Tales from the science classroom

Today was interesting. I set out this morning to get my literacy program in place. I wanted to see how many weeks we have and then divide up what I want to do over the weeks. I figured it would be simpler that way. So I was trying to come up with a way to lay it out so that I could see it easily. Then I came across this: This allows me to lay out each quarter by week. Pure genius. So changed the headings to match my classes: AP Chemistry, AP Biology, Chemistry, Keyboarding, and Literacy. I then sketched out what I want to do each week with literacy. That actually turned out to be pretty easy. Since I'm going to use the resources from each class, all I needed to do was put down what skills I wanted them to learn that week. Worked out perfect, but I was done quick - much quicker than I thought it would be. So then I thought to tackle AP Chem. I wasn't sure where I was going to go with that. But I ended up getting a pretty good idea of how I want the semester to go. So the...

The first week of break is almost over and, as I had planned, I spent most of the week not thinking about school. After my last post, I just kind of walked away and didn't give it another thought until yesterday. Then I started thinking about what to do next. It's kind of like waking from a nap and not knowing exactly what day or year it is. Yeah, that's how I felt. I believe I even said more than once, what day is it? So, now I'm apparently fully awake and back in the game. Once I put my mind to it, it really wasn't that hard to start to move forward. I got about 2 weeks of AP Biology done and that is huge. I have an idea of what I want to accomplish, but I'm not sure of the best way to get there. So this post is going to be a bit of a brain dump to try and sort some things out. The first thing up for consideration is literacy. I plan on tackling that this semester and making it so it's part of my regular curriculum in all my classes. That means that ...

I've been on winter break since last Thursday and it has been amazing. I've slept. Read a little. Relaxed. Hung out with friends. Went shopping. And generally just enjoyed myself. Definitely, something that was needed. But tomorrow is Wednesday already and I need to start working on next semester. So here's my problem. I feel like I don't know how to plan. Weird, I know, but true. I was just sitting here thinking I should start thinking about planning and my thoughts went into 100 different directions. In my head I'm saying: I don't remember where we left off I don't know what to cover next I don't know what I should cover at all How can I add literacy to my curriculum How do I do this?  Well, it's kind of not surprising. I've been flying by the seat of my pants for my entire 9 years of teaching and now, trying to get everything in order, is proving to be difficult. I'm changing the way I do things and I'm trying to do it rig...

Please excuse this post. It is a mind dump to try and help me sort things out. I am teaching 9th-grade Conceptual Integrated Science this year. Not my favorite and it's my 4th prep on a subject I'm not really fond of. Of course, I have noticed that before. If it's not something I am super excited about or something that I can find resources for, I tend to devote very little time and energy to it. And that is what I'm finding myself doing now. So this is something I know that I do and something that I have to change. I need o coherent plan on what I'm going to teach for the remainder of this year. I can figure out how to teach it later, right now I just need to get my roadmap in place so I know what the heck I'm doing. So I spent the first quarter stumbling through physics and I've spent the last 2 weeks stumbling through chemistry. That is why I need to do this. I teach chemistry and I love chemistry, but I find myself stumbling through this because I do...

Once every semester we get observed by the administration. I know some teachers get observed more and some less. In my old school, we only got observed for the first 2 years. After that, it was once every 3 years I think. But, whatever. I really don't mind having people observe me. I am a pretty good teacher who makes class interesting. I was going to say fun but that is not always true, but I do strive for interesting. This year I was getting observed by the principal and she would be in for my worst class. I have previously only been observed by the vice principal and he is easy. I debated asking to switch classes for the observation since it really is my worst class, but I decided to just let it go and let her see me really in action. Overall it went really well. They were chatty and didn't follow directions and got off task as soon as there was a lull in the action, but I handled it well and the principal was impressed. Someone had pulled a fire alarm during the transitio...