Good News...Sometimes Stuff works...

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     Good news...sometimes stuff works.  I feel like I can chalk one up for inquiry science.

     First, I had parent teacher conferences....30 to be exact.  It was kind of like speed dating without the dating part.  One of the best parts is that at the last minute I brought the "scientific method" I am trying to use which we examined this summer at Miami.

  I showed this to parents and discussed that my experience in the lab tends to support this method.  I also wanted to let them know that although many students are struggling with labs, I was just trying to introduce at least one portion of each lab in which they would have to "think".  In other words, what happens if they cannot find the answer on Google?  To me...that is science.  The overwhelming majority of the parents were very supportive and faced this type of problem solving in their own jobs.

     Second, I tried a new lab with Academic.  They had to take as many measurements as possible with a graduated cylinder and a "mystery" liquid.  Then they had to predict the mass of their empty cylinder, a mass of a volume assigned at random and a volume of a mass assigned at random.  Each time they would bring up their prediction and graduated cylinder and we would immediately check their answers (this is a Flinn Activity).  They did well.  I asked them to write in words what was going on inside their head.  I was hoping for graphs but for many I could see that they were solving proportional reasoning problems without me having to tell them how.

     Finally, in Accelerated they had to find the density of a material without using a centigram balance (it is called on Archimedes Balance).  We frontloaded the problem (as we did in Academic with the "mystery" liquid problem) and it went rather well.  At one point only one or two groups had an idea.  I explained it was O.K. to share ideas and if their method worked so well, then they should easily be able to get someone elses answer for their object.  Each group had different objects.  The level of discussion and debate was well worth the time it took to pull this lab off.  Check out below.

     My goal next week is to introduce a "flipped" assignment.  It is not exactly inquiry but it might save me some time to do more labs and inquiry.  I will keep you posted......

Formative Instructional Practices....

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     I never thought I would hear myself say this...I did the "Formative Instructional Practice" training required by the State of Ohio ODE.  It was actually pretty good.  If I can better learn how to do this I can be a better teacher.  Last week was a bit crazy..this week is brand new.  Here is what I am going to try.

      In accelerated we are working on a hard lab.  I am going to tell students, "We need to find the relationships between these variables" and then have them put post it notes on where they think they are...Good, Average, or kind of lost.  We will work in class and then review the post it notes.

     In Academic I am going to try a new activity where they will have to predict some masses and volumes.  We will work as a class and say, "What do you need to know to solve this problem?".  We will see how it goes....

     Sorry I do not have more to say..this week has been a blur and I am fighting to get back on track.

What to do when school gets crazy.....

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     Next week we are doing "MAP" testing and an early release day.  The schedule is going to be crazy every day and every bell.  Even after view it in a spreadsheet, it is still confusing.  Never wanting to throw in the towel, I decided something crazy...

     We are going to be doing a lab every day.  I have to believe that any student who sits for a few hours taking a test probably does not want to sit for a minute longer and listen to me (shocking...I know...).  We are going to be doing a week long inquiry type activity in both classes.  First, in Academic, we are going to work on density and then see if we can tell the difference between regular "Salt" and "Salt Sense".  The difference is actually pretty cool...I would tell you but I do not want to give it away.

     Second, we will be looking at copper, aluminum and steel BB's in Accelerated and then trying to figure out if the "mystery metal" is one of them.  I told the kids, if you are in class for 20 minutes or 2 hours, get er done....just like in real life.  I hope to have copies for you to see next week.

Breathing and Being Overwhelmed....

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     You would think after 20 years this might get a bit easier.  It seems that the "anxiety" closet opens up and as I think about all of the stuff I have to do on the "list" I get so overwhelmed that I can't do anything.  The goal is to stop, take a deep breath, and try and do the small things well...and to be O.K. with that..   So what are the small things?  It is all about the students.  It tried three things this week that I think worked well.

     First, safety is not the most fun thing in the world.  Flinn Scientific has a fun video for teachers and students.  The goal is to find all of the "wrong" stuff in the video that is unsafe.  Check it out HERE.  It is pretty good.

     Second, my experience from Miami has taught me the importance of vocabulary.  You need to learn the language to talk to the scientists.  I went to the online book, copied vocab terms and uploaded them into "Quizlet" (go to "quizlet.com").  Then, I stole an idea from Bob Marzano.  Instead of having students define every term, I had them go through the terms and definitions on quizlet.  They then took a quick survey on "google forms" that I made (check it out HERE).  The ideas is to rank the words in order of "Yes I know this..duh.." or " I have no clue on this term".  My job is to go and teach about the ones they said that they did not know well (it was mainly lab equipment which is not surprising).

     This week I hope to try to new ideas.  I am going to have Academic do a version of the "White Powder" activity along with a rubric as there final assessment in observation and conclusion.  Second, Accelerated will look at "Classification of Matter" by doing a Flinn activity that shows them models of elements and atoms on a macroscale.  I will report back next week....hopefully a bit calmer...

First Day and Getting Feedback

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     I survived the first day.  I did the Flinn "Rainbow" demo from their e-learning series.  I would highly recommend this series to any chemistry teacher.  I had 6 solutions change color, talked about the parts of an experiment and how it can help us learn chemistry.  I wanted "evidence" of learning so each student got a post it note and were told they had to come up with a "question" about the class or write down something they were "clear" about and then post it on either side of the door.  I had a fare number of post its on both sides.  Most questions were about the amount of math or homework in the class....relatively honest first day questions.

    I did the "White Powder" activity with Accelerated Chemistry.  It was interesting.  They had a day to take a white powder that I provided and gather as much data as possible.  The next day I told them that they had one of three powders...A, B, or C (I had them around the room, calcium carbonate, corn starch and flour).  I told them that they could use there data from the previous day to repeat their experiments and observations and identify which powder they had the day before.  Only about 5 percent of the students wrote down the number on the cup that I gave them.  The quote of the day was, "You need to write down everything...you just don't know what is going to be important."  This was more like a formative assessment.  During the next labs I am going to try to focus heavily on data gathering and analysis.

     This week we are doing the Miami survey.  I hope to use this as a valid pre test.  The other idea I might investigate is the book "Mindset".  It talks about how people sometimes get in a certain mindset and what must happen to get out of that mindset if we want them to learn.  There is even a survey people can take (Bob Seiple and others turned me onto this).  I am going to tuck this away for future use.

Student quotes from the white powder experiment.

"Everything that seems unimportant becomes important when drawing a conclusion." L.R.

"Be thorough."  K.K