Looking to the Year Ahead: My Learning Goal

Like most eternal students/teachers, I don't consider January 1st as the beginning of a new year. Instead, this is it for me. Fall is here, and there is motivation and energy, adrenaline rushing creativity, and a desire to improve my teaching and do some learning.

Since I graduated in May, learning is now less structured (and more meaningful), but I had to pick something to focus on.

Without a classroom of my own, and limited funding at the museum for my programs, my opportunities and needs for creating new lessons and improving old ones was limited.

But I still have my GECOS. My Girls Engineering classes, two groups (upper elementary and middle school), 3 sessions (fall, winter, spring), and grant funding for new curriculum. This is my focus!

I'm writing this a month after I meant to, so we've missed the chance to follow me through those weeks of confusion and uncertainty. Having a hundred resources for lesson ideas and trying to group them into themes, narrow them down into interesting projects with real-life applications, mentally testing them for feasibility. But, that was all there (and amplified by personal-life struggles and stresses that kept me unfocused).

I've come out on the other side, ready to tackle this year with my girls. And truly, WITH my girls. Not only in creating this new curriculum for them and needing to prototype and test and all that. But also in learning some physics. I took a year of physics in high school (I vaguely remember building rockets and wondering why my physics teacher - who was also my chem and bio teacher - was such an idiot). I took a year of physics in college (my memories here are even fuzzier - I remember the prof made a big deal about how he and his wife hyphenated their last names oppositely in order to keep their own first, and the lab notebooks were a pain). I NEVER understood physics when I took it as a class.

I started to get really excited about it and learned it when I started teaching it to kids. The simple things - Newton's Laws, friction, force, etc - suddenly made a LOT of sense when I was teaching it. But I still haven't been comfortable with it. I understand physics on an elementary school level, maybe even a middle school level, from a textbook perspective. I still don't know that I truly get it from a higher level. And I would like to. I would like to be able to add a Physics endorsement to my teaching license. I would like to feel more confident about teaching it and knowing I'm not teaching any wrong ideas, and that I can challenge gifted students as well as average students.

So, I pulled my college physics textbook off the shelf, and two middle-school lab book texts (An Introduction to Mechanics published by National Science Teachers Association) from the museum shelves. And I'm going to go through them, page by page, theory by theory, example problem by example problem. I'm going to do the hands on experiments. I am going to understand the vocabulary. I am going to remember the formulas.

And here's where I explain this is NEVER how I would teach physics. This is why I don't understand it. Because in high school and college, some teachers had me go through these books at their speeds. Skipping some chapters, rushing through some examples, taking too long on things I did get while not explaining the things I didn't get. I would NEVER teach it this way. But this is the way that I learn. It always has been the way I learn. I taught myself biology in high school by reading every page of the text, copying every definition, taking notes on every interesting example they shared. In college, when a topic was especially difficult or interesting, I would do the same thing (in bio at least, not always in physics).

When I teach, it's hands-on. Always. Things for students to hold, short stories of real-life application, experiments, testing hypotheses, watching demos and asking questions. Conversations. Never text book boredom. They won't stay engaged that way. In deference to those who learn the way I do, I share with them resources they can read, vocabulary lists and textbooks if they choose to find other definitions then those they get in notes or through labs. But I keep class interesting. I make it fun.

And I'm going to make this hands-on for myself, as well. I'll spend time at the museum setting up experiments and collecting data to get through these lab manuals and the "Stop Faking It!" books I have upstairs (also from NSTA press) on force and energy. But I'm going to use the textbooks as my guide. Page by page, theory by theory, until I understand it. Until I can teach the subject matter confidently, not just a few hands-on lessons that I've researched and practiced and watched done by others.

That's how I've taught physics up to now - a few things I'm confident about, internet research to fill in the blanks, and a lot of Mythbusters for inspiration. But I want to share the theories with my girls, I want to give them the confidence I never had that the formulas and the theories related to the experiments in clearly defined ways. That the math is worth understanding, and the hands-on experiment makes it interesting. I want them to not give up on their high school physics teachers, or go into their college physics class saying, "Why can't they dumb it down for us biology majors? This is too hard!" I want to bring physics to them in a way that gives them confidence and prepares them for their future math and physics classes. To do that - I have to understand it better.

So, I set myself the task: 5 physics texts and one Physics endorsement on my teaching license by June.

I hope I don't have to pull out the calculus book too often. I refuse to start over with that one!




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Current Reading List

So, if you haven't read Alan Weisman's The World Without Us, you must RUN to a book store and pick it up. Normally, I would say read it on your Kindle (as I did), but I apparently got to it in time, and it's no longer offered as a download. Ironic for a book about ecology and conservation and how much we humans have messed up the world.

Secondly, Rick Riordan has done it again. I loved the Percy Jackson series, and have just devoured The Red Pyramid in less than two days (including time to teach summer camp!) Really looking forward to the next in the series.


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Summer of Catching Up

Catching up on professional development? Seems like an odd goal for someone who JUST graduated from a Masters program. But that was all about theory. Now, it's practice time.

Finally made it through my Google Reader. Now, trying to figure out what I prefer: starring favorites in Reader and tagging them there.... or saving everything to Delicious (since I was just reminded of the joys of Packrati.us which was already copying over my Twitter favs). Maybe both is the the answer? Then, there's Evernote, which has proven it's brilliance again as I plan for my next camp.

Is it technology overload? Using the iPad means I need solutions that are iPad friendly (so Delicious takes an extra few steps for some blogs/news stories that don't include 'save to delicious' links). And it really emphasizes the need for universal access to information (including access when no wifi is available - points to Evernote). But, one-stop-shopping is always preferred, otherwise I forget to look somewhere and miss a good resource (points to delicious, thanks to packrati).

Catching up this summer is not just about catching up on the reading. it's about establishing patterns and habits that will make life easy in the future. Changes in technology mean changes in habits and behaviors. Getting the iPad means I shouldn't be trying to do everything the same way, just with more portability, it means i should be looking for the new way to do things with new tools. Catching up? No. Leaping forward.

What's the answer? Don't know yet. Keep using them all until one that makes sense stands out.

Time to go read some magazines.


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Summer of Professional Development

Graduated! Have my Master of Arts in Teaching. After two years of required, directed professional development of becoming a classroom teacher, I finally have a long summer ahead of me that I can use for my own personal pd choices.

So, I am taking my cue from Clif Mims, and setting goals for the summer.

Directions

Summer can be a great time for professional development. It is an opportunity to learn more about a topic, read a particular work or the works of a particular author, beef up an existing unit of instruction, advance one’s technical skills, work on that advanced degree or certification, pick up a new hobby, and finish many of the other items on our ever-growing To Do Lists. Let’s make Summer 2010 a time when we actually get to accomplish a few of those things and enjoy the thrill of marking them off our lists.

The Rules

NOTE: You do NOT have to wait to be tagged to participate in this meme.

Pick 1-3 professional development goals and commit to achieving them this summer.
For the purposes of this activity the end of summer will be Labor Day (09/06/2010).
Post the above directions along with your 1-3 goals on your blog.
Link back/trackback to http://clifmims.com/blog/archives/3669.
Use the following tag/ keyword/ category on your post: pdmeme2010.
Tag 5 or more bloggers to participate in the meme.
Achieve your goals and "develop professionally."
Commit to sharing your results on your blog during early or mid-September.


My Goals

1. Get through the stack of trade mags from this year. Save lesson ideas, Best Practices, etc for future, deeper reading (keep notes, scan articles, utilize Evernote)
2. Research ideas and find literature for Girls Engineering class. Girl-oriented projects, tested pedagogy, etc.
3. Study for the Chemistry, Integrated Science, Physics, and Math tests to take in the fall.





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Read the Procedures

Setting: High School Biology Class. Spring Semester. My first day back as their Student Teacher since before Winter Break.

Me: "After you turn in your starter, grab a lab packet and start reading for today's lab."

time passes

Me: "Can I have a volunteer to read the introduction to today's lab?"

Volunteer reads introduction

Me: "I'm very strict about labs. Paying attention during the pre-lab readings and reading the procedures before you begin is important to me. If I feel that you aren't prepared for the lab, you will not participate. Please read the procedures quietly - you may read to yourself or partner read."

Time passes.

Student: "Can't we just read it while we do it?"

Me: "Not really. The first instruction asks you to write a hypothesis, but without understanding what you'll do during the lab, you won't be able to guess what will happen."

Student: ...

Time passes. All eyes are off the packets.

Me: "Who can summarize the purpose of today's lab for me?"

Pause.

Student: "It's about natural selection of rabbits from genetics and alleles."

Me: "Yes. We'll be seeing how alleles are randomly mixed in populations, and how those genes that are not suited to the environment are selected against. Here's how it will go," picks up paper bag with beads, "In this bag, there are 100 beads, 50 of each color. When I shake it up, that's the bunnies 'breeding.' Then, I reach in and take out two beads. These two beads are a baby bunny that is born. If I draw two yellow beads, it has fur; if I draw a yellow and a red, it's a carrier for the furless gene, but it has fur and will survive; if I draw two red beads, the bunny is born furless and dies before it reproduces. Take the beads, make a tally mark for which kind of bunny it is, and put them in a pile. After all the beads have been taken out of the bag, set the double recessive bunnies aside, they've died. Count how many surviving alleles remain of each color and record the data. Return the beads to the bag, and repeat."

(Okay, to be fair, I meant to say all of that, but found that the students were not paying enough attention and I decided to give up around "put them in a pile.")

Me: "You will work with a partner. Find a lab station, and begin."

There are 7 lab tables, there were 16 stations for this activity. At each table, I repeated the following after seeing how students were progressing:

"There are three questions at the top of your worksheet, including the prompt for the hypothesis. Answer ALL of them before doing the lab."

"Don't count the beads from the bunnies that died. Only count the ones that survive to the next generation."

"Count INDIVIDUALS in one column, and ALLELES in the other column."

"You will always have 50 of the dominant allele - it can't be in a dead rabbit in this simulation."

"The instructions for calculating frequency are in the procedures."

"The procedures clearly said to write frequency as a decimal, not percentage."

How do we get students to read procedures? This was really an incredibly straight-forward lab, with well written instructions (borrowed from another source and I had tested it out several times). Labs are only effective if they find the purpose in them - unfortunately, the purpose is in the procedures, and the procedures are ignored.

Balance

I'm gearing up for my last term of Student Teaching and the return to a high school classroom. I spent the last 10 weeks in a 6th grade classroom teaching Science (Inquiry and Ecology) and a little Math too. Their energy, enthusiasm, and interest in anything "hands-on," made them perfect for my teaching style and experience.

But, I enrolled in this MAT program to get my certifications in High School Biology, so, back to the high school. The Fall went well, and I should be feeling more confident about my abilities with this task. But, I'm not.

Why am I worried? Because the units I'll be teaching are Cycles and Ecology/Populations (according to my cooperating teacher). I did not verify with him that "Cycles" meant biogeochemical cycles (which, I think he meant) or Cell cycles (which is totally possible since the lead-in unit is Mendelian Genetics). So, that's one reason I'm worried: he's not answering emails and I'm not sure what I'm teaching.

The second reason I'm worried is that, no matter which unit it is, there's a slight problem with the teaching style, classroom set up, etc, that I need to come to grips with. These students do not have their own textbooks - there's a classroom set. There are no computers in the classroom (let alone computers with internet). The plants we were supposed to get started in Fall/Winter haven't been started so that will set me back a bit. And interesting, hands-on discovery-type labs are not very plentiful for either cell or biogeochemical cycles. These are the features that have me feeling like the entire unit will be lecture and worksheets - and no engaged and active learning. In my world, classroom time is spent in labs - in DOING the science, not hearing about it. And, when reading and memorization and diagrams are necessary, there's got to be room for individual interests to drive the learning. That's significantly less possible when they don't have their own text books or when classroom time can't be handed over to them.

This means planning library days (if that's even possible) so they can do research on human impacts on biogeochemical cycles. Field trips to a park for the ecology lessons. And other "out of classroom" experiences that, as a Student Teacher, make me nervous. So, here I sit, torn between wanting my students to "own" their learning and wanting to plan things that will be successful and not cause additional unknown stresses on me (or my CT).

How can they "own" their learning in a room with limited resources? How can I plan projects that engage multiple intelligences and encourage creative thought, in a room where they've spent the last 6 months filing out lots of blanks on note-taking worksheets, watching movies, and not finding motivation to think outside the box? Do I want to work within the patterns they know and expect, or do I want to do things that will effect classroom management because they are so different from the norm?

And, how hard to I want to push myself, how many risks do I want to take? Is there is a significant advantage to planning those library and other field trips that I actually can't gain for my students in the classroom?

I think the answer to the last question is "YES!" Now, I need to convince myself of it and keep planning those units until they work - for ALL students, for my CT and the MAT program, and for ME.