Scientifically Thinking…

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 [...]

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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? 

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

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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.

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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, [...]

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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 [...]

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