SE2R Comments in Grade 9 Science

I have been distracted from blogging but am trying to catch up and am back to trying to deprivatize my practice more. And so, I am resolved to blog about my assessment practices (including failures and questions) and hope that I can spark conversation, collect some feedback, and crowd source some ideas. So I have one request - if you are reading these entries, please share them with someone else and/or comment at the bottom and join the conversation. :) The first entry from this series can be found here.

Our wonderful Instructional Coordinator, Assessment, Kristen Clarke, organized some assessment-related book chats on Twitter in the latter half of the school year. I was able to participate in two of them and helped moderate a third. One of the books we discussed was Mark Barnes' Assesssment 3.0: Throw Out Your Grade Book and Inspire Learning. Mark is the pioneer of the Teachers Throwing Out Grades movement in education (check out #TTOG on Twitter).

[We also discussed Rethinking Letter Grades (which inspired mot of my Overarching Learning Goal and Learning Map blog entries) and Myron Dueck's Grading Smarter Not Harder (which inspired this entry related to reformatting tests and using learning goals).]

Barnes' book is largely about his feedback process that allowed him to go gradeless in his classroom. By giving students an appropriate avenue to find out what they had done and could improve on the traditional need for grades virtually disappeared. Reading his book has inspired me to make further efforts to reach for the same goal - a classroom of students who want to learn and grow (not students who want to do what they think I want and get marks). I want to build a community of students with a growth mind set that, therefore, believe in themselves as a learner and can reflect appropriately on their own work and the work of others.

Barnes' feedback method is referred to as SE2R. This means that every time he gives feedback he follows this pattern (and thus, teaches his students to do the same):

• Summarize (what has the student done to meet the requirements of the specific assignment)
• Explain (what mastery of skill/learning is shown)
• Redirect (indicate what lessons should be reviewed to master concepts/skills not yet mastered)
• Resubmit (encourage student to review and rework and give directions for resubmission)

I tried to put these ideas into practice a couple of times in the following weeks to test them out. Here is what I tried and how I did it:

1. I put a paragraph writing question onto Edmodo as an assignment for students to answer that I told them would be on the unit test. Students were told what the learning goals were and were told that this was a chance to answer the question and get feedback before the test.



I was able to practice writing comments that followed the SE2R model. Here is an example of what I wrote

• :
2. I created a "comment bank" using the SE2R model and based on the learning map I had created for the course. I sometimes had to modify comments to make them better fit an individual student work, but in the end I saved myself time AND was able to be more consistent and focus on the important areas only.

Triangulating Evidence - Formal Interview Attempt

I have been distracted from blogging but am trying to catch up and am back to trying to deprivatize my practice more. And so, I am resolved to blog about my assessment practices (including failures and questions) and hope that I can spark conversation, collect some feedback, and crowd source some ideas. So I have one request - if you are reading these entries, please share them with someone else and/or comment at the bottom and join the conversation. :) The first entry from this series can be found here.

I this entry I would like to share my first formal attempt at integrating conversation (via an interview) into my class.

As part of the Peel Teacher Assessment Working Team (PTAWT) we discussed triangulated evidence and worked together to create something to use this semester. At the time my Grade 9 students were in the middle of their Ecojar labs and had been asked to write a lab report and to do some research about the impacts they were studying in the local ecosystems. It was getting late in the semester so decided it would make sense to take the research part out of the report and try it as an interview.

I worked with a couple of others at the PTAWT meeting and we checked the Overarching Learning Goals (OLGs) that the assignment aligned with, pulled out the specific learning goals, and then created a Google Form to use to record the interviews. It was a good experience and it gave me another chance to use my Learning Map to make sure we were doing things that would align with our plan. Below are the questions that I used:

1. Student Name (in the future I would do this with a drop down menu so I can reuse and use an add-on to get the data to go into a student file instead of an assignment file to make reporting easier)

2. Wondering?
What are you wondering as a result of working on this lab?

3. Observations
Would you change the observations you chose? Why or why not?

4. Research - Pros/Cons
What have you found out about your impact in Ontario? What are we doing? Do things seem like they may change in the future?

5. Research - Appropriate?
What sources did you use to find your info? Why did you choose them? (What have you found out about your impact in Ontario? What are we doing? Do things seem like they may change in the future?)

Learning Goals & Reflection on Quizzes in 1P Science

I have been distracted from blogging but am trying to catch up and am back to trying to deprivatize my practice more. And so, I am resolved to blog about my assessment practices (including failures and questions) and hope that I can spark conversation, collect some feedback, and crowd source some ideas. So I have one request - if you are reading these entries, please share them with someone else and/or comment at the bottom and join the conversation. :) The first entry from this series can be found here.

In a more recent entry I blogged about the basics of using learning goals (LGs) in my Grade 9 applied science class. You can find this entry here. In today's blog you will find a little more about what I have tried to do with the LGs, particularly related to quizzes.

Here are some of the things I wish to share and/or reflect on:

Challenges of writing in student-friendly language:
It is not always easy to maintain the integrity of the vocabulary necessary for the course while making statements accessible to all students. I try to give them a chance to review the LGs and to ask for clarification if needed, but it is not always easy to get them to admit that they do not understand. And sometimes it makes more sense to revisit the goals at the end of day 1 when the vocab has been introduced through the lesson.

LGs vs success criteria (SC)
It was pointed out to me at one point that the statements I was using were better suited as SC than LGs. The more I have learned and discussed A&E with colleagues I am inclined to agree. I would now zero in on the overall expectations in the curriculum to help with LG writing more and let the types of statements I was writing become the success criteria. But what I was doing did serve these students pretty well as it (but having real learning goals would have benefited me a lot when determining grades for them, but so would editing and knuckling down to use the Learning Map that I started to create for the course as well). I discuss these ideas in this entry.

Quiz layout and using learning levels:
I was inspired by Myron Dueck's book Grading Smarter Not Harder to change the format I was using on written evaluations. I now group things based on learning goal. In addition I no longer give marks on them. Instead I have a grid with the learning goals at the top and I have students reflect on where they think they are (and then I show them where I think they are) and I give feedback within each question. This has led me to write evaluations that much better reflect what I want them to know and do (and I test what is valued without over-testing topics)

Now the unit test is essentially a "re-do" opportunity:
I use the unit test as a chance for students to show me what else they have learned and to give them a different way to show me the same learning goal. I make sure that the goal is tested using a different style of question (i.e. maybe it was a graphic organizer on the quiz and the next time they label a diagram). This was definitely time consuming the first time through, but it was worth it (and creating a brand new (good) unit test is time consuming anyway).

It is much easier to evaluate using levels now than when I gave "marks":
I have been trying to awhile now to think about levels when I mark. For instance, if I am looking at a Gr 11 physics test and the student has problem solved I want to know what level of knowledge and skill they have demonstrated. I then assign a mark based on this level (instead of "taking marks off" for mistakes made, which can be quite arbitrary). Going to levels has removed the idea of getting 1 out of 4 meaning 25% when really it showed the student is starting to get it, but isn't there yet.

Students need better feedback from me than I am giving:
It is still really easy to just circle things, use check marks and question marks. This is not good enough. There is not a level of description being provided when we do this and many students are not asking about them. I know this is something I need to work on, and I also think that by adjusting the LG vs SC aspect mentioned above that this could get easier as I wouldn't have as many things that I think I have to give feedback on.

Most of my 1P students were doing better at midterm than they thought:
There was a lot of surprise in the room that they were doing well. Many of them had never felt like they did well in science before (although they all like the subject). I did notice some of them thinking "oh I can try less now" but it also spurred some of them on to try harder. Some may think this means the course was made "easy" but I believe that they were actually showing knowledge and skill in the course. My practices had allowed me to remove the "noise" from evaluation (i.e. grammar was much less of a distraction) and it was easier to identify students to have conversations with to prove that they knew more than they had written down.

Using Learning Goals in 1P Science

It has been pointed out to me recently that I should try to deprivatize my practice more. And so, I am resolved to blog about my assessment practices (including failures and questions) and hope that I can spark conversation, collect some feedback, and crowd source some ideas. So I have one request - if you are reading these entries, please share them with someone else and/or comment at the bottom and join the conversation. :) The first entry from this series can be found here.

I think that most teachers can agree that it is very difficult to focus on making major changes to more than one course at a time, and at my current job I am usually teaching three courses at a time. So of course, some things get neglected. This semester I made a conscious decision to try to make some changes to my Grade 9 applied Science course, particularly related to my assessment and evaluation practices.

I have been trying to find ways to help all of my students be more responsible, reflective, and to use metacognition constantly. I have also been making efforts to move toward not using marks to motivate students (I have read that studies show they discouraged struggling students and that most students motivated by marks can also be motivated by the learning). When I looked back at discussions I had with other teachers on the assessment working team I recalled some discussion about the use of LGs in vocational classes. And so, I decided to make an effort to make explicit use of learning goals.

This use of learning goals is another step to me attempting to throw out grades (follow the hashtag #TTOG to connect with others trying to do this as well). Here is what I am doing with my 1Ps as a first step:
At the start of class I put up three LGs that show the students what we will be learning that day (typically I am showing the same goals for 2-3 classes). I am using a model that was demonstrated to me by a colleague for professional learning goals (for PD) which involves having learning goals that describe:
1) What the student will know
2) What the student will do
3) What the student will be

Generally speaking the "know" is the core concept that is necessary to move onto higher order thinking; the "do" is usually some kind of application (such as calculating, using, drawing, etc); and the "be" is often related to a hands-on approach such as identifying actual objects/situations in a lab setting or showing confidence in interpreting drawings.

I am finding that doing this is helping me to see how each of the expectations from the curriculum we are tackling might fit into my overarching learning goals for the course. And in other ways, it is helping me reflect on those OLGs and think about how I might tweak them in the future. I try as often as I think of it to make sure that we also revisit the slide at the end of each class to make sure students at least have the opportunity to reflect on their learning.

Thank you for reading. Please join the conversation!

Overarching Learning Goals

I seem to have fallen off of the blogging band wagon recently. It has also been pointed out to me recently that I should try to deprivatize my practice more. And so, I am resolved to blog about my assessment practices (including failures and questions) and hope that I can spark conversation, collect some feedback, and crowd source some ideas. So I have one request - if you are reading these entries, please share them with someone else and/or comment at the bottom and join the conversation. :)

I have blogged a couple of times about creating and starting to use Overarching Learning Goals. The most recent one can be found here. If you are not sure what I am referring to please check that out (which also links to the first time I blogged about it - this one is where they are explained).

I am trying to build on my understanding and use of OLGs as the semester progresses. Sometimes this means simply thinking ahead to future semesters and things I hope to attempt, sometimes it means trying something new right now. I will blog about some of these specifics in the near future. Here is where I stand right now.

I see OLGs as a starting point for everything. I see it as having the potential to drive my backward design, influence my daily assessment practice, revolutionize my evaluation strategies...the list goes on.

I have been able to create OLGs for a few courses now and am feeling more comfortable with the idea. One thing I have learned (and I believe my colleagues would echo) is that it is a work in progress. As soon as I introduce it to my class and start to think about actual changes I realize there are things I do not like or think are missing. But perhaps this process is really the most valuable part.

Here is an image showing the OLGs that I came up with for SPH 3U along with some of the "rough work" that shows part of my process/thinking.

If you are a physics teacher I would appreciate your thoughts/ideas/feedback/questions about these OLGs as I have not had the chance to collaborate with other physics teachers around them yet.

Here is an image showing the Learning Map I created from our department SNC 1D/P OLGs. This is one potential application of coming up with OLGs. This rubric could be used to inform all course rubrics used for evaluation and could also help me determine a students final grade. This is great particularly if you are a teacher who is interested in joining the "Teachers Throwing Out Grades" (#TTOG) movement.

I would appreciate feedback/questions/comments/ideas from any subject/grade teacher about this one. This is my first full attempt at a full learning map.

To anyone still reading at this point, I would greatly appreciate you joining this discussion to help in my journey and/or to pass this blog entry onto a colleague who might be interested. I am still very new to all of this and am hoping to collect as many ideas as possible. Particularly as I will be presenting at OAME this Spring around these ideas.

Also, if you are interested in this process it is based on the book Rethinking Letter Grades. I have also recently read Myron Dueck's Grading Smarter Not Harder that I think every educator should read. Both books are by teachers for teachers out of British Columbia.

Inquiry/Research-Based Bio Strand

This was my first time teaching the Grade 10 Academic Science in about 4 years. Since that time my teaching styles and philosophy have changed quite a bit. As many of you know I implemented a flipped model in most of my classes - my primary goal being to help students to be active learners (if they do the work, they do the learning), become better independent learners, and to seek more time for collaborative problem solving. But when it came closer to time to start the Biology unit for this course I wanted something different, so I tried to seek a more project/inquiry-based method.

In large part I wanted to make this change from my usual methods for motivation. Biology is not my strong suit (I did not even take Gr 11 bio when I was in high school) and the last time I taught this involved too many power points. I wanted to motivate myself and, in turn, motivate my students to grasp the bigger picture. This really gave me a chance to remind them to focus on the overarching learning goals of the course so they will leave my course with a better understanding of the bigger picture.

A big part of the overall idea was to design the unit backward. To START with the big picture and END with the cell. I hoped to give students a better grasp of how parts work to create a whole (one of our overarching learning goals for the course).

Here is what we did:

Day 1: Intro to "The Whole" of a Living Thing
I had students do an inquiry as a group. Each group got a question such as "How does a long-distance run affect the systems of a human body" and had most o the period to do research. They then shared what they discovered with the class before the bell.

Day 2-3: Frog Dissection
Students worked through a procedure to dissect a frog (based on one I found on the net supported by some online video instruction that I showed in stages for the class). A couple of students opted to work through a virtual dissection in class instead on day 2. They had to document their dissection on the class OneNote file.

Day 4-8: Importance of Organ Systems (Debate)
This was also based on something I found on the net. Students were split into 11 groups to cover all of the human system. Each pair did some research about their system to discover what organs were involved, the role of each organ, the overall importance of the system, and a "slogan" for their system. We used butcher paper to do a life-sized diagram of the system with all of the necessary info and then students decided to post and do a gallery walk as their "opening argument" instead of a 5 minute share. Then they prepared a rebuttal supporting their system and presented that to the class. Finally students voted on which system was the most important to the survival of the human species. I ended up having them submit a paragraph about this to support, gave them feedback, and then used the same question on their unit test.

Day 9: Tissue Function
Each student was assigned a specific tissue (assorted between the 4 main types of plant and animal tissues so all would be covered) and had to do some research to complete a template of relatively basic information. Some were more challenging than others. They then had to walk around and figure out who their partner/group was which I verified for them to make sure they were in their ajor tissue group (i.e. all the epidermal together, etc) and then find why they were grouped to complete the next section. Then I grouped an animal group and a plant group together that have similar functions and they had to figure out why I paired them. Finally they grouped as all plant or all animal to look at how the tissues work together.

6 Days of Work Periods Throughout: STSE Bio Technology Project
Students started a major project. They had to work in pairs to: Do a topic proposal (that had to support the Overarching Learning Goal - related to society and/or the environment); Complete secondary research; Propose, create and carry-out primary research; and, Finally, propose and carry-out an action to educate a target group about their topic based on their research. At the end they also had to do a reflection to share their learning and to help me reflect on the project itself to see how valuable it really was in the end. (I have yet to look at these.)

Day 10: Cell Parts and Functions
I created a sheet to fill in to label cell parts and record their functions. A table was either assigned the plant or the animal cell to look at. They also had to create an analogy for their assigned cell and justify what each of the parts were within the analogy. The following day they made sure they had both plant and animal recorded on their sheets.

Day 11: Microscopes
Students got introduced to the parts of the microscope and basic skills for use. They then completed a "letter e" lab to build the actual skills and start doing biological drawings.

Day 12: Mitosis
Students completed a worksheet/note on the cell cycle, focusing on Mitosis and watched a video and animation.

Day 13-14: Mitosis/Biological Drawings
Used microscopes to identify the stages of mitosis and draw the stages (summative assignment).

Day 15: Stem/Specialized Cells & Cancerous vs Normal Cells
Students used videos, research, and notes to make sure they understood what the above ideas were.

Remaining summatives were a unit test (focused on learning goals published) and the presentaions of their STSE projects/actions with the rest of the class.

There are definitely things in this unit that I will reuse if I end up teaching the course again. It was definitely more engaging for me and students seemed to enjoy it - and the end results showed an improved understanding of the overarching learning goals - so I would say "mission accomplished."

I am happy to share any of the above lessons if you are interested in anything. And also am open to ideas, suggestions, comments or questions that you may have. Please post below :)

My Marking Hacks & Things to Come

(Sorry my American #flipclass friends, but whenever you see "mark" you will have to think "grade"..It's a Canadian thing)

There are two main things that I do that contribute to (hopefully) speed up marking a bit.

1. Using EduCanon to embed questions and note-taking suggestions into video lessons. This app is connected directly to Edmodo (and also to Google if you use Classrooms, so students only need one login) and I can log in to look at my "monitor" page and can see how my entire class did on one screen. I immediately see which Ss are struggling on an individual topic and/or if a Q gave a whole chunk of the class issues. Students can also go back and write explanations that I can read and give them credit for. Love that added communication piece.

2. More discussion, less grading. Evaluation comes later. During the semester verbal and written feedback is much more valuable than marks themselves. I do everything in my power to get kids to stop thinking about the mark and start thinking about the learning. This is where I want their focus to be, and when I have to do something with an actual mark they will hopefully be better prepared (and, as a result, do better). If I could throw out grades entirely, I would.

Then there are the things that I want to do. I have (what we call in Ontario) my AQ (additional qualification) in assessment & evaluation. I am a bit of an assessment nerd, but my practiced do not yet match my beliefs/values (I am working on it).

Ontario has a policy called Growing Success that was published in 2010. Apparently we were one of the first provinces to have such a document and it is both vague and detailed. There is a lot in there that we should/have to do that we are still working to put into practice.

I am currently working on making better/more accurate use of Overarching Learning Goals (OLGs, this is a board term...they are similar to what some books call Big Ideas or Enduring Understandings) and learning goals in my classes. On my lesson plan (that is posted online for all to read) I give a learning goal (and am working on shifting them to more student friendly "I can" statements) that Ss can use to self-assess. Last week I had release time with some department colleagues and we created OLGs for Gr 9 and 10 science. I am planning to reveal these to my Grade 10s and make a point of referring back to them often.

Here is the ultimate goal - all assessment and evaluation will be developed with the OLGs in mind. In other words, the OLGs will serve as my starting point for backwards design. One of my colleagues has switched her "tests" in one of her courses to be much less traditional. Instead of having a bunch of (potentially insignificant) questions, she only has 4 questions on each test. One for each OLG as it relates to that "unit" of study. I love this idea. It seemed like the biggest issue was training Ss to answer the types of Qs she was using. Basically to UNtrain them of their previous habits of "studying content" to making connections and communicating well.

Week 11 - "Welcome to Teaching"

I cannot count the number of times I have said "welcome to teaching" to my student teacher this week. She continues to integrate fairly well into my flipped physics class (she is getting to know students, coming up with things to do in class in addition to textbook work, making attempts to engage students in the learning process, etc) and has now taken on my Grade 9 academic science class (which is essentially not flipped).

Watching her dive into teaching two classes reminds me of my first couple of years of teaching. Time spent overwhelmed, unsure, but full of potential and excitement. I am always in awe of my colleagues who have young families at home and still manage to do so much for our school, but I cannot imagine starting this career with a young family already going. This is the situation my student teacher is in. She has a family at home and has decided to go to school to become a teacher. I admire her, but I can also see how difficult this balance is going to be for her, especially as she is learning a new school system (she was educated elsewhere).

This week was especially hectic in our building. We knew that her physics instructor from OISE was going to come on Nov 11th, which also involved a modified schedule because of the Remembrance Day assembly, and we were interrupted throughout the day for the meningitis clinic. This was probably our biggest "welcome to teaching" moment. We constantly have to be flexible in a school environment. I get called out of classes to attend to first aid situations unexpected. Changes in the schedule pop up with less notice than we would like. It reminds us that we have to be flexible in our classes as well. Not every class is going to get through the same material, the same way, in the same amount of time. We have to know out students and the class well so that we can implement assessment practices into our daily classes effectively and with purpose.

This week she also got to experience a chance to guide students through a research project. It was the grade 11 course so they generally do not need as much support, but it reminded me that it was a chance to spend a bit of time supporting the international student and remembering that those students did not have the same experiences when they were younger that the rest of my students have had. These students still need to be introduced to database resources and be taught the importance of citations, plagiarism, and appropriate sources

One of the most interesting moments of the week for me was when the student teacher sparked an interesting debate in our grade 9 class. They had watched Bill Nye's Food Webs video and she was reviewing some of the content afterward when the question arose "is a farm an example of an ecosystem?". This got them thinking about what a food web has to have and actually looking at whether those things existed on a farm. It was a simple question, with complex ideas that has a lot of potential in a classroom. Hopefully I remember this one for later!

Week 8 - Rethinking Ionic Compounds & Taking a Field Trip

I have been teaching SNC 1D for a number of years now. It is a course that we have developed fairly well and then it took a back burner for me for awhile while I was focusing on my teaching style and some new courses I was teaching. We have taken a skills-based approach to this course (lab, lab writing, research & organization, mind mapping) and sometimes that has meant that I do not rethink how I am teaching concepts.

This time around it dawned on me that I was doing students a disservice with the way I was teaching ionic compounds. I was already putting a focus on the octet rule and using Bohr-Rutherford diagrams to see patterns in the electrons on the periodic table, but I was making the mistake of using the "criss-cross rule" which I realized was not teaching them anything...they were memorizing not understanding.

This time around I tried to make use of the compound modelling they did to make connections to everything else. I put one of the wooden spheres under the doc cam and compared it to an element that it might represent by drawing its BR diagram and discussing the idea of each "hole" in the sphere and needed/extra electron as shown in the BR diagram and the ion values they could figure out from the BR diagrams an the patterns in the periodic table (group numbers).

I then showed them that when we make compounds the charges have to balance in order for all of those bonds to be satisfied, thus giving us a stable molecule, by using ion notation and adding ions until a balance was achieved. It took some of my students a couple of times of seeing this before is started to sink in, but I believe that more of them actually understood the concept in the end as opposed to having memorized some rule. Hopefully it will benefit them more as they move into Grade 10 science and Grade 11 chemistry.

My colleague and I also got to take our Grade 9s on a field trip this week to introduce the Biology (Ecosystems) unit. The Credit Valley Conservation crew showed our students how to plant trees and exposed them to invasive species in their own neighbourhood. This will make a great connection for us when we introduce their research project that requires them to figure out how an ecosystem will be effected by a specific invasive/endangered species and how that connects to human interactions with that ecosystem. One of the conservation workers had come into our classes the week before to introduce what they do and how we impact our local ecosystems. Some of my students had done a similar trip with their Geography class earlier in the semester, and they still enjoyed it. I would highly recommend it :)

Week 7 - Stations Lab for Newton's Laws & A Science Tech Symposium

A week late, but still worth sharing.

Through the connections I have made on Twitter I have come across some very interesting ideas, concepts, people, and many fun moments. In a recent #flipclass twitter chat (Mondays 8pm ET) someone questioned how a flipped physics class can address misconceptions and it lead to Katie Lanier mentioning activities/labs that they do for this specific purpose. She was nice enough to share the one that she uses for forces and I used it after introducing Newton's 3 Laws. The students enjoyed doing it and said the next day that it was helpful for clarifying the ideas. I took some videos of them and have linked them with brief descriptions below. Some of the video is better than others (i.e. sometimes I asked students questions, and sometimes it is a just a shot of them doing it). [Please let me know if the links are not working]

Station 1: Flick a piece of cardboard off of a beaker that has a penny sitting on it.

Station 2: Determine which of two boxes is heavier without picking them up.

Station 3: Balance a metre stick (weighted on one end) on your palm.

Station 4: Pull the "table cloth" out from under the "dishes".

Station 5: Try to pull only one square of toilet paper off using one hand.

Station 6/7: Use a "tapping device" to move a ball (one is starting it moving, another based on changing its direction and controlling how far it goes).

I would definitely do this again and would love to find more of these types of activities for other units (even if they are simulation based) to help with other misconceptions. These are exactly what you hope to find time to do by flipping a class :)

One thing I might do differently would be to make at least some of them a bit more PEOE style (predict (explain) observe explain) so that they have to put thought into it BEFORE trying instead of just after seeing it.

Thank you Ms. Lanier!

Last Saturday my board posted a Science & Technology Symposium. There were some interesting topics discussed and it seemed like everyone walked away with something new in their minds (which is all we can ask really). I went to a session that was about getting students to use concepts and ideas to come up with research projects that relate to the curriculum that will also involve primary research and then actually coming up with community action to create awareness about their topic. The second keynote speaker was a professor that he had worked with that was doing research on students using this process so it was a nice tie in and made me wish that I was teaching Gr 10 Science so that I could try it myself. Maybe I can convince my colleagues to try it themselves ;)

We're Baaaack!

A new school year always comes with new ideas, new excitement, new students, and new personal goals. One of my goals this year is to blog more often! I have probably said this before, and I don't know if I will be able to keep up with what I would like to do, but I am going to give it a go.

This semester I am teaching Grade 9 Academic Science, Grade 11 University Physics, and Grade 11 Workplace Math (Math for Everyday Life). I am continuing to work on my flipped class this year with the two former classes mentioned and am hoping to build on things that I tried last year. My Grade 9s are working with some videos that have questions embedded via EduCanon (this is new for me) and I hope to developed a lot more in-class tasks for my Physics kids this time around. I have all three of my classes on Edmodo this year as well. I really liked the idea of the kids having App access to our class website. So far so good.

This week I introduced the concept of the video lesson and put a focus on note-taking and the importance of taking the time to process the learning by summarizing and questioning. My Grade 9s had the opportunity to watch a couple of videos and note take in class as well as doing one at home (they won't likely have this concentration of "lessons" throughout the semester) and my 11s got to work at their own pace this week through a scientific numeracy introductory unit.

I am trying to gamify my workplace math class somewhat this semester to engage the group of students more effectively than I did last semester. I made use of Kahoot on the first day of class and hope to use this more in the future. I am also trying to turn the class into a "Game of Life" of sorts - each week I am hoping to come up with 6 scenarios related to what we have learned that week and they will roll a die to see what happens to them. They created avatars this week to introduce themselves to the class including their goals for after graduation. They were very honest about what they wanted and posted the resulting link to our Edmodo site. Here is one of them.

One last big change I have made in my approach to the flipped class this year is that I am hosting a parent info night early on in the semester so that parents can come in to get more information and voice their concerns before we get too deep into the semester.

If you have any suggestions, comments or questions your input would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers to a great new year!

Changes on the Way to My "Flipped" Classroom

If you are an educator you are probably already familiar with the concept of a flipped classroom. For the benefit of anyone who doesn't know you can check out this blog, it explains it quite well.

After reading this article (and then watching the 60 minutes clip with the Khan Academy founder) I promised that I would blog about the attempts that I have been making to change the way that I teach.

When I started teaching Grade 9 Science the course was already designed with a lot of student-centred ideas. I still teach lessons from time to time, but for the most part they explore, investigate and complete practice work that gets taken up and assessed. I manage to do most of this in class time (there are phases where they have homework, mostly related to major assignments) and the course is designed with a large emphasis on the lab process, lab writing, and the research process (we also use mind maps to support curriculum content). I also started using an online course module as part of my classroom this year which has allowed me to post online homework quizzes so students can monitor some of their progress.

What I would change going forward: the homework that is assigned that is content related in the future would be to learn the content. This would allow me to continue to spend as much time focusing on what we have agreed is important at my school and would hopefully allow me to even out the time spent on each unit (as it stands Space and Biology are on the neglected side). In the long run I think this would support the projects done in each unit.

My grade 11 class is the one that I made a conscious effort to make some changes to my teaching method. My first year I taught math and got into the "teach for the majority of class and give a few minutes of homework time" rut. When I got the chance a year later to teach 3U Physics I decided that I wanted to try to set my class up a little differently. I had two goals - provide students the opportunity to make use of lessons as it suits their learning styles; give as much in-class work time as possible.

These goals led me to:
- Assign readings the day before a lesson (this one is hard to motivate them to do)
- Try to shorten my "lessons"/notes as much as possible and make them example focused instead of content focused
- Post outlines of my lessons the night before (students can choose to print and follow along if desired)
- Post complete versions of each days lessons afterwards (students can listen to the lesson and print it out later)
- (Some choose note to print note and hand write the days lesson themselves)
- Provide as much class time for concept and practice exercises as possible
- Arrange the classroom to allow students to sit in groups

I find that this forces my students to think about what type of learner they are and choose which note method works best for them. As the semester progresses I also find that students use their class time more and more wisely (as they have now discovered that the course is not easy and that they are in Grade 11 and HW is actually a good idea). Having the students in groups (that they usually choose) promotes group work and encourages them to ask each other questions before they ask the teacher. Usually when I am asked questions now it is to clarify their understanding or find a math mistake in one of their solutions.

(I also use class TweetUps for this course, which I blogged about here if you are interested - this is used to encourage concept based discussion since class time is primarily used for problem solving.)

If I get the chance to teach the course again I will probably use videos (and reading so they can have a choice) as assigned homework to encourage them to do this part - which means I have have even short "lessons" (aka try an example or 2 as a class). I already post a link to videos done by the physics department at Earl Haig Secondary in Toronto (I did my placements with them) on my course website as a resource for extra help and I would like to explore the physics videos offered by Khan Academy.

Let the changes continue.

Hopefully I do end up back teaching some math in the near future of my career. And hopefully I can continue to make my classroom as student-centred as our current system allows.

And in case I don't post again in the next couple of weeks,
Merry Christmas!

The Trouble with Technology (and Teaching)

I just finished reading a blog entry by Denise Krebs called "What Does Technology Have to Do With It?" and it made me want to write an entry of my own. (At the start of each school year I always vow to do this more and never succeed in doing so...it takes inspiration, and I guess I don't see the inspiration to share in my every day "teaching".)

Here is what I see as a problem with the every day technology in our classroom:
We have yet to change the way we teach. Period.

Too many of us are looking to use technology to change the way we teach instead of changing the way we teach and then adding technology. Yes, it is cool when your colleague who is a few years from retirement wants to add a doc cam to his classroom and then uses it and tries to explore it. But really it's no different than when an overhead projector was used.

Unfortunately I am just as guilty of this phenomenon. And I am in my fourth year of teaching.

I grew up with teachers who taught us concepts and then asked us to practice them. It is easy for me to now do the same. Don't get me wrong. I am making efforts to change and am trying new things, but it is extremely overwhelming. There is so much out there and there are so many great educators that I am now connected to (through blogging, voiced, smarter science, and the verity of educators and education technology folk on my twitter account).

I give smarter science (and my colleague that first went to the work shop with me and got equally excited about it) the credit for the start of my changes. I am a math teacher at heart and have been teaching science exclusively since my second year on the job - so it has been great to be motivated about the subject and the job despite it really being a "second" love. It has shown me that we can use ways to motivate our kids to learn and it has given me the first few opportunities to stop "teaching" and start "coaching" (this is what I see as ultimately the change that most of our classrooms need - and I think would be a huge challenge when I get back into math).

So here I am. Excited. Motivated. Hopeful. But I still find myself teaching. And using the doc cam as a fancy overhead projector. And being scared to even begin to find something tech related to start with. because here's the truth - I may be seen as a "tech" teacher at school (people like to come to me to "fix" things when they are not working) but the REAL tech (the new apps, ideas, etc) has a learning curve that frightens me.

Hopefully we are able to end up with class sets of tablets at our school in the near future. Hopefully this encourages me to tackle something new. Because I still want to try.

I just worry that the technology will never be the motivator [of students] we are wishing for.

((I am realizing this entry is a little all over the map. For that I apologize.))

Or maybe I am doing this all better than I think. We are our best critics after all. And every time I go to any PD hoping to come out with a new tech idea, I feel less behind the curve.

Teaching 1P ESL Science

This semester I am teaching a Grade 9 Applied Science class that is designated for ESL students. This means that I have students in ESL levels A to E in the class that also have a varying Science level. It poses some interesting challenges.

Before the semester began I sought advice from colleagues who had taught an ESL subject class (and regular ESL classes) in the past. Here are some of the things I was told that seemed helpful:
- routine
- start with lots of evaluation of speaking, writing, reading and listening (without the science)
- speak slowly
- use graphic organizers
- use glossaries/word walls

I have used most of it but it has not been an easy adjustment. I have, luckily, taught 1P Science before so the curriculum is not something I have to grapple with. The adjustment for me has been more about determining what parts of the curriculum can be (for lack of a better word) ignored and how to adjust things well for students with limited English.

I have our 1P textbooks in a cupboard in my classroom so that the students who finish work more quickly than others can do added reading/questions to advance their English vocabulary and science understanding. This has helped me manage the classroom a little better as students are less likely to get up to socialize while I am still trying to help the weaker students.

My seating plan has the newest English speakers sitting with someone else who speaks the same first language to allow them to help with translation when necessary. It also sits a group of 4 students together with varying first languages where possible to encourage English speaking in class. These 4 students also have varying science understanding to encourage them to help/seek help from others.

We are having quizzes often to encourage students to review their glossary and science concepts on a regular basis. Generally speaking each segment that I am teaching them involves
1) Adding words to their glossary and coming up with examples
2) Teaching the concept
3) Practicing
4) Sometimes a video
5) Handing in some practice that is marked and returned
6) Quizzing - usually involves some fill in the blanks with a word bank

The part of the routine that I haven't used yet is having an agenda on the board for that days work. But I have never been good at that, in any of my classes. In fact I am not even good at updating the date on the board!

In any event it has been and will continue to be a learning experience.
On that note, I am going to adjust my seating plans and have a relaxing evening.

Any advice, comments, questions, concerns are appreciated!

P.S. Teaching the lab process to them with the correct vocabulary is a challenge and a half!

Let the Technology Shine!

Here we are one week into the new school year and semester. I have the opportunity to teach more or less the same semester as last (with the exception of an applied section becoming an applied ESL) so I am trying to try some new things. Here are some of the ones I am excited about:

1. A new blended e-learning website for two of my classes
- Now I have a password protected site
- I can have my students complete online quizzes
- I can create discussion boards
- Contains a messaging feature (student to student and teacher to student)
- Is board approved, etc
- I can choose to monitor their use/access to things on the site

2. My department's new technology
- We were previously the most behind department in technology at the school
- We were able make use of our renovated rooms that include ceiling mounts for projectors, I no longer have to bring a cart into my science classroom to use a projector - great time/effort saver
- We have 4 document cameras to share within the department
- I have used the projector with my laptop at least once every day so far

3. Using Tweetups with my 3U Physics class from the start of the semester
- Last year I began this part way through the semester
- I will be able to start with more organization
- Students will be introduced to the tweetchat.com webapp a colleague pointed me to that refreshes quickly and inserts the hashtag into it automatically
- Students will continue to have a say in the dates and times of the Tweetups

I am sure there are others. I am excited to see where these things take me and to reflect on their use and helpful nature (I hope).

Any comments, questions, concerns/feedback about any of the above from the ed world would be greatly appreciated.

Happy teaching!

Blast Off!

This year my colleague and I made an effort to use more Smarter Science inspired lessons/labs in our department. We taught SNC 1D0 together last semester and used the Blast Off lab that used to appear in the applied 10 textbook as the formative lab for chemistry. We wanted it to be about the fun AND the scientific process more than it was about the content of Grade 9 Chemistry (we do start reactions in grade 10 and talk about chemical change, so that part is relevant regardless). This semester I am teaching SNC 1D0 and 1P0 so used this lab in both classes.

I am finding the 1P class challenging this semester. I have 21 students including 11 with official IEPs, 1 with an unofficial IEP, and 3 low level ESL students. The range of the class is astonishing and it is impossible to engage all of them for an entire period. I try to get the fast workers to be helpful and work with other students, but it does not always work out that way. I won't delve into the depths of my class though.

The point is that I used this lab and combined the use of the first two Smarter Science posters (with both classes actually) to help get them started (a process they had seen in full already) and combined it with the format that they would see for the summative and final performance tasks (we have taken the stance in the department that having them complete formal, typed labs during the semester and then use a hand-written format for culminating was counter-productive). They seemed to really engaged in the lab itself and really liked that they got to pick their own indepedent and dependent variables and were trusted to create their own procedure (with support and guidance of course). In the end the class averaged a 70% on the lab write up (which is awesome for the first one, even though it was heavily supported). I am pleased with the results (and also hope to continue getting the support of the school's student support teacher - there is a mini task force being set up to come up with an action plan for this group (in multiple classes)).

Challenge accepted!

Now imagine a class of film canister lids flying off - amazingly simple :)

Inspiration has Returned!

I promised myself that I would head to bed at 10pm last night (I stayed up to watch the Oscars with my mother last night and still had to drive home and organize myself afterward) and then the inspiration bug hit.

I actually came home from work, completed some of the work that had to be done, had dinner, and found myself listening to a colleague's take on her tweetchats with her Grade 11 Biology class on an ed pod cast. I have been following her on twitter since meeting her at a Smarter Science conference last June and had taken an interest in the idea - so I was excited to find out she had done this podcast. I think it was the perfect time to get myself reconnected with the online ed world and engage in something new. I had been feeling particularly disengaged from the passionate teaching world recently and somehow tonight made a turn for the better.

In past posts I have vented about technology in schools and how discouraged I felt about being technical and using it to connect with my students. So often we are discouraged by our union and school board about taking these paths, but the fact of the matter is - it is here to stay, and there are ways to do it safely! @EurekaTeacher is active proof - and I want to be a part of it.

Step one - tomorrow I will speak with my admin and make sure they are behind my initiative - to get my 3U Physics class on twitter and discussing concepts, without the numbers, from home (or anywhere on their smart phones!).

Step two - find out if there is a way I can access twitter from school so that we can discuss the idea of internet safety, twitter itself, protected tweets, spam, etc

Step three - host the first class tweetchat on motion!

Wish me luck! And please let me know if you have ideas, comments, questions, or concerns. It will be a learning experience and I will appreciate what others have to say on the topic.

Concave Mirrors in Action

As a Physics teacher it can sometimes be difficult to picture ways to modify labs and make the content of the Grade 10 Applied Optics unit accessible to my students. I think that I have mentioned in a previous post that I really like the group of kids I am working with this year. A bunch of them are very curious and they ask good questions (even if they are off topic sometimes, you've just got to go with it!) and most of them are just trying to be successful enough to not only finish their Science credits, but to achieve a level 3.

One afternoon I was talking to a colleague about how teaching mirror and ray diagram rules are too complicated for these students and that I wish I could find a way to make them accessible through a lab and to find a way to create a meaningful summative evaluation. She inspired me to work on creating templates for the beginning steps of doing curved mirror ray diagrams to give them the chance to follow instructions for the actual rays while still giving them an understanding of the principle axis. I felt that a concave mirror would be the easiest way to do this.

The image shows the core diagram that was given to them for each rule (we did three of the rules). The instructions were put on the overhead (it is a good way to keep enough light in the room to not end up tripping over one another) for each one. The first set of instructions was detailed with specific areas to be labelled and fill-in-the-blank sentences at the bottom and was completed as a formative exercise (along with the second rule and set of instructions with slightly less detail). The following day we did the third rule, with even less detail and less support from the instructors, as a summative evaluation, and each student had to submit their own drawing (for the benefit of time each pair only had to create one diagram for the first two rules, unless they were speedy).

The students were engaged in the process and wanted to do well. Many of them asked to have the rubric so they could check over their work and double check that everything was included. The students averaged in a level 3 and were all very happy with their results when the rubrics were returned to them. I will definitely be seeking to involve more ideas like this when I teach this course again, and hope to be able to evolve it more and continue to use fewer "content-based" lessons throughout the unit. They seemed to have a decent grasp of the idea of a focal point, although they may have overextended this idea and lost sight of the fact that the third rule relates to the centre of curvature. A goal for increased understanding the next time I teach the course!

Hooray for collaborative teaching!

Simple Labs Don't Make for a Bored Class - Yay!

I tried this lab last year, mostly out of desperation with a difficult class teaching a course I had never taught before, but decided to try it again to see if the engagement it created the first time could be reproduced. Because labs require writing they are always going to be difficult with a class with a number of students with communication exceptionalities, etc. The students continually require attention from the instructor to get through the process and I was lucky to have a second body in the room to help out for Day 2 and 3 of this process.

When I showed the lab to the aspiring teacher who was helping me he was concerned that it would be too simple for them and would not engage them for three periods. The lab is simply investigating the combination of two ingredients to determine the best tasting mock champagne. It allows me to have them work on skills such as writing a procedure, hypothesis, identifying variables, creating an observation chart and drawing a conclusion. As well as have them practice an important skill - measuring liquid volume. And they love that they get to drink their lab!

The next one will be more complicated - measuring the pH of stomach acid and its changes as different antacids are added to it. We will probably have to practice a couple of the lab writing skills again before we get there. As this one will be a summative piece of their chemistry mark.

An aside: We changed our formal (but formative) lab in Grade 9 Academic this year to a simple, but fun, lab using Alka Seltzer tablets, water and film canisters and went "Smarter Science style". The kids loved it. Can't wait to evaluate the formal lab write-ups that went with it. I hope they learned something through all of the peer and self evaluation that we tried in my class with it this week. (Cross your fingers for me, next year I hope to do some action research with peer and self evaluation).

Inquiry Based Ionic Compounds Lesson

I am so excited about the lesson I conducted this morning! Engagement. Learning. Oh, so great.

I spent approximately 2 hours yesterday preparing this lesson. I created a word document with a variety of elements represented in Lewis Dot Diagram format, arrows, regular element symbols along with charges and numbers that could be used to create the ionic compound formulae. Then I printed out enough copies to have 5 groups going at a time so that they could work in smaller groups to manipulate the pieces and learn from each other. The elements that become positive ions were blue and the negatives were pink - this because I gave them a periodic table to keep in their binders that is blue and many of them coloured the non metals pink when looking at the periodic table in the back of their textbooks.

So this morning we went into a larger classroom that I had booked so that they would have the space to work. It seemed a bit harder to get them to settle down to give instructions, but the space was nice to have. I demoed the use of the manipulatives once for them and then asked them to get into groups of 3-4 (so that there were 5 groups). I gave them a set of the papers and then asked every group to create the same compound. I would give them time to work on it and go around and observe, scaffolding where necessary. It was great to see them so engaged and to see the ones that understood it well teaching their peers and helping them through the process. I wish I'd had my camera with me.

Anyway, at this point I am rambling and if you have read this far, I thank you for sharing in my joy. Hopefully the fun continues in the weeks to come! Next, polyatomic compounds!

Thank you Smarter Science (and a couple of my colleagues) for the inspirations behind this lesson!