The Wonderful Ways of MikeC

So, as most everyone knows teachers and students alike are judged by standardized test scores. The high stakes associate with these test scores has sent many teachers into a “Test-prep” panic…thinking that they cannot teach the way that they would like to because they need to “cover the curriculum”.

After teaching my first year and giving my first set of these assessments to my students I can say that this idea is completely untrue.

Listed below are several reasons why I believe I was successful this year:

1. The focus for this year was the process skills and the big ideas of science…..we hit them hard everyday. Most questions on the 8th Grade Assessment focus on process skills rather than content…..if your kids know how to think critically and analyze diagrams….they will get most questions right.

2. I had my students writting …..a lot……from Day 1. Did I get a lot of “Mr. you doin’ too much!” from some students…..ooooohhhh yeah. The key is that I never gave up. Writing and explaining conclusions was part of my classroom culture that I was not willing to sacrifice no matter how hard they fought.

3. Relationships. I can’t say this enough. If your students like you….they will do anything to be successful in your class. They will write, read, ask great questions. Without these relationships, students shut down in “high needs” schools. I have seen this first hand where a student performs very well in one class but could give a care about another class (and its because of the teacher, not the content).

4. I had my students doing short timed (sometime stationed) tasks throughout the entire year. This allowed them to get an understanding of how long certain activities should take and cut down the amount of opportunities they had to be “off task”. This took time but was a well oiled machine by the end of the year and helped with the lab practical portion of the NYS Assessment.

5. Students experienced the “Big Ideas” of the curriculum. We did not get caught up in all of the detail of the curriculum….most of this was covered through student guided (through questioning) inquiry “labs”/workshops.

6. We used our summative assessments as formative assessments…as assessments FOR learning not just assessments OF learning. We would have students break down content in the test questions AND the process skills needed to answer it. They would reflect regularly on what they needed to work on for the next assessment.

7. Homework that placed content learned in my class in a different context was assigned every night. Did I get it all back everyday….no. But it got much better as the year progressed.

8. In the last ten minutes of every class my students wrote a summary of what they learned during the class period. This allowed students to piece together the fragments of information that they had floating in their heads. After the summary, we answered a “Closure Question” which was my assessment of how well they could apply what they just summarized into an unfamiliar context. This is like a ticket out the door and helped guide my planning.

9. Make it relavent.

10. Make your class a “safe place”. Do not tolerate nonsense that threatens certain members of your classroom.

11. Hold true to your expectations and do not compromise. The students overtime will buy into what you are doing with them. Have faith, remain positive and do not compromise what you believe in as a teacher because the kids giving you push back.

This year was really really really tough. I cannot emphasize this enough. Teaching the “Warner Way” takes a considerable amount of time and personal sacrifice to do everyday. But my god does it pay off in the end. Great end to my first year of teaching.

So, I started out the year blogging about my first week of teaching…planned on blogging the whole year…..but quickly came to the realization that free time comes in intervals that are few and far between when you are a first year teacher in a new school. Free time became my most precious and valued commodity and I tried my best to make the most of it when it came along……

Anyways……this year has been the most rewarding and difficult of my life thus far. Balancing the new responsibilities of married life (which rocks) and educating 65 8th grade men was challenging to say the least.

In this blog post I aim to give the graduating cohort (and I guess the new cohort as well) some advice to help navigate their first year teaching.

Firstly…..keep in contact with people at Warner…..they rock and are there to support you even after you graduate. You will quickly realize that Warner is a cult-like group that has a very positive reputation and presence in the City of Rochester. I have been told straight up by principles that no other program in the area comes even close to Warner in its ability to prepare an individual to teach (I have heard them even tell this to professors who teach some other local area colleges….yikes) . USE THIS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE. Let your voice be heard and do not compromise what you believe in and stand for. I had the opportunity to work hand in hand with members of Warner this past year and it has been great. From working with Jo Ann on a weekly basis to working with Harvey for a few months. My practice was pushed by these individuals and I still believe that Harvey coming on board and working with my school was a catalyst for some serious growth in a rut-like period of the year. His enthusiasm and creativity pushed us through an intellectually (and emotionally) drained portion of the year. Both me and Orlando owe you an enormous thanks and we are both pumped up that you are going to be part of the UPREP team next year.

Secondly……you need to learn how to manage your time well and make sure to leave room for “me time”. Teaching is a job that you could potentially be “on the clock” for from the minute you wake up until the minute you go to sleep. You need to carve out a schedule that includes off-time…..this is especially true in the first months of teaching. If you don’t do this…..you run the severe risk of burning out quickly. You need to remember that you are a human…not a super hero…..you can’t do everything. This includes the ability to say this very important word…..”No”. As a first year teacher you will be asked to do a lot of extra things. This is more true for friends than myself but don’t feel pressured into biting off more than you chew.

Thirdly…… relationships are literally everything in teaching. You could have the most engaging and creative lessons in the world but if your students don’t “like” you…..they won’t buy into it. I have seen this clearly demonstrated this year. There is a teacher at my school who has failed to make relationships with most of his students but has decently creative lesson. The students have very little invested in his class and do not “believe” in him which leads to them shutting down and vastly underperforming in his class. We have very “tough” students which makes these relationships even that much more important. I am excited to start over next year and work on relationship building from the very beginning. I am a different teacher now compared to the beginning of the year….I have become much more comfortable and in tune with urban culture. Next year should be pretty cool. Not to toot my own horn…..and my cohort member Joel…..but we both won the “HEART Award” as a direct result of our relationship building with students. Our students nominated us for this award.

For the next couple weeks, my students will be finishing up a longterm “expedition” investigating claims made by the Town Supervisor of Irondequoit that raw sewage is being dumped in our watershed by Monroe County. They got to take their own data at several locations in Monroe County….Oatka Creek was our control group and Densmore Creek was our experimental group. We are in the process of analyzing our data and putting together tri-folds for an expedition night in a couple weeks. I can not stress the importance of having a cool engaging project that you can teach your curriculum through…..there is huge student buy in and will allow students who have difficulty in school another avenue to be successful. Below are some pictures of my students in action.

Measuring pH AT Densmore Creek

Measuring phosphate levels at Oatka Creek

Holy Nitrate Levels!!

Getting Ready to Cross Oatka!

Testing Densmore Creek

Crossing Oatka Creek

Data Table

This has been a great year……can’t wait for next…..but am definitely looking forward to summer vacation.

So, this past week has been the most…..interesting, exciting, fun, and stressful experience of my life. The new school that I am currently employed at just opened its doors last Thursday. My job, is to teach 8th grade, young adults, how to think and behave like the scientists that they already are. I need to refine their skills to allow them to think critically. They need to come to their own understandings and conclusions based on their own observations and evidence. This will allow them to think on their own…a skill they clearly need to be successful without us educators. Quite the responsibility….pretty cool.

The first unit is an “Inquiry Unit” where students learn the foundations of science. The school I teach at is an Expeditionary Learning school so our “objectives” are somewhat differernt and are called “learning targets”. I have one overarching learning target (I can design, carry out and communicate my own investigation as a scientist) which is then supported by serval supporting learning targets (for example, I can gather, organize and analyze my data). These Learning targets are posted daily around the room and students are made aware of how they are going to reach them.

This week, I have been working with my students in an investigation looking at three brands of paper towels. THese This activity is the closest teaching experience that I have ever had in a formal classroom to open inquiry. I presented my students with a problem…..that my wife likes these expensive paper towels because of they are “super absorbent” but I don’t believe the brands claims. So, I gave the students three other brands of paper towels along with their claims and had them construct a list of qualities that make a good paper towel.

They did this individually and then in small groups on poster paper. As a class we decided that amount of absorption, rate of absorption and strength were the three variables that we wanted to study. We then, individually and then in small groups, constructed procedures and data tables to test these variables across the three brands. They did this based solely on the question they posed and materials that were placed in front of them. If they needed additional materials, they gave me a list and if possible, accommodated them.

Tomorrow they do their investigations. I am excited, but at the same time nervous. This is a big moment for the class as a whole. This is the foundation for the rest of the year.

This serves as the launching pad for an investigation on any consumer product that interests them. This will lead us a step closer to open inquiry….

wish me and my students luck these next few days…..pictures will come soon.

Phish – 12/31/99 – After Midnight from Phish on Vimeo.

Shock waves were sent through Western NY yesterday from a 5.0 Mag Earthquake near Ottawa Canada. It was pretty cool to be in Carlson Library with some other GRS members when the shaking started. The fact that it was our last time doing work for Warner (tomorrow is our last class) in Carlson as a group added to the excitement. It was very symbolic. We ran over to the seismograph in Hutch Hall to check out how those pesky P and S waves looked on paper! Really cool stuff.

Here is a video of John Tarduno (UR Geophysicist and Rock star) talking about the earthquake:

Picture of UR Seismograph

Here is a map of shaking:

More information can be found on the USGS website

So, this is it! Last week of classes at Warner for the summer. It is crazy that all of our master’s programs are coming to an end (some of y’all have another fun filled semester though! LUCKY!). I am definitely ready and eager to move on to the next portion of my life but it reflection. Looking back I have made some real connections with you folks in the program and we really have been through many up’s and down’s together. I hope that these connections stay strong throughout the years to come.

Phish summer tour is finally underway. Bringing the fire to Saratoga Springs this weekend

So, this past weekend was quite a crazy one for me. Saturday, we (myself, my fiance, her mother and sister) left Rochester early in the morning for Lake Placid for a half marathon on Sunday. Being the geology enthusiast that I am, I suggested that we eat lunch at Heart Lake because of how nice it is there (my hidden motive was that its a major trail head for the high peaks region of the Adirondacks). The plan for the day was to go shopping, which needless to say is not really my cup of joe. So, after lunch I suggested that I go for a stroll in the woods and try to hike up Phelps Mnt (a mountain that I have always just hiked past for some reason) while the girls went shopping.

This was my first time hiking in the high peaks by myself and it was nice for a couple of reasons. First, I could go at my own pace and not have to worry about leaving other people behind so I made really great time. Second it was a very introspective experience. It was a great time and place to think about the “big things” (such as our role in the world). Those of you who have been in the high peaks would probably agree with me in saying that once you pass those “Now Entering a Wilderness Area” signs that you go through a dramatic change in perspective. This is, as Robert Goulet would say, “why I come out here”.

View from Marcy Dam (pretty cloudy/rainy day)

It got me thinking about how our students need to experience this type of perspective shift. We get so caught up in our day to day responsibilities that we loose sight of our place in the world. This is especially true of students from urban areas who rarely are able to remove themselves from the human construction dominated world. I have been thinking for a while about how to get students out there. It would really have to be a “club” type activity because logistically (and safety wise) it is not possible to even bring a class sized group of kids out there. I am excited to offer such an activity to my students next year at the school I am teaching at to potentially take place over a break.

In the clouds at the top of Phelps

After the 9 mile hike, I called my fiance and had her pick me up. I found the most awesome granite (metanorthosite for those geoscientists out there) with beautiful plagioclase feldspar crystals. It was a pain in the rear to hike out (it weighs nearly 20lbs) but looks great in my apartment!

The half marathon was also a good time.

So, I am currently sitting on my porch on Park Ave. writing for my current (and last) Warner class and have come to the realization that I LOVE lazy summer days! When I say lazy, I don’t mean that I am not busy with school/wedding stuff (portfolio, classwork, NSF presentation, picking out music, etc.) but that I can do all of it outside with a nice, delicious cup of coffee while all of my housemates are busy at work.

Since graduation, things have really begun to pick up and life has entered into a transitional stage towards me becoming a married educator. I am literally basking in this transitional period. I love it. While I am anxious to get started teaching this fall and married later this summer, I am enjoying this opportunity to relax with friends and family, do some work, and enjoy the beautiful weather.

PLUS…….Summer=Phish Tour. T-MINUS 11 DAYS and half marathon in Lake Placid this weekend.

For those of you who do not know, I somewhat recently got offered a job at an expeditionary charter school in the City. We already have several projects (or expeditions) lined up for next year. I am really excited to work at this school as there is a strong emphasis on an inquiry based, integrated curriculum that contextualizes content for our students. In addition to this I have the opportunity to work with some great teachers and administrators from the RCSD and one who is also a famed GRS grad. I recently worked with the instructional director and math teacher in creating an authentic archaeological experience that also supported NYS stadards. This was a great experience and it was the most “alive” i have ever felt teaching. The students totally embraced this type of learning and ran with it. I would post pictures but have been told that it is not advisable.

Anyways, here’s a jam for the summer