So, as my school is trying to become an environmental education magnet, I was given the opportunity to go to the Kentucky Association of Environmental Educators Conference this Friday and Saturday in Cave City (and by going I am now a member of the organization for the next year). It was an amazing experience, and I can only hope that I am able to go to the conference again next year. I came out of it with a lot of new ideas for my classroom, and I'm really quite excited.
Friday I went on an all-day off-site session called "Tying the 'ologies Together: A Hands-on Adventure at Mammoth Cave." We actually saw more than just the cave itself, as they took us across the area to three other sites where we were able to see the karst terrain that is geologically connected to the formation of the caves (which happen to be the largest in the world). We were able to see the sinkholes that form from the dissolution of limestone rock, just as the caves do, as well as a spring where water leaves the caves and runs to Echo River and a cross-section of the rock layers (with a few fossils in them!). The caves themselves were amazing - I'd never seen anything like it before. The miles and miles that water has carved out and dissolved away and the different features it leaves behind - wow. As well as the unique creatures that live there - didn't get to see any bats of salamanders, but saw cave crickets and blind (and transluscent) crayfish.
The Saturday sessions were, by and large (well, 2 out of 3), very good as well. The first was put on by a facilitator from Population Connection, where we got a CD full on great activities related to population growth, resources, and consumption. There was a great video that showed population growth across the world throughout world history - it really highlighted the rapid growth since industrialization. We "mined" for chocolate chips in cookies, played an activity that dealt with resource allocation and what happens when people don't consider the needs of others while they consume, and played another activity that dealt with the carrying capacity for environments. Good stuff.
The second was called "The Science Behind Global Warming," which was led by Doug McCoy of the Louisville Zoo (who does a lot else besides working at the zoo, it seems). There were a lot of great little activities that I hope to use with my students during our school's environmental kick-off week next year and possible later on this year as well. I learned more about global warming for myself besides, so that's good.
I of course came away with some books because I am helpless that way. When you add in the delicious food and the concert Friday night by Walkin' Jim Stoltz, it was an exceptional conference (the not so good final session I went to aside).
Overall, I was really pleased to see how many people are commited to improving environmental education - of course, we all struggle to teach our children about all this while trying to deal with the restrictive curriculum and testing we have to do. (I often find myself wanting to expand and include things and then gnash my teeth in frustration as a I cry, "but I don't have the time!") There are some people doing some really amazing things out there, and I hope to learn more from them as time passes. We really need to get our kids engaged and commited, for their own sake, our sake, and the sake of our planet (and the future). Not only that, environmental education engages them so much more and opens the door for better, deeper understanding of concepts. I really hope that I can figure out how to work this all out for my kids.
(And in a final note, as it must be said: I love conferences.)
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Praise, Differentiation, the Second Year of Teaching
I am already five weeks into the second year of teaching. Everything that everyone says about the transition from your first to second year is SO true - having that experience, having survived through that trial by fire, having an actual clue about how things work makes it so much better. As does having a good chemistry with your team.
The kids are still surprising me with how well they're doing. There are always those with issues (behavioral or otherwise), but - for the most part - their behavior is far better than a lot of what I dealt with last year. Of course, I have more experience myself, so that makes a huge difference as well. Their academic success continues as well. I think that the use of the modules in 5th grade made a significant impact on their understanding of science and deeper aspects of biology (even though most of them don't know what the word biology means). They have experience with more concepts and also the activities as well.
We reviewed the material for the test like crazy too. The vocabulary (individual, population, community, ecosystem, abiotic) was the focus of every bellwork question and multiple class discussions for the past two and a half weeks. I hammered the words into their skulls, and they practiced practiced practiced them. They matched the words to examples I gave and made their own examples for the words - over and over. They had a lot of time to make those words their own, to attach their own meaning to them.
I definitely put creedence to something I heard this past summer about just how many times it takes for kids, especially kids with parents with little post-high school education, to learn new words (they typically have far smaller vocabularies as well) - the repetition was necessary for a lot of them to understand the concepts. And some STILL don't get it - it wasn't enough repetition for them to hold onto the meaning, especially with the heavier concept attached to it (there are a few where the language barrier is clearly an issue...they have spoken/heard fluency but not reading/writing fluency, and there are specific terms I should be using here but I don't remember them).
Nevertheless, the fact that the average grade was a B was amazing in my eyes (6 questions, 10 points per question, 40 pt base to build on, and partial credit given). They had a far better understanding and far better performance than the average student I had last year. The same mistakes which were so prevalent last year were made by just a few this year. After consulting the answers they gave, I came up with a list of approximately 26 students that I need to confer with on their understanding of the concepts, some of whom only misunderstand one word and some of whom may have been more confused by the presentation of the FOSS module test than the concepts themselves.
I raved about them to our team social studies teacher, as well as the other 6th grade science teacher at school. I raved about them to our team ECE teacher. I would have raved about them to more people, but I just didn't have the time today. I am just so pleased with their performance. And then I was reading What Great Teacher Do Differently (Todd Whitaker) while I was waiting to be seated for dinner tonight, and something occured to me. I raved to everyone EXCEPT for the students themselves. To the students I pointed out issues that most students had and corrected mistakes and misconceptions. Other than a few great/good job comments on the 95s and 100s (and a few scattered "great!"s for particular answers), I did not praise them much. I didn't convey how excited I was about their performance. I raved to everyone but them. Why is that? They're the ones that deserve to hear it the most, you know? And so I plan to let them know how proud I am of ALL of them when I let them actually keep the tests on Tuesday (we went over them, but they had to pass them back as I still have a few that haven't taken their tests yet). That is what good teachers do.
In other news, I am a planning on teaching a differentiated lesson on Wednesday. Now we often learn the same concepts in different ways, but I don't often have different groups performing different tasks, and that is what I hope to do on Wednesday as we finish up with food webs (we/they start with them tomorrow). The module has a really great visual/kinesthetic lesson that we'll be doing Monday - they have cards and arrows that they use to lay out the food web on their desks (upon, thought, we may need to do some rearrangement so they have room for all the cards). However, doing the same food web once is not enough practice for them. Tuesday I'm planning on talking about the different levels of the food webs, as well as discussing the effects of changes/removal/addition of members to the food web.
Wednesday will be more practice, and I'm hoping to have them split into two groups (herein lies the differentiation). Using (hopefully) the team ECE teacher, I want to have small-group/one-on-one instruction for the kids who still need more basic practice with the concepts and then have a higher group who have achieved understanding. I recently received two copies of "Into the Forest: Nature's Food Chain Game" from a fellow teacher, and I am hoping to have the higher groups use these games to create their own food webs and then be able to have fun practicing the concepts they've learned. Of course, I am also debating whether the game might be more helpful for those who are struggling with the concepts. This requires further consultation with the team ECE teacher. Regardless of how it all ends up functioning in the end, I'm hoping that it works out for the best for the students. In most classes, I have a pretty large breadth of understanding of key science concepts, so differentiation could be a huge help to solve these issues.
Of course, I'm still not at all sure what to do with the kid who drew a food web for his representation of science image on the first day of school. He obviously understands the concepts, and I can't reall think of how to make food webs higher level. I feel like it's the sort of thing that you either understand or you don't, and he definitely understands. I know how awful it was to be bored in school all the time, and he likes science, so I want to do SOMETHING that will engage him.
The kids are still surprising me with how well they're doing. There are always those with issues (behavioral or otherwise), but - for the most part - their behavior is far better than a lot of what I dealt with last year. Of course, I have more experience myself, so that makes a huge difference as well. Their academic success continues as well. I think that the use of the modules in 5th grade made a significant impact on their understanding of science and deeper aspects of biology (even though most of them don't know what the word biology means). They have experience with more concepts and also the activities as well.
We reviewed the material for the test like crazy too. The vocabulary (individual, population, community, ecosystem, abiotic) was the focus of every bellwork question and multiple class discussions for the past two and a half weeks. I hammered the words into their skulls, and they practiced practiced practiced them. They matched the words to examples I gave and made their own examples for the words - over and over. They had a lot of time to make those words their own, to attach their own meaning to them.
I definitely put creedence to something I heard this past summer about just how many times it takes for kids, especially kids with parents with little post-high school education, to learn new words (they typically have far smaller vocabularies as well) - the repetition was necessary for a lot of them to understand the concepts. And some STILL don't get it - it wasn't enough repetition for them to hold onto the meaning, especially with the heavier concept attached to it (there are a few where the language barrier is clearly an issue...they have spoken/heard fluency but not reading/writing fluency, and there are specific terms I should be using here but I don't remember them).
Nevertheless, the fact that the average grade was a B was amazing in my eyes (6 questions, 10 points per question, 40 pt base to build on, and partial credit given). They had a far better understanding and far better performance than the average student I had last year. The same mistakes which were so prevalent last year were made by just a few this year. After consulting the answers they gave, I came up with a list of approximately 26 students that I need to confer with on their understanding of the concepts, some of whom only misunderstand one word and some of whom may have been more confused by the presentation of the FOSS module test than the concepts themselves.
I raved about them to our team social studies teacher, as well as the other 6th grade science teacher at school. I raved about them to our team ECE teacher. I would have raved about them to more people, but I just didn't have the time today. I am just so pleased with their performance. And then I was reading What Great Teacher Do Differently (Todd Whitaker) while I was waiting to be seated for dinner tonight, and something occured to me. I raved to everyone EXCEPT for the students themselves. To the students I pointed out issues that most students had and corrected mistakes and misconceptions. Other than a few great/good job comments on the 95s and 100s (and a few scattered "great!"s for particular answers), I did not praise them much. I didn't convey how excited I was about their performance. I raved to everyone but them. Why is that? They're the ones that deserve to hear it the most, you know? And so I plan to let them know how proud I am of ALL of them when I let them actually keep the tests on Tuesday (we went over them, but they had to pass them back as I still have a few that haven't taken their tests yet). That is what good teachers do.
In other news, I am a planning on teaching a differentiated lesson on Wednesday. Now we often learn the same concepts in different ways, but I don't often have different groups performing different tasks, and that is what I hope to do on Wednesday as we finish up with food webs (we/they start with them tomorrow). The module has a really great visual/kinesthetic lesson that we'll be doing Monday - they have cards and arrows that they use to lay out the food web on their desks (upon, thought, we may need to do some rearrangement so they have room for all the cards). However, doing the same food web once is not enough practice for them. Tuesday I'm planning on talking about the different levels of the food webs, as well as discussing the effects of changes/removal/addition of members to the food web.
Wednesday will be more practice, and I'm hoping to have them split into two groups (herein lies the differentiation). Using (hopefully) the team ECE teacher, I want to have small-group/one-on-one instruction for the kids who still need more basic practice with the concepts and then have a higher group who have achieved understanding. I recently received two copies of "Into the Forest: Nature's Food Chain Game" from a fellow teacher, and I am hoping to have the higher groups use these games to create their own food webs and then be able to have fun practicing the concepts they've learned. Of course, I am also debating whether the game might be more helpful for those who are struggling with the concepts. This requires further consultation with the team ECE teacher. Regardless of how it all ends up functioning in the end, I'm hoping that it works out for the best for the students. In most classes, I have a pretty large breadth of understanding of key science concepts, so differentiation could be a huge help to solve these issues.
Of course, I'm still not at all sure what to do with the kid who drew a food web for his representation of science image on the first day of school. He obviously understands the concepts, and I can't reall think of how to make food webs higher level. I feel like it's the sort of thing that you either understand or you don't, and he definitely understands. I know how awful it was to be bored in school all the time, and he likes science, so I want to do SOMETHING that will engage him.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Wonderful surprises
So my plan this week and next - along with the other 6th grade science teacher and the MMD teacher also teaching the 6th grade science modules - was to introduce the students to living things. Last year the students had a lot of trouble with differentiating between the "biotic" (living organisms and their products) and the "abiotic" (nonliving things) - one large issue was classifying plants as abiotic. They also had trouble with a lot of the vocabulary.
Using one of the old textbooks (Glencoe's Science Interactions: Course 1) we planned to go into a mini-unit on "what is life." In particular, there's an activity observing seeds and rocks in order to compare and contrast them. The idea is that they look the same/similar, and to get the kids thinking about what seeds do that make them living (that rocks don't). From there we would/will segue into the 6 characteristics of life (has cells, grows/develops, reproduces, uses food/water and produces waste, responds to stimuli, adapts to environment).
So today, after talking about the observations they made of living things, I moved into defining organisms. They all already knew the word. Color me shoked - and I'm serious. While they brainstormed in pairs after that on what characteristics living things have (I didn't use the word characteristics, though perhaps I should have), they were constantly surprising me. They knew vocabulary that I didn't expect them to know - "eliminates gas," "respiration," "cells" - and had a far better understanding of the concepts we'll be learning. I had to explain cells to my students last year in about 10 minutes as we began talking about genetics - these guys already know.
And so I find myself wanting to apologize for not trusting the 5th grade teachers to teach the modules (though I had heard from more experienced teachers that science often fell to the wayside in middle school). Once I realized how much they knew, I tried to ask each class to share a bit about what they'd learned the year before. They had done so much. They have a really good basis for what we'll be working on this year, and I'm really happy about that. It'll mean much more success for them, and so I'm hoping we'll be able to go into more depth with the concepts and that I'll be able to breeze by the simpler stuff and leave time for the more extended projects and more difficult concepts.
I'm already reaping the benefits of the modules, I think. Or at least I hope so. *knocks on wood*
Using one of the old textbooks (Glencoe's Science Interactions: Course 1) we planned to go into a mini-unit on "what is life." In particular, there's an activity observing seeds and rocks in order to compare and contrast them. The idea is that they look the same/similar, and to get the kids thinking about what seeds do that make them living (that rocks don't). From there we would/will segue into the 6 characteristics of life (has cells, grows/develops, reproduces, uses food/water and produces waste, responds to stimuli, adapts to environment).
So today, after talking about the observations they made of living things, I moved into defining organisms. They all already knew the word. Color me shoked - and I'm serious. While they brainstormed in pairs after that on what characteristics living things have (I didn't use the word characteristics, though perhaps I should have), they were constantly surprising me. They knew vocabulary that I didn't expect them to know - "eliminates gas," "respiration," "cells" - and had a far better understanding of the concepts we'll be learning. I had to explain cells to my students last year in about 10 minutes as we began talking about genetics - these guys already know.
And so I find myself wanting to apologize for not trusting the 5th grade teachers to teach the modules (though I had heard from more experienced teachers that science often fell to the wayside in middle school). Once I realized how much they knew, I tried to ask each class to share a bit about what they'd learned the year before. They had done so much. They have a really good basis for what we'll be working on this year, and I'm really happy about that. It'll mean much more success for them, and so I'm hoping we'll be able to go into more depth with the concepts and that I'll be able to breeze by the simpler stuff and leave time for the more extended projects and more difficult concepts.
I'm already reaping the benefits of the modules, I think. Or at least I hope so. *knocks on wood*
Monday, August 13, 2007
Classroom Photos: August 2007
The far side of the room: some of the student desks (note the buckets for materials: no need to get up and go to the pencil sharpener). The cabinets and the sinks. The tables are so big and the room so small, I had to put the tables right up against the drawers.
View of part of the class: the slanted E and tables against the wall, my environmental ed and lab bulletin boards, my desk, and my Williams banner.
My introduction to me bulletin board. Includes pictures of family and friends, a map that traces my route from NH to KY, and photos from my travels abroad.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Starting Anew
I am hoping to keep pushing on with this blog, even though my classes are through. Therefore, "EDTP 620 Class Blog" has been renamed. I intend to use this blog as a place to reflect on my reading, as well as experiences in and outside of the classroom relevant to teaching. This will hopefully promote self-reflection and best practice.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
What makes us and our teaching effective?
While Richard Allington's "Effective Teachers, Effective Instruction," I decided I was going to respond about "managed choice" (p. 278) and the importance of self-reflection (p. 279, #1), but then I read the following line as I finished up the essay:
"We can continue to craft curricular plans that will ensure some students will have to struggle. Or we can craft curricular plans that reduce the struggle for almost all students." (p. 287)
This brought - unsurprisingly - the differentiated instruction conference to mind. This is what good teaching is about. As teachers of our students, we must recognize that they all come into our classrooms at different places, and that they have different prior knowledge and different abilities. We need to find out where they are and who they are in order to figure all this out. We can't teach toward the middle and hope everyone does okay or teach toward the top and say that our high expectations will win out. We need to have the same expectations for all (everyone can and will be able to know, understand, and do x, y, and z), but we need to scaffold them up from wherever they are. Give everyone an equitable fighting chance - they all deserve it.
However, I have to say that I disagree with Allington's wording here. Struggle in the classroom is not an innately bad thing - students can engage more with a topic and learn more about it if they have to struggle with the issues and their depths in order to gain an understanding. However, we must ensure that they have the tools, the abilities, the motivation, and the encouragement to make them capable of winning; we must ensure that they have the self-efficacy to know that they can win the struggle and also have the desire to do so. It's hard to find a balance - when is it too easy? when is it too hard? - when we are trying to differentiate for our different students, but I think that it is vitally necessary.
"We can continue to craft curricular plans that will ensure some students will have to struggle. Or we can craft curricular plans that reduce the struggle for almost all students." (p. 287)
This brought - unsurprisingly - the differentiated instruction conference to mind. This is what good teaching is about. As teachers of our students, we must recognize that they all come into our classrooms at different places, and that they have different prior knowledge and different abilities. We need to find out where they are and who they are in order to figure all this out. We can't teach toward the middle and hope everyone does okay or teach toward the top and say that our high expectations will win out. We need to have the same expectations for all (everyone can and will be able to know, understand, and do x, y, and z), but we need to scaffold them up from wherever they are. Give everyone an equitable fighting chance - they all deserve it.
However, I have to say that I disagree with Allington's wording here. Struggle in the classroom is not an innately bad thing - students can engage more with a topic and learn more about it if they have to struggle with the issues and their depths in order to gain an understanding. However, we must ensure that they have the tools, the abilities, the motivation, and the encouragement to make them capable of winning; we must ensure that they have the self-efficacy to know that they can win the struggle and also have the desire to do so. It's hard to find a balance - when is it too easy? when is it too hard? - when we are trying to differentiate for our different students, but I think that it is vitally necessary.
Writing Strategies
I thought that pairing the writing strategies from Content Area Writing: Every Teacher's Guide with new technology tools was a really effective way to encompass these important issues. All the new things that I've been learning have become rather overwhelming - differentiated instruction at the ASCD conference, technology from EDTP 504 and EDTP 620, reading/writing from EDTP 620, etc. It's so much new and exciting information that a girl can have a little trouble juggling it all.
Recognizing that we can pair these new (to us) strategies and tools together makes utilizing them a lot more feasible; it allows us to start small (the best way to make effective change) and still start off with more than one new idea. Additionally, it allows us to show our kids that these areas can be paired together, that reading and writing go hand-in-hand with technology, that they can go hand-in-hand and make what we do more successful than if we approached them separately.
I think that book trailers work in a similar way. They make a connection between technology and reading, and in this case technology does heighten the reading as it promotes it and can also send a message about reading itself. It opens people's eyes to let them see that we can respond to reading via technology - whether it's through blogging, podcasts, book trailers, you tube reviews, or anything else. The two (reading and technology) are in no way separate.
Recognizing that we can pair these new (to us) strategies and tools together makes utilizing them a lot more feasible; it allows us to start small (the best way to make effective change) and still start off with more than one new idea. Additionally, it allows us to show our kids that these areas can be paired together, that reading and writing go hand-in-hand with technology, that they can go hand-in-hand and make what we do more successful than if we approached them separately.
I think that book trailers work in a similar way. They make a connection between technology and reading, and in this case technology does heighten the reading as it promotes it and can also send a message about reading itself. It opens people's eyes to let them see that we can respond to reading via technology - whether it's through blogging, podcasts, book trailers, you tube reviews, or anything else. The two (reading and technology) are in no way separate.
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