Podcast Update

 Hello!  I have just launched my podcast: Science Teaching Toolbox

Please check it out: https://anchor.fm/mara792/episodes/Intro-Episode-e1eu97l

So far it is just an introduction 3 minute episode. By next week I hope to have a 20-30 minute full episode where I launch into a specific strategy for your teaching toolbox! Stay tuned!

I'm back after a long break from blogging

 I cannot believe I have been teaching for 14 years! Time has just flown by and I am such a different teacher today than I was when I started. I have a student teacher again, so I have a little bit of time (sort of)...I don't think I ever feel like I have a lot of time. But...this felt like a good place to do some reflection.

In the past year, I have also embarked on a new phase, and am pursuing a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction science.  I wanted to pick up this blog again,  as a way to reflect on my course work. I am currently enrolled in a course about creativity.  As part of this course I have to learn something new. I decided to try something I've always wanted to try which is a podcast. So I plan to revitalize my blog and then expand on it and make it a podcast as well. I love listening to education podcasts and getting ideas for my classroom and just affirming ideas I have about education! In the past three years, teachers have been pushed to their limits and there is talk of teachers leaving. While I understand this, I have had my share of ups and downs regarding thoughts about the current state of education in the US.  But, I also still hold onto my believe in education and find strength in my conviction that education is my passion and what I am supposed to be doing with my life!  

I'm working out my podcast name and first post. I will link it in this blog within the next few days. 

I don't like to post with nothing though so I'll do a quick write up about a current project:  My student teacher is taking the lead on Geologic History for Earth Science. For an introduction he used my painted walls as a scavenger hunt. He posted "blurbs" around the room in the places they fit on the painted geologic timeline. Students had to answer questions by going around the room and reading the placards. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about go back several posts and you'll see where I posted the project where students painted a geologic timeline on my classroom walls). I've realized the past few years that students respond to my walls throughout the year and that I often use it when teaching. I point to a section or reference something on the wall. The scavenger hunt was  a neat way to get them to think about geologic time, move around the room, and process what they've been seeing all year.  Sometimes, I look back and wish I could recreate the amount of engagement, I had from that one project, every year. While it really was a one time project, there are so many take away ideas that I  continue to find even 3-4 years later! 

I'm glad to be back! Stay tuned to be linked to my podcast where I'll share more strategies and ideas as well as thoughts on what I learn along the journey to earn my PhD. 

A pandemic post...

 As 2020 comes to an end I would be remiss if I didn't get in at least one post reflecting on this crazy year! In my last post (Fall 2019), I wrote about a personal project, which I never fully was able to implement, when things got wonky in the spring! A lot has happened since! I will say,  that I was able to set some ideas in motion and I still continued to work on some of my reading and writing strategies even with being virtual. Since we have been back I have been trying to keep with some of my ideas and plans!   Everything was not lost...although it may have felt it at times...and I sadly fear its still not quite over.

     My district opted to go back in the fall, but with a hybrid style of learning. The students come Mon/Tues or Thurs/Fri and then Wednesday everyone is out and there are zoom meetings with teachers throughout the day. I personally just returned in November because of maternity leave. So far there have been challenges, but I'm finding its not all bad. I'll highlight some postives just because we are inudated with negatives right now!!

     Because of block scheduling my classes were divided "roughly" in half by alphabet.  I see each class once a week and on Wednesday's on zoom. This had made very small class sizes. While some of the smallest (2 or 3) is a bit small it is a great way to really connect and almost indivudally tutor students! I think in just a month I have been able to really make progress with helping students increase their grades...and I don't mean just giving them points. I think I have truly been able to sit with them and help them learn content mastery. Its difficult for even the most engaged student to tune you out when there are so few in the room!  

 As a parent of two elementary students doing virtual while I was home on maternity leave, I learned so much that I believe will make me a better pandemic teacher and just a more understanding teacher in general. Seeing how it looks from a student perspective was englighting! It opened my eyes to how confusing and overwhelming they may be feeling. It also showed me areas my class could be overwhelming them where I would never have thought that before! I was also able to see how all of the strategies teachers put in place to help with organization are so needed at all levels! I plan to be extra intentional with trying to embed those skills into my classroom! 

So...what have I done that has worked? In the spring when we were all virtual, I had my students complete a climate change research paper. For the students who followed the process and worked online with me I was able to really help them with the writing process!  I currently am still working on using Claim, Evidence, Reasoning and I even just incorporated it on my Earth Science mid-term. Students were given and article on plate tectonics and the question "What is the current main theory for the movement of continents?"  I liked it because while the claim, evidence and reasoning to answer the question was clearly in the article. It also drew on the big picture for the unit. As I have been reading through the responses, I can see that students really made the connection and were able to show me their understanding of how science ideas can be expanded on over time. And how new knowledge/technology can change what we know and our understanding of the world. 

I wanted to quickly highlight something I was reminded of by my favorite education podcaster Jennifer Gonzalez "Cult of Pedagogy".  It was an old post from 2013 but it popped up right when I needed the reminder.  The main idea is that we often give students a paper, tell them to read it and then talk at them, giving them no time to process or actually do what you asked which was read the handout.  I was thinking of this and in my head, put it in the context of information overload with online assignments. I think sometimes I have a tendency to try to get creative and make things "fun" or interesting. But what the students may really need is for us to keep things simple and consistent. With so many changes and upheavel in their lives, it seems the simpler the better may be the way to go!  Check it out here,  for more details and the original message instead of my pandemic interpretation.

As I plan for next semester I am going to continue working on utilizing drawing and sketching as a reading comphrension strategy. I'm also planning to do my timeline project but on canvas instead of the wall. I think there is so much negativity in the world right now, the students need some art to brighten their lives!

Until next time, take care, stay safe and healthy,

-Mara

Fall 2019!

I was scrolling through Twitter and catching up on various blogs etc. Of course it made me think about my lack of blogging!! 

For professional Learning my school started individualizing our learning by having us complete a personal project during the year. I’m all for this! I love having choice about what I study/spend time working on! Last year I focused on service learning and I enjoyed my research etc. This year I have decided to go back to my passion from the start...and the inspiration for this blog title. I will be exploring reading and writing across curriculum! 

Sure I’ve down work with this before...but the biggest motivation for me is to get me back to the basics and to go back a little to what I know really well! I think it’s easy to get caught up in change and “new shiny” ideas. Of course those can be great and inspiring. But what I need this year is a year of some good solid teaching and learning in my classroom! I have a great group of students and only two preps! It’s going to be a good year!

My first strategy has been incorporating what is called CER (claim, evidence, and reasoning) into my lessons. I’ve had students read articles and fill out the CER and then we applied this concept when we  did a stream study looking at the impact of environmental structures put into the stream. (Daylighting streams, bioswales, etc). Instead of formal lab reports the students filled out a claim, evidence reasoning sheet. I don’t think they realized they were doing the same thing! But I didn’t get the angst and struggle that I would have assigning a lab report right off the bat. 

For my climate unit 2nd semester I think I will make them do more of a research paper but will use the CER structure that they now already know.

My focus this year is getting students to be scientifically literate. To know and understand how to evaluate credibility of what they read. Hopefully help them as they go on in life to make informed decisions. A lofty but not unreasonable goal! And one I truly believe is important!

Until next time! Back to the daily grind of teaching! Never boring, sometimes overwhelming, but always rewarding! 

How to disguise a worksheet!

Snow/extreme cold day!! And perfect timing because I came up with an idea for this blog on my way home from school yesterday. Great day to be able to relax and write!

In education it is important for students to engage and discuss and not just sit and listen to lecture then do independent work. In science and I'm sure in all subjects, sometimes you just really need the students to practice something or remember content. How do you do both? Simple "trick" the students into thinking they are not doing a worksheet. Here are 5 easy strategies to take a worksheet and make it interactive, encourage discussion and allow students to practice and process. I tried to mix it up with some that are in seats and some that require movement around the room.  These strategies are not original to me. Many of them are cooperative learning strategies or reading/writing strategies. If you have been teaching for a while you probably know most of these. This is just meant to be a quick refresher if you feel stuck in a lecture/worksheet rut.

1. Coaching back and forth: This is great  cooperative learning strategy for math type problems or anything where it involves steps that can be talked through.  Have students work in pairs. Have students choose to be partner A or partner B. They get one worksheet between the two of them and then go back and forth to answer the questions. The key is that first Partner A talks through the problem and records while partner B coaches. Then they switch on the next problem. Tell them for coaching to Tip, Tip, Tell, Re-ask. They each initial the problem they do. Wander the room to make sure they are following procedure. It is not just passing the worksheet back and forth. They must interact and coach in order to make it work correctly. Here is an example when students are asked to calculate force of gravity.

2.  Card sorts:  For any worksheet that involves matching this works great. Or even vocab. There are many variations of this. Use to sort vocab words with definitions, use to put vocab words into categories/groups One way to implement is to have students in groups of 3-4 and then deal out cards. They each put one card at a time into a category. Only the student with the card can touch it but others can tell them what category to put it into. You can do this with words or also pictures is a fun variation. Rock types example  and a comparing cells example using pictures.

3. Say it, write it, pass it: This is another cooperative learning strategy where  you can take questions on a worksheet and have the first student in a group say the answer out loud, then write it down, then pass the paper. The next student answers the next question and so on.

4. Find someone who: This is a go to for me. I take a worksheet and change the questions into Find someone who knows... I put each question in a box and generally do about 15 questions in a  3 x 5 grid. Students are assigned a column of 3 boxes to answer. Wander the room to ensure they go the correct answer. Then have students stand up, hand up, pair up to get the rest. They can only get one answer from another student then have to move to find another student. Encourage and monitor so that students are explaining and talking through each question. Do not allow a clump of students to just pass the paper around the circle as this defeats the purpose. Here is an example on static electricity and after students have completed a PHET simulation on static

5. Fold the line/quiz,quiz trade: This is another good vocab practice. I have found that many students don't fully understand how to utilize flashcards so doing structured activities helps them with this. For this one I make cards with a question or definition on one side and then the answer or vocab word on the back. Then I hand them out to students so each student gets one card. Students make a line then fold it in half until everyone is standing across from a partner. One side quizzes the other side. Remember to have them tip, tip, tell, re-ask if their partner doesn't know the answer.  Switch so the other side quizzes, then have students trade cards and one side rotates one person so they have a new partner. They end up asking the question they just answered so they get double practice on each question.

Hope this give you a little inspiration to get the students up and moving! I am realizing that it is easy to get lazy and forget a lot of great strategies! There are so many out there! It's nice to have a few go to ones on hand. My first three years I had an amazing new teacher coach who always said that the more "tools in your toolbox" the easy it gets and the better teacher you become. I fully stand by her advice!

2019!

I just got my first student teacher! I’m hoping I may have some time to get some much needed organization type stuff done. And maybe even get in a few posts in a row! Imagine that!

If you've been following my few and far between posts, I promised some mural pics from my Earth Science geologic timeline project so first here’s that:

   

 


     

     

 

In other news, here's some fall 2018 of interest notes from Earth Science. I did the biosphere set design project again, (see previous posts if you don't remember this)...I am thinking about revising this next year. It takes way too long for the amount of content the students get out of it. Not sure what I will do...but at the very least I will shorten it.  We are just starting the atmosphere unit and since carbon is such an important/big part of the new standards I think I might incorporate some of the carbon activities into the first unit as well.

I really enjoyed the Hydrosphere unit! As a culminating project the students painted a canvas to draw awareness to a water related issue. I will mostly keep this unit the same next year, but I would like to try to add in more water quality testing to get the students out and doing more hands on lab work/data collection.

Just thinking about some other various teaching ideas and have decided to try to get back to some of my reading and writing strategies. I think sometimes its easy to get bogged down, always trying new activities and its easy to forget the oldies but goodies!   So I might pull out some of my note taking and reading/writing strategies that I have been using less frequently lately.

In particular I plan to bring back the power write. Simple directions: Students get a topic you choose related to what you have been covering. Time them for 2 minutes with the rules: Pens/Pencils must be moving, no taking and you can't stop talking. After 2 minutes have a few students share what they wrote. You can do several rounds if you want.

Another area I'd like to explore is student self motivation and the use of service learning to increase student motivation. I've been working on creating lessons for a freshmen learning lab. I've been following an amazing teaching blog:  cultofpedagogy
If you are into getting some new teaching strategies or getting re inspired I highly recommend checking it out!

I am also looking exploring motivation from the ideas of Daniel Pink; check out his TED talk here.

This week I plan to ask some hard questions and explore with my students why they do or don't value education and what makes them engaged. I'll post with an update at the end of the week.

That's all for now. Until next time....(hopefully not as long of a wait for my next post as in the past)

-Mara

Spring break!

So much for writing regularly!  Looking back its been a year since I've last posted. For some reason this is the time of year I get inspired again.  The fall is always hectic and then it is easy to get in a rut in the winter. As the weather starts to get nicer everyone's energy and enthusiasm seems to return.

A lot has happened in a year...
During the fall semester I spent a lot of time on a committee writing new curriculum for Earth Science. We have new standards and as a district we are in the process of converting curriculum into all project based learning units. Its been quite the process! We will implement the new curriculum this coming fall. In the meantime I've been trying to pilot a few of the new units.  Here are some highlights of various activities  I've done this year. Some for Physics 1st and some for Earth Science:

For Earth Science I started the year with my biosphere project, where students design a model of a sustainable biosphere. They are introduced to how the spheres (biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and lithosphere), work together and interact. This unit will be used as the first project in the new curriculum. I did the project similarly to how I did it last year, but instead of painting on boards I had the students build their biospheres in the cabinets under the lab tables.  Overall this went better than last year, but of course there are still some improvements. Each time I implement a PBL I think I do a better job of increasing the content. The first time time doing a unit is always a struggle to figure out how to balance the content and the project.

 When we did minerals for Earth Science I had my students create documentaries about Conflict Minerals and think about "who owns Earth's minerals?" The project was really eye-opening for students. With the new standards this unit doesn't fit into the curriculum. And although I think the students got a lot out of thinking about where minerals and natural resources come from, I think the actual content about minerals was hard to fit into the unit. 

Volcano Board Game

I just finished a pilot for next years unit on plate tectonics/volcanoes/earthquakes etc.
The students created board games for 6th graders. The 6th graders will be starting their unit on plate tectonics so this was an introduction for them. We had a game day where the 6th graders came and played our games. It turned out really well and I will definitely do this again next year. Some changes I might make would be to try to cover more content. I had the idea that I would do mini-lessons/conferences for specific groups. I would like to try to make that happen when I do this project again. What I really liked was that since it was new content for the 6th graders, my students had to come up with a game but then also information so that the kids would be able to be successful at the games.  I think next year I will push the presentation of  information as a part of the grade.

My next project is going to be re-painting my classroom and doing a new geologic timeline. I received a grant so I can paint over my walls white and then have my students create a timeline. I have some ideas to showcase more content this year. I am going to be sure it is in order and give each class one wall. I plan to have students use an overhead projector so they can project better images and one of the requirements will be to include dates and labels.  If this one turns out well I will leave it and do the project a little different. I had an idea to coordinate with the FACs teachers and create quilted geologic time wall hangings. Students could pick out some cool fabrics but also use fabric markers or crayons to write on quilt squares. This is just an idea...but hopefully I'll be able to post some pictures of a really cool timeline mural by sometime in May!

Here's a few things in Physics 1st that I've done. In the fall I wrote a grant with two other teachers to do a generator project. We combined with an Environmental Science class. The students got to tour a coal plant, make generators with kits, and design wind turbine blades. The project was really successful in that it was engaging for the students! In terms of content they really connected with the trip to the coal plant and I will definitely try to do that trip again. I think they could still learn about generators, but I don't think I will build them again. I don't know that they got enough out of it for the cost and the amount of materials needed. I think I will revise and pull pieces from the project, but not all of it. I learned that implementing a unit with another class when the sections don't line up, is really difficult to coordinate. I'm not going to give up on cross-curricular activities, however when I do another project like that I will make sure to focus on the organization part of the planning.

 I am also finishing up the force unit I did last year with the games. Another teacher took the project a step farther and had a local gaming business do a game night for the community and some of the student games were played there. I would like to add in this piece for next year. I did revise how I did the project in that I separated the-building/designing of the game and the video about the game. This helped to get better quality games and allowed the students to better showcase the content they learned about Newton's Laws and forces. I plan to do this project again next year.

This is a long post, but I am making up for lost time! And taking advantage of a clear/relaxed mind on spring break! I'd like to end with a few reflections  on successes and notes for what I want to improve.

Every time I do a PBL project I get better at ensuring the students get the content. The authentic audience piece also gets easier as I make connections. The first time doing a project, you are never exactly sure what the students will come up with and the final result. Every time you do the project again, it gets easier to anticipate students and what directions they need.

One thing that I would like to go back to, is to get back on track with incorporating reading and writing into the projects/content.  When I started teaching and writing this blog, that was one of my main focuses. When I started really emphasizing and trying PBL some of my reading/writing focus has slipped. I would like to add that back into the projects/content. As I do the projects multiple times this should be easy to incorporate back into my lessons!

That's all for today. I plan on relaxing recharging the rest of the break. I will go back recharged and ready to take on the end of the year craziness!