Thoughts on Articles

So I've recently subscribed to ASCD's "SmartBrief," which sends you headlines and links to the "most important" education articles/news every day. I came across 3 different articles today that really made me think.

1) "Teaching Secrets: Organizing Middle Schoolers"

Organization is something I really struggle with. I tend to either be very disorganzed or hyper-organized to ensure that I'm not disorganized. I tried a new system this year to see if it would work better than just using a notebook last year. I asked them all to get binders, and that really fell through since the principal ordered the district-created workbooks (which I had said I didn't want but have actually been insanely convenient so far). A binder and a workbook was just too much to give them every day, as these are REALLY thick workbooks.

It's been a lot easier on me and them with the workbooks, as all the worksheets are already in there in order. Last year they would lose print-outs or would write in the notebook all out of order. Having the pages already in there makes it so much easier for me to grade and really keeps them from losing anything. Of course, getting print-outs in there is annoying - you either staple or tape and it just wastes time. So I ordered some of those 3-clip pocket folders, and I'm hoping to hand those out next week (or the week after, I think) to use for bellwork sheets and other worksheets that we work on. They can place the folder inside the workbook, and they can be collected together every day at the end of class and passed out the next day - I think that should hopefully work well. *crosses fingers*

Anyway, the suggestions in the article I thought were rather helpful, though some were ones I alread utilize.
1)I've fallen through on checking agendas, so I'm going to need to reinforce that soon, especially with the changes in the ECE (special-ed) workings. I'm going to have some new kids in that will REALLY need the organizational help, and so it will be a good chance to hit everybody and figure out who doesn't have an agenda (I think I know one in my homeroom already).
2) I've got the class website and the binder for make-up work, so that's good. It needs some re-emphasis, though, as there are some kids who are just not making up the work. When I collected bellwork sheets yesterday, though, I had several over at the computer at the last minute filling in the missed dates, so that's good - they were using it to get their work done.
3) I like the idea of the IOU board, but I don't have a lot of posting space in my room, and I just don't even know where I'd put something like that. And I just worry that I wouldn't be able to keep up with it. It's something to think on at least, especially for bigger projects (tests and the like).
4) In related news, I DO need to keep up with the table of contents sheet - I need to laminate a piece of poster board and post that to let the kids know what should be completed and where it should be. That will go along with getting them folders, but I think it will have to have 2 Tables of Contents - one for the folder and one for the workbook, which hopefully will not be too confusing for them.

2) "School Boards Debate Sex-Offender Access"

This was an interesting issue. Obviously as a teacher I worry about the safety of my kids - from outsiders, from insiders, from each other, sometimes even from their families. We have the "Stranger Danger" lady come in every year with members of her organization, and she talks to the kids about keeping themselves safe. It's incredibly important. But what about parents and their child's sporting/whatever events. Sex-offenders aren't just child molesters, and what if a person has totally turned their life around? What about how this is punishing the child for their parent's past criminal, horrible act? And then, on the other hand, a voice says in my head "are you freaking kidding me? Letting people around kids that we know can do wrong?" Of course, if that's one's thought - why are they even allowed around their own children? They have to stay away from all children but their own - that just seems really rather hypocritical. Overall, though, it made me think, but I'm really not sure what to think. Do they make exceptions on a case-by-case basis? Or no exceptions? Or all people with their kids? I really don't know.

3) "Creating Readers, Part I"

As a person who continually struggles while teaching reading (I know very little about how to actually teach it, as I'm a science teacher), this was something that just amazed me. 40 books! I don't even know what to say. It's an amazing expectation, and that the lowest any kid had ever read was 22 is even more so. I admire what she's done, and I really wish I could capture even just a little bit of that ability.

I like that she's got a huge classroom library, that she reads aloud books they like, that she gets them to read independently. But I was confused at how she balances out independent reading and shared reading (i.e. the whole class or a group reading one novel). At first it seemed that they only read independently, and then she mentioned "share-reading" where the students read along. So they obviously do both, but I would really love to know the logistics. I'm hoping to get novels so that we all start off the day with independent reading of the same book, but I don't really know how to balance out giving them a chance to read on their own, making sure that we/they can discuss the books (and so are thus at a similar place in the narrative), and modeling reading by reading aloud. How does one manage all 3 without having kids miss portions of the book or get bored because they've heard/read the same section multiple times?

Testing

There are times when I can't believe my kids. In this case, it was in a good way. The district provides core content assessments (CCAs) for every content area, and I gave my first one a week ago on Wednesday. I graded the open response questions, bubbled in their scores, and then ran the sheets through the new scantron (which is an amazing piece of machinery for any teacher). I could not believe the results. I had gone in with the math teacher to promise the kids who scored proficient and distinguished a dress-down day.

I have 101 students that I tested, and 50 of them (50!) scored distinguished. For those of you not in the know, distinguished is the highest kids can score, meaning they are above and beyond what we expect. The push for better testing scores only requires the students to score proficient. And I had 36 students score proficient. I had 13 score apprentice and only 2 score novice (little/no understanding of the concepts). This is a huge, huge difference from my students last year - I was ecstatic on the last CCA last year to get about 15 distinguished. To jump to 50 distinguished students and 36 proficient is just absolutely amazing. I can hardly believe it.

I am just so amazed and proud of my kids. Talk about feeling triumphant.

(The question again is: is it being out of the first year? Is it being better at preparing us to study in class? Is it the modules making them better prepared from last year? Whatever the case, I am just a happy, happy teacher.)

EE Conference

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.)

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.

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*

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.

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.