into that, but right now, my classroom is more of discovery driven than inquiry driven. And I'm okay with that.

I at least have a starting place. I'm thinking the discussion issue is the one I really need to focus on. That is too huge a component for it to not be moving along as smoothly as it should. This trimester I only have one section of chemistry, so this will serve as a trial run of sorts and I will get to turn around and fix some things immediately for the third trimester. I'm also not coaching this winter, so I will be able to prepare, reflect and adjust a lot more than I was able to this fall. So, all in all, I am excited about the upcoming trimester.

Isn't it nice to be excited about your job?!

*One thing I have not focused too much on this year has been significant figures. A lot of kids are still giving me answers with 8 decimal places. I have decided to leave that for now. My kids are feeling so overwhelmed with the changes that I don't want to push them over the edge.

**I might point out here that I hate our district curriculum. The person who wrote it just kind of copied our state standards and added in some other random stuff she liked to do.

That's More Like It

2010-11-10T22:55:00.002-06:00

So I plunged into Standards Based Grading this year, along with my Modeling. I have to tell you, it's been a pretty rough year. I am exhausted, but my kids are finally starting to get over their shell-shock.

A couple weeks ago, some of my kids started panicking about their grade.* And then it dawned on them that they could come in and retake some quizzes to help raise said grade.** For the last four weeks, I have had no less than 9 kids in my room before school, after school and during seminar. And then some at lunch and plan period.

Today, one of my girls finished a quiz and let out a nice long sigh. She really struggles with this whole thinking thing and has worked her tail off to even be passing. Then she turns to me and says, "you know, I really wish I could come in and make sure I understand some of this stuff before I take a test over it."

"Um, why do you think you can't come in and study for a test?"

An interesting conversation went on with the kids in the room. We as a staff seem to have given the impression that tests are used to not measure what the kids know, but what they DON'T know.

The universal feeling amongst the kids is that we as teachers WANT them to do poorly. Apparently, we LOVE it when kids fail our classes.

"Well, except you, Mrs. Schroeder. You let us come in and retake some things."

I really didn't know what to say to that. I can honestly say that I don't know a single teacher in our building that enjoys failing kids. Yet, somehow, these kids truly seem to believe that we spend all our spare time devising ways to keep them from passing.

So we dropped everything and had a study session. Not a catch up session. Not a retake session. We sat down and discussed everything that was going to be on the quiz tomorrow. The kids asked questions and did practice problems. I helped them and they helped each other.

It was a great time and I think we all came away from it feeling better about tomorrow. Several kids expressed interest in making this a regular session. I assured them that I would like nothing more than to help them learn the skills BEFORE they tested on them and it would be a much less stressful trimester if they didn't have to spend it trying to catch up.

Now if I could just figure out how to get this done during class time with all 25 of them.

*I know, it should be about the learning, not about the grade. We'll work on that next year. I can apparently only work two miracles at a time.

**The fact that I have repeated this option every day since the beginning of school had no bearing on this, of course, they figured it out on their own.

Wanna Mess With Your Kids?

2010-11-10T20:06:00.002-06:00

1. Write out a multiple choice test.

2. Type in your rough draft and make all the answers "A" before you go back and edit.

3. Forget to go back and move the correct answers around.

Brain Considerate Learning

2010-10-31T10:39:00.001-05:00

Kenneth Wesson was the speaker at one of the sessions I attended at NSTA. Go to his website*. Subscribe to the blog.

I was a bit leery as I watched him open up his powerpoint presentation. Nearly 300 slides. However, I am fascinated by brain research, so I decided to suffer through it.

There was no suffering. The man is brilliant, but can speak in a way that anyone can understand. Not only did the hour fly by, but we only went through 79 slides**. I would have listened to him speak all day.

Kenneth has done extensive research into how the brain works. Specifically, how the brain works when it is learning. I have spent the last several hours reading through his papers and I could say that I am fascinated, but that really does not begin to describe what is going through my head right now.

Every teacher should be required to learn about how the brain works. Every administrator should be required to learn about how the brain works. Every parent. Every day care provider. Every policy maker. Any one who works with children. Any one who makes decisions that affect children.

Because the thing is, it's not just about the brain. It's about nutrition. And health care. And emotions. And development. And so much more than just school.

*In truth, if I were to have stumbled onto this site, I probably would not have given it a second glance. It doesn't look like a site that would have this kind of information. Go beyond that. Click on every link he has.

**How many times have you ever seen the phrase "only 79 slides" and not cringed???

NSTA

2010-10-30T06:58:00.003-05:00

So I just got back from the NSTA Regional Conference in Kansas City.

Wow.

Just wow.

If you have never been to one, go. Just GO. You must find a way.

It is a surreal feeling to be surrounded by science teachers. These are people with the same challenges as me. And the same experiences as me. And the same goals as me. Yet, I don't know hardly any of them.

And I am willing to bet that each and every one of them has more than a few ideas that I could use in my classroom.

So many brilliant ideas, so little time.

I Think I Scared Them

2010-10-18T09:55:00.003-05:00

I really lit into my first hour today.

Lab notebooks were due on Thursday. Nine of my kids were going to be gone for an FFA judging contest. They were told on Monday to turn their notebooks in on Wednesday.

They were told again on Tuesday. I wrote it on the board so they wouldn't forget.

And on Wednesday, again, they were reminded.

Guess how many turned in their notebook?

One.

So this morning as I was handing out grade reports, there were a lot of complaints and claims that I never said they had to be turned in early.

Now, I rarely lose my temper, especially in class, but today*... well, I launched in to a pretty good tirade on responsibility and making an effort and how this is not MY learning, but theirs.

There was a pretty stunned silence. Then, "so can we turn our notebooks in now?"

No. No you can't.

But here is what you can do. You can make an appointment either before school or during parent conferences on Thursday and you can defend your notebook. It's going to be just like a whiteboard session. You will tell me about the lab. You will describe your results. You will interpret the relationships between the pressure, temperature, volume and number of particles of a gas.

Once you have convinced me that you didn't just copy your lab analysis from someone else, then you can turn in your notebook.

*What can I say, I helped my dad harvest all weekend and was up all night with a sick baby.

Really? Really?

2010-10-13T19:02:00.006-05:00

Have you ever had the feeling that you have totally lost control of your class?

That was me today. We have spent the last couple days going through a three part gas law lab and due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, we ended up talking about all three graphs at once today.

Big mistake. Huge. I have to go shopping now...

Every graph we make, we write the equation for the line. At first, when the kids stared at me with those blank looks, I chalked it up to not being around much math in the last few weeks. Now, we are trying to write our fifth, sixth and seventh equations and still, I get those stares.

It's like they aren't even trying...wait...

I swear if one more kid asks me how to find slope, I will have my nervous breakdown and be done with it. A nice long hospital stay might do me some good.

And heaven forbid I actually have them try to SOLVE the equation with some known value.

Here is the actual equation we were trying to solve for T:

0 kPa = (0.221 kPa/C) T + 90.85 kPa

I tried that first hour. After the alloted 43 seconds of wait time, no one had ventured a guess as to how to solve for temperature. I gave them a hint. Nothing. I moved the 90.85 kPa for them. Nothing.

I'm not sure what to do about this. I truly do not believe that every single one of them has forgotten every single math skill they have ever learned.

At Least Some of the Hostility has Subsided

2010-10-01T13:48:00.003-05:00

Today is our Fall Homecoming. We dismiss at noon for pep rally and parade, so no one comes to class expecting to do any work. Since I finally got my 1st and 5th hour chemistry classes back to the same spot, I didn't really want to do too much this morning.

So we did the imploding can demo and talked briefly about pressure changes. Kids then had the rest of the hour to tie up any loose ends in their lab notebooks.

A student raised his hand and said "I have a question."

One of the girls who was instrumental in the mutiny the other day happened to be in his group. She cast me a sidelong look and said "Garrett, don't you know no questions are allowed in this class?"

I grinned and reminded her that there are lots of questions in here.

Surprisingly, she smiled back and said, "Yeah, but you are the only one who gets to ask them, we are the ones that have to come up with the answers!"

Overnight, the climate in my room has shifted in a more positive direction. I'm not sure what happened, although I am pretty sure our librarian has been discreetly dropping hints to her regulars about the "difference between being a learner and being a robot."

Maybe it was our first test. For all the whining they did, most everyone did much better than I (and they) expected.* That may have won them over more than anything. It's hard to argue that I'm not teaching them anything when they do well on tests.

What ever the reason, I'm not complaining.

Off to a parade...Happy Friday!

*That is the exactly what I told them as I handed tests back. No one seemed offended...

Lab Skills

2010-09-25T20:04:00.001-05:00

I have a separate grading section reserved just for my lab skills. In my perfect world, I would assess each one of these skills every time we went into the lab. I am not, however much I would like to be, Superwoman, and trying to keep 24 kids on track is a job in itself. So as it stands right now, I have graded the skills when they turn in lab notebooks and a couple have been assessed on a quiz. I am fully aware that there are some kids who are just copying a good portion of their notebook from whomever they deem smartest in their group. This bothers me a LOT, but at this point, I am not sure how to handle the sheer volume of assessment I want to do.

Target #9 is an exception. Any safety rule that is disregarded (goggles, anyone?) is an automatic zero for that day's grade. I also make sure they are using equipment properly during their lab. For example, are they using a beaker instead of a graduated cylinder to measure volume?

Target #10 is the other exception. This was put in strictly to make my life easier. I don't know about your students, but mine seem to think I am the maid. I know which group is using which lab station and if it or any equipment used is left in a mess, I record the appropriate grade.

Now that I have recorded a few grades, I am starting to realize that #6 and #7 are turning out to be pretty much the same thing since we tie our equations in to our graphs. For example, we graph mass and volume and when we find the slope, we discover the equation for density. So I'm not so sure I need to keep both of them.

Lab Skills

1. Identify the hypothesis to be tested, phenomenon to be investigated or the problem to be solved. (ΔHS.1.2.2a)*

2. Identify the tested variables and conditions to be kept constant during an investigation. (ΔHS.1.2.2b)

3. Communicate the details of an experimental procedure clearly and completely. (ΔHS.1.2.2c)

4. Record and represent data in a meaningful way. (ΔHS.1.2.2d)

5. Analyze laboratory data in order to clarify the questions, hypotheses or methods of an experiment.

6. Use common mathematical functions to analyze and describe data. (ΔHS.1.3.3b)

7. Use statistical and graphing data analysis techniques. (ΔHS.1.3.3c)

8. Recognize accuracy and precision of data depends on instruments used. (ΔHS.1.3.3d)

9. Use equipment properly and safely. (ΔHS.1.3.3f)

10. Follow all lab clean-up procedures.

So what do you think? Am I missing anything?

*The unbelievably unreadable jumble in parentheses is a reference to our state standards.

Oh The Irony*

2010-09-17T18:40:00.005-05:00

Today I sat down with my mutineer's mother to lay out a plan to get her caught up and back on track. I had her son in class a couple years ago and she was a little confused about the changes that had taken place in my classroom. Once I explained the reasoning behind my teaching methods and grading practices, she really seemed to be okay with Lydia's opportunities to get her grade up.

I also talked about how I thought that once Lydia figured out the system, she would find it easier to pinpoint exactly what she needed to work on. I reminded Lydia that she could retake quizzes over those things she didn't know and not have to worry about the things she does well.

She asked me what had made me do such a complete overhaul of my teaching existence and I told her the story of Harley. The year I had him in class, we held meeting after meeting trying to figure out how in the world we could get him to conform to our rules. The story was the same from each teacher. "Harley does great on tests, but won't pass unless he does his work."

I can remember a little voice in the back in my head saying, "You know, there is something wrong here..." The problem was that it didn't cross my mind that the problem was with me. I know I shouldn't feel too badly since apparently no other teacher in the room did either.

I told her that it took me long enough, but I finally realized that I had not given that child what he needed. I told her how hard it was for me to admit and that I still lay awake at nights wondering why in the hell it took me so long to lose that ridiculous superiority complex and just help the kid.

I told her that it was my hope that this system would allow me identify each student's weak areas and really truly help them learn.

At this point I am getting pretty emotional and thinking I really don't want to cry in front of a parent, but I look up and this mother is in tears.

Because, even though Harley and Lydia are on opposite ends of every spectrum, Lydia is Harley's sister.

*I have never been too clear on the actual definition of irony, so I could in all probability be using the term incorrectly here. Just go with it and be glad I don't teach Language Arts.

The Mutiny

2010-09-15T10:40:00.005-05:00

It all started with one of my extended absence students returning. Her close cousin was killed in an accident and she is dealing with a lot right now. She is also a pretty good student (although with an attitude) who is now a week behind, not just in my class, but in all of them.

And she is mad.

At me.

And my "whacked out grading system." I love that. I just graded lab notebooks and each student received scores on five of the Lab Skills targets.*

Once she started ranting about her failing grade (I enter missing assignments as zeros strictly for my bookkeeping purposes), a good number of kids joined in.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from this "discussion":

"I want to read a textbook and fill out a worksheet." (4.0 student)

"We shouldn't have to know what we've done in a lab." (another 4.0 student)

"I don't get anything out of the whiteboarding." (This is as the student is texting under the table)

"I can't get a good grade with these target things." (This student didn't even turn in a notebook.)

There were others, some directed at me personally, but the gist of it could be summarized into one complaint:

"I don't want to have to work for my grade."

This is pretty much exactly what our modeling instructor warned us about. The kids who are traditionally A and B students are the ones who really struggle with figuring stuff out on their own. They have learned to play the game and when the game changes, they can't adapt.

Somewhat surprising to me are the kids who are emerging as really good thinkers. A few of my really low readers are excelling in this class, probably for no other reason than the pressure of fill-in-the-blank is not there. Hands on thinking seems to bring out the best in them. This is also kind of a wake up call when one of the A/B students claims that "everyone in this class is failing." Oh, the priceless look when someone who has struggled so much in the past speaks up and says, "I have a B."

I also have a couple really brilliant kids who are really thriving on this as well. They seem to be enjoying the new rules and are being challenged in a system that more often than not ignores them to focus on the low achievers.

All in all, I am foreseeing a few parent phone calls in my near future. I have been doing much better about that this year and have already put in a few calls myself. This has always been a weakness of mine and I am determined to do better this year.

What is amazing to me right this second is that I have never once thought that maybe I should go back to teaching in a more traditional manner. I truly believe that this is a better way.

Even if my kids delete me from their Facebook friends.

*Hmmmm...was going to link to this, but apparently I haven't posted them. Coming soon: Lab Skills Targets!

Dealing with Absences: Mine and Theirs

2010-09-14T14:32:00.003-05:00

Whew. Do you realize it is half way through September already? I have hit the wall. You know, that one that appears after the excitement of beginning school fades and you are facing the rest of the year? Really? It's just me? Hmmm.

I am struggling a lot right now with my classes, chemistry especially. I have had four kids with extended absences (out an entire week) so far. That coupled with me taking our cross country team early every Thursday is really throwing me off.

One of the big ideas with the modeling is that kids are a part of the discussion and learn the material by listening and asking questions of their peers as they are presenting results. It's a little hard to participate if you aren't there.

I have toyed with the idea of recording every whiteboard session, but that doesn't really seem plausible. I feel terrible just telling them to "go discuss it with your group," mostly because they just end up copying the work and not really making any attempt to learn anything. So while I'm venturing into unknown territory here, I have come up with a few ideas.

First, I have started a blog for my chemistry class. At the end of the day, I put a summary up of what each hour did* along with any assignment given. I am toying with the idea of having the students take turns writing up a conclusion for the day, but I am not sure of the logistics involved with that.

Second, I have created an answer key notebook. I don't grade homework and I could foresee my bulletin board becoming extremely disorganized and messy if I posted the answer keys there. So I went to the office and got a bright orange notebook and am collecting answer keys in there. Now if I could just find a convenient, accessible place to put it.

Third, I have created a website. I have done this for my Earth Sciences and wasn't really going to bother with chemistry, but it just seemed necessary. I have two students who are in the hospital right now and I needed a way for them to keep up on the labs. So I took pictures of each step of the lab and posted them on the site. It is my hope that they will be able to take data from the pictures and get to a decent conclusion based on that. Ideally I would just wait and have them come into the lab to make it up, but I think they are under enough stress without chemistry piling up. Eventually, I would like to add in tutorials for each unit, but I'm thinking I don't need to add to my to-do list right now.

What do you think? Any ideas? How do you handle kids who have missed so much?

Of course, both hours are NOT in exactly the same place :(

"Now Where Do I Sit?"

2010-09-10T11:12:00.004-05:00

Want to really mess a kid up?

Change the layout of your classroom on a Tuesday evening.

Seriously. They have no idea what to do when they walk into a newly arranged room. I have had several kids for two years in a row and they sit in the same seat every day for both of those years. Every student who has walked through my door has stopped dead in their tracks and said, "Whoa*."

When I moved into this room, I had three rows of desks with just enough room to walk around the ends. If someone on the other side of the room raised there hand, I just waved. I had no good way to get there. Now I have an outside "U" with two mini-rows (kids call them islands) in the middle. And I love it. I can get from point to point in the room without any major student rearrangement.

It could be that they are still stunned, but I have noticed a change in the kids as well. They seem more attentive and less likely to strike up a conversation with their neighbor. Maybe they feel less isolated.

Even better, we have renamed this room. My principal has always called it the "chemistry lecture room.**" One of my kids has christened it the "chemistry discussion room."

*This is a direct quote.

**I have given up trying to convince him that I rarely lecture.

And the Thunder Rolls

2010-08-30T12:19:00.006-05:00

I am beginning to hear the first rumblings of dissidence in my classroom. The kids are starting to realize that I am really, truly, not going to stand up in front of the room and lecture to them. This is making quite a few of them nervous.

Some of them are having full blown panic attacks.

Some are beginning to realize that the whiteboard discussions are their opportunities to ask questions and clarify what they know. Some are still too busy texting to even know what class they are in*. A few are cursing under their breath.

I'm having trouble with my 5th hour. There are a few kids in there that simply cannot stop talking. It makes no difference who they are sitting next to, that person is wonderful to talk to. It's also early in the year yet and we really haven't decided who the alpha male is going to be. There is a lot of big talk and strange teenage animal noises still being made and I am hoping this gets resolved in the next few days so we can all get down to work.

My classroom climate with this group is no where near where I want it to be, and I don't really know what to do about it, so the frustration is setting in.

We also just took our first real quiz. Some of my kids are having a hard time transitioning to the SBG.

Kid: "So what did I get on my quiz?"
Me: "Well, let's see, you got 3 out of 4 on Lab Skills target #8 and 2.5 out of 4 on Lab Skills target #3.

Kid: "Sooooo, what did I get on my quiz?"

Kid #2: "Can I do extra credit?"

They'll get there.

And so will I.

*People who decided cell signal blockers are illegal have never had a room full of teenagers to teach.

They Might Believe Me Now

2010-08-25T14:57:00.004-05:00

School started. Kind of without me. I never did get my classroom put together how I wanted it and I am really frustrated with the condition in which the previous teacher left so many things.*

But the modeling part is awesome.

The chemistry curriculum starts out with a six part lab that measures the change in mass under several different conditions. One of the key ideas that kids need to buy into here is that their data actually mean something. For so long, they have hurried through and ended up with numbers that don't tell them anything. It didn't matter because they never needed to use those numbers in any meaningful way.** They were TOLD what they should have gotten and that was good enough.

Not any more. During my workshop, we were advised to do the first part of this lab and then bring the kids together to discuss the data. It's pretty simple lab where the kids find the mass of a piece of steel wool, change it's shape and mass it again. Of course, the mass shouldn't change, and, of course, most kids don't notice all the little pieces that fall to the floor as they scrunch it up. Each group did the lab once and we compiled all those trials. Our data gave us absolutely no indication as to whether or not the mass stayed the same. This leads us into a discussion of being careful in the lab and paying attention to what they are doing.

So back to the lab we went. I wish I had a picture of the pure disbelief on some of these kids faces.

Kid: "You mean we are going to do it again???"

Me: "Well, were you able to draw a reasonable conclusion based on our data?"
Kid: "No, but couldn't you just tell us?"

Me: Evil laugh

We repeated the lab and compiled results. Guess what? Still no trend in the data.

So back to the lab we went.

By now they are kind of figuring out they need to pay attention. Third times a charm and we were able to show that we really didn't lose any mass.

But then, we had the next five parts to do. It took a day. We compiled the results. They did pretty good until Part Four. Our data was scattered everywhere.

So back to the lab we went.

Better. Getting there. Then we looked at Part Five.

So back to the lab we went.

By this time, kids are really getting after their partners for spilling a drop of water, and kids are checking and double checking their measurements. Then we started to graph Part Six. I got two bars into the histogram when it became apparent that they were going to have to redo that one too.

So tomorrow, it's back to the lab we go.

I just keep thinking about how if I had done this lab last year, I wouldn't have even given a second thought to how poor the data really was. Oh, I knew they weren't being as careful as they should and I would have to tell them that their data "should look like this," but I never could justify the time it would take to redo the lab.

This is different. Their data is going to shape what they know instead of the other way around. We have spent four days on this lab and I feel like we are accomplishing something.

And I am loving it.

*Although maybe not as much as my student aide, bless her, who has been busy attempting to clean glassware and cabinets for me.

**Guilty.

What a Nerd

2010-08-19T10:55:00.005-05:00

I'm a terrible housekeeper. I hate to sweep and mop and dust and pretty much everything that goes along with cleaning.

But it's starting to get to me. And apparently my mother as well. She sent me an email with a link to the FlyLady. I sighed and admitted defeat and made a (short) list of household chores that I want to do every day.

So I do them every day. And then I put a star on the calendar. If I fill up my calendar, I get a reward. I know, I know, but it seems to be working for me.

The big problem is that I don't ever know what to reward myself with. Know what I picked this time? Two of Marzano's books.

What a nerd.

I bought Designing and Teaching Learning Goals and Objectives along with Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading.

And I can't wait to read them.

Our district allows us to team up and do a book study for PDC points, so I am going to send an invitation out to our staff to see if anyone is interested.

I would like to extend the same invitation to you. Anyone interested in working through this with me?

Full disclosure: I have never been a part of, much less led a book study group, so I would be learning along those lines as well.

Things That Make You Go Hmmmm...

2010-08-18T09:10:00.003-05:00

So, we're back.

There are so many exciting things going on this year that I really can't wait to get started.

We have a new superintendent. He is incredible. Not only did he feed us steak on Monday, he led us in an afternoon of (extremely competitive) team-building that afternoon. His attitude is one of trust (we are NOT used to this) and he just exudes positive waves.

Yesterday was your typical mind-numbing professional development. Seven hours on K-12 literacy which I think was only understood by those who already have the training. If they were awake for it.

Here is an interesting set of facts about my district:

1. Every building in our district achieved Standard of Excellence in Reading.

2. Our district is on improvement for reading.

Apparently, our special education subgroup did not make enough progress for us to meet AYP. Actually, they improved quite a bit, but fell short by 2 points.

How messed up is that?

I get kids tomorrow! Two sections of chemistry and one of geology, as well as a reading intervention class.

We are going to start off by blowing up a coffee can :)

Here's to the new year!

Geology Targets

2010-08-12T15:13:00.002-05:00

Well, it took me awhile, but I finally got everything moved upstairs. I still have two lab stations that are buried underneath homeless STUFF, but I am feeling much better about this.

I actually have to go back to school tomorrow. Thank goodness it is a workday and I can get settled in. During the summer, I didn't really feel like time was going fast, but now suddenly it's time to go back and I don't know where my vacation went.

Oh wait, I took a class and moved my STUFF.

I have focused mostly on chemistry this summer and almost forgot that I was going to teach a section of Geology this fall. I had written out a draft of targets for that class earlier in the summer that mostly consisted of chapter objectives in three different textbooks. It was a starting place, but I set about coming up with my critical targets.

I ended up with 67 standards.

This was so unmanageable that it was almost funny. Teaching a geology class can take kids in many different directions. Do you want to focus on historical? What about river systems? Glaciers? Deserts? Volcanoes? To be honest, I am not sure which direction I want to go. This will be (and has been) a big challenge for me when writing the class.

So I have narrowed it down. I am not sure I am happy with this list, but I will focus on these targets this year and edit as necessary.

Geology

1. Interpret elevation and topography of an area using topographic maps.

2. Interpret information shown in a geologic map.

3. Use seven main physical properties to identify pure minerals and minerals within a rock.

4. Summarize the rock cycle.

5. Describe the formation of the various textures of igneous rocks.

6. Identify and describe the formation of various types of igneous extrusions.

7. Classify igneous rocks.

8. Classify sedimentary rocks.

9. Describe the depositional environment based on the characteristics of a sedimentary rock.

10. Classify metamorphic rocks.

11. Identify the three agents of metamorphism and the changes they cause.

12. Compare and contrast contact and regional metamorphism.

13. Describe the process and limitations of radiometric dating.

14. Determine the relative ages of rock formations.

15. Compare the three types of unconformities.

16. Identify the major geologic and biologic characteristics of the Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras.

17. Identify and describe the three types of plate boundaries.

18. Describe the causes of plate movement.

19. Describe the three main types of folds.

20. Compare the structures formed at the three types of plate boundaries.

21. Use earthquake data to construct an Earth cross-section.

22. Relate earthquakes, volcanoes and plate boundaries.

23. Describe the three types of volcanic cones.

24. Explain how rock composition, surface area, climate and topography affect the rate of weathering.

Did I miss anything critical?

A New Aura

2010-07-28T10:13:00.006-05:00

I have been moved to a new classroom this year. For various reasons, I am not terribly happy about it. Since I am (the only teacher) teaching chemistry this year, my principal wants me to teach in the chemistry lab. This makes so much sense that I can't come up with a good argument against it.

It's not all bad. I will move from one fairly small room to a suite that consists of a "lecture" room and separate, connected lab room. Now, any sane chemistry teacher would be thrilled with this because it truly is a perfect set-up. But as mentioned, there are a few problems.

Firstly, I have to move all my STUFF from my current room upstairs to my new room. Have you ever tried to move a science classroom? Do you have any idea how much STUFF there is in a science classroom? No, you don't. Even if you have a decent inventory of all your STUFF, I doubt you have any idea how much STUFF you have. Until you pull it all out of the cabinets and try to move it upstairs, you have no clue. For me, I am supposed to try to find a place to put all my STUFF in with the STUFF that is already in my new room. No easy task when you have (I'm pretty sure literally) a ton of rocks.

Secondly, did I mention I have to move all this STUFF UPSTAIRS??

Thirdly, and I think most importantly, the 'teacher' who has occupied this room in the past had a certain way of doing things that sits in stark contrast to how I do things. Namely, I expect kids to stay in class. Oh, I also expect them to do work.

Kids who have taken classes in this room have expected to do pretty much what they want, when they want. I have a sneaking suspicion that there will be a trigger in the minds of some kids that will make them think that in this room, even with a different teacher, anything goes.*

According to Facebook, there are rumblings of students not wanting to take chemistry or physics because the teacher will not be the same. Duh, why would you want to take physics if you can't get out of school thirty minutes early? I'm okay with that, but I am pretty sure there will be at least a low-level mutiny for the first few weeks of school.

The bright side is that I am not a brand new teacher, so kids at least know that I haven't allowed free-for-alls in the past. Of course, this is probably why the rats are fleeing the ship. That's okay, the fewer rats, the better.

I know it's coming and I'm gearing up for it. Wish me luck!

*The math teacher down the hall called this the "Room's Aura." Mine has a bad aura. This must change!

How Would You React?

2010-07-25T07:19:00.012-05:00

I want this girl for my Secretary of Education.

I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer - not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition - a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave.

The Big Idea

2010-07-20T17:37:00.001-05:00

Modeling is student centered cooperative inquiry in an active constructivist classroom.*

Without a textbook.

So modeling is based on inquiry and we all know that is a good thing. I have always had trouble with implementing inquiry in my classes. I was taught that inquiry was just letting your kids explore the ideas they wanted to know more about. In a room full of chemicals, you can probably sense my hesitation with that idea. Even if you can overlook the occasional explosion that could possibly occur, there is still the nagging suspicion that my little cherubs might not actually be learning anything.

Insert a solution to this conundrum. This modeling workshop is helping me to finally see how to set up my classroom so the kids are taking charge of their learning. And it is the complete opposite of lecturing.

Each unit has a specific design that has been carefully structured in an order to help kids come to the right conclusions and then reinforce those conclusions. Instead of opening a textbook and staring, glassy-eyed at a diagram on page 713 (while thinking about what they did last weekend), the kids start out with a lab. What really stands out for me is that several of the labs we have done are labs that I already do. Kids then describe not only what they did in the lab, but also what they think happens to the particles involved. Those kids are developing a model from their lab experience instead of trying to make sense of someone else's depiction of what happened.

The ideas are first described (by the kids) after the lab, verbally. Each group gets up and tells you what they learned. This oral presentation is often accompanied by a diagrammatic explanation on the whiteboard. I'm talking a diagram at the particle level. What's really great about this presentation is that those kids have to explain and then defend their models with the rest of the class. This is where they can adjust their ideas. Their discussions are lead by them with questions from me and the other students.

Why did you do that?

How did you do that?

The idea being that if you can describe your thoughts, then you probably understand them. I have had this happen to me many times. As I am talking to my kids about some concept, something occurs to me that never has before. Suddenly, I have a new understanding and a new connection to that idea.

Now what has been impressed upon us in this class is that it is the STUDENTS' responsibility to ask for clarification. The whiteboard sessions are in place of the lectures of a traditional classroom. For some kids, this could take some time to become comfortable in this type of situation. This is where the climate of your classroom is crucial. It's all about trust. Those kids need to feel safe in your classroom. They have to know that no question is wrong and that no one is going to make fun of them for not getting it. There are a couple teachers in my workshop that I really don't see being successful with this type of curriculum simply because of their personality. I could be (I hope I am) wrong.

Then the kids present their data graphically. For example, we measured the mass and volume of substance and graphed this relationship. Traditionally, they would already know that in all matter, there is a relationship between its mass and volume and this is called density. Here, instead, we are letting kids see the linear relationship between those properties. AND (I have to admit, I had never even considered this) those kids are going to put this data into the slope format to determine the relationship. So for example, we (as do most of my kids) know that the equation for a linear relationship is y = mx + b. In this curriculum, we are actually going to plug those values in add labels to all those variables. I don't know about you, but it usually takes my kids about half a year to make the jump from what we are doing in class to what they learned in algebra last year. Here, we throw them right into it and have them create an understanding of what the slope of that line actually means.

THEN the instructor comes in and brings closure to the experiment.** Once I have an idea that the kids truly understand that relationship, then I assign the term. Something along the line of "you know, there is a name for this relationship, and it is density."

So instead of those kids (not) listening to you lecture about density, where they have no ownership in what they are learning, they are taking control and telling YOU what they know. To be able to understand and explain an idea is a powerful ability.

If they can do that, then they understand the world.

*This is my definition with as much edu-jargon as I could get in.

**What I really, really love about this is that this is one of the few times that I will be in front of the class talking to them.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet

2010-07-18T07:57:00.003-05:00

Okay. So I've had a Twitter ID for quite awhile now, but haven't used it. I set it up last fall thinking I would use it as a tool in my classroom. @teachpaperless makes it sound pretty cool, but I never really got into it.

I'm still not sure I'm into it.

I just got back from my homepage. Frank (@fnoschese) (do I need the @?) left his ID on the NSTA list serve, so I followed him. Then I went to his following list and added a bunch more. Mostly these are blogs I follow, so I recognized the names. Some tweeted science stuff, some tweeted education stuff. Jason apparently had a pretty wild birthday party at his house yesterday.

How random of me.

Someone was following Barack Obama, so I looked at his following list. Hmmm...President of Russia, the OFA of every state and a couple people apparently in the middle of playing drinking games. Not sure what I expected there, but I don't think that was it.

I'm going to give it try. I just am not certain this is for me. To me, Twitter seems kind of like a blog on crack. Or at least with a severe case of ADD. I don't think I want to feel, I don't know, so IN TOUCH.

I better go check my page.

PS: @bravesearth

New Life for Old Labs

2010-07-14T19:05:00.012-05:00

"Your kids will be shocked and angry when they first realize there is information on the test that came from the labs." This is a quote from our modeling instructor.

My initial reaction is shocked disbelief. Why wouldn't they be expected to recall information over the labs? Why would I not expect my lab class periods to be just as important as everything else?

Then it kind of dawns on me. Um...I don't do that.

In my classroom (as in lots of others), labs have been used to reinforce information that is given to the student usually in a lecture format. Here is a typical "learning cycle":'

Me: OK class, today we are going to learn about *drum roll, please* DENSITY!

Kids: *Grab pencils and notebooks ready to copy down every word I say.* Well, those who aren't texting, anyway

Me: Density is the unit we use to describe the amount of matter in an object. We use the formula D=m/v and the label is g/mL or g/cm3. Let's do some practice problems. Let's go do a lab to prove I know what I am talking about.

Kids: Do we get to blow anything up today?

Me: No. But don't forget to wear your goggles, because we all know they are oh so important when working with aluminum and water.

Everyone does lab and extremely simple (and sloppy) graph. They hurriedly copy their conclusion from the 'smart' kid and turn in the lab as the bell rings.

This is how I learned chemistry. This is how I was taught to teach chemistry. This is how I have taught chemistry.

Ugh.

I have known for a long time that this isn't how I wanted to teach. For goodness sake, if I am bored, my kids must be comatose. But up until this point, I haven't been in a position to sit down and really analyze my teaching methods (whole other blog post, there).

Herein lies the brilliance that is modeling.

The kids are going to do the SAME lab I have used for years. Except they are going to do the lab before the concept (or even the term density) is introduced. After we do the lab, all the groups come back together and record their results on a whiteboard. Each group gets to explain their procedure and their results. When we did this in our workshop, all the groups put all their data together and graphed all of it. (More on that later.) Then, instead of the instructor showing the graph and explaining what the data meant, the STUDENTS interpreted the graph and explained what the data meant.

This is the key difference. They are not 'proving' that I gave them true information and then memorizing the equation. They are proving to themselves that there is a relationship that needs to be defined. And they are discovering and explaining that relationship on their own.

Now the really hard part. You as a teacher are going to become a wallflower. You become the facilitator of the discussion and ask the kids to think about what they have observed and what it all means. In this system, there is little room for the teacher that likes to be the center of attention. So many of us like to hear ourselves talk. I spent a lot of years and thousands of dollars to learn this stuff and by golly, I'm going to impart some of it to my kids. But that isn't what education is about. It's about learning. And I have found that kids don't truly learn when they have to take notes for 62 minutes.

There HAS to be a better way.

Modeling Unit 1

2010-07-14T18:42:00.000-05:00

Today we finished up the third day of our chemistry modeling workshop. We also finished up Unit 1 of the curriculum. This unit is probably the same unit that is done at the beginning of every chemistry class in the nation.

We discussed mass, volume, density, solids, liquids and gases. We covered unit conversions and significant figures.

Sound familiar?

I have been through that unit more times than I can count. Yet I have never come away with a feeling that my kids have understood a word I have said*. This feeling is always reinforced a few weeks (days) (hours?) later when density is mentioned again. You know the look kids give you that makes you want to check to be sure your hair hasn't turned purple? I get that a lot.

This feels different. Granted, I haven't tried it out on actual teenagers, but I just get a sense that this could work. It could possibly be that I came away with a better understanding. I minored in chemistry. I have taught this for years. I KNOW this stuff. But now I feel like I can truly TEACH it. And maybe, just maybe, my kids will be able to LEARN it.

*Truth be told, they probably didn't.

Good First Impressions

2010-07-12T19:53:00.000-05:00

As mentioned, I am suddenly involved in a chemistry modeling workshop. I have pretty high expectations for this class and I am sure you want to know how it goes. That and Jason wants to know :)

After all the required paperwork, we started class. You know it's going to be a good class when the first thing you do is blow up a coffee can. Well, try to blow it up. It didn't quite go as planned, but hey, fire was involved.

We were divided into groups of three and given a whiteboard. Not one of those shoe box size whiteboards found in the math department. I'm talkin' table size. Awesome. We were to draw the particles inside the can and how the particles changed over time.

Now, since I minored in chemistry, this was not too difficult of an assignment. For me. But this is something you do with your kids, like, on the second day of school. Each group then presented their ideas to the rest of the class. The teacher* asked clarification questions, support questions challenging questions. The rest of the class is also expected to ask questions of the presenters. One of the key ideas here is the creation of classroom climate. You want the kids to feel safe. They need to accept the fact that this is a science class and it is perfectly fine to be wrong. In actuality, we shouldn't point out something that might be right and wrong, but instead ask the kids to explain what they were thinking. If you see something that is wrong, move on to the next group with a transition such as "let's see what they did."

One pattern I noticed right away was our teacher asked most groups the same question. As we all know, kids don't always pay attention when a presentation is going on.** This forces those kids to listen to the questions as well as the presentation itself. And if they ARE paying attention, then by the end of class, they have heard the same idea five times.

Alan (our presenter) has been at this for several years now and has his questioning down to an art. He can get you to say the same thing three different ways really without you even realizing it.

This wasn't all we did today. We really got into lab writeups, lab data and lab data discussion. I am still processing this and will let you know more on that later.

So far, I love this. This is how I teach. Only soooooo much better. One of the problems that has been bothering me lately is the pace I move through the material. I always come away from a lesson feeling rushed and, I don't know, incomplete. Unsatisfied? I get the feeling that going through this process with my kids would not only involve the kids more in their learning, but also slow it down to make it more digestible.

A nagging feeling I have had in the back of my mind is how this is going to be reconciled with my other obsession (SBG, where have you been?). I am a bit worried I am going to have to sit back down and redo all my targets. I haven't even printed them off yet.

*It should be noted that we have two modes in this class. Teacher mode is us talking about our classrooms and asking classroom questions. Student mode is when we are supposed to be in the position of our students and act as they might during class. This is much more difficult for some than you might think.

**What? That's just me?

Chemistry Modeling

2010-07-03T18:48:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, I got an email that was a forward from a forward from my principal. It was about a chemistry modeling workshop that was being offered at a university near me. I had heard people talking about modeling on the NSTA list serve, but didn't know very much about it. I only really knew I had always thought it sounded interesting when it was mentioned.

I emailed the lady in charge and was told the workshop was full. Darn. Maybe next time.

A few days later, I got a call from the professor in charge, was informed of a cancellation and am I still interested in attending. Of course I am.

THEN I went to the workshop website to find out more about the whole thing. In some unbelievable stroke of luck, I discovered the workshop was FREE. Plus, I was going to earn 3 credit hours. AND I get a stipend. I will also receive a technology package for my classroom.

AND! There are funds available to attend NSTA 2011!!! I am so excited about this last one. I have never been able to attend either a regional or national NSTA, so I am definitely going next year.

All of this along with some good professional development. I know, those three words rarely go together.

What a good summer.

Chemistry Part II

2010-07-02T09:07:00.001-05:00

Ever have a period of time in your life where you just can't seem to get anything crossed off your to-do list?

I am currently at the (hopefully) end of one of those. I went to my classroom yesterday and found a piece of paper in my desk that had the list of my goals for the summer.

And then I laughed.

So before anyone else woke up this morning, I sat down with my terrible chemistry curriculum and set my timer for 30 minutes. The timer is a great tip I picked up from the Fly Lady several years ago and pretty much the only one I have been able to stick with. I'm working on that.

Writing out the second trimester proved to take much less time than the first trimester did. This makes me pretty nervous. I think it's been so long since I taught regular chemistry that I simply wasn't sure what goes into the second trimester. I have a sneaking suspicion that there will be quite a bit of editing involved with this set of targets. Nothing I haven't done before, I guess.

Second Trimester Chemistry

1. Predict the change in the rate of a chemical reaction when temperature, concentration, catalysts, inhibitors, surface area or reaction type change.

2. Describe the role of activation energy in a chemical reaction.

3. Convert the molar mass of a substance to moles.

4. Convert the molar mass of a substance to the number of particles of substance.

5. Calculate the masses (or number of moles) of reactants and products in a chemical equation from the mass (or moles) of one of the reactants or products.

6. Calculate percent yield in a chemical reaction.

7. Calculate the concentration of a solution in molarity, grams per liter, ppm and percent composition.

8. Identify the factors that affect solubility and rate of solution.

9. relate a solution's concentration to its colligative properties.

10. List the properties of acids, bases and solids.

11. Define the dissociation of strong and weak acids and bases.

12. Calculate the pH of a solution and classify it as an acid or base.

13. Calculate the concentration of an unknown solution before and after dilution.

14. Describe the use of buffers to stabilize pH.

15. Assign oxidation numbers to uncombined elements and elements within compounds.

16. Identify the reduction and oxidation processes within balanced half reactions.

17. Name and draw hydrocarbon structures using the IUPAC naming system.

18. Write formulas for alkanes, alkenes and alkynes.

19. Draw structures of isomers for alkanes, alkenes and alkynes.

Again, pretty sure there will be editing involved. Probably more so than the first trimester. It was much more difficult for me to decide what was critical with this trimester since these state standards are not the tested ones.

So I have my chemistry skeleton created. This is what every student MUST learn if they take my chemistry class. Now to flesh out the targets. My plan is to write an extended target for each one.

If the planets align correctly, I should be able to get at least the first half finished before school starts back up.

Maybe I should check the star charts.

Chemistry Part I

2010-06-25T11:50:00.000-05:00

Okay. So I have sat down and really looked at next fall's chemistry curriculum. Last summer, we spent an intense week and wrote out our district's science curriculum. At the time, it made sense and looked like a good document.

Then I took it back to my classroom and realized it was a terrible document. Basically, we just rewrote our state standards. I realized that we have WAY too much information in those pages.

So, in the interest of SBG and concise information everywhere, I have started looking long and hard at what I need to teach in my classes.

I spent the entire morning trying to decide WHAT IS CRITICAL. For my first semester, I ended up with 15 standards. Not bad. Completely doable in a semesters time. They also allow for a little bit of wiggle room if the class is struggling or if the class is really clicking.

First Trimester Chemistry

1. Identify the subatomic particles, their locations and properties (mass and charge).

2. Describe the distribution of mass and volume and charge within an atom.

3. Determine the number of protons, electrons and neutrons in a given atom.

4. Determine the mass number of an atom.

5. Write the electron configuration of an atom.

6. Draw the Lewis dot structure of an atom.

7. Predict the oxidation number of an ion based on its Lewis dot structure, electron configuration or position on the periodic table.

8. Use an atom's valence electrons to predict it's properties.

9. Relate an atom's position on the periodic table to its reactivity, ionization energy, electronegativity and relative size of ions and atoms.

10. Describe the changes that result when an atom's electrons change energy levels.

11. Predict whether a pair (group) of atoms will form a covalent, ionic or metallic bond.

12. Name and write formulas for ionic compounds.

13. Name and write formulas for covalent compounds.

14. Describe the polarity of simple molecules.

15. Write balance chemical equations.

Maybe in need of a bit of editing, but I like this much better. This is what MUST be learned in my chemistry class. My plan at this point is for each of these standards to be an SBG standard at the 3 level of my 4 point scale. I realize some of these are pretty advanced concepts on their own, but this is what is one the state assessment, so that is how it made it to the critical stage.

Now I need to do this for the second trimester concepts.

Then the really hard part. I struggle a lot with expanding into the upper levels of learning, mostly because I have rarely had kids who could handle that type of assignment. Next year will be different, I assume (!).

Changing Rooms

2010-06-20T11:42:00.000-05:00

I haven't accomplished much school-wise this summer. My daughter is playing softball, my sister got married last weekend and my son, well, my son is three.

My classroom has been cleaned out and the floors redone. Only now I find out that I am moving classrooms next year. I am teaching chemistry, so my principal is moving me upstairs to the chemistry "suite." It's a nice room, one room with desks for lecture situations and an adjacent room for lab activities. With any luck, we won't spend much time in the lecture room.

I'm not sure if this move is permanent or not. In all actuality, I'm not even sure what I will be teaching this fall. This leaves me a pretty big dilemma.

If you have never had a science classroom, you cannot begin to comprehend the amount of "stuff" that can accumulate. I inherited this room from a former earth science teacher a few years ago and STILL haven't managed to go through all the cabinets. (One key phrase here is "earth science teacher," I literally have a ton of rocks to move.)

Since I am not positive that I will not be coming back to this room, I really, really, REALLY don't want to move everything upstairs only to have to move it back downstairs next spring.

Sigh.

So for now, I won't move anything.

Summertime

2010-06-02T09:50:00.000-05:00

Whew.

School's been out for a week now. The State track meet has come and gone. It's already doggone hot outside. And the custodians started stripping my floor yesterday.

Given that last little tidbit of information, I can't get into my classroom until at least next Monday. I thought about bringing my list home with me, but at the last minute, decided against it.

I am taking a week off. My kids and I are headed out to do a little geocaching and then to the pool today. Tomorrow, I see there is an NCIS marathon on USA. For some weird reason, I can turn that show on and get my house completely clean during the commercials.

My goal this summer is to spend one day a week in my classroom. If I can do that, not only will I have a clean room next fall, but I will also maybe have more than the first week mapped out for my classes. This is doubly important this year since it is entirely possible that I will be given another new class on the first day of school.

But now my kids are up and we are off to play.

End of the Year Blues

2010-05-17T12:34:00.000-05:00

We have four more days of school.

We have been counting down for a couple weeks now. By "we", I mean me and my kids. Since all our teachers started going down, there has been a cloud hanging over everyone here. That and there have literally been clouds hanging over us, we haven't really seen the sun for several days. Not your typical May weather.

So we are more or less just trying to get through to the end without blowing up my lab.

We have one more inservice for teachers next Monday, and we just got the schedule today. To say that I am shocked is a mild understatement. Basically, they are turning us loose to work on incorporating any and all of the previous inservice strategies into our curriculum.

This is such a huge deal, I can't even begin to describe it! Our district does not allow us to work on our own. Because you KNOW all teachers will immediately congregate in the workroom with their coffee and never get any work done.

Maybe I can even get some of those things on my list organized or (gasp) even put together!

Atlantis

2010-05-14T14:32:00.002-05:00

Want to ramp up interest in any class?

Watch a live launch of the space shuttle on NASA TV. We watched this today during my Applied Physics. Atlantis made her final launch about 30 minutes into the class period and although not my Astronomy class, we made it a point to see. We put away all our work away and listened to Mission Control talk to the astronauts. We turned off the lights and saw the engines start to fire.

And when they reached zero time, goosebumps spread through the entire classroom.

The NASA Launch Commentator is awesome. I want to meet him. Every couple minutes, he updated us on the speed and altitude of the shuttle. These little tid-bits floored my kids. It took just 7 minutes for the shuttle to leave our atmosphere.

AND, the camera on the fuel tank gave us an incredible view of home.

Even if you don't teach astronomy. Even if you don't teach science. If you teach children, they need to see something like this in their lifetime. Kids (and grownups) can't help but be amazed by this.

Most common question? "Is this happening now?"

Second most common question? "What are they going to do in space?"

This sparked an incredible interest in the space program that I really didn't see coming. So we went to the library and looked up the specifics of Atlantis' last mission.

Not in the curriculum. Not in the state standards. Not on the state assessment.

Worth a "lost" teaching day.

SBG: Personal Reason #2

2010-05-14T09:18:00.000-05:00

I'm used to low motivation in my students. I'm also okay with it. When I walk through my door in August, I am ready. It is my personal challenge to find out what motivates each student and turn that into a way to teach. Sometimes, it actually works.

Harley is not my typical student. He is smart, popular, athletic. And lazy when it comes to his classes. Mostly because he is really smart. Harley's big complaint is homework. He doesn't see the need to do any of it. Mostly because he is really smart and doesn't NEED to do any of it to understand what he is being taught.

We have had meeting after meeting with Harley and his parents about his grades. Every teacher says the same thing: "If Harley would just do his homework, he would be passing my class."

Last year, I was one of them.

I have failed Harley. Not in class (he did just enough to pass), but as a teacher. Ask him anything about my class; he can probably still tell you. He learned everything I asked him to learn.

For some reason, that was not good enough for me. Why did I punish this kid for not needing to work hard to learn?

Looking Toward Next Year

2010-05-10T15:48:00.000-05:00

I have several scraps of paper in a pile on my desk that contain short notes about what I want to change in my classroom next year. At this point, I don't know yet which classes I will be teaching, so the notes are pretty non-specific. In a desperate attempt to clean off my desk, I am recording those ideas here.

Standards Based Grading
1. Love it. Need to tweak some things. Need to do away with others. I jumped in here at the beginning of the trimester with two classes (Astronomy and Applied Physics). In hindsight, I should have started with one class and done it properly. With nine class days left, I am simply overwhelmed.

2. I need to edit my Learning Targets. My kids have been terrific about the experiment and have rolled along with me as I changed things up*. When I wrote the targets, I was basically copying the state standards. Ugh. Some targets were too broad, some targets were too narrow, and some just didn't make sense. My targets need to be more clear as to what is actually going to be assessed. I want the kids to be able to read the target and know what they need to do. I am finding this is not an easy thing to do with Astronomy targets.

3. I want to have something of a rubric for each learning target. If you want a '4', this is what you need to do. If you only have 'this and this' then that earns you a '3'. Most of the kids I have need that kind of direction.

4. I want a tutorial for each learning target. In my "spare time" this summer, I might start on that. Some of my classes overlap in concepts, but that will still be a huge undertaking. Probably a several year undertaking.

5. I am pretty sure I can create online quizzes with Examview (yes, I know, I am soooo behind the times). I want those put up on my website so the kids can practice the concepts.

6. Each target needs a remediation strategy/practice/plan. When a student wants to come in and relearn Getting Your Bearings Learning Target 3, I don't want to have to scramble around getting something ready to go.

Teaching Methods

1. My delivery is terrible. Part of the problem here is that I have taught a new class nearly every year since I have been at my current school. With few, if any resources. A big part of my years have been spent just being barely a day ahead.

2. Inquiry, inquiry, inquiry. Shawn, can I come live with you?

3. Differentiation is the word of the day. While I am told I do a pretty good job at this, I am still a little fuzzy on what it all is.

Wow. Summer vacation, here I come.

*It's entirely possible that they simply have no idea what's going on.

I Think I Might Be A Bad Teacher

2010-05-04T09:28:00.001-05:00

This scares me.

SBG: Personal Reason #1

2010-05-04T09:05:00.000-05:00

A few years ago, I was asked to teach Anatomy and Physiology. We are a pretty small school, so this has been a class that is taught when the interest is there and we can fill a classroom.

This remains one of the rare upper level classes I have ever taught, so maybe my perspective is somewhat skewed, but I saw a different type of motivation at work here.

Victoria was a hard worker. She was a straight A student. She was valedictorian.

She was a Grade Junkie.

It didn't matter what kind of work I threw at her, she got it done. Six page tests? No problem. The great by-product of having Victoria in class was that (almost) all the other students followed right along with her. I was thrilled. Finally, I could assign homework, and the kids would actually do it. I could give a test and not have to go buy a new pen to grade it.

Then one day, we had some down time. I can't even remember what the conversation was about, but the words that came out of Victoria's mouth stopped me in my tracks.

"I don't care if I learn anything, I just want the A."

I am still trying to reconcile that statement with what I am doing in my classroom. I started on my winding journey into SBG (although I didn't know where I was going) because of that one little comment made by my student. I didn't know where I was headed until this year. I now have a destination. Now all I need is a plan.

Didn't See That Comin'

2010-04-30T18:19:00.000-05:00

I have an exchange student in my Astronomy class from Brazil. Marcus is an ideal student with better English skills than some of my students.

My class integrates as much observational astronomy in to the curriculum as I can.Anyone who has ever looked at the night sky has seen the Big Dipper, either knowingly or accidentally. It is a prominent feature of the sky and is full of pointer systems that my kids can use to locate other major stars and constellations.

So during class, we are discussing ways to find Polaris, Bootes, Leo, Cassiopeia; all those landmarks that fill even the most unmotivated students with awe.

As we talked about Polaris and how to find north I couldn't help but notice Marcus looking a little bit lost. He dutifully filled out his map, but finally, he raised his hand and asked what was on his mind.

"Miss, I have never seen the Big Dipper. And what do you mean by 'the North Star'?" Heads swiveled in stunned silence. Thankfully, no one made any rude remarks about intelligence, but there was a second there that I really had no idea what to say.

Then it dawned on me. I asked Marcus where exactly in Brazil he was from. We got out the globe and he pointed to his home town.

Marcus was from a place SOUTH of the equator. He could never have seen the Big Dipper (in its entirety) or Polaris from where he lived because they never rise in his sky.

Well, once the kids discovered that little tid-bit, they went crazy. What stars CAN you see? Do you have a "South Star"? Does the world rotate in a different direction?

No, I'm not making that last one up.

This was such an incredible teaching moment that I never saw coming. Never even thought about. Sometimes, things just happen right.

Out of the Running

2010-04-28T09:20:00.000-05:00

Kansas has withdrawn it's bid for the second round of Race to the Top funds.

Thank goodness.

Perspective

2010-04-24T06:57:00.000-05:00

We always talk about how bad we have it.

But you know what? It could be worse. So much worse.

Thanks to Pastor Ryan for sharing and making such a difference in this world.

SBG Step 4: The Retake and Future Assessments

2010-04-23T15:06:00.000-05:00

A student wants to come in and retake part of his quiz. (Insert angelic choir here.) I have told them that they need to come in before school or during seminar to study the material before a retake is possible.

Now I am in trouble. How do they study? Some targets are easy to show that extra work has been done to relearn the material. Others, not so much.

For this particular student, I have him create a four square vocabulary card. He looks at me like I have completely lost my mind. Maybe I have. He seems to think staring at his notebook should be enough to convince me he has studied. "Really? Is that what you did the first time around?"

"Touche" is his response. (Yes, he really said that.)

By the time he finishes, seminar is over, so I take his quiz down to his powerclass teacher. Ninety seconds after the bell rings to start class, he bounces into my room, gushing how he did great. He understood. He KNEW the answers.

And so he did.

His "1" became a "4."

Three days later, the same target comes up on another assignment. The boy can barely sit in his seat he is so excited that he remembers it.

He has made a 42 card for every new term since then in this class AND ALL HIS OTHER CLASSES! Something has worked for him. Something clicked.

I feel like I am on the right track.

Our Black Hole

2010-04-22T09:00:00.001-05:00

There is something wrong here. Very, very wrong.

Two weeks ago, our ag teacher was seriously injured in a cattle working accident. He has had surgery on a broken femur and is probably not going even be able to think about coming back this year.

On Tuesday, one of our language arts teachers was seriously injured in a traffic accident. A teenage girl crossed the center line (wanna bet a cell phone was involved?) and hit head on. Our teacher has BOTH of her legs broken and was flighted to a larger hospital to have surgery. She is out for a MINIMUM of 8 weeks. Although (bless her), every time the morphine starts to wear off she is asking for her plan book. Her husband has to press the medication button when she isn't looking. We got you covered, honey, don't worry about it.

The night before last, one of our science teachers was arrested for firing a gun in the general vicinity of her daughter's boyfriend. In all fairness, if my daughter had come home with this guy, I probably would have reacted in a similar manner. Still, you are not allowed to shoot at people. There is also a strong likelihood that alcohol was involved. She knows her science, but she is one of those teachers who should not be influencing young adults.

So we are all on tiptoes around here. Between all the crises and the fact that it is April, we are having a hard time getting any teaching done.

I'm just glad that I am not an administrator today.

SBG Step 3: The Grades

2010-04-21T19:58:00.000-05:00

In my perfect world, each one of my learning targets would be assessed at least twice. At the moment, I count each assessment as 4 points, so each target would end up being worth 8 points total. I am really struggling with the percentages that result.

I don't like them.

I have been trying to come up with a better way of reporting the overall grade. A student pointed out yesterday that he did not want to reassess a target he scored a "1" on because he did well on the other targets. These other targets bring his overall grade up to one that is acceptable to him and his parents.

This REALLY bothers me. That target is one that I decided was critical to this course and a student told me that it wasn't important.

In a percentage world, he is right, it's not important. I'm not sure how to fix this, but it must be dealt with.

To be honest, I'm not even sure if I am allowed to change this. Our district (like many others) has an official grading scale. It might possibly take an act of the BOE to change it.

And if I do change it, what do I change it to?

I Kinda Miss My Kids

2010-04-20T09:13:00.001-05:00

Last Wednesday was a normal day. I went to school, taught a little science and then made out my substitute plans for Thursday.

And Friday.

And today.

Know what we did yesterday? We had professional development.

When I get to see my 5th and 6th hour tomorrow, it will have been an entire week.

My 6th hour Astronomy is okay. I went ahead and started them on their final project. We obviously haven't covered everything yet, but they can get a good start and think about what their end product will be like.

My 5th hour Applied Physics, on the other hand, might be having some problems. While my Astronomy class is pretty needy, this class is beyond needy. Routine and structure are important to them. Feedback is important to them. One girl saw me in the hallway this morning and, nearly in tears, gave me a bear-hug.

It's good to know miss me.

See you all tomorrow.

So How Do We Make It Real?

2010-04-13T18:10:00.000-05:00

Here is an interesting post by Jason.

I am floored by this. I'm not even sure what my reaction is yet.

How does this relate to testing?? We spend so much time testing our kids to find out what they "know." Forget all the research. Forget all the teachers, students and parents crying out that testing is not a measure of how good their school is.

This one simple quiz brilliantly shows that kids are learning.

How much of our testing is misrepresented simply by the context in which the questions were asked?

Facing Reality

2010-04-10T19:04:00.000-05:00

I'm struggling today. I struggle a lot, but today seems to be the Armageddon for me. I read a post by Andrew this morning that just completely summed up what has built up my anxiety more than anything else.

What in Heaven's name am I doing here?

My daughter is 8 years old, in the third grade and recently completed her first round of Reading and Math State Assessment Tests. Looking at education from a parenting perspective is in some ways quite a bit different than from a teacher perspective.

We all think our subject is the most important, mostly because we love it ourselves. Now that I have a child in the system, I can't help but wonder if we just are not doing it right.

What are we preparing our kids for? College? Apparently not. Tech school? Please. A job? Sure, if you want to work at McDonald's.

Before we "progressed" into this century, kids were sent to school to learn about the things they would encounter in real life. What happened there? Did it start innocently with a solid belief in a "well-rounded" education, only to turn into the monolith it is now? (Love that term, Andrew)

I have a student now who knows she wants to be a nurse. Every Wednesday, she goes to school, attends track practice and then she goes to CNA classes. She goes to class AFTER school. Why can't she get that same education AT SCHOOL? Why don't we offer CNA classes through the high school? This girl could get a job the day after she graduates from high school. Obviously, these classes are not considered too advanced for a high school student.*

I had a student a few years ago who was simply doing the time. His father was a plumber. He wanted to become a plumber. Yet he was forced to sit through four years of high school in order to be handed a piece of paper that meant nothing to him. I tried everything I could to teach him Chemistry, but knew in my heart of hearts (and also because he mentioned it) that he could care less about isotopes.

Not every student NEEDS to understand isotopes. Now, if you are going into radiology or probably even nursing, you darn well better pay attention because you will be working with this stuff, but on the whole, we are forcing this on kids who will never, ever use (or even remember) it.

At the beginning of this year, we spent a morning meeting talking about the Kansas Career Pipeline. Basically, kids take an interest inventory and are given a list of occupations that align with those interests. I think we have all done this. But according the the KCP, we are then supposed to counsel kids to take certain class and get them started down the path to their selected occupation. I was so excited. This is brilliant. This is what kids should be doing in school...preparing for a career.

And then, school started. Administrators should know that any idea, no matter how brilliant, introduced on the first day of the school year will get buried in the excitement and chaos of the first day of school. Especially something that requires you to more or less restructure your counseling office. And so another great opportunity was lost to reality.

*I really have no idea what criteria she had to meet in order to take the classes. I think I remember some other students talking about being 16 and passing an exam, but I am not sure what all it entails.

Chewing My Own Arm Off

2010-03-31T09:02:00.000-05:00

I have had another major realization today. I think I am trying to do too much. Not in the sense that I have a take-home job, two small kids, a puppy and am now coaching track.

I mean I am trying to cover too much material. Should my kids in high school astronomy be able to cover the same amount of material that I did in my masters astronomy?

My answer yesterday, apparently, would have been "Yes." Today, however, I am not so sure.

My four earth science classes are up for review by the Board of Regents. Since they are not titled "Biology", "Chemistry" or "Physics," this means I have to make a list of the major concepts covered in each trimester. I am limited as to the number of concepts I can submit, mostly because the BOR doesn't seem to want to read through every objective I have for the class.

The realization came as I was trying to summarize my Ocean Science unit on Currents. Again, trying to decide what is critical is the major hurdle I am trying to get around. I have fallen into the bear trap of trying to touch on everything while not actually covering any subject in depth.

What Are Grades?

2010-03-26T09:13:00.001-05:00

Think Thank Thunk has a great question for you today.

Our most recent discussion had a lot to do with what grades mean. More specifically, the question of whether soft skills like punctuality or being nice should be included as a part of a student’s grade. In our group there are basically two camps:

Grades should reflect a student’s progress with course material. Where an A+ indicates mastery.
Grades should be an amalgam of a student’s knowledge, behavior, and anything else the teacher wants to control.

My new obsession with Standards Based Grading has forced me to take a long, hard look at what I teach and assess in my classroom. When a student walks away from this trimester with an A in my Astronomy class, what does that mean?

Does it mean she has hurriedly copied yesterday's homework in the bathroom before school?

Does it mean he has finally stopped saying f*ck in my class?

Or does it mean she can identify the elements fusing in the core of a star by interpreting its absorption spectra?

There are a lot of things I have to do to get ready for class every day. Once I determine what to teach, I have to plan out my lesson. I have to determine the best way to deliver that lesson. How can I supplement that lesson? Should I do a lab? Do I have a lab? If not, then I need to find one. Or write my own. Then I need to have enough copies for each kid. Have I looked far enough ahead to see any problems we might run into? Better have all the supplies ready.

Do I get credit for each one of these steps?

Nope.

What matters is whether or not I have it ready to go at 10:44 Tuesday morning. It's the end product that counts. Sometimes you have to do quite a bit that doesn't count individually, but is a part of a greater whole. Sometimes, you do the homework so you understand the material. If you already get it, is it a waste of time, energy and good pencil lead to do #1-31 odd?

We have such a big hang up with preparing kids for jobs. Does your job require you to turn in homework everyday? I have to have lesson plans for each day, but ultimately, those are to make my end product better* and not for use by anyone else.

And does grading on these skills truly prepare kids for the real world? Kids are smart. They know how to play the game. They know which class they can wear a hat. They know which teacher will allow them to bring a snack into class. They know when they can get away with texting. They also know what their boss is willing to put up with.

And they act accordingly. They know how to play the game.

I expect my kids to come in (without a hat) and be respectful to me and everyone else in the room. They do not get a grade for manners, but my expectations are clear.

For me, I fall resolutely into the first group.

*I realize some teachers are required to submit lesson plans to their administrator. In my last school, we did, but I had a sneaking suspicion they were stuffed into a drawer somewhere and never seen again.

SBG Step 2: What to Know

2010-03-25T07:51:00.000-05:00

Now that I have learning targets set up for each unit, I am writing a bullet list of exactly what that student must do in order to demonstrate mastery. I struggled with this a lot, but the kids absolutely love it. I can't believe how much anxiety has been reduced in my classroom. They know exactly what they need to learn.

In the future (baby steps, remember) I would like to have a guideline for each target. If you know this...then you get 4 points. If you know that...then you get 2 points. Basically, it would be a rubric on how each target is graded.

Of course, I would love to have that now, but I don't want to have a nervous breakdown. Although, I wonder if they would let me have my notebook in an isolation room... No, definitely a bad idea.

I went and got a separate binder for all of this. Each unit's targets are printed on a separate page with space in between to take notes. The units we have already covered are bleeding red ink. I find that I edit quite a bit as I am grading. Some mistakes are made repeatedly by several students, so I make a note of those misconceptions as well.

If nothing else, this process has really opened my eyes as to holes in my teaching and assessing practices. So far, my kids are on board. Most of the students who have taken advantage of the reassessments have given me postive feedback. I still have a few students who haven't quite grasped the concept of learning the material in order to raise the grade, but overall, I love the change this has brought to my classroom.

SBG: Step 1

2010-03-24T07:37:00.000-05:00

After some calming breaths and a change of scenery, I am re-focused. I am going to focus on the Standards Based Grading and create the framework for that system and then add in Differentiated Instruction as it falls into place. Notice how I am assuming it's all going to fall into place instead of fall apart. "Positive waves, man."*

For each section I teach, I am writing learning targets. This is what I want my kids to demonstrate at the end of the unit. I am struggling a little bit with this. One of the great ideas I came away with Monday was to decide "what is critical". Not what I would really like to teach or what is interesting to learn about, but what is critical for a student in my classroom to come away with. Critical is a pretty strong word, and I am trying to narrow down my topics. I figure if time allows, I can go back and add in some more.

Here's a big step for me...they do not have to be graded on this!

Really. Before I started viciously breaking down my curriculum, I was of the mindset that every little detail I slipped into class time should be tested. Why else would I bring it up? I have, with some internal struggle, changed this view.

I am focusing on what is critical.

So far, my kids have not caught on. (Insert evil laugh)

*Oddball, Kelly's Heroes

I Need a Pensieve

2010-03-22T20:05:00.000-05:00

OK. I thought I was ready. Teachers came back today for Professional Development. Our afternoon presenter, Lisa Henderson from Essdack (our co-op), discussed Differentiated Instruction in the Math and Science classrooms. She was phenomemal, so much energy radiated from her that she could have talked about anything and I would have been excited about it. I love presenters like that.

I have been struggling with what DI actually looks like for quite some time now. No person I asked could give me a straight answer, so I changed my concentration over to Standards Based Grading. Lisa came in and not only defined it for me, but actually told me that what I had been doing was on the right track. Whew.

My immediate reaction (as it often is) was to jump in head first with this, too. I started listing all the ways I could implement this into my classroom. Around the second page of scribbled concept maps (that's how I think), alarm bells started going off. I can see myself starting to take on too much. Baby steps. That's the key.

I need to step back and look at all this from a new angle and decide how to move forward. I am not willing to abandon SBG because I love it and it is the middle of the trimester. I want SBG to seamlessly fit into my DI classroom. How to do it? Not sure yet.

I need Albus Dumbledore to loan me his pensieve.* I have so many ideas and thoughts swimming around my head that I can't think straight.

Deep breaths. I need to decide where to start.

*Seriously, read Harry Potter, already. I love that world.

And We're Back

2010-03-21T22:57:00.000-05:00

This last week was Spring Break. Great timing with the weather, too. Like most everyone else, this winter has been cold and depressing. Last week was spring. Well, except for Friday. We started out the day in t-shirts and ended it with four inches of snow on the ground. Bizarre.

I had a lot of things on my To Do list, and precious few got done. I also lost the list somewhere around Tuesday. I was planning on spending a day (or at least a half a day) in my room as a rat-killin' day; cleaning miscellaneous glassware, putting away stray lab equipment, re-organizing my curriculum notebooks, maybe even putting my substitute folder back together (I know, it's almost April).

Didn't happen. I did nothing school related over break. I almost forgot I even had a job. And boy, do I feel good. I feel refreshed. I even feel ready to go back to school. Maybe that's what breaks are for.

Maybe We Should Ask the Kids

2010-03-05T07:48:00.001-06:00

My daughter is in the third grade. She spent three days last week taking the state reading assessments. Next week she will spend three days taking the math version.

She's 8.

This morning, she made the comment that there sure was a lot of testing going on in the school lately. I said, yes, it's that time of year. Her concern was "my class hasn't had the laptops in forever." I reminded her that she took her tests on the laptops last week.

"Well, it doesn't count if it isn't learning."

So true.

Wake Up Call

2010-03-04T09:49:00.001-06:00

Wow. This is hard.

I have delved into the realm of Standards Based Grading. All I can say is...Wow.

Last summer, our district put the science departments through a curriculum writing process. The idea, of course was to see if what we were teaching lined up with the state standards. Our Subject Area Committee (SAC) consisted of all middle school and high school teachers as well as representatives from the elementary schools. It was definitely an eye opener. I had read the standards and thought I was doing what I was supposed to. I was close, but missing several key pieces here and there. I loved the process as it forced me to look at what I was TEACHING.

Now I am immersed in SBG (is that the proper abbreviation?) with my classes. This is really forcing me to look at what I am ASSESSING. Apparently, I am not doing a very good job of truly finding out what my kids actually know. I am also finding out that my objectives that were written this summer are not very clear.

"The student will describe the ecliptic." What in Merlin's name does that mean??? How vague can you get? If I can't define it, how can I possibly expect my kids to show me they have learned anything?

Whew.

So the first thing I did was write out the objectives for my first Astronomy unit. The second thing I did was write out what that student would have to do to get all four points on that target. I typed these out and gave a copy to each student.

And here was another mind blower for me. As I am writing out what I wanted them to demonstrate, a little voice in the back of my head whispered, "but then, aren't you just giving them the answers?"

Holy Shit!

I HAD A PROBLEM WITH THIS!!!

Seriously. I felt like I had been hit by a truck. I was telling them what I wanted them to know. AND I HAD A PROBLEM WITH IT. Then another little voice (I have several of those apparently) was heard, "isn't this your JOB??" Isn't this the whole point of me spending hours upon hours planning and grading and preparing? Am I not supposed to impart my knowledge onto these young men and women??

Whew. I am not sure how I feel about this epiphany. I have never consciously tried to trick a student into failing, either by not giving all the information or simply writing a bad question.

But apparently, I have not been playing on an even field. I wonder why.

Bittersweet

2010-03-03T09:38:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, things happen that are beyond my control. Sometimes, I think I have a good handle on the situation and that I am making a difference. Then, out of the blue, it hits. I never saw it coming, and was crushed when it did.

One of my students (who is here because he is in foster care) was doing great. He was studying. He was doing his work. His attitude was better than I had ever seen it. Even his conversations with his friends didn't include any hint of illegal activity (believe me, even with my "good" kids, this is uncommon).

He was pulled out of my class the other day for a UA (part of his probation). He failed.

Failed.

I heard about it at lunch when the secretary asked me for his books. He wasn't coming back. He is going to juvenile detention. A chorus of teachers chimed in "oh, it's about time" and "that kid was nothing but trouble." I actually had to ask who they were talking about. I knew he had troubles and I knew he had challenges that I will never have to face. But when he walked into my classroom, he could be whomever he chose to be. He had been making a conscious effort to succeed. He was looking for someone to throw him a lifeline and pull him out. I can't speak for his other teachers. I don't know what prejudices were held, consciously or unconsciously, that acted against him.

Sometimes there just isn't enough rope.

Good luck, T.

I Think I Must Be Dreaming

2010-02-23T11:20:00.000-06:00

Don't wake me up!

Our seminar just ended. I had kids coming into my classroom. TO STUDY FOR THEIR QUIZ! These are kids who have never studied. Ever.

Wow.

So Here It Goes

2010-02-22T10:46:00.000-06:00

Wandering around the math blogosphere will really change up the way you are thinking about your teaching. Those people are doing AMAZING things in their classroom.

For awhile now, I have been trying to revamp he way I grade in my classes. I have been struggling with how to find out what those kids have actually learned. The truth is, deep in my soul, I do not believe tests are good measures of learning. Mind-boggling, isn't it?

I was actually already on this path when I came across the brilliant mind behind MeTA musings. From there, I webbed to f(t) and Always Formative and dy/dan and Point of Inflection.

THIS IS WHERE I WAS WANTING TO GO!!! What a relief to find someone already there! I am totally stealing their ideas!

So, here it goes. I am starting today. While my drywall mud dried yesterday, I sat down and wrote it all out. I am starting with my Astronomy class. I so want to add it into my Physics, too, but track starts next Monday and I don't want to be completely overwhelmed.

I (somewhat poorly) explained the system to the kids on Friday. When they understood the basic idea behind it, most of them seemed pretty excited.

So am I.

Does It Matter??

2010-02-11T10:14:00.001-06:00

We start a new trimester on Tuesday. I am teaching a second section of Astronomy and have been playing with my outline.

This trimester, I taught the course in the order I normally do. I start close to home with the Moon and Sun and then move further and further away from Earth. We end the term discussing the galaxies, our Local Group and then get into the search for life.

For some inexplicable reason, I am toying with the idea of starting way out and moving in closer. I require my kids to complete an observation notebook as a part of the final, and I think this is where my indecision is starting. You have to have an idea of what to observe if you want to record it in a notebook.

So I think I will shake things up a bit (for me, not so much them). I am going to start with the big picture and bring home into focus at the end.

I think.

I need to stop doing things like this.

No Wonder I'm Behind

2010-02-08T15:49:00.000-06:00

We switched to a trimester schedule this year. It is like a block schedule, but we meet everyday for 12 weeks.

I love it. We were on an 8 period day with 47 minute classes. Now we have a 6 period day with 68 minutes classes. Soooo much better. I don't feel like I am having to shift gears near as often and I (and my kids) can focus on getting something accomplished.

But as the end of our trimester looms up on us, I realize my Applied Chemistry class is no where near where they need to be.

We have had 4 snow days. The sophomores went the FHTC for a visit. And then our Mentoring hit my 4th hour 4 times.

Two weeks. Gone. That doesn't even count the days that the kids were absent for other reasons.

So what do I do? How do you handle missing 2 out of 12 weeks of school?