A New Configuration.....

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     I was tired of dead exhausted kids staring at me as I was trying to talk (hate to say the word "lecture").  Our principal sent us an article about a teacher who shadowed a kid for a day.  The teacher came to the conclusion that the majority of the things she has been telling people or thought she knew about teaching might not be exactly correct.  She was exhausted from having to sit for 7 hours through lectures.  She would have done things differently.  So...I am trying to make my room a bit more interactive.  Instead of one person answering the problem of the day, I am having each table talk about it and write down ideas on a white board.  My hope is to have the kids work together to find the answer instead of me telling them.  So far...results are mixed but hopeful.  Some kids are far better teachers than me which is great to see how they help each other.  However, not so try for all tables but we are doing the best we can.  The set up worked well with a inquiry TIMU lab we did.

     I have to say I was inspired by our "SLO" process.  I had one kid come to me dejected.  At the beginning of the year he said he thought the purpose of school is to try to show him that he is stupid.  This hit me like a ton of bricks.  I know I shouldn't complain about the system...instead I am going to do my best to try to improve it.  First, I found two highly regarded exams done by science educators specifically for high school students (MOSART test for chemistry and Lawson test on scientific reasoning).  I am trying to convert them to an electronic format.  The teacher can grade it with the click of a button.  The analysis of the results will show strengths, weaknesses, indicate they type of learner the majority of the students are (concrete, abstract..etc) and recommend intervention (the appropriate TIMU lab for the misconception).  It is slow going and difficult but important.  I know I cannot control every kids feelings, but students should never think we are trying to make stupid...hopefully they will think the opposite...

Pi, Insomnia and Moles...

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

  I have been officially diagnosed with insomnia...no kidding.  I usually wake up at 2:30 A.M. and spend the next 2-3 hours rewriting my lesson plans in my head...crazy..I know.  So here is what I came up with.

 I was feeling really frustrated.  I felt like I was not doing nearly as well as many of the other TIMU teachers and I should be.  O.K....maybe I cannot control every piece of curriculum.  But what can I control?  I have decided to place my desk in groups.  Second, I am going to use my TIMU money to get some small whiteboards for each pod of desks.  Now when I do the problem of the day, instead of calling on one or two people, I am going to call on desks or groups.  Every group will have to whiteboard the answer and one or two groups will have to defend their answers.  My accelerated kids seem to have a tired look when we get started..hopefully this will force them to interact more.

Next...raspberry pi.  Mike got me thinking about this.  It is really cool so I got one with my TIMU money.  As I was tossing and turning I was thinking about all of the extra work this would take to get up and running....learning a new program language..getting everything to work, etc.  Then it dawned on me.  Why am I doing all the work?  So when I got to class I told the kids that their second quarter extra credit project will involve the raspberry pi.  They have to put it together, get it running, and hook up a sensor that can somehow detect one chemical.  Funny thing happened...by 6th bell I had 4 kids show up in my study hall with ideas and supplies.  One kid even called home and made his mom bring in some programming books he had.  This is the Maybe there is something to making things more student centered (see the redoing the desks in paragraph 1).

I should have known better...We were doing dimensional analysis, measuring and converting.  So we figured we should do some easy mole conversions so we could get ready for mole day fun.  There is a lab we have where they measure the mass of some elements (macroscopic) and then convert to moles and atoms (symbolic).  Guess what happens when you leave out the particulate?  When asked, "Which has more atoms, 2 moles of copper or 2 moles of iron?"  Number one answer (paraphrase) "Iron.  It is more dense.  That means that for a given volume or amount, you can squeeze in more atoms.  After all, we saw a picture of this in the density lab."...Ouch....We will revisit moles just before stoichiometry.  If anyone has a way to do it without dimensional analysis, I would like to give it a look.

I fully expect this process to have a nightmarish look to it when you walk into the classroom.  To respond to a professor's comments...yes..this is going to be harder and crazier.  However, I would rather try and fail than continue something that I know is not what might be the absolute best for students.

Always move forward and stay positive....

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     Tough week...I dealt with a funeral and SLO's.  For those of you who do not know what an SLO is...don't worry, I am not going to discuss it here.  Let's just say it is not for me the most enjoyable reason I became a teacher...

     Student's learning is why I became a teacher.  I needed some inspiration so I joined the American Association of Chemistry Teachers and started checking out their resources, especially ChemEdX online.  Great stuff and ideas by creative positive educators.  I would give it two thumbs up.

     The biggest change in my teaching has been the introduction of the particulate level.  I got the macroscopic and symbolic but as most teacher, I felt kids still could not explain what was going on.  I started diving into the world of the particulate and here is what is starting to happen....

     A kid asked me as we were dong density, "Why does ice float on water?"  As luck would have it, I just got a water modeling kit.  We "added energy" to the molecules and made them a liquid with rubbing our hands on them.  As we stopped "adding energy" they kind of "popped" up and formed ice.  Students could see that the ice took up more space and there were "holes" in the ice.  Same number of molecules but spread out...less dense.

     In another class, we were talking about iron reacting with copper (II) chloride.  We were trying to figure out if Iron (III) or Iron(II) would form.  I wrote out both equations and showed the experiment in the macroscale.  I had to stop when I wrote "aqueous" with the copper chloride and iron chloride.  I learned in the TIMU program that if I were to just write "CuCl2(aq)" then students would have a bunch of misconceptions.  So I drew out the individual atoms and their charges dissolved in water.  It lead to a great discussion on why the charges changed in the reaction.  In both cases, some kids got it and some did not but I feel like it is some more than have in the past....

     The plan...try to squeeze the particulate in whenever possible.  This week we are starting with moles in both classes.  In academic I plan on having all types of moles of substances out (the macroscale) and then having them calculate different amounts.  It will culminate is a lab practical in which they are provided a certain number of atoms or molecules that they will have to measure out and then we will check it on the scale.  I will keep you posted...

Inquiry and Archimedes and Life...

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

Tough to read but bottom line...I gave kids a mass and said find the mass without a balance and then find the density.  They did it and found the percent error.  The best part is that students had to plan, then do, then confirm while the explained their plan and then find the percent error to get immediate feedback.  I felt this was helpful.  Even though they could talk to each other about their plan, they were never exactly sure until they got the confirming data.  They were forced defend their ideas and back it up with data.

I would reflect more about this, but this week my father-in-law passed away.  In many ways, he was like a second father to me.  Sometimes, life not only intervenes for our students, but for us as well...hopefully I will have more for you next week...