Scientifically Thinking…

and often just musing…

Details are Weeds in the Curriculum

June 8th, 2006 by · No Comments · Uncategorized

Pants move higher and necklines lower as the world outside our classroom window turns vibrant green and blue skies beckon…  No one wants to be reviewing for final exams now!

The boring, irrelevant, gobbly-gook is the material students didn’t internalize and now attempt to cram.  That same material is what slaps me in the face now too, as I question why I wasted class time with it.

Vocabulary and details invade the curriculum like some super-weed, choking the development of foundational concepts.  We have an educational system coated in inch-deep fertilizer, left over from a time when the local teacher was the primary source of information, and only colleges were expected to grow plants with actual root systems.   Instead of deepening our garden soil, NCLB and other beaurocratic mandates just expand the spray of fertilizer to cover the walls and ceilings.   That way, we have room for all the weeds expected by every special interest group and politician in charge of approving curriculum.  Heaven forbid they should attempt to measure the depth of student understanding — if a test-item can’t be machine-scored it is just too expensive!

What irritates me most at this time of year is realizing that once again I’ve given in to what was easy –  all my classes have vocabulary, but the upper level classes got so much more concept development.  My brain knows my priorities should be the other way around — weed out details so I can emphasize the important concepts, but then I get mired in the day-to-day and don’t have time to replant the sprouts away from the weeds.  It’s just easier to toss out the same seeds I used last year — the ones that are full of grass seeds instead of valuable plants…

I make a little progress each year.  I wish I could just plow the whole curriculum under and start over…  but then I wouldn’t have time for anything beyond lesson planning.   Maybe with the upcoming requirements for competancy-based assessments for all courses, we’ll be devoting more professsional development time to meaningful curriculum & assessment work.

 

Not all details are weeds.  When a student grows a concept, the details grow as leaves and little rootlets.  Those are details that students attach to a larger, meaningful structure in their mind, and details that support and strengthen the overall understanding as students connect them into place.  Notice the shift to details that students are uncovering and connecting.  Weeds are the details strewn about by teachers.

Why Web 2.0 in my Classroom?

June 7th, 2006 by · 175 Comments · classroom wikis&blogs

Corporate America is ALREADY using wikis & blogs… how are we preparing students for 21st century employment if we aren’t fostering collaboration in tech-rich environment? 

Personal Notes are PERSONAL

June 6th, 2006 by · 1 Comment · Personal Notes

So hopefully this is the only one that shows up…  assuming I remembered to click the private button on the rest!

My First Time Online…

June 6th, 2006 by · No Comments · tech

Originally posted in my first blog 5-26-06 
A recent exchange with my grandmother (via handwritten snail mail!!) strongly reminded me how differently various generations experience cultural phenomena & historic events. I shared my perceptions of the lunar landings (I wasn’t even born, but unlike many kids today, I DO know they happened…), Challenger explosion, Fall of the Berlin Wall (I was living in Germany at the time…), 9/11…  

I didn’t think to ask her about the first time she “went online.” (I think my aunt “showed her the Internet” last year.)

As a senior in high school (1989-90) at a DoDDS school in Germany, our computer science class visited a military command center that had a connection to the Pentagon. We typed, and someone there typed back! I knew about modems, but envisioned those as computer-to-computer squealing – things that back room hackers used….this was a live and instant human response from halfway around the world!!!

In college, I occasionally went MUDding — those text only “multi-user dungeons” for online role-playing. Ahead of you the tunnel forks \/ …. it’s darker to the right… Not much interaction, no “www” yet… We could use gopher to find files on mainframes at other universities, but as an undergrad I didn’t have any reason to do that, just exploring… Later in college, I TA’d for a summer high school program. The students attended a class on emerging computer technologies, and the professor mentioned exchanging mail through computers, and “talking” to someone at a different terminal. I will always remember the comment of one high school senior as we left “Why would anyone type a message on a computer? Haven’t these people heard of the telephone?”

I first remember hearing about “www” during my graduate year teaching internship. I didn’t have time to explore… ME! The kid who was all excited to get a cassette tape drive for my 10th birthday so I could store the programs I’d written on my Atari 400! The kid who’d always been ahead of the curve on all things computer-related!!! I’d decided computer stuff needed to take a back seat to my “real” career. In all my teacher-prep courses, computers had been portrayed as drill&kill teaching machines or as word processors, never as tools for connectivity.

As I began my science teaching career (1995-96), I had four Windows 3.1 computers in my classroom, connected with a Lantastic peer network — why? because a previous teacher had liked to play with computer stuff. (I never did learn how to use lantastic.) I don’t think our high school had an Internet connection that first year… At some point they got a phone connection on one library computer. If you wanted to go “on the Internet” you had to convince the librarian to enter her password, and that just wasn’t worth the interrogation.

During my early years in the classroom, teachers were required to have 5 hours of professional development in “technology” during each three-year recertification cycle. In July of 1996 (I looked it up!), I finally decided that this Web thing was something I should know about… I attended a workshop, and found a web page for my high school! I think Lycos was the search engine we used — it certainly wasn’t Google. I left the workshop thinking This is interesting, but it’s not like there’s any information online…doesn’t have much to do with the classroom.

Ha-Ha-Ha!!!!

Wiki in the Classroom…Ideas

June 6th, 2006 by · No Comments · classroom wikis&blogs, tech

Originally posted in my first blog 5-24-06 
Physics: I don’t post “lecture notes” on the class web site… Not only do I not often “lecture,” but when I do, it’s a flexible, feedback-driven collection of examples, models, illustrations (and the occasional definition). Preparing for exams, I’m reminded again of how little reflection, reorganizing, questioning, connecting students do with “notes.” In fact, that’s the reason I started facilitating in-class “review” sessions — to teach them how to “study” for a test by making mind maps/connecting notes to their own existing mental structures & understandings. 

So I question: have a student enter notes in a class wiki vs. on paper? (rotate role?) Encourage student participation & peer discourse in connecting concepts from all the non-lecture activities (& links to relevant reference sites)? NOT a blog — not centered on one person’s interpretation of the notes (though students could keep notes in blogs, but it’s still not a user-friendly environment for all the quick sketches, diagrams, graphs)… Our class “study” sessions generate amazing conversation as we argue over the relative importance of ideas in a unit & how they all relate… Start with the face-to-face to model the kinds of conversation & feedback, but gradually back off the classtime offered…

If we take this just a little further, I post assignments (or links to them) then the students & I are constructing the online course as the year progresses…

To Understand Science, You Must First WANT to Understand Science

June 6th, 2006 by · No Comments · misc..

Originally posted in my first blog 5-24-2006 
To understand science, you must first WANT to understand science. A high school student said that today during a presentation to science teachers, university faculty, and science graduate students.

Wiki’s and Feedback for Element Project

June 6th, 2006 by · 1 Comment · classroom wikis&blogs, tech

Originally posted 5-23-06 in my first blog 
FOCUS… It’s very difficult to give quality feedback on student work while playing ringmaster to the three-ring circus that is a classroom of sophomores assigned to work on individual projects… Personally, I think that’s a major reason why online classes are so successful — when you remove the clas6sroom management responsibilites so that a teacher can just focus on the instruction-assessment feedback cycle, the quality of that feedback increases tremendously! 

Many years ago, I used “C&C” — “critique & comment” sessions for lab reports. Students saved drafts to a central network folder, protecting them for tracked changes & allowing comments only. We’d spend a full class period with every student AND ME at computers, opening peer lab reports & giving feedback comments.

Peer feedback on drafts of the sophomore element powerpoints would be nice, but I’m not willing to give it class time. (The project is a presentation, that happens to be supported by a powerpoint… we have 1.5 hours of in-class peer feedback on rehearsal presentations to small groups of peers.)

I’m currently experimenting with a class wiki so I can give comments to students as they do their research, but at this level most kids are pretty intent on putting research directly into powerpoint slides without an intermediate synthesis place…

As I’ve been doing for many years, I suggested that students email me their powerpoint BEFORE completion for feedback… I can give quality feedback so much more efficiently OUTSIDE the classroom (during prep periods & “study hall” babysitting duty). Now that I’ve started posting comments in wiki’s, I’m realizing how much it helps to have a record of the feedback, connected to their work. I can ask them to REPLY to my email when sending a second (or third…) draft so that I have my original feedback right there, but I wonder how many will? It’s a pain to have to dig my original email to them out of my sent items folder…

Moodle? Am I Getting In Over My Head?

June 6th, 2006 by · 1 Comment · classroom wikis&blogs, tech

Originally posted 5-23-06 in my first blog 
As I went looking for more resources on using wiki’s for student research, I found out about moodle. “Moodle” seems to be a freeware (open source, general use lisense…whatever) version of BlackBoard or First Class…and it supports classroom wiki’s. 

Powerful tool then…but I’ve learned to stop finding tools & then looking for reasons to use them — teaching needs to be the other way around…have a need then find a tool to address it.

I already have all my lesson resources & calendar posted online, and editing class web pages is SIMPLE. I don’t have to upload any resources — I just link to the actual files. I don’t have a real need for chat software, because I see my kids everyday & am not interested in making afterschool appointments to meet them virtually…

Having an online gradebook, especially if I could enter offline assignments too, would be a very useful feature… However, I have to upload grades to WinSchool, so every teacher in the school is supposed to use their eclassgrades software.

I DO want the wiki support, and support for blogs, but I read a good blog post about seeking established, quality software for such applications (here). I wonder how well Moodle’s wiki & blog modules work?

The only thing I want that I don’t have now & don’t seem to have a better way to get is the online poll/quizzes…
So am I getting in over my head, thinking I’ll use all these extra features & coordinate my classes in Moodle? I guess it comes down to how well Moodle does wiki’s & blogs since I’d need to install software for a good wiki anyway….

A thought on calendars — My LIFE is in Outlook — I’m not interested in having to enter the same information in multiple calendars. How could I get my Outlook calendar information to automatically synchronize with a Moodle classroom calendar? Can I create an Outlook calendar for AbsentFromClass days, so that the Moodle calendar would show that the teacher wouldn’t be there that day (but not show details of conference/workshop that I enter in Outlook?)…It’d need to be more detailed than just free/busy info, because I could be “busy” with a class activity — busy doesn’t mean I’m not in class…Maybe connected to the “out of office” notation?

On Using a Wiki for Student Research, and deleting the wikipedia…

June 6th, 2006 by · No Comments · classroom wikis&blogs, tech

Originally posted 5-23-06 in my first blog 
My sophomores are currently doing a research/presentation project on an element. Looking for a way for them to share good sources & information on how to do the project, I asked a few students if they would use a blog or wiki if I set it up. They said yes, so I created a PBWiki, private to the class. (I deliberately decided against a blog, because the format of a blog seems all wrong for research — I want them to be continually editing/adding notes on several different subtopics, not rewriting drafts of them.) This was well after we’d begun the project — kind of a last minute experiment for how this would work with students. It’s not a required part of the project. 

At first, I made the “FrontPage” be a general page, with a link to the project page. Students started editing the frontpage instead of the project page, so I combined them.

I showed students how to make a page using a default research template, but several had trouble with that, and the default research template doesn’t really fit the project well. For some students that wanted to work with the wiki later, I made the initial page, with sections for the pieces important to this project’s research…by letting them focus just on the information they’re adding, I’m hoping they’ll be more willing to us it.

I found twiki software that we can hopefully install on our own webserver — PBWiki doesn’t have WYSIWYG editing, which is very difficult for students — they’ve never worked with an interface as “primitive” as PBWiki. What do you mean **means bold??? Why does it look all messed up?

Students aren’t really doing much with the “good resources” or “helpful hints” sections of the “FrontPage.” They mostly focus on their own pages. I like the ability to offer feedback comments as they work. I hope that as they add information & become more comfortable with the concept, they’ll begin to examine one another’s pages for more ideas about how they should be proceeding with their research. Maybe that will trigger more peer feedback, like we see in the classroom.

Having a bunch of separate student research pages really highlights the fact that there isn’t much collaboration involved in this project. I was sick of the “one partner does it all” issues… Why isn’t my grade the same? It’s the SAME project – we’re partners!!! However, I’ve toyed with having collaborative groups based on element family — though maybe grouping by similar type of focus area would make more sense. (Argon’s use in fire suppression systems, crafting gold jewelry, how a horse’s body uses selenium… finding genuine commonalities might be difficult…)

**One of my students really GOT the concept of the wiki — and decided the wikipedia article on her element was missing an important item under applications. When she used the “edit” link & then saw her change appear online, her first reaction was I’m gonna go home and delete the encyclopedia! Yes, I teach some juvenille delinquents. Pointing out how easy it is to undo a change deflated those sails a bit. Silver lining — suddenly the reasons for verifying information found online made so much more sense to all the students! …and it was a very empowering moment for her.

classroom research w/ wiki use

You’re the Only Teacher Who’ll Talk With Us Today

June 6th, 2006 by · No Comments · misc..

My very first post to my first blog – 5-20-06 
“You’re the only teacher who’ll talk to us all day today.”

 

With five minutes left in class, two students in the back of the room had put away their projects and pulled out handheld video games, games for which I’d already reprimanded them at the beginning of the class. I finished answering a student’s question, and headed back. This time, the games were turned off, and the kids were just pantomining their use.

“You’re the only teacher who’ll talk to us all day today.” That’s how one boy explained his behavior.

Did the shock register on my face? “Then you should initiate more conversations with your teachers, ’cause that’s not right.” Yes, sometimes I speak before considering my words. What hurts most is knowing that student isn’t likely to have any adult outside of school to talk with either.

Last year, we began an “advisory” program — 50 minutes a week out of “instructional time” for teachers to “be with kids” at about a 1:12 ratio. We began with strict curricula for all teachers to follow, teaching students to set “norms of communication” and having sessions on essay-writing and such… Teachers complained the curriculum was too rigid and didn’t allow for style differences. This year began with a list of guidance-related topics we should address, but no “lesson plans” we had to follow. Our grade-level group of teachers decided that juniors in high school should be able to initiate their own activities, so we showed the students the list as suggestions, then asked what they wanted to do. Although they generated a good brainstorm list, nothing ever came of it. Once we separated into individual advisories, students said “Those are good ideas, but I’m not going to do any work.” My advisory became 50 minutes of talking – usually as one group. I felt like I always had to play the facilitator trying to draw these sleepy teens into conversation. As soon as one student decided it was more important to do homework, and the group voted to accept that, I emotionally gave up on advisories. Waste of valuable instructional time, I thought. One week, we played balloon volleyball, because I was sick of just talking. Another time, they taught me to play Texas Holdem.

As contract negotiations stalled, teachers spoke of “unvolunteering” for advisories. With all the complaints about low test scores & less than “highly qualified teachers,” many of us felt advisories were a waste of time. I told my kids I probably wouldn’t be their advisor much longer. I felt like nothing ever happened unless I planned it, and I was at school late enough each night just for the classes I taught. So far we haven’t squashed the program, but most advisories have become “study halls” – another opportunity for teachers and students to work in silent isolation, within feet of one another.

Forty-three minute periods, eight times a day. Pound, pound, pound for the standardized test, and don’t forget to “teach to multiple intelligences” in every lesson, and accomodate every modification in every individual education plan, but you’ll have to buy your own white board markers, because the supply budget is frozen…

“No Child Left Behind” refers to the academics of the most disadvantaged students. We spend so much time talking at these students about crucial content… when do we talk with them as human beings? With cell phones, texting, IM, myspace, they reach… it doesn’t take technology, it just takes a willingness to connect.