Teaching First: Students and the Rain

Today brings the first major rain storm of the season and the first of my teaching career.

It's about 200 yards from the parking lot to the classroom and it takes about 4 minutes to walk the distance. I made it in 3 but not without getting wet.  Very, very wet.

I was curious to how the students would respond; my teacher friends agree that wind, rain, and full moons cause students to act strangely.  I haven't noticed too much odd behavior with full moons or wind, but the rain brought out student behavior out of the norm.

Here's how they responded to the rain.

Noise

Lots of screaming and yelling went on during passing period.  Also, students are excited to inform me that it's raining.

In Class

Students were a lot more squirrely today; many of them talked right through the lecture.  Even some of my quiet and studious students were chatty.  And, good gravy, the normally chatty students were off the wall!

Absent

And some students stayed home. 

Denial

Shorts and a T-Shirt.  Yes, I saw a young man in shorts and a t-shirt casually walking from the parking lot to his class.  I know we live in Southern California and all, but shorts and a t-shirt is not the most wise of clothing options.

It's been a crazy day.  I've dried out, the students have been pretty good, and the day's observations have been quite valuable.  Rain is rare and students respond differently to drastic change.  Yes, here in Southern California, rain is a drastic change.

Can We Have Class Outside Today?

Can we have class outside today?  Yes!  Yes we can!  And, there was much rejoicing!

We began a unit on Ecology and it seemed fitting that we actually go outside.  After all, we're all very much a part of the local environment and getting into the environment seems like a good first step.

During the beginning of class students wrote down as many observations about the local environment as they could.  Before going out we had a discussion about some of the things that make up environments.  Then, students were asked to be silent, observe, and write things down.

Students responded well.  They were very funny too.  One student 4th period wrote down "Mr. Davis," much to the enjoyment of his buddies.  It was a good jumping-off point to discuss human impact on the local environment; one of the major parts of our study of ecology is recognizing that we all have an impact on the environment.

When I discussed my plan with my wife, she offered some suggestions:

1. One, the time outside needs to be finite.  Too long and the students will get bored.
2. The students need to have a goal to work towards.  I asked each student to come up with at least 20 observations in the 10 minutes we were outside.
3. The students need to be spread out from one another; too close and they chat.

The 10 minutes flew by!  The students came up with great observations that we were able to incorporate into the following lecture and discussion.  This is a lesson plan I'll definitely use in the future.

Here's a shot of the local environment from the classroom door.

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.