Teaching First: March Madness

I enjoy a good athletic competition.  But to say I'm a casual observer of the sporting world is a great understatement.  Over the last year, I've probably watched three complete games, one being the Super Bowl.

My first week in Junior High is almost over.  I  have spent most of the time making observations about everything from classroom management to student penmanship.  My conclusion is that Junior High is a very, very different environment.

In observing student interests, I have noticed that quite a few of them are interested in March Madness, the annual NCAA basketball tournament.  And, by interested, I mean obsessed.

So, on Wednesday, with 15 hours before brackets had to be "locked" I set up my own.   ...blindly and based on unwarranted hunches.  And I've been keeping track of my predictions every few hours and catching highlights of the games.  This madness may have bit me.  Though, midway through the first round, I am sad to report that I will not be receiving a billion dollars from Warren Buffet. 

I'm not even close.

But, I have had a few good conversations with students, which was the goal.  Ohio State's loss has been the theme of most of the conversations.  In one instance I was able to talk to a student about their own college aspirations.  It's a small step forward in establishing relationships with my students.  And, just like Dayton, a win is a win, even if the margin is small.

Exceeded Expectations: Biome Projects

After a week of working hard, the Biome Projects have been turned in and I am quite pleased with the results.

Here's the rubric I created: BiomeProjectRubric.pdf
I didn't want to scribble all over the students' work so I'll be printing off the rubrics to communicate back with the students.

Work In Class

In retrospect, we should have given the students more time to work on the project in class.  We asked that they worked with their lab-table partners; they couldn't choose their own groups.  This mitigated a great deal of laziness but because the students didn't know their groups well they weren't ready to work outside of class together.

One student used glue and sand to write "Desert" on the top of his poster.  Then, he donated the rest of the sand to the class.  It was very generous.

The Results

I was very pleased with the final products.  Many of the students went above and beyond the expectations on the rubric.

Not only is this a tri-fold poster, but the parrot is hand painted onto it.  I was expecting good posters, but I was very glad to see the amount of effort put into the project.

So, now comes the fun part: grading!  I hope as much work went into the research/writing part of the projects as went into making the projects look great.

Reflection

Here's a few things I'll do differently next time around:

1. Because I didn't let them pick their own partners I'll give the students more time in class.  Not knowing your partner makes working during lunch more difficult.  Plus, the project allowed a great deal of freedom; I found myself walking students through their own questions and helping them make decisions about their biomes.  
2. Emphasize communication when dealing with lazy partners.  I had one situation with a student who didn't do any of the project and relied on the effort of his partner.  But, he didn't say anything until after the project was turned in.  Had I known about the problem earlier I may have been able to intervene.  
3. Emphasize communication when encountering problems.  In the real world, stuff comes up and deadlines are somewhat flexible.  If students told me that their printer doesn't have ink or that their email wasn't working we could have found a work-around.

Here's what I'll keep:

1. The flexibility.  The ability to make decisions within parameters is a key aspect to one's education.  The parameters of this project were nice and broad and the students exceeded my expectations.  This is good.
2. Encouraging students to use cell phones for research.  Students know how to entertain themselves with cell phones but they don't realize that they have access to most of the world's knowledge through this device.  Like other technology, students need to be taught how to use their cell phones as a tool.
3. The rubric.  Students seemed satisfied with the idea that they need to communicate knowledge to me.  If they did so adequately, they would receive full credit.  This eliminates the "how many sentences do I need" questions and reduces the tension between giving high marks for excellent responses with fewer sentences and giving lower marks for responses that meet the sentence requirement.  

So, for my first big project of my career, I am very pleased.  Grading the projects should be quite exciting.

Videos: Worth a Thousand Words?

A picture, of course, is worth a thousand words.  But, is a video worth a thousand words?  With absolute certainty, everyone knows the answer to this question is "maybe."

A Lengthy Video

I find it hard to justify watching a video for an entire class-period.  Even if students are filling out a worksheet tied to the video, they are only being asked Knowledge based questions.  Unless a teacher is filling in a lesson plan for a substitute teacher dedicating an entire class period seems like a misuse of time.

If it's necessary to watch an entire video there's got to a significant assessment that goes along with it.  In English or Drama class, watching and analyzing a particular interpretation of a Shakespeare play may be valuable.  I can't think of anything in science that would justify this type of time investment.

Fortunately, many of the new science videos are short but highly informative. Take a look at the Pocket Mouse video on the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) website.  It's a minute long, well produced, and communicates information very well.  HHMI produces DVDs with longer segments and each portion runs for 10-15 minutes.

But, we're getting into short videos.  Videos that run longer than 20 minutes are, in most cases, time-fillers rather than the engaging material we'd hoped for.  And, the students know it.

A Short Video

Short videos, on the other hand, can help facilitate inquiry, curiosity, and discussion, all the things that we educators wake up in the morning eager to make happen.

Video segments can help students grasp difficult concepts or visualize instructions before going on to a lab. Not only do students take in the knowledge, but the surrounding time the video can be used for questioning and analysis.

Personal Experience

Perhaps I am biased based on my own experience.  I can not think of a time in my educational career where watching a lengthy video was an essential part of my understanding.  I also don't know of a single respectable teacher that does this as a regular part of their course.

So, until convinced otherwise, only short videos will make their way into my lesson plans.

Grading: Two Thoughts

We started a new unit and there hasn't been much to grade.  I am itching to know what the students know.

Grading papers helps me in two ways.  First, it gives me an opportunity to see what the students are learning and, secondly, it's another way to communicate with students.  Grading 186 papers is difficult work, but thinking about these two things keeps the grading engaging.

What do You Know?

I have determined that informing students to the purpose of an assignment helps them produce work that is complete and thorough.  Over the past two weeks I have stressed that assignments are a tool for me to know what you know; if you don't write it down, I don't know that you know the material.

Over the course of grading I can find weaknesses in the students' understandings and address them the next day.  I can also see where the students are excelling or what topics interest them the most.  Knowing students' strengths and weaknesses helps drive future instruction.

Communication

Grading is also a time to communicate back to students.  It takes a bit longer, but I want to make comments that will help students.  Even if I don't mark points off, I want them to know how they can do better work.  I may refine my ideas on grading, but it seems like the students deserve thoughtful comments on things they spent significant time on.  Unless students are given time to research stuff they got wrong, checks and "-1" next to answers doesn't communicate much to a student.


Today is a good day.  Students are turning in their first assignments and I am looking forward to grading them.

Encouragement from the Deep Sea

Well, Day Two of Examination Purgatory is upon us.  Here's the note of encouragement I added to the board today.

The Most Dangerous Phrase

The most dangerous phrase a person can say is, "We've always done it that way."

Today the students will sit down to an exam that has been given to students since the 90's.  The review worksheet is a copy of a copy of a copy and only mostly legible.  The multiple choice part of the exam has been literally cut and pasted together before being sent to the copy center.

I have been rather surprised at the lack of reflection from a lot of seasoned teachers.  When students do poorly on an assessment, teachers are quick to say, "Well, they just need to study more."  This may be the case, but conversation about reevaluating a quiz or ensuring the material delivered in class match questions on a quiz has been anathema.

Naturally, students are scared of exams.  Some do well and some do poorly.  The part that concerns me is that students are surprised.  Even worse, teachers are surprised.  If assessments given during a unit are well-planned, and if the teacher has done a good job communicating with the students, the results of a unit exam or other summative assessment should not be a surprise.

Fear and poor grades kill a students' interest in a subject.  If we're serious about our subject, we must improve on the things we've always done.

Here are a few ideas I have now:

1. Rewrite test questions that students repetitively ask about.  
2. Develop instructional plans directly from the summative assessment.  
3. Teach test-taking skills during the unit.
4. Analyze common mistakes on formative assessments and make sure to change future instruction.
5. Ensure questions accurately assess what you want the students to know.  
6. Heavily comment on formative assessments.  Communication, though it takes a lot of time, is something the students deserve.
7. Do a review of an assessment after the quiz or test with the students.  All assessments should help students understand the content.
8. Do an evaluation of all assessments, making sure the assessment was an accurate portrayal of students' understanding.  If not, change something.  

That's a lot, but making improvements, even small ones, has the potential to increase student understanding.  That's what we're here for, right?

Mr. Davis' Lab Notes: A Few Ideas

After tens of hours leading a high school biology lab, here are a few things I've learned:

1. A lab worksheet should have clear instructions.  Just because it's clear to me doesn't mean that it'll be clear to a student.  If you have a student service, ask them to do the lab.  Adjust the instructions as needed.  When a lab is over, go through the lab worksheet and change things for next time.
2. A teacher should only need a minute or two to set the lab in context of the course content and issue safety warnings before turning the students loose.  If it takes you more than a few minutes to do this, then either your expectations or the lab design must be changed.
3. A good lab takes time.  Students need time to read the instructions and even to visualize the process. Students need a few attempts at tying things out before they're actually getting good data.  In my experience, severe time constraints inhibit the value of a lab; when teachers eliminate problem-solving, labs turn into a paint-by-number assignment.
4. Students must be taught to read instructions.
5. Use the lab to walk around and ask good questions.  Even with 40+ students in a classroom, I have managed to get to each group several times over a period and be available for questions or to point students in the right direction.
6. There's an art to asking analysis questions.  I am certain that the quality of the question determines the quality of the answer.  I'm no good at this yet, but this will be one of those things I will try and continually improve.  A good question points students to the right answer without giving it to them; they'll need to make the jump themselves.

It seems to me that a lab should be organized chaos and the teacher's role is to ask guiding questions.

I would love to get to the point where I can teach content, present students with an overarching question, give the students resources to answer the questions, and then set them loose.  To that end, I improve my labs.

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.