I was just thinking about how during my subbing this past week, I had to transition the AP biology classes from their unit on ecology to one about cellular respiration. The way that the teacher had them do it was just kind of to jump right in without any real information beforehand to preface the new unit. I recall many of my high school teachers doing that and I was thinking, there must be some better way to transition between units. Does anyone have any good ideas? I think they obviously need to be specific for each transition, but I was wondering if anyone had any techniques that have worked for them in the past.
P.S. I saw the tail end of the Rnews report about STARS on Saturday. It looked great, congrats everyone!
As I’m sure everyone knows, kids have a tendency to get really antsy before any type of break, especially Thanksgiving or Christmas/winter break. On the heals of JoAnn’s awesome lesson last Monday about classroom management, I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for keeping your classroom running smoothly in those few days before a big break from school. I noticed last week that I had a hard time getting students to focus on Tuesday, especially towards the end of the day. Does anyone have any ideas that have worked for them? Although I haven’t tried it, I think maybe tying in the upcoming holiday events or reasons for the break with classroom content might keep students engaged. I guess we can all try some different things out before the rapidly approaching winter break. I’ll try to keep looking for any ideas and if I do find some, I’ll post them! Good luck with all the work these next few weeks!
I just finished my series of three lessons this past week in an 11th grade chem class at Webster Schroeder. It was a little more difficult than I would have liked because I haven’t had a lot of time to get to know the students (since I completed these lessons while I was subbing) and I had to refresh my chemistry a bit since I haven’t done it in a while. But all things considered, I think the lessons worked out pretty well. Particularly my nature of science lesson, which was a lab in which the students had to figure out the properties of ionic and covalent compounds by examining salt and sugar. I think it bugged some of the students a bit because they had to do more work than they were accustomed to; they had to write their own data tables and figure out which compound was ionic and molecular by using their experimental data. I just kept reminding students that I just wanted them to back up their claims and statements with evidence and that it wasn’t about finding the “right” answer. One thing I would definitely improve though would be mentioning the nature of science more explicitly at the beginning of the class. But my biggest question, and if anyone has any ideas, would be how do you communicate the idea of the nature of science to your students for the first time? Especially if you don’t have an abundance of time to focus on it?
Oops…I’m a day late with my post! In light of what we’re going to be doing in class on Monday, I was thinking about using technology during class when I was subbing this past week. I had my first experience using a Smart board and I thought it would be so easy. Of course, the first thing that I wrote on it looked terrible because the letters I wrote were so spread out and I didn’t know what to do! Luckily, some of the students guided me through recalibrating the Smart board and I had a lot more success after that. I just find it very interesting that, although I grew up in school with computers, powerpoint presentations, and video projectors, I feel behind the eight ball in regards to a lot of the educational technology that’s available. I’m looking forward to class Monday so that I can learn some more about all the different technological tools we’re investigating.
As I’m sure you all know if you’ve read my posts, I’ve been subbing in Irondequoit and Webster so I could get some experience and some money! But on a serious note, I’ve been subbing in Webster for a 10th grade living environment teacher and I’ve had a little bit of trouble with classroom management in a couple of my classes. Since I don’t really have control over the curriculum and techniques I have to use, I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for how to manage disruptive students, especially while you are trying give the students notes, for example. Although I would ideally like to address the information differently, my hands are tied…so if anyone has any techniques that have worked, I’m always open to new ideas!
I enjoyed reading about some ways to make sure that you address the needs of all students, regardless of their needs and abilities. I taught some inclusion classes during my student teaching, but I wasn’t privy to my students IEP’s. I followed a lot of the plans that my CT had, but I was wondering if anyone had any ideas about some different modifications that they have found helpful for teaching students with a variety of needs? Since I don’t have a lot of experience, I would appreciate any ideas! And if I see anything cool, I’ll post it here.
On a different note, I’m researching authentic assessment in my research methods class and I came across an interesting article about some changes that were made to improve introductory biology labs at Michigan State University. I thought it was pretty interesting and maybe it’ll be helpful for you too. Here’s the info for the article:
Infusion of collaborative inquiry throughout a biology curriculum increases student learning: a four-year study of “Teams and Streams” by Douglas B. Luckie, Joseph J. Maleszewski, Sarah D. Loznak and Marija Krha, published in Advanced Physiology Education, 2004 vol. 28 p. 199-209
After I read through the articles this week, a question came to mind that I posed to April in my critical synthesis but I figured I’d toss it out to anyone who would want to respond: In an age of high-stakes testing and standardized assessments, how can current and future teachers effectively integrate questioning techniques (from the readings) and foster an environment of inquiry in their classrooms?
As a young and inexperienced teacher, I know that I want to foster an environment for inquiry and questioning, but I’m apprehensive about the time it will take for me to figure out how to do this in my classroom. I’m also worried about how I’ll make sure that my students are prepared for their regents or AP exams. Does anyone have any ideas that you or your cooperating teacher have used? I’m always game for new ideas! If I come across anything, I’ll post it too!
Even though this post isn’t exactly educational per se, I just had to share this story. I subbed for the first time at West Irondequoit High School last Thursday and I had quite the day. My first period of classes was 3rd period, 9th grade Earth Science. As the students were sitting down after the bell rang, I overheard one of the students saying, “It’s just water I swear!” After that, a bunch of kids started coughing and clearing out of the room and suddenly, I started to cough too! I was freaking out because I didn’t know exactly what to do so I called the assistant principal and got the kids out of the room. Luckily, another teacher was in the hallway and she guided my class down the hall into an open classroom where we held the rest of our class. The assistant principal and the principal came upstairs to straigten everything out and see how we were doing. As it turns out, one of the students had sprayed something in class that caused a bunch of the kids to have respiratory reactions! I got a note from the principal at the end of the day commending my efforts to keep everything under control…I definitely wasn’t expecting to get a note from the principal on my first day! Luckily, no one was hurt and the rest of the day went much better…I just had to share that story to provide everyone with a little amusement for the week!
Although I’m not in a classroom right now, I am helping coach a high school field hockey team as an assistant coach. A lot of what we read about this week had to do with planning and how to incorporate appropriate assessments within your planning. Something that came to mind for me was the assessments that our coaching staff used during tryouts. We had objective assessments, such as timed runs and drills, as well as more subjective assessments, like work ethic and leadership skills. At the end of tryouts, we had a numerical system that we used to calculate the total number of points that each player received from the assessments. We met with each player individually, presented them with their scores, as well as their strengths and points of improvement. The girls we informed of the assessment standards and expectations at the beginning of tryouts, so they knew what was required to succeed. This information also gave us the ability to give specific feedback to players and parents upon request.
I personally didn’t have any part in the creation of the rubric and scoring assessment, but I did help to implement it. I thought it was very well constructed and I plan on using a similar style of assessment in my classroom. The planning and meetings outside of practice time were pretty extensive, but I think that’s what made the assessments so successful. I hope that some of these ideas can be helpful for you in your classrooms!
I’m not sure if everyone in class can see my blog yet, but I’m going to post this cool website anyway. I’m not in a classroom right now because I did my student teaching last spring, but something that I used to help my students visualize different cell organelles and processes was a website call www.cellsalive.com.
I think a cool way to use it would be as an investigative tool to introduce prokaryotic/eukaryotic, plant/animal cells etc. I know that this isn’t particularly helpful to all of you chem/physics/earth science people, but hopefully it’ll be a cool new site for all of the bio people!
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