Reflections on April 28: Videos and Final Presentations

I feel awkward and tongue-tied making any comments on the class period in which I taught, which goes to show me that it is really challenging to make observations while trying to teach at the same time. I will say that I saw a high level of student engagement when my partner taught the next session. I loved it when a student ran around with a notebook taking down samples of her classmates' handwriting. I love that she was motivated to do so, and I thought it was better coming from her than from an adult making the students re-do work (submitting a hand-writing sample) they had just done. The other students seemed to accept that they were helping her out, even though she didn't explain what it was for, and it didn't really disrupt what the other students were up to. 

Also, I really liked that it was palpably clear that the third period students needed to know whodunit. My partner drew out the suspense and set up the activities better (the tasks of stations C-E were explicitly explained, and the students were allowed to practice more before just jumping into their work) so that the students were really invested with their part in the mystery. 

I also thought it was great that my coordinating teacher was able to figure out what to do with the the fourth period students, since they were not involved in the lesson study at all. These students still had a full hour of science learning, by watching a video that was periodically paused on the diagrams so that students could really spend time analyzing and describing the functions of the different parts of the circulatory system. The teacher also probed the students' misconceptions and had students work and be accountable for de-bunking their misconceptions in groups, so that no one felt embarrassed or called out (which came up in our lesson study). A video shouldn't ever just be filler but be paused at important junctures. 

The earth science class at the high school actually watched videos last Thursday and today, as well. The teacher always explains to the students why they're doing what they're doing, which I feel shows respect to the students and is motivating for some of them (there's a purpose associated with the work they're doing). The video shown on Thursday was section of Bill Nye on the seasons. The teacher explained to the students that they were watching the video because Bill Nye explains the seasons using a lot of pictures that are going for explaining how the seasons work, since she wasn't satisfied that the students REALLY understood this concept. She told them that they give her the right textbook definition when she asks but that they aren't able to answer thinking questions if she asks them in a different way. After showing the video snippets (which showed a globe), she brought out her own globe and asked students what would happen if the earth's tilt were 0 degrees, if the earth were farther away or closer to the sun, etc. After watching the video and looking at the globe right in front of them, multiple students gave answers that really impressed me and showed that these students were able to look at this concept in a new way (other than their prior misconceptions).

The teacher also explained to the students today that they were watching a video on different biomes (I didn't stay through the video, because she said anyone who fell asleep and started snoring would be in trouble...). The students are finishing up talking about earth (they "flew" through the section on the atmosphere so that they could spend the rest of the trimester on space!) and that she wanted the students to relate the material to their real lives; these students might go on vacation and experience mountains or valleys shown in the video, and she wanted her students to have a visual reference for what these systems are like. I am really excited for them to talk about space on Thursday!

Speaking of space and videos, I always feel guilty showing more than 2 minutes of a YouTube clip (it's like I'm trying to get out of teaching). However, as we talked about in the discussion board for methods, a useful type of informal teaching is showing an engaging and educational video. I have seen my cooperating teacher use YouTube clips really effectively all semester, especially when it came to providing kids with schema for what the different power plants ACTUALLY look like and the diagrams of what different body systems ACTUALLY look like in action. I would prefer to make research-based decisions in my teaching, rather than my emotions (guilt vs. personal pride/satisfaction that I am the teacher who doesn't show videos...). I also think that I am influenced by my memory of hating to watch videos as a student, since it was hard to stay awake, it was annoying being so close to my friends but not being able to talk to them, and I am NOT an auditory learner and usually need close-captions to follow shows that require even the smallest amount of brainpower. 

I do show short clips at least once a day once we get to DNA/RNA in this class (it becomes way too complicated and 3D to see in your head), but this semester, I also showed a longer clip of a Neil deGrasse Tyson video on the origin of life, as we wrapped up our metabolism unit. I found us referring to this or that part of his talk for the rest of the unit (not in terms of visual aids, since he just sits there in a chair, but in regards to the main points we got out of the video). Videos are definitely one of my under-utilized teaching tools, and I owe it to my students to implement them as needed in every class I teach, if it will improve student learning. I can put the close-caption up and make sure I am using universal design to make sure all of my students get something out of the experience. 

This week, my students are giving their final presentations. My directions get decreasingly terrible and clearer with each semester; the presentations more closely approximate the content, rigor, knowledge of/skepticism of the research, and clarity that I am hoping for. It is definitely an iterative process. Now, I am thinking that the class as a whole should do more with each presentation; maybe the students could research one remaining question that strikes them from each presentation, and then the students could work in pairs to try to find an answer to that question. I'll have to think about how to re-format the presentations; my students' exit card on Thursday will be to write down suggestions for improvement on this significant project for the class. 

Of course, every issue we talk about in methods is the exact thing that I find a problem with when I go to teach; since we talked about running out of things to do with our students today, I am really critical right now that I didn't really push the students to go even further and do more with their presentations today, since we really could have stretched each one out. Another way to go about it would be to give the students everyone's abstracts the weekend before, so that they could research one interesting fact for each of the presentations. Or, we could just do it like we do in methods and have the presenters give the class something to think about/questions to answer in preparation for their presentation (they sent me their abstracts, anyway, so I could write a program for their week of presentations). There are some things to consider for the summer.... 

Reflection on the week of April 21

One of the students in first period said that she wished she was a boy, because then life would be so much easier. Her friend and I shared this look ("What is she talking about?"), and her friend told me that that doesn't make any sense. I wonder what goes on in a sixth grader girl's head to make her think that there are advantages to being a boy. I think that the boys generally react more positively to class discussions on bodily functions and blood, now that the classes are in the human systems unit; some of the girls may have already been influenced, in general, to not like blood and gore (or at least, on some subconscious level, to act like they don't like that kind of stuff). 

Another thing that I thought was interesting was that students were really honest when the teacher asked them who had finished their power plant model, who had started, and who had not started at all. In a really short amount of time, these students are going to grow up enough where they will not answer those kinds of questions honestly. Consequently, it might be easier to get a spot-check on younger students' progress, before they become too embarrassed to admit when they aren't on task. Also, for those students who are completely done with their project (or who have even submitted their models early), they might not get things done so early in a few years; this might be a golden age of students not procrastinating when they are at least semi-interested in the material. 

Finally, I thought the lecture on the digestive system was really interesting, with the teacher using metaphors, a single diagram of the GI tract, and a lot of simple This-is-What-That-Does explanations. It was really interesting to hear the basic gist of what each organ does, without the terminology. At the same point, the students are still learning some academic language (glucose, amylase) which will help them to talk about the material. I noticed that there was some differentiation going on, with the more advanced classes getting hit with more terminology and detailed explanations of the systems.

In Earth Science at the high school, as always, I loved the tie-ins to current events. A few of the students were really engaged with the video on that stowaway-to-Hawaii kid, their conversation showed that some of them were questioning the claim that the boy really had his heart rate go below 20 bpm (they are actually evaluating the information put in front of them), and a lot of students will remember that the stratosphere is COLD (which fit in perfectly with the lesson).

I thought it was really neat that the students had to use atmosphere flashcards to put in order of altitude that only had pictures, not words (e.g., a picture of a thermometer standing in for thermosphere). There are at least a couple of students with diverse needs, and it was a great way to get them fully involved with their table mates; I saw a LOT of interaction, even from the student who talks the least in class. At the same time, all the other students still needed to make the connection that the troposphere card should go below the stratosphere card. 

Also, I really liked the Google doc assignment the students spent most of the period working on, asking questions that were either review, retrievable from the websites the students were supposed to restrict themselves to, and higher-level thinking questions about why the information is organized the way it is (Why are the atmospheric layers divided up? What is the system for dividing them?). Not all students were always on task, but the assignment allowed for a lot of interaction, and I like that the students are just normal with me and talk about the material in kind of a no-nonsense way--there isn't an authoritarian vibe in the classroom, similar to the middle school science classroom. 

Another thing that I thought was really interesting that I am also going to bring up in my social inequality class (we are studying heretonormativity and masculinity in the high schools; I've been looking for GLBT/queer issues everywhere all week) is that it was somehow dress-up day at the high school. What this meant was that a few of the boys were in jeans instead of sweats, but that the girls were wearing what looked like Maurice or the fancier line brand of Target dresses, with matching shoes. Clearly, boys look for functionality in their clothing; it is not part of how they do gender to wear non-functional clothing, in contrast to the girls. Also, I have also been socialized to notice clothing and to put value in clothing (in terms of literally liking dresses myself and also having an idea of what brand they were and how much they cost), as part of the way I do gender. In another context, I would compliment my friends for putting together some of the same outfits or finding the fancier Target binders, even though that means that my friends would have been spending more money and being less comfortable than they could have been. 

In terms of my students, I am getting that sad-end-of-the-semester feel. These students were especially motivated, engaged, and well-prepared; they came in with a lot of biology and nursing already (coursework and from their professional careers). I am sad 99% of the time when it is the end of the semester, and of course, I am extra sad when the students are able to go that extra mile. Our metabolism discussion took an interesting turn; we finished up beta-oxidation and lipogenesis, and we starting talking critically about fad diets and what's advertised as being healthy these days. I really like that they made the connections between diets they had tried (and that they felt safe enough for telling on themselves) and applied what we learned in class (No! Don't make extra ketone bodies on purpose! Eat carbs!). That might be a good test question next time I teach this class (give them a description of an actual diet and have them evaluate it in terms of the metabolic pathways we covered in terms of its effect on weight loss AND health).... 

Further Thoughts on Safety/Technology (Questions #6-7)

I said last week that I'd get back to the rest of the safety topics for this blog after talking with my cooperating teacher. The reducing sugar/amylase lab they did today actually tied in really well with the topic of safety, as well. Some of the environmental hazards in the sixth grade science classroom include transition metal salts, like copper(II) sulfate. The waste is stored in a jug and brought to the high school, where it is picked up on a regular basis. It doesn't sound like strong acids and bases are used a lot, but they are neutralized and flushed down the drain. In regards to any written safety policies in place, my cooperating teacher has paper copies of MSDS's for all of the chemicals they use, and she keeps her Right-to-Know safety training updated. The inventory is in her head; the chemicals and equipment are stored in cabinets all along the walls of the classroom. If I were to add any safety features to the lab, I would make an Excel or Quartzy inventory, but that’s just because I would have a hard time remembering the stock in my head (I do know researchers who just have a feeling for what kinds of starting and work-up material they have on-hand…Huh…).

Besides the safety considerations I mentioned last week, other factors for when students do lab are that they are well-prepped for the experiments by reading the procedure ahead of time and listening to the pre-lab lecture, there is an atmosphere of respect in the classroom (so students know they are accountable for their actions and are expected to behave logically), students wear their goggles at all times, and students are not allowed to leave until cleaning up (so there are fewer mystery spills on the bench tops than there would be if students were accustomed fleeing as soon as the bell rang). 

Reflections for the Week

I think giving the kids scientific know-how (both the scientific DCI and practices from the NGSS) at their age is actually a safety feature--they'll be able to handle themselves in high school and college labs, and they'll even be able to think through chemistry safety issues at home (e.g., don't mix cleaning supplies in a poorly ventilated bathroom). These students know the names of the glassware (which is not a given in a survey chemistry course in college) and have obviously been taught lab technique, such as the use of the stirring rod, how to pour 10 mL of solution from a graduated cylinder, and using a hot plate. 

Of course, lab technique can be improved upon, but these students are basically competent in the lab. The lab they did today is something that easily could have been modified from a college lab. Unlike what I saw of the Korean educational system, where youngsters are expected to do math, composition, science, etc., at all ages (as soon as they are able to), the American motto seems to be: let them slide while they’re young, until you have to teach them about enzymes or complex systems, rather than to differentiate and have students try to reach their actual potential.

Of course, the students today exhibited different levels of understanding; some students could be talked through the reasoning process to get to the point where they could explain what their control was, why they were doing what they were doing, etc. This wasn’t the case for everyone, but they’ll get there.

Tuesday 

One result of the conference last week was that we decided if we didn't implement teaching strategies and tools immediately, we never would--it would just go on the back-burner. One of the results of that is that I am implementing R.'s app from Methods in my class. Tonight, we started learning the background for the metabolism debate. We spent a lot of time on potential energy, cleaning up the mess of energy I had made previously. Also, we watched a Neil deGrasse Tyson clip on the origins of life. It was a springing off point on brainstorming which sides students wanted to start on for the debate, and their homework for Thursday is to read up on their side. Since one of the key components of the debate is what the earth actually was like back in the day, I am posting a link to R.'s Earthviewer app and will show it to students on Thursday. Both sides will have arguments (if they pull arguments from the assigned reading) that hinge upon the heavier bombardment and alternate atmosphere and temperature of early earth--R.'s app will help students to actually SEE what that looks like for some context.

Also, one of my students thought the NSF case study was too canned, so she and I are going to make a third side to the debate (since it is supposed to be collaborative and not a solo research activity) and argue that chirality is key to the origins of life. I'm excited that she is going to the beat of her own drum, and I am excited to see what we will find out! 

Anyway, besides stealing...er...appropriating apps, I "taught" the citric acid cycle the way that complex systems are presented at the middle school--by having students research key topics collaboratively and then posting their results online as formative assessments (and as study guides for the whole class). This also allowed for more differentiation, since some of the students already are familiar with the citric acid cycle and would be really bored to listen to me talk about what acetyl-CoA is. 

One thing that I did poorly tonight was that I ran out of time--I need to get my pacing down and not get side-tracked. Also, I feel like students need more time on the citric acid cycle and on electron transport, especially with the functioning of ATP synthase. They just need more exposure to these complicated concepts although, as D. said, there are only 8 steps to the citric acid cycle. 

Another thing that I did poorly was to explain more or less in depth to different groups, as I was monitoring their online research. I told some groups the motivations for what they were doing but not all, and I went into more detail with some groups than with others. The groups who got less teacher attention might think that I don't believe they can handle the greater detail or that I am not treating them respectfully (since I am not telling them why they are doing what they are doing). I need to be sure to show my high expectations for everyone and to not just have one or two groups benefiting from a Pygmalion effect. 

One last thing that I really screwed up was to not take advantage of the cooperative groups and the investigations of the day to further differentiate. There were a couple of groups that ended early, with little to do, and I should have given differentiation even further considerations than I did. I was obviously not planning on having D.&J. and J.&D. (two different groups) finish early and just wait for everyone else....

Other "borrowing" that I did was a reverse jigsaw puzzle today on the different pathways of glucose, which is based on my methods professor's recommendations, and we used the website I learned at the high school (info.gram) to structure the jigsaw. I can't remember why, but the reason why I also added Venn diagrams in was based on something J. said at the conference about jigsaws--something she said just made everything fall into place. There is stealing...er...appropriating...all around!! Strategies and the integrations of technology that did work tonight were thanks to my motivated students and what I can borrow from other educators. What this tells me is that, as part of our professional development, we need each other. We need to bounce ideas off of each other, interacting in formal and informal contexts. That is the only way things will ever "fall into place," even when things still do go wrong!

Safety (Question #6)

Reflections, this week:

Today, with students still recovering from their test last week, they worked in groups to begin researching body systems online. I noticed a big differentiation in skill between the fourth period class (which finished all of their work, some with time to spare) and the first period class (maybe one group finished all of their work). With the first group, it was a little more difficult to get them to go to better websites; it was too difficult for the work to be fun for them, in contrast to some of the students fourth period, who at least seemed engaged. 

Also, I worked one-on-one with a student to make corrections on his test over second period. Although I wasn't going to give him any answers, I would still tell him when he was maybe missing something. He seemed fixated with some answers, even when I would tell him repeatedly, "No, that is not what she's looking for." That was definitely frustrating. I know I get fixated on things sometimes, where my mind goes in a loop, and I know that it's not fun being on the other side of the desk, either. It's tricky business, when the situation gets that frustrating, because I don't want to turn children off for life on science or imply that there is anyone out there who cannot do science. 

Tuesday

At the high school, I took a lot of notes on waves in earth science, which I'm observing and is helping out a lot in my understanding what I will be teaching in physical applications of science. Also, I feel like I never learned earth science (I was really immature at the time), so I feel like now I can finally learn about where I live. It seems so obvious now that I should know these basic concepts, and I am glad I still have the luxury of being a student and observing others teach (both for the content and pedagogical knowledge I can gain from observation). Anyway, shame on me for being a bad student, and I think I will use both observing the class and the McGraw-Hill website (which seems very helpful and interactive, at first glance) to help me learn these basic concepts everyone who lives here (on earth) should know.

My students finished preparing their DNA game tonight, which we'll play on Thursday. Their exam (which covers the last few chapters in the book--basically, nucleic acids and metabolism) is not for another couple of weeks, so we will have more review activities in the spirit of having everyone see and explain the material in multiple ways. In particular, we are almost ready for the metabolism debate that's on the NSF website and is in the top 10 for things we do in this class (http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/files/origins_debate_adv.pdf). I am extremely excited for this debate--I will have to be sure I stay in teacher mode and monitor the debate and push students to apply their knowledge.

I added in more scaffolding for their final presentation (they always had check sheets to fill out throughout the semester, but I think my check sheets get a little more helpful each time), which they also worked on tonight and spoke with me about informally. I uselessly, foolishly used to schedule conferences on Blackboard to make them "official." The presentation is still a big project, and I will have to keep thinking on ways with which to provide more scaffolding.

Also, there were some concepts that I over-dwelled on; I was trying to provide at least some direct instruction on protein synthesis, but I really beat a dead horse tonight (based on them being able to answer all of my questions and interpret the final HHMI video we watched). It's really difficult to walk that fine line of providing enough support vs. didactically lecturing, and it may have to do with my students' prior knowledge of biology and the extent that they have dedicated themselves to this class. I will have to learn to read my students better and/or give assessments more frequently.

Thursday:

Yes, titrations are more difficult at the high school level and require more prep work. I will ask the advanced chemistry teacher what her impressions are of how it goes, but in prepping these labs, a few key points are:

• weak acid/base chemistry may not be a good way for high school students (who haven't had Analysis yet) to collect meaningful, reliable data
• the effort of back-titrating the NaOH to standardize it needs to be weighted against the teacher's prep time
• students can be expected to use Vernier probes, litmus paper, pH meters--don't hold your expectations too low, either
• each part of a college level lab procedure can be used for one high school lab period (especially considering they don't have four hour slots in a row)

Besides peer reviewing each other's outlines for their final presentations and discussing editing and my expectations for their papers, I did some direct instruction on glycolysis to model what I think are the key features of a metabolic pathway. Then, I broke my students into pairs to create infographics on infogr.am (inspired by watching the earth science kids create their own, on volcanoes!) for the remaining pathways involving glucose that we are going to cover. It worked out well, because the kinds of questions that they asked me (which intermediates are important? what is the big picture?) were the kinds of judgment calls I wanted for them to make on their own--I gave them guiding questions, but some of the questions were more or less appropriate for different pathways. The good thing is that now everyone has each other's links (the infographics took 1 1/4 hour to make) on the pathways for future reference, everyone had to make judgment calls about what information was important and how to present it, and I did not just straight-boring lecture on each step of each pathway and how the enzymes were activated or regulated. This was also thanks to methods class on Tuesday, since we spent so much time on jigsaws.

Unfortunately, I realized that I really dropped the ball on energy the semester. My students ask a lot of questions that make me think that I did not help them build schemas for driving forces, enthalpy, reaction coordinates, etc. Now that we have gotten to metabolism, every time I talk about kcal/mol and the interchange between ATP and ADP, I realize more and more that we need to stop and just discuss energy. I think one of the reasons why I dropped the ball this semester is that I didn't incorporate Jmol at all; I think prior students' knowledge of energy was built in figuring out how to use the program (there was one lesson for that) and how to apply the program to demonstrating change in energy for different processes (there were several lessons for that). 

It's a pity, because some students are almost done with their final presentation, and I know that they could have learned and synthesized knowledge a lot more, had they already had the background knowledge on energy and software to play with that concept more. So, in terms of what I really did wrong this semester, it was not emphasizing core concepts like energy, and what I have learned is that I really do my students a disservice if I realize that I've neglected important topics at the end of the semester. What this means is that I really need to be doing more formative assessments and getting to know my students conceptions/misconceptions much more frequently and earlier on. One way to do that would be to have my students blog more; that was a way last summer that I really got a sense of the thinking process and understanding of my students. 

Also, one of the reasons why I just never got around to Jmol was that most of the other chemistry educators I know tend to not emphasize computations at this level; I think I was actually influenced by my friends in my lesson planning, even though they will never pop in and observe what I teach. That is really pointless (it's like peer pressure I made up in my head), so I REALLY need to back up my teaching decisions with research, the needs of my individual students of the term, and my own goals and objectives for teaching the core competencies (or, standards, once I get to the high school) for a specific class. I think this made-up peer pressure made me skip a few really useful lesson plans, and I will go back to incorporating Jmol next time I teach this class (it may be too late to start this semester--there is a lot of scaffolding and getting introduced to the mechanics involved). 

Another thing that I dropped the ball on this semester was relating the first few chapters on organic chemistry to students' prior knowledge and interest. I realized sometime this semester that I actually like biochemistry better than organic chemistry (I feel like a traitor, but it just goes to show that you never know what your passions will actually be, whether it is the level of students you are teaching or your favorite subjects). In comparison to the enthusiasm I've shown my students in biochemistry, combined with my lack of connecting the new material to students' pre-existing "hooks," I really made organic chemistry sound esoteric and unmemorable. I am drawing a blank (writer's block?) right now on how to begin to remedy the situation. 

One way to start would be to take a lot more student interest surveys at the beginning of the semester, to see what they actually find interesting. I could back off earlier on (I tend to provide more direct instruction at the beginning of the semester and taper off) and promote more student inquiry, KWL charts, and other student-centered learning. I could also introduce biochemistry earlier on and just teach the reactions that both the lab and our bodies have in common (removing H's, adding on H's, isomerizing) simultaneously. We could learn some of the material together. Everyone has heard of trans fats, so even if carbohydrates don't show up until later chapters, we could talk about the reaction for trans fats when we introduce alkenes. There are a few solutions I could try and implement; it's not that organic chemistry is hopelessly esoteric!

Finally, the Teaching and Learning Conference, which ends tomorrow, is very helpful so far. I got a lot of resources/websites/references for further information, but I also got a lot of immediate tips (like a longer cycle for the sticky note activity I did in methods I last semester) that I could implement next week. It was also really helpful to do Think-Pair-Shares with colleagues during the keynote speech on active learning strategies, especially since there were divergences in opinions (I learned that I find a lot of problems with flipped classrooms, and I learned why I find that model problematic from having to defend my position). Overall, very awesome. They threw out some new learning theories and theorists I hadn't heard of before, mainly dealing with andragogy (we do mainly teach adults), and there was one really good talk I went to on the need for research in the classroom (that is how society progresses; we need the data to influence policy) and how to get started with the process (the simplest example was to ask students to raise their hands if they know X, Y, or Z--differentiate your lesson based on that). 

Blog on Safety:

List the safety features of the classroom and the building. 

Adults who are not on the payroll must sign in and out of the office. Many of the doors leading to the outside are locked, which further prevents people getting in who may not belong in the school. 

My local high school also locks the doors during the day. The tornado sirens were tested on Thursday (it still creeps me out, since they are on Wednesdays in Minnesota--I think the sirens are real, each and every month, and I've only been here for two years now), and there are periodic fire drills. The high school chemistry classroom is equipped for lab (I believe the biology room is equipped, too, but the equipment looks foreign to me), and there is one big lab room that all classes can share. They have all the normal safety features: locked stockroom where all of the chemicals are kept, fire extinguisher, fire blanket, eyewash at the front, hood, multiple doors in case everyone needs to exit at once, etc. All of the high school classrooms have maps on where to go in case of tornado or fire. 

How are environmental hazards handled in the classroom? [middle school coming soon]

At the high school, the college picks up the really serious heavy metals. Acids and bases are neutralized and flushed down the drain. They minimize the use of strong oxidizers-reducers. They work with partners and typically work on microscale to minimize waste. 

Obtain a copy of a policy dealing with safety for the science classroom. How do the teachers inventory, store, and access chemicals and equipment? [middle school coming soon]

So far, what I have noticed in the middle school is that my cooperating teacher has cabinets labeled with different laboratory equipment.

At the high school, everyone has the Google Drive Excel sheet of the inventory. Last summer, they updated their stock room and re-organized everything to a T, according to OSHA standards, with labels on all of the shelves. They have a great stockroom for a high school, including a ton of those Fisher pre-made labs and really helpful, memorable demos. Everything is locked up, but the teachers just need keys to get into the stockroom. In terms of policies, students sign a safety contract at the beginning of the trimester, before they are allowed in the lab.

What safety considerations were made for a lab you have observed? What safety features seem to be absent from the classroom? 

At the middle school, I observed students making a model coal plant. A fire was lit to a hydrocarbon fuel source underneath a gauze, on which a container full of water had been placed. A paper pinwheel was pinned to a pencil and held above the water. When the water was turned to steam, this turned the pinwheel. 

Safety considerations included that students light the fire carefully and avoid touching the fuel source or setting anything on fire. The pinwheel was pinned to a pencil so that students' hands would not be directly in the path of the steam. After students were done viewing the model, they let the fuel source cooled, and the adults handled any of the equipment that was extremely hot when cleaning up. 

I have observed a ton of safety considerations at the high school. Students prepare before they do any lab work so, even if the investigation is inquiry based, students still know what they are going to do before they ever enter lab. Some of them will have done calculations beforehand and have an idea of the scale (I think they just do the math because they sense that they're supposed to and not because they want to get a feel for the scope of what they are doing). Students are good at wearing their goggles, tying up their hair, and not bringing their coats or book bags into the lab. This is unlike what I have seen with some of my grown-up students do (no one this semester, luckily!), and I think an advantage of working with younger students is that some of them will still just do what I tell them to do without questioning my reasoning. 

Otherwise, as I said above, students will work on small scales, and the teachers are careful about how they collect waste (they might have one large beaker for acids, one for bases, etc.). Teachers review Bunsen burner and tong use before labs, and students are careful to not start anything on fire. If a lab calls for "blood" or "urine," they will use fake solutions that mimic the behavior of the real solutions. I know that the teachers are extremely vigilant about safety, and the students are well-informed and generally engaged with their investigations; there aren't any notable safety features missing.

If animals are in the classroom, how are these handled?

We are animal-free, across the board. 

Stay tuned for more!!

Saw Some Good Things Today!

In earth science, there is a lot of diversity on student levels. The teacher provides for differentiation by giving the students work to be submitting individually but done in groups; students are told explicitly to work together. The lecture PowerPoints and assignments are on the class website, and then students are encouraged to research further information online. The textbook is used by some students as an extra resource, but the Internet is considered equally valid. This is good for students who learn better by pictures and diagrams (who are encouraged to go to Google Images) and who would find a hard time reading through the textbook. Everyone goes at their own pace; if students finish one assignment early, they can go to the next one, but students are given more time to complete their work if they need it. 

Speaking of technology, students are also making a brochure and preparing a presentation on Infogr.am. The presentations look so sharp, and I love how interactive the process is of making them. It's fantastic and absolutely something I am going to use in my survey class this summer. I have just been having my students make brochures the old-fashioned way, and they kind of made fun of me (or they told me that their children made fun of the assignments). Now I know why: construction paper brochures are a thing of the past. 

Finally, speaking of talented and gifted students, I was reminded of my experiences teaching the gifted Kindergarten class in Korea. Those kids were terrific academically, and their parents, my cooperating teachers, and I had to scramble to make sure the children were pushed reasonably close to their limits. On the other hand, a couple of the students used their intelligence to read people's intentions and try to control their behavior (they were still Kindergartners). 

One student, M., was only six years old Confucian and had parents who were really uninvolved with his hygiene, school performances, parent-teacher conferences, etc. The other children were able to make him cry all the time (I think M. was also used to crying as a coping mechanism for not getting a ton of attention). Another student, D., never stopped trying to manipulate me. I would catch him all the time saying things that he knew adults normally thought was cute coming out of a child's mouth, and he would constantly test me. 

I guess my point is that all children are still kids. We can expect some behavioral differences as a secondary effect of their differing abilities, but it's important to remember that they are all still children. If students are too advanced for the work we're giving them, they will get bored and cause mischief; if students are totally clueless about what's going on in the class, they'll get bored and cause mischief; if students are in the middle but run out of work to do because the teacher planned insufficiently, the children will cause mischief.

Technology (Question #7)

Technology is incorporated in a variety of different ways in the classroom. Since students are studying power plants (and can't exactly play around with nuclear power or tides in the classroom), their one lab that I have observed has been to make a model of a coal plant by making their own steam, which used lab materials like scissors, a burner filled with fuel that would slowly combust (possibly kerosene), a torch to start fires with, metal gauze, a pencil, and a paper cut-out of blades that the students put together themselves. 

Other ways that technology is used is by having a lot of the course material, like assignments, posted and submitted on Google Drive. Each student is given their own laptop and is given time to work in class to research different kinds of power plants collaboratively and post their research online. Laptop use occurs mainly in class, since some students don't have the Internet at home and cooperation is always key in this class. Also, using the laptops is an equalizer; the teacher gets to look things up, and the students do, too. It's not like there is a sage on the stage if everyone is engaged in looking up material. 

The assignments work really well in her class, since the instructor doesn't need to lug around stacks of paper, grading is slightly reduce from what it might otherwise be (i.e., if more busywork were given), and the students actually don't know how to use computers or research material online yet--they are learning essential technological skills. The students are still slow at typing and learning the short-cut keys, but students with trouble writing (e.g., students who have an LD) may find an easier time doing work on their laptops, rather than hand-writing everything without spell check. 

Students are also still getting used to citing their sources and making sure they understand what they read before they use it. They are learning to paraphrase to both avoid plagiarism and to assure themselves that they understand the material. Also, there are a lot of really cool websites on power plants, some of which are interactive and show how the components work together in a particular type of plant to harness energy. Finally, the assignments provide instant feedback to the instructor, as fast as she can read through student responses. 

Students' take-home work is to highlight the notes that the teacher gives them, fill out worksheets (e.g., Venn diagrams comparing and contrasting two different types of power plants), to make flashcards in preparing for an assessment, and (this past weekend) to finish their board game (did I mention the board games were really fun? I never thought I'd play Twister again, let alone Hydroelectric Power Plant Twister). 

Otherwise, the instructor uses short YouTube video clips and has shown one full documentary that came from YouTube on the projector, which is always pulled down. The YouTube clips are good attention grabbers and are actually what I retain from week to week--when I had my butt kicked playing the kids' board games this week, the only way I ever got any answer right was if I could remember it from one of the instructor's video clips. I think with all of the components and machinery inherent in the power plant unit, it makes sense that visual aids and animations would be needed to understand the material. 

The teacher sometimes starts the class by handing out short slips of paper containing bell ringer type questions to get the students in a science mind-set (she seems to pass them out when she knows the students will come into class tired or distracted, like when they saw a play). She sometimes collects the science questions to make sure the students still do them (I'm assuming), but she cuts down on her grading by not always collecting the questions. She uses the overhead projector to discuss the answers with her students. 

TUESDAY:

I observed the earth science class today (which I have observed last year and absolutely love). The teacher posts everything on the class website, students work collaboratively on Google Drive, where students also post some of their work. The projector screen is always pulled up, so that the teacher can project schematic diagrams and PowerPoint presentations on top of the white board and then annotate the diagrams. Her students made an iMovie in groups last year that forced students to apply their knowledge in engaging, multi-faceted, collaborative and memorable ways. She will show YouTube clips or full movies from outside sources, too. One of her general science classes had Rube Goldberg devices due today, which were set up and taped all over the classroom--some of the machines and technology is created by the students. Her use of technology is effective in promoting a student-centered environment and in providing information in multiple ways.

Ways I Use Technology Now

I was also pleased that we started studying DNA today, as long as we are talking about technology in Methods, since the DNA unit is about as high-tech as I get (it's just a coincidence this semester!). I like showing the HHMI videos and doing a molo simulation on mutations, and we use technology in ways I am coming to see as normative: doing research online in groups, keeping up a class website, posting blogs, etc. I think I am understanding how to do these things a little bit better, semester by semester, especially with the classes I am able to observe. Some things that I do, since my students are older, is introduce them to the RCSB protein data bank and have them present on different proteins (I mentioned in an early blog that my students give group meetings, based on their Internet or inquiry research--this is one of the meeting topics). My students also use Accelrys (or similar program--Accelrys doesn't work well on Macs) to draw their molecules. Accelrys does not create standardized-looking molecules, but I think it allows them to appreciate (for free) what VSEPR theory really is and how molecules fit together and can be represented.

Ways I Should be Using Technology

One thing that I should do is bite the bullet and get ChemDraw, since the free drawing programs do not look nearly as nice as the ACS 1996 template does. I could even use the free trial, make all of my quizzes and exams, and then cancel my subscription (or is that dishonest?). I should also have done something with Jmol this semester, but that just slipped by me; I feel like I've been behind, vis-a-vis some other semesters, and I wonder if it's the snow days we had or if I am actually going at a pace more appropriate for the students. I should also have students present enzymes in their active, zymogen, or inhibited forms, as long as I want them gaining familiarity with the RCSB data bank... Since they do have group meetings, I should also teach them how to use the SMART technology at the beginning of the semester, since otherwise, they are set up for failure when they need to turn up the volume or change any settings at all for their presentation.

Next semester, I'll have a little more figured out.

To Expand...

What technology is used in the classroom. Remember, technology is more than a smartboard or an ipad. How is technology utilized by the students and teacher? Are there limitations to the usage? If so, what are they? Can students use their smartphones in the classroom? What is your cooperating teachers viewpoint on technology?

My focus last week (see above) was on the use of technology. Implicitly, I addressed the limitations, which is that students are still learning how to use their computers and do Internet research. Also, some students' Chrome books have technical difficulties from time-to-time, and then the students need to bring their laptops to their school's version of ITS for repairs; these students then get a loaner laptop while their original is being repaired. Pedagogically, a limitation of using technology is that the teacher has to watch the students pretty vigilantly to make sure that they are using the Internet to research their topic, and not going to sites they know are entertaining but not that educational. One of the teachers at my local high school calls this "silent disruptions." Still, having to look over students' shoulders and making sure that they are on-task is an issue that is not unique to technology.

In regards to smartphones, I have seen students listen to the music they have on their phones during group work time, but students do not use their smartphones to look up information or as part of their labwork. I know a lot of grown-ups who study better when they can listen to music, and that is the extent that I have seen students using their phones.

Actually, it's funny, because I am pretty against cell phones being used at the K-12 level, even for wet lab work, when laptops are available. Anything that a cell phone could be used for--timing a reaction, taking pictures of results, looking up information, etc.--could also be done with, say, a clock, an iPad, laptop, and/or textbook. I feel like it would not be worth my energy to monitor students' cell phone use in the lab, lecture, or a group discussion. I am not against students just listening to music (they don't look down at their screens, they have headphones on, their eye contact is elsewhere, etc.), especially since I know so many adults who function much better when they have music going on in the background. However, it is not worth my monitoring energy for students to have their cell phones out.

When students ask a question, my cooperating teacher responds, "How could you find that out?" I have seen exactly the same attitude that we have talked about in class--an assignment isn't worthwhile if you can just look up the answers, so a teacher might as well let her/his students go online to look up the details. My cooperating teacher also says, "They have access to the Internet," meaning that her students might as well look up information if it will help them to understand a concept. My strong impression is that she is in favor of students using whatever resources might help them to learn and that she is in favor of students learning how to use their resources. She works really hard to make sure her students begin to understand how to evaluate the quality of websites, how to check for their own understanding by paraphrasing what they read, looking up the same information at different reading levels (so that everyone can get it), and how to cite their resources. I think I've noticed her students getting a little more sophisticated and are more and more willing to say why they like or dislike a website. Students are also getting into text-heavier websites, rather than just going to Google images to understand a concept. I see really careful scaffolding designed to make sure that students understand how to use the resources that they already have at hand.

Exceptional Learners (Question #5)

I gather that the students created their own board games in groups to review for the upcoming test on power plants. Today, we played the games, and they were 99% creative and engaging (except for the games that were only half done...you're killing me, Smalls). A lot of the questions, which were based off of a review guide, were really difficult, although some of the True-or-False questions tested trivial knowledge that would not be on a well-made test (which I am assuming theirs will be). Also, the games tended to not have enough questions--we would be halfway through the board and run out of questions. 

One game that I am going to steal for sure for my students is one in which the players need to wear a hand band and put a component of a system in the band, so that everyone but the player can see their component. The game is then to ask questions until getting the term right; the next player goes after the first player makes a guess, and the players take turns until all have gotten their term right (which didn't happen with us). This game will work great once we get into metabolic cycles (gluconeogenesis, glycolysis, etc.). We have one exam left, since my students' final is an abbreviated, ACS style final presentation. I am starting to prepare for the classes I'm teaching this summer, and I'm sure I'll find more ideas to appropriate from the middle school students.

My partner and I also spoke with the ELP instructor, who teaches talented and gifted students (anyone who scores sky-high on standardized tests) K-8. She says her purpose is to help those students go further, so that they're not bored. I noticed that her students were analyzing Divergent the movie vs. Divergent the novel when I walked in, and I thought it was pretty neat that they seemed so passionate about reading. I also thought it was cool that a lot of students in her class are those I see a lot in science class, anyway. 

In regards to our questions, the ELP instructor said:

1. Instructional Considerations. Her instructional considerations are based on her students being at the high end. I had no idea what she meant by that at first (I thought she must have meant that her students with mild ID or students with Asperberger's, rather than autism). She has had students with IEPs in the past who needed accommodations in regards to their writing. 

2. Limitations. She says that every student is different and sometimes does not like to do this or that activity (e.g., writing). I gather that their limitations might be pushed at a farther ZPD than those of their peers. 

3. Goals and Objectives. The goals and objectives are also unique to each student. Everyone keeps a Lifelong Notebook, in which they explore their goals in different sections and how they might go about achieving those goals within a specific timeline. They use S.M.A.R.T. (Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant Time-bound) goal-setting and then work to achieve their goals. For instance, she said that if a person's goal was to get a million dollars, they couldn't set their timeline for tomorrow, and they would have to have a plan for earning that money.

TUESDAY.

Mwahaha, I successfully stole some of the children's ideas. I have a lame mutation DND-style board game that got put to shame by the games I saw yesterday, so tonight I started my students out on making one that was more cool. They are working on making many, many questions with the answers--one thing that I saw yesterday at the middle school was that the students sometimes ran out of questions mid-board, ending the game. I also have a picture in my head of awesome board games that we can (will?) be making, that model helicase or ribosomes (maybe the the markers could be an amino acid, and if you make your way to the right anti-codon, you win the game...). The possibilities are endless, and we have the NSF "Origins of Life" debate coming up, so I am extremely excited to incorporate all of the ideas I'm observing.