Teacher Ben G

Wow, what a ride it’s been. I’m definately a different person than I was when I started the program. I’m sitting here thinking back to near-breakdowns about lesson plans, the debacle that was STARS, shark dissections, flower creations, and the innovative unit. I’m laughing at some of the ideas we had for lessons that never happened (Captain Planet) and some that did (sexual selection). To community of learners a line from Steve, it’s become another iece of my personal jigsaw puzzle. And now, thankfully, we are done with the blog!

So I know we hear a lot about the ability to use blogs in science class, and how they can be meaningful in creating a third space to support student learning, but I’ve always felt like I wanted to see this done first. Well, here it is, in all its glory: http://biologyblog.edublogs.org/ This is the classroom blog for an educator in New Jersey, and illustrates how his students have researched news stories related to their learning and their interests and critically analyzed them. I especially appreciate the requirement for the students to ask questions that can extend their learning. I could see myself using this in my classroom as a form of both formative and summative assessment, where by requiring students to blog about an article relevant to the current unit, I could assess their understanding of the greater significance of that unit.

So I was sitting at the show taking tickets today and I looked over and saw a calendar, and it had a quote on it: “Education is nothing less than passing the soul of society on to the next generation.” The quote was unattributed, so I can’t give credit where it is due, but this quote really spoke to me. I think this emphasizes the importance of good teaching and our ability to make a difference in the world. I’ve found that at times, it’s easy to get lost in the details of day-to-day teaching and lose sight of the grand scheme of things. This quote is a powerful reminder that it is less about the content being taught and more about what students are learning about how to be in the world, and what their responsibilities are as people. I know for me as I reflect on this, it forces me to think about what I am imparting to my students in every move I make and every behavior I model. I think especially in settings where students may have absentee or no parents, teachers are a powerful model for what society will and won’t accept, and an illustration of why we have to “walk the walk” in our classrooms and beyond.

Wow, I can’t believe it’s really over. This went by so fast. I have to say, though, I really can’t believe how much I feel like I’ve learned through my student teaching. I think the thing I found the most helpful in my current placement was that my CT took a very hands-off approach, which really gave me the opportunity to develop more self-confidence in my skills, as well as a chance to develop my own style. It really let me sort through my thoughts about what teaching should be and separate the nonsense from the valuable. It also gave me the opportunity to do the same with the theory we have read all through this program.

This week was the final summative assessment of my unit, and they were videos. I have to say, I can’t believe the difference a Flip camera can make. Students who never spoke couldn’t wait for their turn to get a word in, and even disaffected students came alive. I was very impressed at how much, for sixth graders, they were able to integrate what they saw with the readings they did in class. I feel in some respects like I could have added more directed teaching, but I suppose that’s the nature of teaching, and a note to remember for the next time I run this unit (or something similar), since I think it went pretty well and I would just tweak it rather than throw it away.

So my CT has been out sick the last two days, and as the law says, we had to have a sub. He made it very clear to the sub that I was running the show. However, the sub heard “student teacher”, and apparently this meant “I have the brains of toast and no clue how to manage a classroom”. As a result, for the last two days, I have been fighting her for control of my classroom. I believe in student discussions; she was threatening students with consequences for talking too loud. I asked them to move around the room; she made one student stay after class because he was out of his seat too much. I felt horrible for my students who were caught in the middle, but I was not going to allow someone else to dictate to me how I was teaching my lesson. What kind of gall did this lady have anyhow? I’m still livid about this hours later. I tried a number of strategies to nullify her influences, including giving her a flip cam and asking her to tape my lesson; this worked for a little while, but not very long. I’m just so frustrated right now, I can barely think straight. What bothers me the most is that I can clearly see her impact on what my students were able to accomplish. This is completely unacceptable as far as I am concerned. I am speaking with my CT about her tomorrow, and I hope that he chooses not to use her again. This was absolutely unacceptable.

So we started our unit this week. We have the crickets, snails, shrimp, and worms in the room, the packets made, and the students primed and ready. Our unit centers around an investigation that will focus on the role of pollutants and human activity on invertebrates. We started by having students explore how insects are classified in a stations activity where they could examine how new information leads to changes in classifications. The second day, we did a read-group-share activity where students read about pollution in the great lakes and made a list of pollutants, then shared that list with their group and then the class. This went surprisingly well, even in the class with multiple IEP’s where I thought they would struggle with the readings. I did encounter a small issue where some students assumed every word they didn’t know was a pollutant. After the groups had their lists, we made a class list and groups picked from a select list of pollutants to study. I think that some of my students have some latent hostility towards invertebrates; acid was a popular choice because “it will burn through the animals”. Needless to say, we won’t be using anything that strong. The biggest struggles to date came on day three, with designing their experiment. I’m not quite sure why this was, since they have designed experiments in the past without much trouble. I was able to guide them through the process, but it took far more guiding than I had expected. I wonder if it is because they really dont know what they are going to find, if that might be problematic. The other major problem I have come across is one that I have to think carefully about how to address, and that is the relationship of the students to some of their animals. Some students are very concerned about the idea of testing chemicals on animals; others are very concerned about the legal aspects of the work. I expect that some animals will die during this study, and I expect a few students and parents to be concerned about this. The students who are concerned about the legal aspects I have been able to pacify by explaining that I have 8 years’ experience in animal research and am very aware of the legalities of the situation. For the students concerned about the ethical side, I am considering a mini-lesson regarding why we test on animals and allow them to make their voices known. If there is a very strong ethical issue from a couple of select students, I need to come up with an alternate assignment/assessment for those students so that they can still be part of the project but not offend their ethical sensibilities.

So, this is an idea that’s been kicking around in my head for awhile. I have seen small learning community models in action, and they seem to be fairly effective. Unfortunately, they exist within larger high schools which seems to me to limit their effectiveness. What would happen if we were to turn the city system on its head and put middle/high schoolers in elementary schools and vice versa? Give the idea some thought. Would the necessarily tighter relationships in a smaller building be beneficial? I think that both students would know each other better and they would know their teachers better. Also, in a smaller crowd, it would be harder for a few “bad apples” to spoil an entire batch. What are your opinions on this idea (excluding the capital/safety concerns, which are technical and can be dealt with)?

Here’s an activity Alex and I have been using with our sixth graders this week.  The basic idea is that students take on the role of evolution to choose an insect and create a flower to be pollinated by that insect.  They have a great deal of creativity.  We gave the students wiki sticks, coffee filters, markers, crayons, modeling clay, pipe cleaners, colored cotton balls, and beads.  The instruction sheet for the activity is here: Createafloweractivity.doc

This activity had a few strengths and weaknesses.  It was highly engaging in the creation phase; students were very involved in designing and creating their flowers.  Students also worked well in groups in creating their essays; I think, though, that next time I would assign students in the group roles so that it is more clear that each student learned during the activity.  I did give feedback on drafts during the writing process; students seemed to appreciate this and it was a strong piece that was turned in.  In terms of scaffolding, I would set deadlines in the class for finishing parts of the design process.  This would avoid students spending too much time on the design and not getting to the labeling.

I’d like to see how other people run this activity if anyone tries it; it’s a good way to introduce structure/function relationships and symbiosis/co-evolution.  Alex ran the activity with teams of two; I used teams of four.  Both approaches seemed to be successful, but I would not use this for individuals or groups beyond four.

So…I was working with my wife’s Drama Club students last night. Everyone was being surly and not wanting to work. When I asked a couple of questions, I found out that one of the students had started a Facebook group for drama club. On that page, everyone was cutting each other down and slamming each other, which had severely undercut morale. I know how we have talked about social media enhancing the classroom community, but it can also hinder it. In this case, since the group is both closed and hidden, there is no way for an adult to know what is being said. I question whether, after instances like this, it is responsible for me to encourage my students to use social media, especially since some of them are more savvy than I am in finding out-of-the-way places for communication to occur. My concern is that any sense of community can be destroyed in a process I can neither see nor interfere with before the effects arrive in the classroom. What does everyone else think?

So I got a good lesson on the value of students’ prior knowledge. I had been reinforcing the idea that plants are green and can do photosynthesis because they have chlorophyll. When I asked the class if the sporophyte of a moss (which is brown) can do photosynthesis, one student raised his hand and said, “Maybe it has alternate pigments.” I was wondering what he knew about them and asked him to elaborate. He told the class all about anthocyanins and xanthophylls, and how they were different colors. The rest of the class seemed really interested in this, and we discussed how this is why leaves change colors. This was such a good question that I’m using it to guide a block of instruction after the break. This is the first time I’ve felt comfortable using a student generated question, and I think this is really a cool one to start with. I think this is an important point in my growth because I’m stepping back and letting a student drive the instruction.