Bean Counters: A Rabbit Breeding Simulation

To simulate genetic shift in a population, we'll be breeding rabbits.  But, because the gestation period for a rabbit spans longer than the two 57-minute periods allotted for this lab, we had to settle for a simulation to squeeze in 10 generations.  Instead of rabbits, we'll be using red and white beans to simulate dominant and recessive alleles.

W. E. Castle discovered an English breed of rabbits that sometimes produce furless offspring.  England is cold.  Not having fur is usually a death sentence for our hoppy friends.  But it does give us a good model for testing out genetic shift over generations.

The lab setup:

1. In a cup (our Gene Pool), there are 100 beans.  50 are red, representing the dominant allele (normal fur - H) and 50 that are white, representing the recessive allele (furless rabbit - h).
2. Students will randomly pull two beans from our gene pool.
3. HH combinations and Hh combinations will "survive" and be placed back in a cup for the next generation.
4. hh combinations will be eliminated from the gene pool.
5. Students will record the number of remaining H and h beans in the gene pool and move on to the next generation.

Over the 10 generations, the white beans should be quickly reduced but not eliminated.  This lab has a bunch of moving parts and will require some clear instruction, but it should go well.

Here's a shot of the whiteboard.

Passing Period: The Best Time to Fix a Lesson

During first period, the review of Hardy-Weinberg equations garnered a bunch of blank stares.  We expected that students would come into class with questions, but we got nothing.  I was completely unable to assess the students' comprehension.  The students who understood the concepts answered the questions quickly and got the correct answers.  The students who didn't understand it copied the answers from their sharing neighbors.  At the end of the period, my master teacher and I looked at each other and we knew that we had 5 minutes to come up with something better.

So, in the next 300 seconds, we floated a bunch of ideas ranging from more practice problems to short essays explaining each step of the equation.  But we didn't know where the students were having problems.

Then, I recommended a pop quiz.  At first, my master teacher wasn't thrilled.  She said that we didn't need more papers to grade, Scantron forms are too expensive for a super-quick assessment, and that we didn't really have time for a quiz.  I countered:  the students didn't know it wouldn't be for points, and I promised to keep it short.  I got the green light.  I was about to give the first pop quiz of my life!

It worked.

Each "question" was a logical step of a rather basic Hardy Weinberg equation.  The "quiz" part of "pop quiz" set the right tone in class.  After the initial wave of groans, the students were quiet and attentive.  As the students wrote out out their answers, I was able to walk around and look at their work.

I got the information I needed and spent about 10 minutes addressing the weak points in the students' problem solving.

Reflection
I realized on the way home that this is something I'll not be able to do every day.  This was an emergency assessment piece and a pop quiz will lose its "pop" if done too much.  It worked in a pinch and it's something I'll come back to if I manage to get myself into a bind again.

The students needed another set of practice problems to really solidify the concept.  They wouldn't like it, but it would have been best for them.

Assignment review is an essential part of the learning process.  The next time I teach a difficult concept, I'll need to be much more rigid, providing a step-by-step guide.  Once students get -a- method, they can then take the logical leaps that streamline the process.  Once this happens, they're ready for the next application.  This will be in the back of my mind when I get together with my peers to review the pacing calendar.

Food Day: Fund Raising

Many of the clubs were fundraising today by having Food Day.  Prep period is right before lunch, so I got first pick.

I was excited to see the Kona Ice truck parked in the middle of the quad.  On my list of my most favorite things in the world, shaved ice is towards the top.  So, naturally, that was my pick.

Every school has its own culture.  A quick Google search shows that many schools have many interpretations of Food Day.  Some highlight healthy eating, and some celebrate cultural food.  My high school celebrates its clubs.

Either way, I enjoyed Food Day.

Whiteboard Markers: An Experiment in Color

Yesterday, I tried to create a simple model for solving Hardy-Weinberg equations.  It was complex and it was a reach for many of the students.

For today's review, I attempted to use a bit of color to differentiate the parts of the steps.  I'm hoping it will be valuable for students to see the different parts.

Hardy-Weinberg - Math Meets Biology

I heard a science teacher say that all biologists think they're chemists, all chemists think they're mathematicians, and all mathematicians think they're God.  Well, today in Honors Biology, we skipped over the chemists and went straight for math.  Though, after a day of wrestling with their first exposure to solving Hardy-Weinberg equations, only a few students felt like deity.

Here's a shot of the whiteboard.

I also had my first observation by my college supervisor.  He came 4th period, so I had a chance to practice beforehand.  Overall, the observation went well.  There were a few items related to small classroom management strategies that I need to improve.  The timing of handing out worksheets was one of the issues mentioned.  I began the lesson and forgot to hand out the papers during a down period when students were solving a bit of math.  Overall it didn't hurt the entire lesson, but it did create an awkward lag in the lesson as I hurriedly passed out papers.  His second suggestion was that I not turn my back to the class when I write on the board.  This one may take a while to fix; I already have trouble writing on a whiteboard while facing the board directly.  Changing my stance may degrade my whiteboard-manship.  But, it'll be important to learn this skill so I'll work on it.

Tomorrow we'll finish up the Hardy-Weinberg equations and watch a short clip of genetic drift in action.

Student Engagement: On Science and Romance

Last semester, the students studied genetics.  This semester the students' studies will be slightly distracted by the joys of Valentine's Day and Prom.

While the students were working on a practice assignment one of the guys stopped me and said, "Hey Mr. Davis.  I have a question for you and it's not about the assignment."

He began asking me questions about how we get blue roses.  I let him know that blue roses are artificially colored white roses and that blue coloration in nature is quite rare.

After talking about it for a couple of minutes, I asked, "What's the interest in blue roses?"

Turns out there's a nice girl he'd like to impress.  Her favorite color is blue, and he wanted to get her a bunch of blue roses.  Specifically, he wanted some with blue and white stripes.  I mentioned the word "variegated" and he said, "Hey, isn't that co-dominance?"  I replied in the affirmative, and what he said next made me happy and a little sad:  "Hey!  Biology in real life!"

I was glad that he made the connection to his experiences, but we may have missed an opportunity to help him make that connection during the unit of study.  This type of thing will be a good item to bookmark in my brain; much may be learned through romantic endeavors.  

After a quick banter about genetics, I recommended that he walk into a florist's shop and see if they could help get him some blue roses.  I am not only a biology teacher, but a floral adviser, too.

Crabby Graphs

A lot has happened since my days in science class.  Even in college, we used peppered moths as the example of natural selection.  Peppered moths have been hammered into our minds.  I rather like our peppered moth friends, but it's also nice to mix things up.

Enter pocket mice and freshwater crabs.  Like the peppered moths, both pocket mice and freshwater crabs demonstrate natural selection in their coloration.  Last week, we used pocket mice as the last activity to solidify the concepts of natural selection; this week we will add data to the concept of natural selection as we look at populations of freshwater crabs.

Today's activity will revolve around specific types of selection in relation to environmental changes of freshwater crabs.  We will cover directional selection, disruptive selection, and stabilizing selection.  Towards the end of the period the students will be looking at data and will be graphing  phenotype frequencies (light to dark coloration) to determine the type of selection in a specific scenario.

Today's Goal:  Students will understand the concepts of directional selection, disruptive selection, and stabilizing selection.  Given phenotype frequency over time, students will be able to graph data and determine the type of selection for a given scenario.

Here's a shot of the whiteboard:

My Philosophy of Education

The Assignment:  In about 100 words, describe your Philosophy of Education.

Mr. Davis' Philosophy of Education:
I am driven by continually asking three questions:  How? Why? How does this relate?  These are the questions that drive science. I aim to instill these questions and the resulting independent thought in students so that they can ask them for the rest of their lives, fostering their own curiosity and desire to find answers to questions that interest them.  Through carefully planned lessons that combine students' interests and state standards, students in my classes will discover, interact with, and know how scientific thought connects to their lives and also to the world around them.

Handing Back Papers: A Strategy

Before I ever stepped foot into a classroom, I knew that strategy was key and that I'd need to think through everything.  Little did I know how much this "everything" would entail.  Today I learned that, yes, I even needed a strategy for handing back assignments.

I was eager to hand my first batch of graded lab reports back to the students, and I was interested to see how they would react.  As is the custom of the class, I handed the papers back at the beginning of the period.  This may not be the best method.  There was a sense of frustration in the class and we hadn't even started class yet.  Most of the students did well; the bell curve was toward the higher B, low A range.  But, not all of the students performed as they expected.

The next time we have papers to hand back, I think I will wait until the end of class.  Even if the students did well and their grades met their expectation, there's an element of distraction where the students are eager to review and compare results.

I may have found an even better way.  Despite being graded and recorded, the assignment still has instructional value.

Even though I added comments to their papers, there may be an even greater benefit to explaining answers in class once the papers are handed back.

There is a lot of instruction that happens before and during the lab, but simply because the papers are turned in and the students can't update their answers doesn't mean that the assignment has no further instructional value.  Sometimes that "Aha!" moment comes after a failure; it is often here that the student is ready to learn.

For next time, here's the plan:

• Low-Point Assignments - Hand back at the end of the period and be available for questions.
• Mid- to High-Point Assignment - Make the time in my next lesson plan to spend a few minutes reviewing questions, especially the ones that were commonly missed.

Today's Whiteboards: Why You Can't Roll Your Tongue

Some people can roll their tongues into a taco shape.  Others can't.  Some people are pretty tall.  Others are short.  Today's lesson will cover some of the reasons for these alleles.

After a short activity on the evolution of the pocket mouse, we're going to begin chapter 16: Evolution of Populations.

I've got a nifty PowerPoint, but I've also got my powers of whiteboard wizardry.  Below is a snapshot of the whiteboard I'll be using to teach Single Gene Traits (tongue rolling) and Polygenic Traits (height).

An Unexpected Advantage of an Alphabetical Seating Chart

Our seating chart is mostly alphabetical.  A's in the back, Z's in the front.  When students hand in homework, they're mostly in alphabetical order making recording grades a lot easier.

So, I'm still a fan of an alphabetic seating arrangement and then moving students as needed.

Happy National Handwriting Day!

After spending no small number of hours grading hand-written work the past few days, I have never been more convinced that handwriting is an essential part of one's education.  

We're in a transitional period between the Palmer Method and the Qwerty Method of writing, at least in education, and it's tough on both teachers and students.  Students struggle to write stuff down, edit their work, and the process of re-writing is tedious.  Teachers have to check this work, and decoding handwriting adds time to grading marathons.  Until students have access to netbooks, or the culture changes so that students can bring their own note-taking devices, we'll be stuck in this cycle of tedious writing, rewriting, and deciphering.

There are great ways to improve handwriting.  I have enjoyed the book Write Now by Barbara Getty, an easy to follow method of learning cursive italic.  Those who really want to spruce up their writing can check out the IAMPETH website.  This is -really- cool.  Beautiful script everywhere!

So, join me, Mr. Spencer, and tens of other stylophiles today as we celebrate National Handwriting Day!

Sports! Are You Eligible?

At our staff meeting this morning, I discovered that the calculations for GPA that goes on transcripts for college is calculated differently than the way GPA is calculated for eligibility for sports and other co-curricular activities.

Calculating GPA for sports does -not- take into account weighting Honors and AP classes.  For Transcript GPA, normal classes use a 4-point scale, and Honors/AP classes use a 5-point scale.  Under the CIF Blue Book (.pdf), grades from classes cannot be weighted.  AP classes are on the same 4-point scale as a normal class.

Here's the scenario (name changed to protect the ineligible):
John Smith - 11th Grade - Fall Semester

Class	Grade	Transcript Points	Eligibility Points
Marching Band	A	4	4
AP Lang & Comp	D-	2	1
Honors Human Anatomy	C-	3	2
Pre-Calculus	D-	1	1
Spanish IIA	C	2	2
US History	D-	1	1
GPA		2.16	1.83

CIF demands that players have a 2.0.  Looks like our John Smith will be benched.

Grading Your Assignments: No, You Can't Use Pink Ink

I've successfully graded two periods of labs!  I have another period to do today, but here are a few thoughts.

• Pink ink is nice...if you're 7.  And drawing unicorns.  Pink ink on a lab report is not nice.  Ever.
  Plus, it clashes with my Stipula Calamo Red Fountain Pen Ink I'm using to grade.
• There is an obvious connection between the quality of the question to the quality of an answer.
  There was another variable that I hadn't considered.  The questions I asked in class are very different than the questions asked on the lab and this changed caused confusion.  There's a middle ground somewhere; I need to be able to ask better questions, but questions on the lab need to be modified to be a bit more user-friendly.
• As I grade the students, I grade my own instruction.
• Writing is a window to the mind.  Mostly.  A majority of students demonstrated a clear grasp of the information; some demonstrated a clear misunderstanding.  However, there were some students that I know understand the content but performed poorly on the response questions.  I think that modifying the questions a bit will help these students communicate what they know.  

Possible Solutions

At the beginning of the year, I do plan on spending extra class time to prepare the students for the year, and even the rest of their education.  I can think of two ways that may help.  First is to show students how to examine a question.  If they understand the question, they can better answer it.  Second is to set expectations for some of the repeated things we'll do in class.  Glitter gel pens: bad.  Bic Blue: good.  One-word answers: bad.  Thorough answers in complete sentences: good.

A Final Note

It seems like students are used to answering low-level questions or receiving completion grades on assignments in the past.  Spending a few periods at the beginning of the year may help show students that comprehension is good, but we'll also need to learn how to analyze, make connections, and communicate their knowledge.

Today's Whiteboard - Vocab Art Project

At the request of my wife, I'll post some of my whiteboard drawings.  Today's drawing is an Vocabulary Art Project.

One of my teaching goals this quarter is to include more drawing (or other artistic means of learning/expression) in my instruction.  This project worked right into what we're doing today and tomorrow.  Working with the new words in a variety of ways should help the students become familiar with them enough to understand Monday's instruction.

My master teacher said no stick-figures on student projects.  That doesn't mean student teachers can't draw them!  Ha!

Of Moths and Whiteboards

Like the primal attraction of a moth to a flame, so it is with teachers to whiteboard markers.

I have found that I can't quite write in a straight line.  All of my writing tilts up. My teaching friends have consoled my fear that this problem will never go away.

I have enjoyed drawing things that help as I teach.  Below is how I explained the mechanisms of evolution.  Students grasp the concept of evolution as a gradual change, but have a difficult time answering the "how."  I hope the picture I drew below helped them out.  I'll be interested to see how my drawing (or lack thereof) changes over the years.

Week 1 Review

Here's a shot-gun post about my thoughts over the past week of Student Teaching.

1. There's a great opportunity to leverage technology.  This one sounds trite and overblown, but the specific win I see is this: Teachers can, and should, post homework, worksheets, notes, lectures, rubrics, and almost anything else to a place where students can access it online.  I see the biggest opportunity with students who need to make up homework.  This type of system also benefits a classroom's transparency. I believe that if the content is posted behind a student login there won't be issues with copyright.
2. Students need to be taught how to take notes.  During the PowerPoint notes, the students wrote every word on every slide.  Not knowing what to write down takes up a lot of class time; quick scribes are left idle while slower scribes take their time.  Teaching note-taking must be added to my literacy planning in the future.
3. Pick Battles. Between activities, I noticed students checking their cell phones.  I don't mind it.  It doesn't distract from anything during class, and cell phones will eventually have a prominent place in education.  For the time being, I'll follow the lead of my master teacher, but in the future I don't think I'll make it an issue.  If handled strategically, the students can begin to use their phones as a tool for in-class learning (spelling, fact checking, quick research, etc.) and should be held to that standard. There are other issues that I have noticed teachers come down hard on that don't seem to be that important.
4. Modeling is Vital - It took about 10 minutes to model how we wanted a particular assignment done.  The students were able to complete the assignment.  Only one student asked "What do you want us to do again?"  10 minutes saved answering questions unrelated to content.
5. Prep Period is Gold - Thou shalt not squander thy prep period.

That's only five things, but there are more I'll write up in more detail later.  I'm having fun, I'm teaching the standards (and then some), and students are making connections.  I am looking forward to getting paid to do this!

Cheer Bows: A Short Discourse On Correlation and Causation

Before the tardy bell rang, I had a short conversation with a member of our school's dance team. I learned that a successful dance troupe has the following features:

1. Good moves - I believe the precise adjective used in this conversation was "sweet."
2. Large hair bows, consisting of either glitter or sequins.  The more, the better.
3. Pristine "poofs" - A term for a particularly difficult manner of doing one's hair that involves a great deal of hairspray.

The hair bows caught my attention.  I figured the "sweet" moves was an obvious skill for a dance team, and I don't have enough style to speak intelligently about the "poof."  Bows are a major part of women's sports and there is even a huge subculture of crafters who have made a business out of hair bows.  But do big bows necessarily make one a better dancer?

The dance team member I was talking to had two hair bows, one fastened to her head and another attached to her cheer bag.  I am no expert at hair accessories, but they seemed larger than is practical; both bows observed were about  6-7 inches tall and about 5 inches across.  The ribbon itself was about 3 inches wide and each iridescent sequin was placed with impressive geometric precision.

I asked, "Why are the bows so big?"

She answered, "Well, spirit, of course.  And all the best teams have them."

I ventured a bit further.  "Does the size actually cause you dance better, or are they just a staple of the best teams?"

She replied, "I don't know.  Both, maybe.  They're just cute!"

I laughed and asked,  "Both?  Now, that's something!  Perhaps big bow size means increased "cuteness," and cuteness increases spirit, which increases one's dancing skill, which increases a team's chances at success."

"Um...  Yes?"  

My keen sense of observation led me to believe the conversation needed to end, but I am convinced that there may actually be a causal relationship between bow size and team success.

Survival of the Sittest

If you ever want to instigate a fight among a flock of teachers, simply ask their thoughts about seating charts.

Should we let the students pick their own seats?  Should we sit them alphabetically?  When should we change the seating chart?  Should we sit them boy/girl?  Oh, the controversy!

Based on a rather unscientific method and unsound statistics, I have stumbled across a solution:

1. At the beginning, sit students alphabetically.  Done!
2. Move talkative students as needed.
3. Move students at their request, if you can.

My master teacher and I were discussing the seating chart.  We have found that there are several knots of students that may benefit from a seat rearrangement.  This led us to a bigger question of moving all of the students.  I asked whether the students even wanted to move.  Neither of us had ever considered this at all.  So, in each class, we put it to a vote.  

The overwhelming majority of students wanted to keep their seats.  Only two or three in each class said they wanted to change.  I was surprised at this response, but when I thought about my own preferences, it made sense.

So, we saved a great deal of time and headache by moving only a few students around.  The students are happy, we're happy, and classroom homeostasis was achieved.  

Evolution and Student Interests

There is a point in every childhood that you hear an adult, probably your mom, try to sound cool.  I think these same adults write text books.  I think these same adults become teachers.  I think I may become this type of teacher if I'm not continually considering student interests in lessons.

We were talking about artificial selection in class.  The examples on the PowerPoint and in the book are simple:  cats, dogs, milk cows.  I dutifully added  these text-book approved examples in my lesson, but in the last class of the day I mentioned that I grow Ghost Peppers, a type of pepper derived from artificial selection.  This got a rather hot (pardon the pun) reaction.

We talked about how the peppers are bred and cross-bred, isolating the part of the pepper that we want--heat!  Cross-breeding, then, got the students talking about funny-sounding dog breeds.  During the conversation, I was able to point out how each one of these things is tied to an overarching concept we've been talking about during the lectures.  Ah, the joy of seeing light bulbs go on!  And, for a few minutes, we enjoyed the connection between content and student interests, even if it got a bit silly.

I walked away from this lesson resolved to make sure this happens a lot more than I had anticipated.  If I don't, I'll turn into a square.  Yo.

First Grade - 190 Papers!

I graded my first batch of papers!  While students were working on a lab, I graded their assignments.

There were two parts of the assignment.  The first part was a paragraph on five of the major contributors to the thoughts of Charles Darwin.  In each paragraph, I was looking for the name of the scientist, the contribution to science in general, and the specific influence the scientist had on Charles Darwin.  The second part was 10 vocabulary word definitions; this part was credit/no credit.

I took a look at each paragraph and made sure the student had what I was looking for.  It took about 5-6 assignments before I began to get an eye for it and grading got a lot faster.  Eventually, each paper took about 15-20 seconds and I was able to get through each period's work before the bell rang.  The grading time investment seemed to fit the scope of the assignment; 15 seconds didn't seem like a fair amount of time until I thought about the importance and purpose of the assignment.

Assignment Purpose: Independent Practice
Assessment: Low Assessment Value
Literacy Level: Low - Looking for specific pieces of information; less stress on paragraph structure and syntax.  Made marks on several papers with egregious errors but these didn't impact grades.

The only issues I had was with students who simply didn't do the work.  I spoke to each of these students and it was more that the student didn't want to do the work than forgetting to do the work.  This was rather disappointing but not surprising.

I also got to use my new Stipula Calamo Red fountain pen ink I got for Christmas.  It looks sharp!  An "A" looks particularly nice on lined paper.

Also, my Master Teacher is back!  She's not 100%, but I'm glad she's on the mend.

Just the Facts

I'm student teaching in an Honors Biology class in the Hart District in Southern California.  I thought this a fitting place to jot down daily lesson plans and pedagogical lessons I'm learning as I change professions.

After getting myself through the early college years as a jewelry salesman, I spent 10 years in the financial industry.  I started off as a front-line teller and worked my way into the IT department.  Eventually I became a project manager and even earned my PMP Certification.

As providence would have it, I found myself unemployed in November of 2012 and asking myself some tough questions.  Did I want to stay in IT and Finance?  I was a decent project manager; projects got done on time and within budget, but I didn't love it.  I always found more enjoyment teaching when I could.  Through some tough conversations we (my wife and I) decided that I'd make the jump into education.

In the spring of 2013, I took prerequisite classes for the official credential program.  In fall 2013, I took the 16 units of coursework required by the great state of California.  Now, I'm finishing up the student teaching part of the program with a quarter in high school, and then a quarter in junior high at the end of March.  By the end of May I should have my preliminary credential!

I'm optimistic that in August 2014 I'll have my own science classroom!

A Surprise Artistic Assessment

Still no master teacher, but we're trekking along just fine.  She'll hopefully be back tomorrow.

Today's lesson:  Finish the Evidence of Evolution video and do a Homologous Structures coloring-page for the remainder of the period.  We had a collaboration meeting this morning that pushed back the school's start time, shortening classes from 57 minutes to 41 minutes.

The video went along without a hitch, and I found that the simple act of coloring not only met with a great deal of approval by the students, but also that the worksheet was a terrific assessment.  My goal was to have the students make the connection from the definition of a homologous structure to actually see and color the homologous structures of mammalian forelimbs.

The students took to the worksheet quickly and began coloring.  I quickly graded a completion assignment and made my rounds to take a look a the students' work.  I was surprised to see some of the students incorrectly coloring some of the bones.  After questioning the students, I realized that they could define the "homologous structures" but they couldn't quite apply the concepts to the diagrams of mammalian forelimbs on the worksheet.

I used students' own hands to connect the diagram of a whale's fin and bat's wings.  Oh, how the lights came on.  Like people who saw the magician's trick, the students made the connection between the definition from the textbook and the bones that they were coloring on the worksheet.

Next time I'll do a better job of including discussions and ask for examples for vocabulary before turning them loose on a worksheet, but I was glad that we did the coloring page.  It turned out to be more of an assessment piece than an enrichment piece.

Evernote - An Earnest Attempt to Organize Everything

I'm sold.  Evernote is excellent!  So far, anyway.  I have been using it exclusively for about two weeks now, and I have found it incredibly helpful as I start a number of new things this year.

First, I set up a section for getting some things done this year.  I have a daily template I set up to help me move forward on reading, health goals, and general betterment.

I have also found it a -great- help in organizing notes and projects for the teaching credential program I'm going through.  I have a stack dedicated to each class and a notebook dedicated to projects.

I am also using it for unit planning, lesson planning, and making notes...so many notes.

The best part of Evernote is that it's cloud-based.  I use Evernote primarily on my laptop.  But, all my notes are available on my iPhone.  Anything in Evernote is on my iPhone.  This includes my schedule, notes, PDFs, and pictures.  I used Evernote as a central depository for notes I took to study for the Earth and Planetary Science CSET last weekend.  I didn't have to carry around a notebook or text books.  I had it all in my pocket.

I'm looking for more ways to implement Evernote in the classroom, and I'll try and add my thoughts here as they come up.

Small Rudders Turn Big Ships

My master teacher was out again today and will probably be out tomorrow, too.  As I muddle through, I am having a great time and learning a lot.  Today, I learned a valuable lesson about being strategic with everything I say.

Continuing from our discussion on the historical context of Charles Darwin, we jumped into more detail about the famous 5 year voyage on the HMS Beagle and the observations he made on that trip.  After the lecture, we watched the first part of an old VHS video titled The Evidence for Evolution.  The plan was to watch half of the film today today and the other half tomorrow.  To help students pay attention and get value from the video, my master teacher developed a 30 question fill-in-the-blank worksheet to be filled out during the video.

First period was the test run.  We got through question 15 of the worksheet, which ended up being a good place to stop.  So, 15 questions became the benchmark.  Second period confirmed that we could do the lecture and get through question 15 of the worksheet.  All was well.

Third period is where I made my mistake.  In preparing the students for the video, I added that we'd probably get through question 15 on the worksheet and then watch the remainder during tomorrow's class. Well, after the students get the answer for question 15, they began to pack up and talk to one another.  There was still about 2-3 minutes of film before the stopping point!  These three minutes had good explanations and helpful graphics that helped explain the content!  Despite not having a blank to fill in, the content was still valuable.

When I noticed the students packing up, these thoughts ran through my head in about 2 seconds:

1. I shouldn't have told them that we'd only get through question 15.
2. I most definitely will -not- do that next period.
3. It's not on the worksheet and the information in the video won't be on a quiz or test; it's more for enrichment.
4. I can force them to sit down and watch it, but that would only build resentment of being forced to do something with little value.  

I don't know if I made the right choice, but I let it go.  The students continued to pack up and the bell rang soon afterwards.  We got through the lesson and I think they're understanding and comprehending the content.  In my questions I have been able to ask some higher level questions.  I don't think the situation will hurt the students' comprehension.

So, today's lesson: Be strategic in -all- communications.  Even little statements you think are helpful at the time can come back to bite you in the tail later if you're not careful.

PS:  

On the topic of questioning, I was rather proud of myself.  I asked a simple question.  "What is an example of an adaptation?"  Then I waited.  The wait seemed like it would go on forever.  This class, in particular, is a quiet class so I didn't know what to expect.  When I thought the students would stare back at me forever, one girl piped up with an example.  Then, another student piped up with another example of an adaptation.  Increasing wait time works!

Picture of the Classroom on Day 1

Here's a shot of the classroom before the students got in today.

Taking the Helm - Day 1

I got a text message last night saying that my master teacher had come down with the flu and might not be able to make it to school today.  Then, this morning, it was confirmed.  I would do my first day of student teacher without a master teacher.  

Fortunately, we had done some planning over the break and had a good idea of how the first week of school would go.  I took the lesson plan from my master teacher, added it to the beginning of the science literacy plan I had planned on teaching, and dove right in.

I started off class discussing the historical context of Darwin's theory of evolution and focused on the major players of the day: Hutton, Lyell, Lamarck, and Malthus.  Here, I focused on the Reason based thinking of the day and that it was the back-drop to Darwin's On the Origin of Species.

The students were assigned to do a paragraph on each of the scientific figures; for each paragraph I asked simply for a description of the scientists' work and how this work or idea influenced Charles Darwin.  The students were also given a list of vocabulary words to look up for their own reference and for a discussion between activities.  This took the students about 25 minutes.

Between this activity and the article on evolution we discussed the major ideas of Lyell and how the move from the age of the earth being thousands of years to millions of years was so significant.  Speciation requires lots of time and Lyell's observations gave this time to Darwin.  At the end of this discussion, we reviewed the vocabulary as a class.  Each student had the book definition and we added depth to the definitions by providing examples (artificial selection and dog breeding, for example).

My literacy plan was pretty simple.  The article (chosen by my master teacher) was a three-paragraph introduction to a larger work on evolution.  It began with a short biography of Charles Darwin and a quick overview of the religious thoughts of the day.  The article progressed to the works that influenced Darwin as he developed his theories.  

The students read the article three times, but they didn't know that they did.  I had the students read the article all the way through once to themselves.  Afterwards, I had the students define some of the more difficult words using context clues.  On the second read-through, I had the students underline the major works and ideas that influenced Charles Darwin.  After this we discussed how these ideas affected his thinking and went on a brief tangent about the importance of reading and communication in not only the scientific community but in life in general.  For the last read-through, I had the students look for questions, experiences, and observations that Darwin had himself.  His observations and fascinations coupled with the works of other  thinkers helped Charles Darwin develop and communicate his theory of evolution.  

I wasn't able to get feedback from my master teacher, but after the first period I think I adapted my delivery to a point where the lesson flowed well.  I do look forward to the return of my master teacher, but I am rather glad that the first day of student teaching went as good as it did.

From Pedagogy to Reality

After nearly a decade in the financial industry, I am about to do what I thought was impossible.  Tomorrow is my first day of student teaching.  I have an excellent master teacher, a great school, and a terrific group of honors biology (9th grade) students who I got to know a bit during my observations last semester.