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...