Teacher Robert S

Clarifying Goals

I enjoyed the reading this week and I really like the Wiggins, Understanding by Design text.  I am a very visual person and I may be 30 years old but the graphics, pictures and diagrams really help out alot.  It is amazing how they still work!  On page 71 for example there is a graphic organizer with the topic of clarifying content properties.  It is a very good explanation and just like the description of this in, I believe, the book titled “What I didn’t Learn in College” (I may be off and most likely am, but I am close) they talk about putting information into three categories.  Must/need to know, should know and nice to know.  Even when it is broken down into these categories it is still very hard to categorize a curriculum that is 150 pages thick!  I am finding this out this year since it is my forst time teaching and dealing with the living environment and earth science curriculum.  What I have learned to do is to generalize.  You take huge units, break them down the three categories and set up my goals and objectives that way.  It is working so far and it helps, but it still a enormous pain in the butt!

Has he lost it??

Within the first 2 minutes of the John Taylor video I thought to myself…This guy is out of his mind.   Then I asked myself…Is he?  As I watched he had a lot of interesting thoughts on education.  None of which I disagreed with.  One quote that grabbed me was, “There are infinite variations in humanity and we take them and put them in one School and try to make them all the same”.  It is true.  Schools are not what they should be, or were intended to be 1000’s of years ago.  Kids need to have the option to learn what they are interested in.  They can not be forced because they are all different.  Although they are kids and most don’t know what in the World they are interested in and many would waste time deciding.  Tests and money have twisted education today.  The idea of having kids do independent study, community service and work outside School I think is a great idea.  But would it work in all Schools???  I am not to sure.  I know that if I was in High School and I had every friday off to do some outside work, my friends and I would get into trouble.  I guess I will need more time to digest the video.

Kids with Self Autonomy??

I enjoyed both articles.  Especially Mathews about interactive video and inquiry.  Linn’s article made me stop and think after reading it.  I understand the three frameworks and the steps that students need to take to scaffold new thinking.  The four steps are as follows in case you werent able to read the article: (1) make new goals, (2) make thinking visible to your kids, (3) encourage autonomy and (4) reach out of the classroom for community support.  I think on paper this is easier than it is.  I have 85 students, many are 9th and 10 graders with a few juniors and seniros mixed in.  Making any of them self concious about their about their own brain waves is extremely difficult.  I feel that kids need to learn how to be self autonomous, and we need to train them to think about their own thoughts.  Alot of time I have the perfect lesson with video clips, visuals, great discussion and I ask a someone to tell me what they were thinking during the lesson and they look at me like I have am alien.  Unless they know how to think, and think critically about the thoughts they are having during a lesson, or demo, they will not be able to self autonomous.  When I ask one of my students to think about something…The question goes in, rattles around and then nothing.  Most kids don’t know how to challenge new material and then add it to current information.  It is tough.  All of my kids have the ability, some kids have that ability to do it on their own, others need more training and then there are those who will act stupid because they don’t want to look smart in front of their friends.

Is Science Leaking Women??

My main concern after reading the article titled, “The Pipeline Is Leaking Women All The Way Along”, is with our culture itself.  The article talks about how women are more interested in the organic sciences and that men are more into inorganic such as math and engineering.  I don’t buy it.  During last night’s class (and I appologize for being late) we dicussed different learning styles among individuals, not men and women. 

 In the article a few statistics were thrown out.  I was shocked that 20% of all women who graduate with a science concentration for their undergrad drop out.  Because of this, there is only a handful of women who are scientists and engineers.  Out of the 45% of women who make up the Countries work force, 16% are in the sciences.  It astonishes me.  To back up these numbers it was said that women tend to deal with more real-world problems and men are more independent of real-world problems.  Which, I don’t agree with.

Another thing that I don’t really understand is with the SAT Test.  On the SAT-M women score just as well as men, if not better, but because men’s test scores are sqewed differently.  The dfistribution of scores for men are more spread out, so men have higher numbers at the top and bottom.  Putting more men in the top 1% than women.  This makes no sense to me. 

I guess I would have to do some more research to see if these are actually true research results, or just a scientists looking for results to back his/her argument.  I personally feel that it make be a culture thing, rather than a men versus women competition.  Like I feel it is for minorities.  The culture is dominant, white and male.  I think that because these ideas are already written in stone that no matter what women or minorities do, they have an uphill battle.  A battle that is there before they are even born.  It is not fair, and I don’t agree with it, but it is there.

Authentic Assessments

I really enjoyed reading Frances Lawrenz’s article about authentic assessment.  It gave me some great ideas about alternative ways to assess my kids before, during and after covering topics.  I even changed my exam around that I am giving friday to include more essays.  I feel literacy is extremely important for young people today.  Kids are always on instant messaging and texting on their cell phones and seem to lose the ability to write in proper english.  Some kids are just bad at standard tests with multiple choice questions and would be better letting their thoughts run wild on an essay question.  When I was in School we had tests and quizzes that were pretty standard.  They were solely given to us to prepare us for the regents exam.  Not that I am knocking on it but it is true.  Kids need to know how to answer multiple choice questions.  Today I do the same thing.  I throw regents questions at my kids all the time.  Every other day they have a warm-up that consists of 15 questions on our previous days topics.  Is it right?  Yes!  But could I do other things to increase knowledge, processing skills and literacy?  Yes!  Other than these regents questions I try to ask as many questions to my kids that I can.  I am probing for understanding constantly, and it is still not enough.  Multiple choice tests are good and bad.  There is so much information in our curriculums to cover so MC tests are appropriate.  I feel they are bad because some kids will never study because they know that they have a 25% chance of getting the question right every time.  On other assessments such as essays and poractical assessments you either know it, or you dont.  They force kids to pay attention more in class whether it be a discussion or a lab experiment.  Kids need to be assessed constantly as to where they are.  Besides the essay section of the reading I am also very interested in learning more about dynamic assessments where kids do reciprocal teaching.  I like the idea because it forces kids to understand the problem solving approach and not just the right answer.  If most kids know the right answer they will stop because they think that they don’t need to pay attention anymore.  I am definitley going to incorporate these into my plans alot more.

My Epistemology of Teaching…Science.

When I first started thinking about what my epistemology of teaching was, I was not sure which direction, or main points I should concentrate on.  We have read alot about literacy, inquiry, social contructivism, modeling, conceptual change and planning.  The nature of my teaching revolves around literacy, inquiry, constructivism, modeling and planning.

Literacy is very important to me.  Students need to be able to read and write in science class in a scienctific manner.  It is my personal belief that if students could read scientific texts than they could read anything.  These texts whether they are scientific journals or articles challenge readers to actively think while reading.  This is extremely important since the changing World around us allows most kids to communicate through the use of computers, instant messaging and texting on cell phones.  Each of these have their own little language.  This is evident when I read lab reports and bigger words are abbreviated like someone would on AOL instant messenger.  Since reading and writing is not valued enough in Schools and at home students feel that writing lab reports with shortening words is acceptable.  Everyday my students read and write in class and if it is not meeting expectations I give it back to them.

Having students read and write in class also allows them to activate prior knowledge.  This prior knowledge is needed so students can tackle misconceptions and make their own meaning out of tougher topics.  Students need to be able to take their prior knowledge, new information and scaffold them into new thoughts in order to learn and make conceptual changes.  Many times in science students need to be taught how to think scientifically.  Teaching them how to think is the tough part.  Many kids today do not care, or they think science is not important so they simply take new information, memorize it and then forget it after the exam. 

I try to get them to think scientifically with inquiry.  I have not done full blown inquiry in class.  I am in my third year of full time teaching and it seems like a tough task to condition my kids for inquiry.  Alot of things need to be in plce for them to actually get something out of it and not have it turn into a huge mess.  I on the other hand like to do teacher guided inquiry lessons.  I did this with the goldenrod activity.  It was inquiry based when I planned it on paper but after starting the lesson the kids were confused.  they did not know how to think on their own and simply stopped.  After seeing this I facilitated more and guided them to the answers of the questions I was asking.

Modeling I have found to be extremely important in my first years of teaching.  I model everything from my behavior, my language, expectations, and biology/earth science topics.  Alot of topics are abstract and hard for kids to see and understand so modeling helps out a ton.  Models of the solar system, phases of the moon, cells ect. help out alot when tackling these tasks.  Having students actively build these models is even more valuable.  They are able to take their prior knowledge, new information, misconceptions and rearrange them all when models are in their hands.

Inquiry…

OK, lets try this again.  I thought I wrote this blog last week but I think I forgot to hit publish.  After reading the Mark Windschitl article on Inquiry I am a bit confused.  He says that in most classroom you would see a “dizzying array of activities” and that within these activities you would see “inquiry”.  He then goes on to give his account of what inquiry is to him.  His :inquiry” is put into four steps: (1) organizing what we know and want to know, (2) creating a hypothesis, (3) seeking evidence, and (4) constructing an argument.  Maybe it is me but these steps seem really teacher directed to me, and I could be wrong.

Last year when I taught in the City School District I attended an Inquiry Institue taught by Jay Costanza.  It was great!  He took us through the steps of Inquiry so we, as teachers, could get a sense of how the students should feel during inquiry.  I guess yuou could outline his version of inquiry as the same as Windschils but his was less  teacher directed.  The experiment that I remember was with water tables.  As we came into the room all the materials were out on the table.  We were then given ample time to play with the materials so we could see what we had to work with.  That time was followed by a teacher directed lesson on what questions can we ask.  Only questions that could be experimented on were chosen, and this was done as a class in think-pair-share format.  Now Jay did direct us towards picking a hypothesis but we had a choice between three questions, not ONE like Windschil.  After we selected a question to experiment it was up to us to design, and run our experiment.  It was very student centered.  That lesson is what i see as inquiry.  The students pick a topic/problem within the realm of reason and they come up with an experiment.  They guide their learning.  After letting us go to work, Jay walked around and probed/questioned us and at the very end we had to present the data we collected to the class and out findings.

Another point to Windschil about him thinking that most classrooms version of inquiry is “dizzying” is that it takes time.  You have to train the kids to think and be able to come up with good questions.  You as a teacher need to be a master of the curriculum so you can guide, not direct, students in the right direction.  I think that most teachers first shot (I know mine was) at inquiry turned out a mess.  I tried it in the city where my management wasn’t so good and I couldnt get my kids to think for themselves so it turned out very teacher directed.     

Planning…

Planning a course for success is a tough task as a newer teacher.  I know I relied on teachers that I worked with for plans, curriculum maps etc..  This was nice because the plans were right there.  all I had to do was learn the curriculum and make copies of old stuff they used.  The negative with this is that the teacher who gave me the lesson plans for the year could have been unsuccessful and I didn’t know it.  I really liked the ideas in the Huebel-Drake article.  Not teaching an explicit course sounds like a lot of fun but it must require a lot more work.   Of which I am guessing is why they don’t talk about the increased planning and prep needed.  I like the fact that the kids get to pick what they want to study.  It draws more interest.  But I still feel kids need structure at 9 and 10 grade.  At least most of my current kids do.  How do they get the fundamental instruction needed to do the four projects?  And what happens if kids transfer out of the School to a new School?  Or in from another?  I would be interested in knowing the demographics of the student population of this School.  All in all I think this is a great Idea, but for seniors or juniors.

The characteristics that jumped out at me as being important tpo me when planning are as follows:

-Clear feedback –> I feel it needs to be immediate.

-Extensive questioning

-Clear, coherent flow –> smooth transitions are something I still struggle with.

-Lesson closure –> kids need to be assessed every block so I know what was learned and not so I can effectively plan the next class.

-Explicit plans –> the kids need to know the plans as well so they know where we are going and why it is important for them to know this.

-Appropriate level of material –> the toughest thing when you have 2-30 different kids, all with different levels, styles and backgrounds.

-Enthusiasm –> class needs to be fun in a good way.  Not a party but kids have to want to come to class.

-Good management –> rituals and routines need to be in place for me so I can teach.

-Indirect style –> student centered.  me being only a facilitator.

These jumped out at me as being important to ME when planning. I am a newer teacher and I try to incorporate all of these when i plan everyday.  Lessons would go great when I do all of these things.  If one isn’t in place, class would not meet my expectations and the kids will suffer.  I and not the most detailed planner.  I have my objectives and essential questions and the order of how I want class to go and I go with the flow.  I have approximate times I want to spend on activities but again I go with the flow.  If they need more time, I give it, and if they don’t I cut them off in order to help my behavior problems.  I guess  I used these reading as more of a reflection.

Misconceptions

I really liked the articles last week.  They went right along with class.  I always thought that the goldenrod galls were bulbs, or knots.  I never thought there was a fly maggot inside.  All those poor maggots I killed at Grandma’s house when I used to hit them with a stick like they were baseballs.  It was a great activity.  It wasn’t until my misconception was realized by ME, that I was engaged.  I was really into it.  In class last week to review relationships in an ecosystem I brought in some galls and did the same activity with my kids.  They loved it, and in fact they answered most of the questions on parasitism, mutualism and commensalism correctly.

My struggle in the RCSD the last two years stemmed right from the idea that new meaningful learning takes place when misconceptions are challenged.  Also that the student themselves has to entertain the thought that challenges there misconceptions.  It is not only a process for learning but a way of thinking.  The kids I was able to get through to leanred alot more than the ones who didn’t care.  Just like in the reading.  It was hard to bring in every students personal experiences.  No matter what i did there were a few that did not get it.  I am finding it easier now that I am at Olympia.  I am guessing because the kids are more mature and older.

Video games and learing?

I really liked the reading about the tie between video games and learing.  Humans learn from experiences.  It is within these experiences that they link new information.  The reading says “it is the connections or associations that people make among experiences that are crucial.”  I agree with this.  But the problem arises when you have a class of students who have grown up under different circumstances and have different experiences, and you have to teach each of them to connect this new info with the old.

The other section that I liked was about video games.  Video games allow kids to experiment with no limitations and consequences.  Games let them live in another world.  This is important with kids who maybe less fortunate and have not had the same experiences as others.  But there are limits and problems with video games.  Some are far fetched and put kids in situations that they will never be in and some kids can’t seperate their game character from real life (wording?).  Video games is where is it at.  And it is unfortunate for books.  The world is changing.  Kids no longer go home and read, they play video games.  Reading books is losing ground and so are reading skills that are needed for life.  I have some kids in class that do not read very well (and I am one of them) but they can sit down for hours on end and play video games, and it is allowed.