Kim’s blog

Over the last week, I’ve fast forwarded my thinking to a couple years ahead when students are so pumped up about my lessons that they actually ask to come in on Saturdays.  Ok, perhaps that’s just some daydreaming, but I have been considering thinking about how much I’d like to coach after my first year teaching.  I’ve actually only considered the positives and benefits, which in the case of coaching would be acting as a mentor, extending support and guidance outside of the classroom, and investing your time and energy to enhance the lives of teenagers.  Coaching establishes connections and bonds between individuals and lends insight into who you are as an actual human being and who teenagers are as developing adults.  These worthy causes are more than motivating for me to dedicate some of my efforts to coaching a cross country team. 

After thinking more, I speculated about the associated stressors that can stem from coaching.  Being a teacher, a lack of time is inherently going to be a major struggle.  Between lesson planning, grading, after school help, staff meetings, professional development, and squeezing in some sleep, there isn’t much time left over for any social interaction.  Even relaxing with the family has to be penciled in the planner to ensure that time is explicitly set aside.  When coaching is thrown in the mix, your responsibilities grow immensely.  The scheduling of practices, games and correspondences alone require a great deal of attention.  Then there are the dilemmas and pressures associated with coaching. In cases where there is a team member limit, the decision to cut students from teams is overwhelmingly difficult.  What words can be of any consolation to a teenager when they are told that they do not qualify to be on the team?  Not only is it a blow to a student’s confidence, but it also limits their participation in the school community.  In addition, coaching is comparable to being a teacher in that one always has to maintain integrity and be a consistent role model regardless of the circumstances.  One has to restrain feelings, emotions, and opinions if they could potentially have any associated negative consequences.

Above all, the positive implications of coaching far exceed the stressors and inconveniences.  Students need an outlet from school.  A routine meeting time after class hours gives students an opportunity to vent, discuss, and release tensions that build up over the course of a teenager’s day. They need activities to take their minds off of daily pressures and stresses.  Being part of a group with a common cause makes one feel purposeful, productive and more confident.  For these reasons, I will pursue coaching during my teaching career and be a continuous advocate for their deserving support and funding from the community.

This has been a tumultuous week filled with more ups and downs then a roller coaster ride on a ship.  Becci and I started our innovative unit on Monday and commenced a journey down the digestive tract with our students.  Students first investigated where digestion begins.  They observed that a cracker exposed to saliva, as compared to water, actually breaks down into glucose as determined from a change in color from blue to orange using the glucose indicator Benedict’s solution. They explained that chemical digestion must take place in the mouth and therefore saliva must have enzymes in it.  From there, they simulated peristalsis, confirmed the structure:function relationship of villi in the small intestine which provide for efficient nutrient absorption, and saw a Discovery video showing an intact digestive tract extracted from a human body.  Then there was the climax of the week: rotation around four stations in which students acted as engineers, research scientists, medical professionals, and graphic designers.  The excitement brewed all week long for me and Becci!  With that excitement was also the reality that the task of designing stations and motivating students to engage in challenging activities unfamiliar to them was a lot to take on.  After intense time, effort, and yes… some girly tears, we pulled it together, and the students had an amazingly interactive experience exploring the digestion system. 

As with any lesson, you always think of ways to improve upon it.  We learned that handing students a packet is extremely overwhelming for them.  It would have been better to have separate packets located at each station and a container for them to place their final product before rotating to the next. Also, the students would have benefitted from more scaffolding prior to the stations.  The station tasks intimated the students at first glance, but by the end, they really got into the modeling and interpreting various case studies.  In lines with this, having four stations was a bit much to undertake for the first implementation.  Starting out with two would have not only provided more time for luxuries like sleep, but would have eased the students into station work.

 We learned a lot during this week. It has really been an amazing growing experience. Rock on pre-service teachers!!!  I’m out for birthday celebrations now

In this posting, I’m going to venture away from my classroom experiences this week and discuss some insights that have been prompted during the polishing of my resume using the support and advice of Career Services at UR.  The first revelation was that four pages is slightly too lengthy to suffice as a brief synopsis of who I am. Okay, so it’s a bit wordy.  It would be no problem to make it more concise and reader friendly.  Next step was for me to comprehend that I’m applying for teaching positions, not scientific research anymore.  I had to come to terms with the fact that more likely than not, those reviewing my resume would not be as passionately interested in X-ray diffraction and the molecular structure of proyl  4-hydroxylase as I was.  Shocking!  I couldn’t imagine how someone wouldn’t be ecstatic to learn about my trials and tribulations associated with cloning, expressing and purifying SARS virus proteins.  With slight hesitation, I deleted the bullet point that displayed the title of my Master’s thesis.  Next to go were the overabundant details pertaining to those state-of-the-art techniques and instruments I incorporated during my bench work in the lab.  What do you mean that the general public really doesn’t want to know the intricate workings of a piece of equipment that can aliquot less than 1ul into over 1500 wells in under a minute?! 

These initial modifications to my resume were really enlightening for me.  The point of my resume was not to list everything that I’ve done, but to highlight my zest for science, and how I will provide opportunities to the students so they too can embrace and experience the excitement of unlocking understandings.  Explicit details and unfamiliar terms blurted out prior to an experience or out of context to their application can be overwhelming and intimidating.  Therefore, while it is important to allude to the amazingly interesting science experiences I’ve had, it is not so crucial to outline the specific terms or in-depth procedures uncommon to many.  My new view on resume writing is to make my learning experiences accessible, relevant and meaningful to all individuals.  Who would have guessed that this formal document would parallel with our focus to promote science literacy in each and every student.  We provide opportunities for students to experience, learn and understand concepts instead of initially overloading them with intimidating vocabulary and isolated facts.  Just as interviewers can inquire about the details of my scientific background, so can a student unlock the details and meaning with each learning experience.

I’ve finally tracked down the rubric maker site that I mentioned to Laura and Brittany on Monday.  It is free to register for and has been helpful to the practicing teachers in my KSTF cohort.  I’m diving into this site today, so I’ll keep you posted on how user friendly and effective it is to a novice such as myself.  Let me know what you think about it.

http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php

With a week out of the classroom and no new experiences to share (except for this amazingly fun Saturday in Brockport taking certification exams), I thought this would be a great opportunity to share some websites that I’ve found super helpful.  Hopefully they will be useful to some of you too.  Definitely feel free to add onto this list if there are some other snazzy resources that I haven’t included. 

www.biologyjunction.com – This site has a ton of materials which have been super helpful.  Everything from labs to games.

www.teachersdomain.org – With this site, you have to register, but it’s free and then you have access to download a plentitude of thoroughly designed lesson materials all to your heart’s content.

 http://www.biozone.co.nz/links.html – This site offers a good collection of resources, with current, working links, organized by units, with short descriptions. There are links to animations, tutorials, and some activities. Some of the resources are geared towards higher level students, but you can definitely adapt them to your classroom. 

http://petersj.people.cofc.edu/CCLI/index.html - This site links up ‘problem- based learning’ and ‘scientific inquiry’.  

http://nabtdenver2009.wikispaces.com/ – This site has some quick and dirty ideas from teachers who are dedicated to teaching at-risk students and have over 30 years of experience in the classroom. Their materials are not always the most inquiry based, but many of the activities are Word docs that you modify to your goals and objectives.  

http://www.insidecancer.org/ - A plethora of info about cancer.  Some of this is fairly advanced, but the graphics and animations are really amazing!

To forewarn you, this blog is going to be my classified as my rant. Check it off the rubric my friends

It may seem atypical, especially after two more upbeat entries, but I’m finally coming to realize the importance of honestly saying the realities of what is encountered during a week.  I’m not one who likes to confront discrepancies or even minor confrontations.  In lines with this, I typically don’t like dwelling on misunderstandings once they’ve been hashed out.   After reflecting on this week’s happenings for a few days, I’ve come to understand that these experiences contribute to our growth and expertise as high quality teachers.  Honestly, I had a hard time understanding the reasoning to take student teachers out of a school that we have had the opportunity to interact with our co-teachers and students for five months,  just to have it come to a close so we could move onto a new school to student teach for a mere two months.  The connections and rhythm I had established within the former school community seemed substantial and relevant to my teaching career.  When we had just become comfortable in one location, we had to switch it up and familiarize ourselves with a different school, different type of placement (co-teaching vs solo), new  students, new cooperating teachers, different policies, teaching styles, routines, expectations, and management strategies (to name a few).  I have to assume this would be overwhelming even to the most experienced teacher (not taking university classes).  As far as I can see and have heard, we are all cooping very well.  The reason for this (besides the fact that our cohort rocks!) is that we all share a common passion to teach science, and we want to contribute to the growth of each and every student.

What I’ve noticed this week is that it’s limiting to draw too many comparisons between teachers, students, and ourselves.  We are all unique and react to situations differently.  We grow at different levels.  For someone, such as me, who is not competitive in nature, it’s dangerous and discouraging to try and draw comparisons to others.  We all have an immense amount of ingenuity and understanding to contribute.  No one is teaching a more worthy cause or with a more worthy passion. We are all on the right path, with whole-hearted intentions.

How do you sum up a week that has felt like a year?  So much has happened that I’m having trouble finding the words to sum it up.  Apologies are given in advance for bearing with me through my whole smorgasbord of events.  Basically I came off a weekend spending time in the ER then the hospital with my Dad.  On Monday, most of us started our second student-teaching  placement…a new school, new mentor teacher, new students, new schedule, new co-teaching rhythm.  On Monday evening, we had our cohort discussion about the Warner lesson plan and its implications.  We even had the opportunity to look over our past lesson plans and learn where our strengths lied and what shortcomings could use an extra bit of attention.  Monday was an overwhelming day to say the least, but we all came out knowing more, feeling more, and questioning more (perhaps I should include  that last phrase in the nature of science section for my theoretical framework…insert smiley face here).  

 In all seriousness, I, just as everyone else, have dealt with a lot.  My Dad is still in the hospital and expected to come out tomorrow or Monday.  We have all finished a full week in our new placement.  We are all trying to figure out the best way to connect with our new students.  Wow, things are looking up! 

I’ll close this blog with the highlight of my week… a student had asked if I could stay with her during lunch to help her with some homework.  To be quite blunt, I’m a woman who needs her snacks every couple hours, but to have a student want some extra help from a novice teacher as myself, I was pumped up.  Not only did I get mistaken for a student by the lunch ladies and have the opportunity to indulge in some tater tots, chicken nuggets and corn bread, but I was able to get to know a student’s way of thinking and be able to help her understand a bit more about genetic engineering.  It was a great way to end the week!

If at any point in my life I was going to burst with excitement, it very well may have been at 3PM on Friday, December 18.  The thought of sleeping more than 4 or 5 hours a night, of actually having a conversation with friends aside from ‘How’s the paper coming?’ or ‘What inquiry-based activity are you using to teach Mendel’s pea plant experiments?’, and being able to drop everything and attend to family needs made for an amazing two weeks filled with peace of mind and sanity.  A month later, we are back in the thick of things and trying to have our lives flow in sync with the Warner rhythm once again.  However, it doesn’t seem to be as much a struggle as it has been in the past.  Over the last two semesters, our backpacks have grown with more than just print-outs, books, and blue certification packets.  We’ve successfully lead a camp, 10+ weeks of STARS, >100 hours (let’s just put an emphasis on > shall we ) of field observation, and four weeks of running solo in front of the classroom.  The achievements are outstanding, and they truly diminish the appearance of those future hurdles that try to daunt our paths ahead.  I don’t mean to be the Get Real! Cheerleader here (well, I would be the team mascot if we had a cool custom for me to sport), but I think that sometimes with all of the papers, tests, classes, lesson plans, portfolio plans, and the infinite amount of miscellaneous tasks, our growth and accomplishments can sometimes be overshadowed.  Our cohort has developed into an impressive assortment of science enthusiasts who genuinely have the students as their focus and at the same (very limited) time, are always willing to help one another with feedback, lesson ideas, or even a mini counseling session at the Elmwood or Distillery. So if I’m tooting our own horn, so be it but I’m really proud of how far we’ve come, where we are now, and where each of us is headed.  Perhaps we should think about getting me an actual horn to toot or maybe a sweet kazoo to go along with the mascot costume that I long to parade around Dewey in. I’ll just leave the specifics to a class vote.

Tags: motivation

I don’t even know how to sum up today.  To see all the STARS scientists in one room with their loved ones to support them and actually have the community bear witness to all that they’ve accomplished over the last 10 weeks was absolutely inspiring.  Through all of the planning and sometimes worry about how we were going to make the most of the STARS meetings, the culmination of the students’ and the teachers’ hard work was immeasurable.  The girls took so much pride in their investigations and had transformed into fully capable budding scientists.  It excites me to know that these young women make up our future.  Their ingenuity, creativeness and energy are inevitably going to lead to amazing discoveries and advances in the future to come.  Even though my part was small in comparison to their lifetime ahead, I’m privileged that I was a part of their growth.

So here is how lesson 3 went in my series of 3…better late than never is the motto I’m going to stand by here

Making cell models as the main activity for a lesson plan to teach cell structure and function was very interactive and stimulating for the students. The classroom felt alive with students discussing and collaborating with one another throughout the period.  One of the main downfalls was that this activity required more time.  In retrospect, at least an hour period would have been needed to provide time for the groups to present, describe, and validate their models to their classmates.  I really wanted the students to be able to reflect on why they chose the candy they did to represent the organelles and their associated characteristics; however, we completely ran out of time and the students were working on their models up until the end of the class period.  An excellent suggestion from Joe was that I could have had the chart I handed out for them to document the organelles and associated candies have a designated column for explanation of why each piece of candy was chose for each organelle.  Also, I should have frosted the cakes prior to class since this activity did not have any significant learning value.  I had intended to do this, but it was suggested that there would be enough time and not to worry about it.  I should have followed my instinct and frosted the cakes beforehand.  While the frosting represented the cytoplasm, in retrospect, I don’t feel it was a valuable activity for them to spend time frosting the cakes. 

In addition, this lesson made me reflect on how to better differentiate within the classroom.  While I did give the students verbal directions as they entered into the room to get them on task, I should have also had a visual representation of what the objectives and directions were for the lesson.  It takes time for some students to process what is being said and some students may not have heard or been able to multitask listening and settling in when I was giving the directions.  In respect to this, I also need to be more assertive and command my voice better in the classroom.  I haven’t established a strong position in the class yet, so at times the students are still talking in the background and it is difficult to project my voice over it.  The background talking is distracting to the other students and means that not everyone is engaged and on task.  This will be an aspect that I want to remedy during my student teaching. 

Lastly, I learned that I always should have a back-up plan.  I discussed with my CT about using his video recorder for my lesson, but this fell through.  Ultimately, it was my responsibility to make sure I had everything I needed. Especially when there was no camera available for my first 2 lessons, I should have immediately borrowed an I-Flip to ensure that at least the 3^rd lesson was recorded.  As I gain more experience, I know I’ll get better at time, material and classroom management, but in the meantime, I need to have some patience with myself since I’m not professionally at the level I want to be.

Tags: cells