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!