Tales from the science classroom

 This year I'm thinking of tracking my modeling journey. I first took the modeling course in the summer of 2019 to qualify to teach dual enrollment chemistry.  I then started teaching using modeling the 2019-2020 school year. Well, we all know how that ended. Then the 2020-2021 year wasn't a whole lot better as we were in and out in the beginning of the year like crazy. We started the year out, then went back, then had to go out, then went back again. OMG, it was super ugly and I honestly don't know what the hell I taught that year. Then there was last year, 2021-2022, while we remained in school all year, the kids were in and out due to exposure to Covid and all kinds of other nonsense. Also, we had a lot of students who basically hadn't been in school for almost 2 years and they had no idea how to do school. It was a very, very ugly year. It was a year I was happy to see end.   But, I am ever the optimist and I'm really looking forward to next year. I've been ...

 I feel like maybe I've fallen into a trap. I have spent so much time getting 'things' ready for my classroom that I'm behind on getting the curriculum ready. I return to school on Monday and I am just not ready. I have done a lot but I don't have things like my syllabus ready, or my actual first days lessons. So I'm a little frazzled today. Went in yesterday to put my classroom back in order and ran into a wall and just stopped. So today I am devoting to curriculum. I'm going to get both syllabi done. I'm going to get the first days ppt ready for both classes and then I'm going to make sure the binders for each class are set up and ready to go. I want to flip the AP chemistry class, but I'm holding off on the videos for now. If I can get everything else done, I will consider them.  But today will be spent at my desk working on getting the curriculum ready and organized. I want to use SBG in chemistry, so I need to prep that. What assessments wil...

 So I'm working on my AP chem stuff. I have not taught this in about 3 years so I have a lot to set up. I have found a roadmap that I like and plan on using. Prior to finding this roadmap, I had things all set up for the 9 units that the College Board recommends. I had also set up for some standards based grading. Which I just realized, I had decided not to do - don't want to tackle chemistry and AP the same year. So the SBG is on the back burner. That means I can start from scratch with the units. Okay, just literally worked through it as I was typing this. Sometimes that is all it takes. So rather than trying to mesh the two, the units I like and the SBG LO's that someone else did, I'm going to kind of start from scratch and just use the units I like. I will save the SBG stuff and maybe tackle that another year. But not this year.  In other news, we have one more week and then the teachers report back. I have spent a bit too much time on the classroom and now I need t...

 This may sound a little strange, but I think that meditating has helped with my planning. Let me explain. I used to be the type of person that would spend hours planning something, anything really. Then, almost the minute I walked away it left my head. So I could spend hours and hours planning my curriculum, only to forget about it and not do it. Then I would be left scrambling thinking I had nothing prepared when in reality I did. Also, when I was planning, I felt like I had to finish it at that time or I would forget what I was thinking and basically have to start over. Yeah, this did not make life fun, let me tell you. But I've been planning this summer and it is very different. I can do something, walk away and come back days later and know exactly what I was thinking and pick up exactly where I left off. It is awesome. I can also keep from going off on tangents - though not entirely. I did get caught up in a tangent a few weeks ago about which curriculum I should use. But onc...

 I've heard a lot about batch planning the last few weeks. Isn't that the way it always happens? You hear something that is somewhat new to you and then suddenly it is everywhere and people have been doing it for years.  While I don't actually know exactly what batch planning is, I have developed my own take on it.  I was trying to plan an entire unit all at once. When doing that, I would get sidetracked by the details and that would derail me from the big picture. So I sat the other day and broke things down into steps and have been working on that for each unit. So rather than working on one unit at a time, I'm working on one task at a time. Here's what it looks like:  Create a 'roadmap' of the unit with each activity listed.  Develop the Big Ideas from the roadmap and the learning objectives for each unit From the Big Ideas, develop a driving question for the whole unit Confirm the anchor phenomenon Create a summative task Then go back to the roadmap and ...

 25 days until I return to work. Yikes. It is definitely time to get serious about my planning. Since I wrote the last post, 7 days ago, I have literally switched back and forth between the three curriculum, iHub, Patterns, and Modeling, at least 3 times. My last post I was leaning towards the modeling. Then I decided that the Patterns would work better, but in going through that I discovered that the last couple of units aren't complete. I'm not writing whole curriculum, I'm just not. So I switched over the the iHub, but there is something about that one that just doesn't sit right with me. Maybe it's because it was developed for distance learning so everything is online I would need to recreate a lot of things. I don't know, but I keep steering away from that one.  So here's what I want to do this year:  Keep up the notebooks Big ideas Summative Tasks Standard Based Grading Honestly, the modeling curriculum lends itself the best to all of these. Another mo...