Tales from the science classroom

 After my last post, I sat and went through the modeling curriculum and worked out that I was in Unit 6 of modeling. No worries, I just jumped right in. We did a lab, always a good way to start things, and next week we work on naming compounds - that should be fun. Anyway, the point is I feel much more comfortable with the curriculum. I know what I'm doing and I'm able to guide them to the correct answers. We went back to whiteboards at the tables instead of the standing at the whiteboards. We presented and did a power clap and it was good. Classes went much smoother and I was much happier.  It really did wonders for my mental health too. I was not completely exhausted by the end of the day. I had energy when I got home. I actually felt like doing things. It was amazing. So I can conclude that my total exhaustion was most likely due to mental fatigue. Well, I'm sure starting working out again helped a lot.  So things are a whole lot better. I am taking next Monday off and...

 since my last post. I was struggling to get into the swing of teaching this year and I'm still struggling. The last post was 6 days into the year, now it's 6 weeks into the year. I've been struggling the entire 6 weeks. I have not been able to find my groove. I struggle with every single lesson. I have to plan and plan and plan. I feel like I don't know what I'm doing and I'm over it. Completely and totally over it. And things need to change.  I've already changed up my biology class. We switched from the iHub curriculum to the It's Not Rocket Science curriculum. These could not be two more opposite types of curriculum, but whatever. I need to be able to get excited about what we are doing. And if my getting excited means using a more standard type of curriculum, so be it. I will be switching my chemistry over to the modeling curriculum once I figure out how to wrap up this 'unit'.  The thing is, I can incorporate many parts of the BTC and model...

 The year has not started out as I had hoped. I thought the new curriculum would energize my teaching - it didn't. I thought using some of the BTC strategies would energize my teaching - it didn't. And it dawned on me this week, only I can energize my teaching. So I have to find a way to get my mojo back. It's only been 6 days of school and I'm already over it. I'm not sure what I need to do to get excited, but I need to do it quick.  I was talking to my brother last night, who is retired, and I said that I have about 4 more years until retirement. After I said that I thought, really? Can I make it four more years? I'm tired. Really, really tired. I know that I need to lose some weight and workout to get my energy up, but I'm tired.  Yeah, this is a little rambly, but sometimes that helps me figure out what the problem is. I think at some point this weekend, I'm going to sit down and really read through the curriculum. I mean I've read it, but I'...

 1. Why did I get into this job?  Because I love teaching and I love helping people learn new things.  2. What is it that I hope my work with students accomplishes this school year?  I hope that I can help them become better thinkers in this crazy more and more nonsensical world we live in.  That was something that I needed to develop for school. We doing a book study on Dave Stuart and we needed to develop our Everest statement. I think I had a much clearer idea of what this was at the beginning of my teaching career. Now it tends to get a little fuzzy as it's tied in with what I have accomplished in the past. So it's a little iffy, but I will work on it some.  I want my students to be able to analyze things and figure out what is right and what is wrong.  I want them to not get taken by nonsense, like so many adults I know have been.  I want them to be able to think critically and not get taken in by nonsense.  I want my students to have a ...

 Okay, I've settled on the iHub curriculum for both chemistry and biology, I'm good with that. But now I need to figure out how to lay out my lessons. No, how to document them so I know what I'm doing each day. I have the lessons, that's not a problem. I need some way to keep them so that I know what I'm doing. I do not like sitting down at the computer to figure out what I'm doing. I like to have everything on paper, in front of me so that I can just look and see what is happening. Now that hasn't worked really well in the past because things change as I go along. Also, I want to start doing some of the Building Thinking Classroom stuff and I need to figure that into my lessons. So how do I do that and keep track of everything?  Presentations - yes, that's what I'm doing on the first day but I don't want to do that every day.  Set things up the day before - that's an option now that I actually have 2 prep periods. I mean seriously, I need 2 ...

 I just spent the morning (the last 3 hours) analyzing all my curriculum options. I listed out the units for each option, what was covered, and the time it would take. I then totaled it all up to see how many days this would take and then compared it to my school year. The results were as follows:  Chemistry:                                                             Biology:  Modeling:  80 Classes                                  Illinois Storylines:       66 Classes iHub:           54 Classes                                ...

 First off, I will be teaching 3 preps this year; Chemistry, AP Biology, and Biology. The problem with this arises in a couple of areas.  1. Which curriculum do I use for chemistry and biology? I kind of want to use the same curriculum; iHub for both or Patterns for both; only because they will follow a similar pattern and I won't have to work to know what's going on. So that is something I need to nail down soon.  2. How far to I want to go with BTC? Everything I'm reading is so great, but I don't want to overwhelm myself with a new curriculum and a completely new way of doing things. Many of the things I'm reading say to start with the first 3 chapters. Get those routines and practices down and then start adding the other practices. I like that and that is probably how I will start the year.  2a. Do I do BTC for both chemistry and biology? I some ways it will be easier to do it in both classes, but it other ways it won't. So, which do I do it in?  These are a ...

 This chapter I love because I'm always looking for new and different ways to arrange my classroom. And honestly I've gotten stuck in a rut the past few years and it's rather boring truthfully.  He suggests:  Defronting the classroom - that means that the desks don't all face the same way. So there really is no 'front' to the classroom.  Cluster the desks away from the vertical surfaces that the kids will be working on. This allows them room to move and the lure of chair is farther away.  Make the tables and chairs all point in different directions. This way again, there is no 'front' of the room.  Move around the room. Don't stand at what used to be considered the front. Move and make the whole room the workspace.  I love these suggestions on so many levels. I love that there is no front. The kids should be working with each other, not staring at me. There will be times when they will stare at me, but I'm hoping to get away from talking behind t...

 This one I'm kind of excited about while at the same time trying to figure the logistics of it. I love having the kids work together in groups on a large whiteboard. They work on problems, work on answers, work on all kinds of things. In fact, I have had kids ask if they could use the whiteboards when we aren't using them to help them work on things. I love it. Well, this chapter goes a step further. This chapter says that kids should be working on whiteboards but that they should be vertical so the kids have to stand. 🤯 What a great idea. Having the kids up and moving and working. I absolutely love it. He adds a couple of other things to this idea that I love also:  only one marker per group the marker has to move around within the group sometimes the person with the marker can only write what others are saying, NOT what they are thinking have groups in closes proximity to each other so they can see what others are doing they are not allowed to erase someone else's work ...

 I know, but those two posts on the thinking classrooms don't count. That was me thinking through the material and figuring out what would work for me.  This however, is different. This post is on the fact that it looks like I have a biology class next year. Now, I'm not adverse to teaching biology. I'm really not. I like biology. Hell, it's what my degree is in. But that means I will have 3 preps: 4 chemistry classes, 1 AP biology, 1 biology. Considering that I was reworking chemistry and AP biology, this adds a whole other dimension to my year.  I guess it's better to know now so I have time to prepare, rather than not know until we return. Okay, so I'm teaching biology. That leaves me with what curriculum should I use? I will be using iHub for chemistry. Should I use iHub for biology? Should I use the Illinois storylines? I could use Patterns. There are so many and I just need to pick on and stick with it, much like I did with chemistry. I'm leaning towar...

 This chapter deals with forming collaborative groups to work in. Now I know that this is important, but I also know that I've struggled with this over the years. The perfect group size is 3. I learned that in the modeling course and he reiterates it in this book. 3 is the magic number. In groups of 4 someone can lay back and not do anything. In groups of 2 someone usually takes control. Groups of 3 are the perfect size for collaboration. So I will try for groups of 3 - it is not always possible.  He also says that the randomization should be completely transparent to the students. One suggestion he makes is a deck of cards. As the students enter the room, they take a card from you. The groups will form based on the card they drew. So all the 3s will be one group, all the kings will be one group, etc. I like this idea and even have a bunch of decks of playing cards I can use. However, there are a couple of problems.  First problem: I need to have the cards match the numbe...

 This chapter talks about beginning the lesson (the first 5 minutes) with a thinking task.  Basically this amounts to bellwork and something that I am not good at. I have not done bellwork in a few years. But I had been thinking about how to incorporate it next year, so this is right in line with what I was thinking.  He stresses that this should be a non-curricular task. I'm thinking a logic type problem. Initially I will just use any logic type problems but gradually I will incorporate more science/chemistry into the problems.  So I need to gather a lot of these and align them with the lessons. I'm wondering a little if some of the things in the iHub curriculum could be used as these. I was thinking the phenomenon but now that I consider it more, I don't think that would work because most of them have no 'solution' per se.  So back to my thoughts, I need to gather a number of non-curricular thinking tasks that I can use for my bellwork.  I know this all c...

 We are leaving on vacation on Friday and honestly I haven't done much of anything regarding school work. I figure that I will do that when I return. Though I have been reading. I bought this book before the school year ended and knew that I would not get to it until summer:  It was recommended in the modeling group I am in. They were actually doing a book study and I wanted to get in on that but by the time I did they were 10 chapters in and it was the end of the year, so that didn't work as I had hoped.  But I did start reading it a couple of weeks ago and it is kind of awesome. Many of the things he recommends are very similar to what we do in modeling. Things that I have been using that I know work. So that is good. This has given me some ideas on how to tweak my strategies and it has given me some completely new ideas to try. So I'm a bit excited about getting my class set up using some of these strategies.  I think that I may work on this a little bit today sin...

 because of other things going on in life, but I have made some.  I started setting up the notebook for the iHub curriculum. As I was reading my last post, I had an idea of how to incorporate the question for each lesson into the anchor phenomenon so they will have the information to answer the driving question for that unit. What if, we did the first page of the anchor with the I notice, I wonder, and first impressions. Then the top of the second page could be to keep track of the things we learn and the bottom half is where they answer the driving question at the end of the unit. That would eliminate the 4 big ideas because sometimes you just can't boil things down into 4 big ideas. I'm liking that. It's kind of like combining the summary table and the big ideas all into the anchor phenomenon. Cool, I'll work on that.   I also need to work on the templates for the worksheets. I don't want them just answering worksheets, I want them writing in their notebooks and r...

 Summer is finally here and it is time to start really digging into what worked, what didn't, and what do I want to do next year?  The last time I posted I was looking at the Patterns chemistry curriculum. Since then I've moved to the iHub Chemistry. It is similar in that it has opening phenomenon, tests, quizzes, end of unit projects, etc. It consists of 5 units and they explore chemistry by looking at real world things. The first unit is the search for life. They kind of tie into biology and use that information and chemistry to examine how we could go about looking for life in the cosmos. I think it would be really interesting to the kids. So I'm probably going to go with that. I need to pick one and just go all in and I'm 99% sure it's iHub.  But, and this is a big but, I can't wing it. I need to have everything ready and know what I'm going to be doing every day. Every minute of every day. I technically don't have enough time to cover all 5 units, s...

 I'm just so over school that I can't seem to be bothered. I am done with this group of kids. I'm tired of fighting with parents and students about grades. I'm just done.  I have been looking forward to next year and I do think that I'm going to switch things up some. I'm really looking at the Patterns curriculum for chemistry. It's a modeling type, in that they discover things before we put names to them. But it also seems to be much more fully formed. They have anchor phenomena, end of unit projects, tests, quizzes, etc. It just seems more fully developed then the modeling curriculum. The modeling seems to have been developed a few years ago and then just left. They do have a sequence and an outline but there are a lot of things missing and I'm not sure I want to work that hard anymore. I think it's time to just follow a curriculum and be done with it. Also, with all the things they have in place, it would be much, much easier to use the notebooks....

 I has been almost 4 months since I posted here. 4!!!! Months!!!!! So very much has happened in that time and I'm not sure I can fill in all the details. So let's try for some general highlights.  In January, when we came back from Christmas break, I was kind of over the whole modeling thing. This year's class is probably the hardest class I've had in a while and it was a battle every single time. I got frustrated and decided that I was completely over it. So I went back to old school methods. Okay, not completely, but much more old school than modeling. I've decided that I'm not really a fan of the modeling curriculum. There are lots of gaps and holes in it and I'm just not completely comfortable with it. There are a few other curriculums out there along the lines of the modeling one and I'm thinking about looking into those. I did look into them some last summer and then decided to go with what I had. I'm thinking that was a bad choice. So I'm ...