Done, Done, Done!

Hurray for winter break! Sometimes it's hard to be positive the last few weeks, but now that it's over there's time for some good thoughts. I thought I would take a few minutes to reflect. And then I'm going to forget about school and students for 3 weeks!!
My climate change project was a flop. I was really hoping it would take off, but it seemed to fall flat. I think there was just too much other stuff going on and it was hard to get students interested in anything. Note ton self not to try big projects so close to the end of the semester.
I did do a cool wrap up project in biology. It was just a simple research project on the kingdoms of life. I had a student make an awesome kids book. I will use the structure of a kids book for projects next semester.

I was also really proud of the results on my Earth Science final. The quality of responses was impressive. I feel like in terms of teaching this has been my best semester yet. I like how I am a lot more prepared. As my teaching coach always said: "it's all about the tools in your toolbox!" The more experience I gain, the more I see the rigor of my content increasing and my students are keeping up!

Top 5 things I've learned this year:
1.Cooperative learning when structured properly really works!
2. Structure and routine from day one are the key to a successful semester.
3. Relationship building and team building are essential to learning.
4. We must teach students how to use the Internet properly. Why stop them from finding information! Encourage them, but make sure you're teaching them how to evaluate if the information is accurate!
5. The more you have the students asking questions, and doing the investigating, the more they learn. In my classroom I want the students asking the questions, not me!

I leave you with those thoughts! I'm off until next year!

Teacher Thanks!

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm very thankful for a three day vacation! It is the perfect break to help me make it to the end of the semester! As a teacher I am grateful for the excellent vacation time! It is necessary to recharge every so often so that we're not grouchy or frustrated!

On Monday it's 3 more weeks. Reviewing for the End of course exam in Biology and a final project in Earth Science.

Excited about the final project on climate change. A subject I'm passionate about and hopefully will create engagement. Planning to make it cross-curricular. More on the project later! For now lets enjoy some relaxing time!

The Secret Pocket Foldable!

When I started teaching I had a mentor who taught me a foldable that is AWESOME! I have used this foldable twice this year. Once in biology and once in Earth Science. It has been really fun and the students seem to really enjoy it, get a lot out of it, and their understanding of the content seems to increase. This is a booklet foldable. But the cool part is that there is a secret pocket. The way I have used this is to give the students an assignment for each section of the booklet. The way I have had sucess is that I start off with the cover being very simple and mostly about them decorating and personalizing their foldable. I think this is how you get their interest. Then you increase the rigor of the assignments. You can even do book work for some of the sections and its almost as if the students don't realize they are doing bookwork. I give an assignment and then the next day do an activity to review what was covered. Or you can do the opposite and cover a topic and then for review have them do something in the foldable. In Earth Science the topic was Energy and Resources. The Biology topic I used was Genetics and DNA. For the Earth Science topic in the secret pocket I had the students pick what they think is the best energy source. They had to come up with ten statements from least obvious to most obvious about their source of energy. Then in invisiable ink they wrote their choosen energy source. They were very engaged. The following are some pics of a foldable that had a lot of time and effort put into it.

I act very excited and enthusastic when I introduce the project. It's amazing to me how just letting the student be creative, print in color, and put a personal touch on something, can create engagment and excitment for the students.

Managing Projects

I like creative, messy projects. But the problem is how to manage them for content. The easiest thing to do would be to assign the project for students to do on their own time...but this doesn't work. A few do it but many of them don't. I know the project should be a culmination of what the students have learned, so when I do projects I want lots of content. Some teachers might say that projects take too much time. But I think students can really learn by getting into something on their own. My first year teaching I would get so frustrated with projects. What I've discovered is the key is structure and chunking. Each year I get better at this but it is still a challenge. Every year I find myself changing, revising and trying to make projects more engaging and manageable on my end!

More food!

Just had my formal evaluation. I think it went pretty well. I did a lesson I've done before but I revised it to add in more content. My biology class has been studying gas exchange in cells. This topic is always a little abstract for students. To demonstrate fermentation we made sauerkraut! This really gets their attention. I personally love sauerkraut, but if you had asked me in high school I would have been grossed out. My students had no idea that sauerkraut is fermented cabbage. We also talked about other foods and looked at different types of fermentation. The lab itself is low content. They just cut up cabbage and put it in a bucket. However, just the idea of sauerkraut and fermented food peeks their interest enough to keep them engaged in a few pre-lab notes and short videos. I also do a hot dog and sauerkraut party for the students when the krout is ready! Just one note to remember...maybe a lab with knives is not the best for an evaluation! At least there was no big problems! Maybe it was good...I showed control and lab safety! While I'm on the topic of food I should mention another good food lab involving cells and jello! To show differences between prokaryotic, plant, and animal cells I made jello cells. I used plastic bags and various food/candy to represent organelles. Very visual. I've done candy cell models but this was even better. Students were less distracted. The content level was higher! Okay I promise my next entry won't be about food! But I highly recommend bringing food into the classroom for labs. It's an easy attention grabber!

Classifying and Food

I had two successful lessons last week that I wanted to share. The first was just a quick activity as part of a lesson. In Earth Science we've been doing rocks and minerals. This is a unit I always struggle with engagment. I know geologists who can make rocks interesting. But in the past whenever I get to this unit I find myself searching the internet for hours trying to find something that will get the students interest. I have rock samples and I do labs to indentify them but it just seems to fall flat. For minerals I did a quick activity to review the 4 characteristics of all minerals. I printed out pictures of salt, a rock, ice, sugar, and coal. I made sure to print pictures of the item in different forms. Then I gave each group the pictures and made them draw a chart in chalk on their tables. The chart listed the five items and then the four characteristics of minerals. Inorganic, definite chemical composition, crystals or repeating patterns, and natural. The students had to write yes or no in each box for each characteristic. Then they figured out which of the two items were minerals. Usually my students struggle with visualizing these characteristics. But with this they were able to classify each as a mineral or not. I gave them hints to help them. For example I printed a picture of a sugar cube and also a picture of sugar cane. The students were able to figure out that sugar is not inorganic because they know plants are living. Also writing on the desks with chalk is always fun and engaging! For my other successful lesson I had the students make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to model a rock going from sedimentary to layered rock to metamorphic. If a student has alergies you can have them just use jelly. The students each get a piece of white and a piece of wheat bread. They put peanut butter and jelly on it and then candy (minerals), gummy fish and worms (fossils), and marshmallow (binding agent). This is their sedimentary rock. Then a group of students stack their sandwich and wrap it in plastic wrap. This is layered rock. They then sit on it or apply a lot of pressure and then unwrap it and put it in the microwave for 5 minutes. Heat and pressure to make a metamorphic rock. They loved it. And I gurantee none of them will forget how metamorphic rocks form! I also showed them real rock samples to bring it back to the real thing. Overall it was a fun and successful week. And they were engaged in rocks!

Should teachers accept late work?

How many teachers do you know who tell you that their least favorite part of teaching is grading? I for one totally agree. Wouldn't it be great if we could convince students to want to learn for the sake of learning and not because they were being graded? Every year I change my grading system, trying to make it mean more. But I can't seem to find the perfect solution. If I grade everything it gets overwhelming, but on the other hand if you don't collect it how do you get the students to buy into the activity? I get chills when I think of my high school teacher saying, "Oh that's just for you." My response (in my head) as a high school student "Seriously! You have got to be kidding me!" And then there's the attendance issue. If the student is absent all the time can they still pass? If they do the work on their own? They're missing valuable in class discussion and interaction but they understand the material...so how do justify their success? Do we rate a student based on a test or on hard work? In the workplace we get paid if we do the work. If I have one crappy lesson I still get paid. But if I am continually unprepared there will be consequences. Ultimately if I don't know how to do a good lesson, when it's time for my evaluation I won't be recommended to re sign my contract. So do we grade like an employer would grade? If I stopped showing up I wouldn't get paid. So if a student doesn't show should they be allowed to make up that work? What about late work in general. Don't we want them to learn the concepts? But are they really getting anything out of a worksheet that they do not in context with the lesson, weeks after the lesson was taught? Okay so what about social skills and participation? If you factor these into their grade then are you still giving the student a grade based on mastery of content? Is the grading system inherently flawed or am I just missing something? Honestly I just don't know! It's all such a muddle to me, I struggle to have an opinion either way. What I do know is that all I can do is try my best to make sure the students are engaged and learning every day in my classroom. Maybe one day I'll have all the answers. For now it's just modify and adjust. A little of everything, some classwork, some participation, projects evaluated with a rubric, some tests and quizzes, and even some social skills in the mix. Trial and error, until the perfect system comes along. If it does I'll let you know!

Movement in the Classroom

If an outsider were to walk into my classroom it is quite possible they would think it was chaos. And they might be correct to a certain extent. The catch is that generally it is organized chaos. In my mind a noisy classroom is a productive classroom. Of course this means structured noise and chaos. It does not mean a free for all for the students. The easiest way to create structured movement is to use cooperative learning. There are thousands of cooperative learning structures out there that help you to manage learning in a way that allows for movement and noise. My favorite structure that I use almost every day in my class is called Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up. This is Kagan Cooperative Learning structure. If you ever have a chance to attend a Kagan Cooperative Learning workshop I would strongly encourage you. It provides you with valuable structures that you can take back to your classroom and apply right away with very little preparation. The most common way that I implement stand up,hand up, pair up is simple. I lecture or give information for about 10 minutes. Then I have the students stand up, I make them walk at least 5 steps away from their table and find a partner. They give their partner a high five, and then I ask a question and one partner answers. I ask another question and the opposite partner answers. Then they thank each other and find a new partner. I do use this method in lots of different ways. Pretty much any time I am having the students find a partner I make them high five. When they put their hand up it shows that they need a partner. And then I can tell what students are working and what students are not. I do this after a few minutes of a video, I use this for review for a test, I use it with flashcards. Sometimes I make the students come up with their own questions. It is a valuable tool to get the students moving around and talking about what they learned. The more they repeat something the better chance it will stick with them.

Another big way I use movement is by having the students write on big post it sticky notes. I love the big post its! They are a little bit expensive but worth it! Here's an example of what I did to review in biology. I divided the class into six groups. This was the number of main topics I wanted to review. I had each group get a big post it and one specific colored marker. Each group had a different color. I had them label an assigned topic. In this case we were reviewing ecology so my topics were; Levels or ecology organization, Food chains and webs, community interactions, climate, Ecological succession, and Nutrient Cycles. The students were allowed to use their notes and the textbook. They lined up in front of their post it. I timed them for two minutes and they did a relay. One student would write or draw something, pass the marker, and go to the end of the line. After two minutes the group rotated to another post it. We did this until they had gone through all the topics. When we were done it was really incredible to see all of the information that they recorded. I think they were impressed with themselves. And it looks cool on the wall.

Those are just a few ways I use movement. If your students sit a lot, get them up, I guarantee you will start to see improvement in recall and also a change in attitude. The more activities the faster class seems to go and the less complaints of boredom I get! Embrace the chaos!

Taking time to Process

This year I am trying to focus on student reflection and processing time. I think this a piece of the pie some of my lessons have lacked. We can give students information in lecture format or have them do activities and labs. But no matter how they get the information, if they don't have time to process and reflect are they really getting it? It seems like common sense, but yet how many times do I find my students rushed to finish a lab and there is no time to debrief? One activity I started this semester seems to be working. Once or twice a week I do something called power write. The students are given two words to choose from. Then they get 2 minutes to write about that word. I've been doing this with vocab words, but I also stared doing topics or critical thinking questions. The students count and record the # of words. I usually do two to three rounds. The number of words doesn't really matter but for some reason it makes them work! It creates energy and competition in the room. I don't grade for content. I glance grade for participation and to check for whole class understanding. Its a great quick way to find out if students got what you wanted them to get out of the lesson! There are lots of other reflection and processing activities. But I tried the power write and found it to be really powerful in my classroom! As the students write frantically you can practically see the gears in their heads turning. And the best part it takes less than 10 minutes!

Dinosaurs in High School?

I'm a bit behind in posting as I had a minor setback. Note to self, "It's never too early to make emergency substitute lesson plans." But on a positive note, after a car wreck and concussion, it was nice to have all the support of the teaching community and the students. The student concern and welcome back was enough to help me remember why I love to teach! Everyone was okay so we must carry on. And carry on I did...with dinosaurs!

I adapted this project last year from something I found in the October 2011 issue of The NSTA journal "The Science Teacher", written by Renee Clary and James Wandersee. The idea of an "Adopt-a-Dino" struck a cord and I took it and made it work for my classroom. What I liked so much about this project was the high interest topic. What student no matter their age, doesn't get excited about dinosaurs!? But what I also liked was the way it incorporarted a wide range of earth science concepts and hit a lot of the standards. What I found last year was that because of their interest the students did some high level research. When the project was over I felt like we hadn't wasted two weeks writing a paper because the students had done so much learning along the way. I like this project so much I'm doing it again this year. But of course I can't leave anything alone so this is what I have set up for this years "Adopt-A-Dino" project: The official unit is "The History of the Earth". This year I started with using videos from the History Channel series "How the Earth was Made". We did aging of rocks and the geologic time scale. Just enough to give some background and lead into the project. I divide the class into groups of 4. If I have to some groups of 3 but 4 seems to be the ideal number. As a team the groups choose a Dino. I'm very open about this. Both years I've had a group interested in the Megaladon. Fine with me...it adds diversity. This project is a 8-10 page research paper but the catch is that I divide the paper into 4 sections. Each student does his or her section and then they peer edit and add transitions to make their individual work flow into one paper. I love the outcome. It is so rewarding for the students to be able to write a full research paper but not get overwhelmed. In the end they get all the information because they put it together into a presentation and when they edit they go through each section. Without going on and on here are what I think are the key points that make the research work. Step 1: Divide the paper into 4 roles. Role 1 is the intro and conclusion. This means the background information. This is the creative role because this student has to start and end the paper. Role 2 is responsible for anatomy, classification and explaining where the group's dinosaur fits into the food chain. Role 3 is responsible for describing the era that the group's dinosaur lived and the geologic time period. Specifically this role looks at the other plants and animals in the ecosystem during the time of the groups dinosaurs life. Role 4 investigates the continents and plate tectonics during the era of the dinosaurs life. They look at the climate and conditions during the geologic era. And finally they investigate the theories of why dinosaurs went extinct. You can combine a role if you have a group of three or modify. The key is to have distinct tasks and information. This year I am going to give my students a graphic organizer web with a list of info that they need to find. The more structure and guidance the better the research! Step 2: Have a librarian come in and go through how to use databases specific for the project. The students may get bored but I'm a big believer in this presentation. The more the students hear it the more at least something will sink in. Make the students use the databases. Their default is to go to google. Fight this battle! Teaching research is a long process and requires patience but the learning outcomes are totally worth it. My first year doing a research project I thought it was the end of the world. I was trying to work individually with 20 some students at once. But keep adding structure and be intentional in your directions. It gets easier I promise! Step 3: Make the student write an annotated bibliography. (Note: not the best activity for when you still feel concussed! Do it on a day when you have a clear head) Don't try to force them to learn the citation format. Let them them use the tools available. Have them copy and paste the citation link for your required style or plug the info info into a citation generator. If you make the students have 2-3 sources that they cite properly and write a one paragraph summary/explain why the source is useful, it provides accountability. I actually asked my students how many of them find a source cite it and then go to google and use information from Wikipedia. Half my class raised their hands!! What a waste...that's not research. So make the change in your class, provide accountability that they read their sources.

Step 4: Be very intentional with your peer edit. No final accepted without going through the writing process. Make the students read their papers outloud. Group peer edit for content and transitions. Provide a list of comment starters for students to choose from. Step 5: The presentation is crucial. Make it realistic and professional. Last year I had my students make trifold boards. They presented to their principal in the form of a science seminar on dinosaurs. This was great but this year I have decided to try something called a Pecha Kucha. This is a PowerPoint presentation with just images that transition as the students talk. The type of presentation is probably not that important. The key detail is that you do a seminar style presentation where several groups present at the same time. For me I've had the most success when I don't make the students present to the whole class. It seems to provides more engagement.

I hope this was not too long and drawn out. This is a project I had success with and I'm passionate about. Put your own spin on it to make it work. Teaching research is daunting and a lot of work. But what a great real life skill to teach your students. Why not do it the right way? Good luck and happy researching!

An outlet for cluttered thoughts

I teach high school science and I think I do a pretty good job. I certainly do not claim to be an expert. But after 3 years, I still enjoy going to work and being in my classroom is still exciting. I must be doing something right. This blog is not meant to be about tooting my own horn. I have my fair share of frustrations and struggles. This blog is supposed to be an outlet for my thoughts and ideas. On my 30 minute drive to school yesterday my mind was going a mile a minute...planning my lessons, thinking of strategies, revising a PowerPoint, going through every possible behavior scenario, and reviewing my to do list. My racing mind is sometimes almost unbearable to manage. But then one thought filtered through the mud in my brain. "What if I were to take 30 minutes a few times a week just to sit and muddle through the mess in my head." And I decided to put it into writing. So this is a blog of my thoughts on teaching, things that work for me in the classroom, ideas for engagement, and a record of what doesn't work. This is a diary of the craziness smashing against the walls of my skull when I teach and think about my classroom!