Module 5 Reflection

This week, we went through planning stage 2 of the understanding by design unit. I thought this stage was very helpful when thinking about what we can do to assess what the students have learned in the unit. It was interesting to see all the different takes that everyone took on the broad questions, but we all ended up with very well put-together unit plans. I thought it was a good tactic to think about all the different ways you are assessing your students in what they know. I liked to see all of the different ideas people came up with for assessments to get ideas for what I might add to my unit plan.

I also appreciated the comments on my unit plan. I got some great ideas for how to fix it up, and change a few things so that my unit plan would flow better. I even figured out some things I would have done in the classroom that I did not specify in the unit plan. I think this method is a great way to plan, because you are thinking about the goals you want the students to accomplish by the end of the unit, and planning their path to get there gives them the best opportunity for success.

Global competiveness, Improved outcomes, and the Need for new methods of teaching

In this week’s module, many topics were covered, including global competiveness, improved outcomes, and the need for new methods of teaching. The Stewart article was based on the idea that high school students in the United States are far behind their counterparts in other countries, and the United States is, therefore, putting their students at a disadvantage when they are going up against foreign students for jobs. Although I did not think Stewart’s article made the most convincing argument, I do think her point is valid. There have been studies that have shown that our students are behind those of other countries. I think it would be beneficial to study their methods of education to see if we can learn anything from them.

In order to raise the achievement level of our students, we need to study improved outcomes for our students. The Black article discussed intrinsic motivation for students, helping them to appreciate learning as a way of bettering oneself, or improving their knowledge to become a well-rounded citizen. This is hard to do, as students are so focused on getting good grades so that they can get in to a good college. We have to work on convincing the students that these goals are mutually inclusive. It is hard because students have not been brought up to think this way, but I think it is something we can work on changing.

Finally, I commented on George W. Bush’s statement that we do not need more trendy education theories, as the ways we have been using for the last few decades have worked just fine. But he does not take in to consideration that methods of teaching have been changing, especially over the past decade. There has been new research, including new information about ourselves, our brains and the way we learn. This research has affected educational theories and teaching methods. I think these ways are more appropriate for the younger students, and make a much more interesting way of learning. I think the methods we have come up with are more effective than the old ways. It is always important to take into account new research in any profession. In scientific research, for example, of you find a method that is more efficient and more effective than the old methods, you do not ignore the new information just because the old way worked. It would be inefficient, and waste valuable resources. The same attitude should be applied to education.

Advance Organizers

This week, we read all about advance organizers, and helpful examples of how to use them in the classroom. My first thought was using them to organize the ideas from a lecture or textbook. Many of my colleagues had this same idea, as it is the easiest way to relate this concept to something many of us may already do in the classroom. I was interested in the idea of using the advance organizers before hearing any of the information we give them. Using the organizers to elicit misconceptions or allow students to make connections between broad ideas before going into the details of the concepts. I thought this idea would be great to slowly introduce students to the material, rather than periodically dumping big, complicated ideas on them and then expecting them to organize all the pieces.

I think that last week’s material, concept attainment, goes along very well with this idea. If we go through brainstorming and categorizing, we can go one step further to organize the ideas into a concept map, which helps the students prepare for the material to come.

Inductive Strategies

In this week’s module, we discussed inductive strategies and their benefit or detriment to today’s students. Many people had similar ideas. I think there is a lot of benefit because the students are formulating their own ideas, rather than being made to learn the ideas of others. Many of my colleagues spelled out this same idea, adding that students can explore different ideas and develop their own from their explorations (Rossi, blackboard). I also think inductive strategies are beneficial because students can learn more than simply the topic on which the lesson is based, or even learn more than one topic at once. Because inductive strategies are so flexible, many ideas or subjects can be combined into one lesson (Sanders, blackboard). I think that inductive strategies are a great way to teach certain subjects to students, because students can use their own ideas, which motivate them to learn it because it is based around an interest of their own.

However, the strategy does have its drawbacks. Sometimes, these kinds of activities take much longer for some students to understand because backgrounds of students can be so different. Sometimes the whole class will take much longer to get to the right idea, or one group of slower students will not understand which makes planning difficult. Then, there is the issue of students potentially coming to incorrect conclusions (Seamans, blackboard) or embedding their misconceptions further, rather than correcting them. All these cons make these kinds of lessons take much longer than simple direct instruction, but I think the benefits outweigh these possible consequences because I think student built learning is much more valuable and stays with the students much longer than memorizing from a lecture or textbook.

Career Goals

One application asked me to write about my career goals, and I thought it would be a good thing to post on my blog:

My goal in teaching is to become an outstanding teacher who cares deeply about student success. I want to become the best teacher I can be, a teacher that students love to learn from. I would like to learn more about teaching over the next few years so that I can successfully complete the national board certification program. As a student teacher, I have been teaching general classes and observing a couple different IB classes. In my future teaching, I would like to gain enough insight and understanding so that I can teach IB and AP classes, in addition to the general classes. I would like to incorporate forensic science and biotechnology into my teaching skill set, joining an existing program, or starting a new program so that students see how scientists use their knowledge to improve our medicine, crime prevention and other areas of our society. These are just a few of the things I would like to do in my career as a teacher, and I am sure I will come up with more as I fulfill these initial goals.

Meta-Reflection on Standard S: Knowledge of Subject Matter and Curriculum Goals

I feel that I have come a long way to fulfill this standard this year. I try to make all of my lessons content driven. When in class, students must solve problems in order to succeed in science and understand given curriculum standards, which may range from understanding concepts by explaining them in a different way to applying their knowledge to answer a question.

Students in my classes use different methods to learn the given material. They listen to lectures and take notes, they complete practice problems, and they ask questions when they do not understand, which happens in most classrooms, such as in my mentors’ classrooms. I have added some components to help students show their understanding in different ways. Three particular assignments have stuck out this quarter in my classes. In chemistry, I came up with a poster activity, with the help of my mentor and a few other faculty members, to help the students with orbital notation and the periodic table. Students were assigned an element, and need to figure out how to represent the valence electrons in an illustration, and how to complete the orbital notation for their element, with only one explanation of how it worked the previous day. This activity is aligned with the physical science content standard 9-11 PS2A and helps students meet the standard. I think this poster helped them practice orbital notation without doing the usual lecture and worksheet. I think these kinds of activities help the students want to learn the material rather than having it forced down their throats.

Another way to help the students want to learn the material is to introduce the material with a short video. This helps the students see the material in context, outside of simply learning the material to pass a test. I like to show my students some sort of cartoon every Friday, to help them see chemistry outside of the classroom. I make sure that each one is aligned with the current material because they are the most applicable to the students at that time. From one cartoon, the students were able to demonstrate that they understood the concept of negative ions being attracted to positive ions by explaining it.

In our stoichiometry unit, the students needed to understand how to perform dimensional analysis. We taught the students at the beginning of the year, but they struggled with the concept. I had the students practice a lot in class, and put the problems in context as quickly as I could. Once I introduced the mole and how it can be used in context with the other units of measurement the students already knew (liters, grams, molecules, formulas units, atoms, ions), then I talked about how to convert from amounts of reactants to amounts of products in a demonstrated chemical reaction, combustion of methane. I gave the students a map that would give them a picture of a two neighborhood map to follow a path to get from a given value to the value that they want. The picture depicted different paths to trace, so they can see how to use conversion factors to get from one unit to another. The next day, I organized a jigsaw in which a group of 3-4 students worked on two problems, then scrambled the groups so there was one “master” of each set of problems in a group, so students were teaching other students. We also discussed the importance of two of the problem sets, as they applied to two important chemical reactions, photosynthesis and respiration. By the end of the jigsaw, the students had eight solved stoichiometry problems. The next day, I gave a quiz, a problem almost identical to the problems the students had worked out for themselves the day before. Most students showed that they did indeed understand the concept of dimensional analysis and how to convert from an amount of reactant to an amount of product (1, 2, 3). On the final day, I gave them practice problems that they had to complete correctly for stamps, which translated into points when they turned in a packet that contained all the work listed in this paragraph.

At the end of the stoichiometry unit, I wanted to put together an activity that allowed the students to use all of the knowledge they have gained to complete tasks that synthesize their learning. We had been looking at which reactant in a chemical reaction would limit the amount of product made, and then calculating percent yield, which is product made in an experiment compared to the amount a reaction is supposed produce, according to the math. I used different resources to come up with a three part stations lab, in which the students would be looking at two different chemical reactions and comparing different amounts of reactant to discover which the limiting reactant in each was. The third station was a computer simulation in which students had to put reactants into a system, and look at what was produced. They could determine which reactant was limiting, and how much of each product was produced. I think the lab really helped them synthesize their knowledge. They understood how to calculate the amount of product from given reactants, and how to calculate the percent yield of a reaction in front of them compared to the theoretical amount of product they calculated themselves (1, 2, 3). This lesson was aligned with the physical science standard 9-11 PS2G.

 In biology, I came up with an activity where students composed a poem, song or story about what happens when salt is poured on a slug, using specific vocabulary words we learned in class. Students showed their understanding of osmosis by composing a creative piece (1, 2, 3), which is different than normal assignments. This helped them internalize what osmosis is and how it works by asking them to relate it to their lives. This activity is aligned with the life science content standard 9-11 LS1D and helps them meet it. The writing in this assignment helped the students improve their writing, as well as allowing them to incorporate their interests into the stories (see the students work included in the above link).The students were also able to show their creativity in what kind of story they told. The final assignment was an established lab within the biology curriculum, Investigating Cell Variety, where the students needed to figure out what distinguishes a plant cell from an animal cell by looking at different cells and identifying similarities and differences between them. I think this activity helped the students tremendously in understanding plant and animal cell structure, much more so than any lecture might. By the end of the lab, the students’ understood that plant cells are structured and rectangular while animal cells do not have a defined shape, shown by the drawings they completed. By answering different questions, the students showed their understanding that plant cells must go through photosynthesis to get their energy. Therefore, these plants must contain specialized organelles (chloroplasts) to complete this process. Finally, students understood that even though plant and animal cells have differences, there are still common organelles because both must contain the basic structures that make a cell a cell. This activity is aligned with the life science content standard 9-11 LS1C and helps the students meet this standard. This lab required students to use their reading and writing skills to understand the lab manual directions, and answer those questions presented in their lab manuals.

            These are all things I have done in the classroom. Through my educational technology class, I found a few other ways to meet this standard. One of the ideas I have gotten through my studies is incorporation of computer games that help students improve their critical thinking and problem solving skills into the curriculum. Another idea is to create a lab that asks students to collaborate with another classroom across the globe. The students would each complete a similar comparative investigative lab that applies to each country’s environment. The students would post their findings in an organized fashion on a collaborative site, such as a blog, and then compare with those findings of the other classroom. They could learn the content they are supposed to, incorporate reading, writing and technology, and introduce students to a new culture.

            I have learned a lot this past year about this standard and how to fulfill it in the classroom. It does not only encompass the concepts you must teach the students. This standard encompasses how you teach students these concepts, including relating the concepts to the students’ lives, and the other subjects they are learning. It also includes how you relate the content to their future lives and the skills they need to succeed once they graduate from high school. I feel that I am learning how to effectively accomplish all of these things in my classroom by watching how my mentors do it, and trying out different techniques and activities that I came up with.  These are only the most prominent ways that I have fulfilled this standard in my classroom, and I hope to continue to learn more as I go through my teaching career.

Why I teach…

Today was one of those days that I live to teach for (5th period anyway). I came in a little upset because of previous classes and a couple of my students noticed. I was smiling within 5 mintues of just chatting with my students. Right now we are in the middle of cell reproduction. We have just finished mitosis, and are working on learning about karyotypes as an introduction to meiosis.

Yesterday, we started off with a short multiple choice question review on chromosome structure using the active voters (small remotes that have multiple choice answers so students can answer questions from their desks and feedback can be immediate). It was the first time we had used them, and the students were very excited. I was able to see immediately the the class remembered everything about chromosome structure. We then discussed the different types of chromosomes (autosomes and sex chromosomes) and the different types of cells (somatic cells (all cells in your body except sex cells) and sex cells (eggs and sperm)). The students were asking lots of great questions and we did not get through very much material because they were asking such great questions. At the end of the period, I had them write a “clear/ unclear” statement, which was also a first for this class. I have had them write summaries before, and answer specific questions, but I have never asked them to write about what confused them. This was extremely beneficial because I could see exactly what I needed to re-address, or what I needed to go over. I also had some students ask great questions in addition to explaining what they didn’t understand, most of which will be answered once we start meiosis on monday . Examples of students responses will be posted soon.

Today, I used the warm up to start a conversation about the concepts covered the day before. I included a visualization activity in which the students were asked to close their eyes and think about the chromosomes in different parts of their body, so they would get an idea about how many chromosomes they have in their entire bodies. It was great because I got a lot of students saying “ooh!” because they get what they did not understand the day before. Then, we talked about karyotypes, both what they are, how they are put together, and what they are supposed to look like. Again, the students asked great questions and starting great discussions. Finally, we talked about chromosomal disorders, issues with the number of chromosomes people can have, using karyotypes of specific disorders. The students were so interested in the different disorders that as soon as I put up a picture of a new karyotype, they immediately wanted to know the symptoms, and would barely let me describe the chromosomes before berating me with questions about the symptoms, even though I was about to list them. The questions the students were asking were so great. As we were talking about disorders, I breifly introduced meiosis, just to get the students thinking about how you inherit each chromosome. One student had a great “aha!” moment. She asked “so is that why pregnancy takes 9 months? Because the baby starts out as one cell, then divides exponentially? Like it starts out as one cell, then becomes two, then becomes four, then becomes eight and so on?” I said yep, and she exclaimed, “ooh! that is so cool!” Then the girl behind her says, “This stuff is so interesting! No offense, but I wasn’t so interested in previous units, but this unit is so cool. Well last unit (mitosis and DNA) was cool too, but this is really interesting!” The last thing we did was use the active voters to see of the students understood how the karyotypes showed disorders. From the few slides we got through, it was very obvious that the students really grasped the concepts. Today was one of those days that I live for. My students all were super interested in the material, and they made me feel like I was really doing a great job teaching them to love biology.

Standard V Project

I completed a project for EDU 6613 that required an assessment, teaching to help students master the material, then another assessment on the same material. I learned a lot from this experience, and I am looking forward to using this strategy in my future teaching, especially because I can have students share their strategies for solving prolems with other students, because I find that studentss with a system tend to perform better on exams. My completed project can be accessed through the link below.

Standard V Project

Meta- Reflection: Standard S: Knowledge of Subject Matter and Curriculum Goals

I feel that I have made a good start on meeting this standard this quarter. I try to make all of my lessons content driven. When in class, students must solve problems in order to succeed in science and understand given curriculum standards, which may range from understanding concepts by explaining them in a different way to applying their knowledge to answer a question.

Students in my classes use different methods to learn the given material. They listen to lectures and take notes, they complete practice problems, and they ask questions when they do not understand, which happens in most classrooms, such as in my mentors’ classrooms. I have added some components to help students show their understanding in different ways. Three particular assignments have stuck out this quarter in my classes. In chemistry, I came up with a poster activity, with the help of my mentor and a few other faculty members, to help the students with orbital notation and the periodic table. Students were assigned an element, and need to figure out how to represent the valence electrons in an illustration, and how to complete the orbital notation for their element, with only one explanation of how it worked the previous day. This activity is aligned with the physical science content standard 9-11 PS2A and helps students meet the standard. I think this poster helped them practice orbital notation without doing the usual lecture and worksheet. I think these kinds of activities help the students want to learn the material rather than having it forced down their throats.

 In biology, I came up with an activity where students composed a poem, song or story about what happens when salt is poured on a slug, using specific vocabulary words we learned in class. Students showed their understanding of osmosis by composing a creative piece, which is different than normal assignments. This helped them internalize what osmosis is and how it works by asking them to relate it to their lives. This activity is aligned with the life science content standard 9-11 LS1D and helps them meet it. The writing in this assignment helped the students improve their writing, as well as allowing them to incorporate their interests into the stories (see the students work included in the above link).The students were also able to show their creativity in what kind of story they told. The final assignment was an established lab within the biology curriculum, Investigating Cell Variety, where the students needed to figure out what distinguishes a plant cell from an animal cell by looking at different cells and identifying similarities and differences between them. I think this activity helped the students tremendously in understanding plant and animal cell structure, much more so than any lecture might. This activity is aligned with the life science content standard 9-11 LS1C and helps the students meet this standard. This lab required students to use their reading and writing skills to understand the lab manual directions, and answer those questions presented in their lab manuals.

                These are all things I have done in the classroom. Through my educational technology class, I found a few other ways to meet this standard. One of the ideas I have gotten through my studies is incorporation of computer games that help students improve their critical thinking and problem solving skills into the curriculum. Another idea is to create a lab that asks students to collaborate with another classroom across the globe. The students would each complete a similar comparative investigative lab that applies to each country’s environment. The students would post their findings in an organized fashion on a collaborative site, such as a blog, and then compare with those findings of the other classroom. They could learn the content they are supposed to, incorporate reading, writing and technology, and introduce students to a new culture.

                I have learned a lot this past quarter about this standard and how to fulfill it in the classroom. I feel that I understand this standard much better than I did over the summer. It not only encompasses the concepts you must teach the students, but how you teach students these concepts, including relating the concepts to the students’ lives, and the other subjects they are learning. It also includes how you relate the content to their future lives and the skills they need to succeed once they graduate from high school. This standard means that you teach the students not only the concepts in the state standards, but also WHY they need to learn those concepts, and HOW to apply them to their daily and future lives. I feel that I am learning how to effectively accomplish all of these things in my classroom by watching how my mentors do it, and trying out different techniques and activities that I came up with.  These are only the most prominent ways that I have fulfilled this standard in my classroom, and I hope to continue to learn more as I go through the rest of the year. I think that I can add much to my experience as the year goes on.

Innovation in the classroom

In the readings of this week, there was much information concerning introduction of new technologies into the classroom. There are many different ways to use innovative ideas and technologies in our classrooms. Many of them were very simple ideas while incorporating different technologies. I especially liked the project, scenario E, described on the NETS Implementation website. For this project, students are required to simulate an election, creating a campaign complete with pamphlets, stickers/buttons and flyers to handout, a speech containing a slogan, as well as a commercial made, in this case, with Photo Story 3. For this class, the project was a big success. Fortunately, each student had a laptop for their own use for the entire school year. This resource is not available to every school. Skyline High School, for example, does not have this kind of technology available to their students. I had students create a commercial for a specific organelle (small structure within the cell). I gave the students the option of using technology. Only one group (out of approximately 30 groups) chose to try to use technology, and then the commercial was messed up in editing, because all sound was lost. Although we have a very wealthy clientele at Skyline, we cannot assume that every student had access to all technology, especially specific software such as Microsoft Office, Photo Story 3, and Quark. Schools would need to have all technology that students would require for any project, and that is not always possible, especially in the current economy.

One thing we can do to incorporate technology that the school has access to in the classrooms is to give students class time to use the technologies required while brainstorming, collaborating and planning using free technologies at home, such as webinspiration and wridea. These technologies can allow students to do all their brainstorming and planning at home, while using their class time to actually work on the assignment, allowing more productive use of the time that students have with the technologies required for the assigned project. This would require students to have a computer and web access at home. At Skyline, this is not a problem. However, I could foresee issues with this at other schools.

It is very difficult to incorporate innovative technologies when schools have few resources. I think that there would need to be much in-class work planned in order to fulfill the technology standards. This would take much planning, especially to incorporate all subject material we must, according to the Washington state standards. This may be difficult, and I do not know whether it can be done, unless there are very few projects that incorporate technology. I would think that it is possible, but it would require a lot of planning, possibly including tutorials for each piece of software or technology we use. I think technology can be implemented if a teacher tries hard enough.

Resources:

Technology Operations and Concepts. (2009). Retrieved from ISTE Wikispace: http://nets-implementation.iste.wikispaces.net/Technology+Operations+and+Concepts.