Mentally moving on

 This happens every single year around this time. I begin to think about next year and I mentally move on from this year. That is a bit of a problem because this year is not over and I have about 5 weeks left. So I can't move on yet. But I'm already doing it. Of course, this year has been a giant dumpster fire and that may have something to do with it. We had kids face to face this year who spent the last 2 years online. Teaching them how to be in school again has been the biggest hurdle all year. Okay, enough of that. 

This is the first year I've gotten to teach the modeling curriculum all the way through. The first year we shut down in March. The second year it was in person and virtual back and forth. So this year we have made it all the way through in person and it's the first year I've gotten to follow the curriculum. I'm not loving it. Now this might be due to the fact that I have an AP chemistry class next year and I know what I want them to know before they get there and they won't. So that is a bit of a problem. I've gone completely off script and am teaching them things I want them to know which is not in the modeling curriculum. So it's fair to say I'm not super happy with this curriculum. But I like the concept of modeling. I like that they just aren't given information to remember and regurgitate on a test. I like that they are able to do things and then I can point to that thing and say so this is why that happened. I like that a lot. But quite honestly this curriculum feels very disjointed and not coherent at all. Now that could be me. Not have the experience with it. I fully admit that may be a problem. But I've also come to like the storylines concept. There is a  big, overarching storyline that we follow throughout the unit. We try to answer the driving question by the end of the unit. I think this brings things together in much more coherent fashion than the modeling curriculum does. Towards that end, I've found a website that does just that. It's called iHub Chemistry curriculum. It is NGSS base curriculum that follows set storylines to teach students chemistry. It was developed in Colorado with chemistry teachers and the University of Colorado and Northwestern University. It consists of five units that all follow a storyline and teach students the chemistry concepts along the way. I like it for a number of reasons. First, and foremost, it is a full blown curriculum. There are daily lesson plans, worksheets, labs, PowerPoints, absolutely everything you would need to teach this curriculum. That's nice. Second, it falls into the pattern of the notebooks I want to use. They have anchor phenomenon, driving questions, big ideas, and summative tasks. They have it all. For the modeling curriculum I was trying to invent all that and it was proving almost impossible. iHub has it all laid out for me, all I have to do is read through this summer and get it set up for next fall. I found this last year and was intrigued, but decided to stick with the modeling for some reason I don't remember now. But after this year, I'm ready for a change and to find an effective way to teach chemistry. So that's why mentally I have already moved on. I need to stay strong and focus on finishing this year strong.