STEM and underestimating girls

We generally think of boys as needing to be hands on and out of their seat. They are our builders and tinkerers and if teachers would give them the chance to show their intelligence in a different way, then we would see what they are capable of. This year in my classes, it's the girls leading the charge. They regularly beat the boys in almost all categories when we do any design project. Additionally, it was the girls asking why we don't do more of "this stuff", not the boys. It was a group of girls competing at the regional science fair, it was a pair of girls that had the best wind turbine and was ultimately copied by most others, it was an entrepreneurial girl who sold her design plans to all the male dominated groups for a nice price, and it was two girls who split from their group to create a simpler and more efficient turbine than their former male group mates. Finally, they are proud of what they do. They don't fall victim to the ridiculous idea of "I don't want people to know I am smart." Not content with being the unsung heroes, they want to make sure everyone knows just who is leading the pack.

Proudly displayed front and center.

Student (as) Teachers

S1: "If I could teach SS it would be so much better. I can teach better than him."
Me: "Really? It's a little harder than it looks."
S1: "No, I can do it. I can make the class fun. He makes it boring. I can do so much better."

This conversation coupled with this post got the wheels turning on how we could make this work. Two weeks later we turned over our classrooms to the students. Each teacher chose from a number of applicants two students who were interested in teaching that class for the day. "The whole day? Like, every class? All four of them?" was a common string of questions when the idea was proposed. Yep. Every last one of them and all the work associated with it. There were some major positives to come out of it, and a couple of teachers had a big slice of humble pie served up over and over and over....and over. I think all the student teachers learned a little something about themselves ("Next time I have to be way nicer", "I was so exhausted I just went home and slept. That was hard." "I realized you have to give the students what they want. It's not just about MY plan."). And I learned that one of my activities makes me want to rip my eyeballs out, although the students in my group didn't seem nearly as bothered by it as I was.

However, my biggest concern is how students view our classes, and what the potential for those classes could be. I try hard to offer a variety of activities in class, yet only two of the submitted lessons were lab based. The others were book work, lecture, notes, and handouts. There is research that suggests that teachers teach the way they were taught. Through that lens, I can't blame them for the pretty generic lessons. 95% of their schooling has been exactly what they turned into me. But it's not what they want (or is it?) and certainly not what I want to see for an exemplary, once a year lesson.

In the Spirit of the Game

I am not sure how I feel about today's lesson. On one hand students found creative ways to accomplish the task. On the other hand, there was no elegance or artistry to their work. Even now I am surprised with myself at how disappointed I am. The assignment was to create a wind powered vehicle that would move forward. They had limited time and materials and I wanted all students to feel that they could definitely succeed at making it go forward at least a little bit. I thought this would encourage them to take risks and do something creative knowing that if they had an even half way descent design it would be move a little. Instead what I got was the opposite. Very little thought and a "what is the quickest way we can do this to meet the requirements" mentality. I am not sure if it's just the nature of the classes or if the word spread on "the easy way" to do it but by the end of the day all I had were balloons taped to straws with a piece of paper acting as a "wing". It was pathetic from an aesthetic standpoint and severely limited their chance of going the furthest. For me, rarely do I find myself just "doing enough" but really wanting to be first. They were looking for completion, I was looking for excellence. On a positive side, with the exception of 2-3 cases, there was lots of collaboration and discussion going on and everyone enjoyed themselves. Hopefully that will be the take away, but to be honest, I am seriously considering revising my windmill lesson for next week. If I have to create a 1 page list of requirements of do's and don'ts, it is not worth it to me. I need them to want to succeed, but do so with a little creativity.

A little bit of creativity. They ended up redoing the wheels after seeing the cardboard didn't work very well.

Getting ready at the starting line.

*12/10 update. We had our county spontaneous science competition which is more of an engineering competition but whatever, we had fun with it. AND WE ROCKED IT. I couldn't stay to the end but I did get to see the chair competition. They were given a months worth of newspapers, tape, poster paper, string, and a 12x12 carboard "seat". One school decided to stack all their papers together and wrap them in duct tape. Then the next school over came to the same conclusion. Then a third school which had previously been building something like a chair, tore it all down and stacked their paper together with minor modifications to get the height bonus points. I was so proud our team stuck to their plan and actually created something with a bit more creativity and engineering (and a whole lot less material) which ultimately won them the event! 

Classroom supplies

It was like an early Christmas in the room Thursday. By Friday all the book had been checked out and we had started a game of Pandemic with a little bit of free time. Most definitely a huge success so far.

When your students mutiny

Me: "We are going to write a short essay on GMO foods."
S1: "That's boring, I don't want to write about that."
Me: "Well...tough. It's important and we need to cover it."
S1: "Ummm....no. I am going to write about designer babies instead."
S2: "Yeah...that's way better than GMO's. I want to write about that too."

I think I am getting myself into a tight spot here. Are they seriously rejecting what I have planned for the class? Is this a mutiny? Do you not know who I am? I am the Juggernaut! I can insist they write about GMO's as planned, I know they will do a good job with it. They will follow the provided rubric and the students above will most certainly get an A+, but they will not really care about what they are doing. They will learn something because they just naturally soak up everything around them. My essential question of the day will be answered because they will have completed the work leading to that question. Had I been observed, admin would have said I met my learning objective. My standard #whatever would be rocking. But at what cost?

How often do we assign work to our brightest students knowing they will do it because they understand the game of school, but not necessarily because they enjoy doing it? I feel we (myself included) do this group of students a grave injustice. They will go on to college and get jobs and we don't worry about them because "they will make it". Instead we need to focus on those whose future is a little less certain. But I don't really believe that. If your objective is to prepare students for college and/or a job then fine. I don't feel that way. We need to hook and push them all. That student who we knew would go to college does. She goes to Generic University. What if we pushed her more, challenged her, let her control her education and now she is at UNC, Duke, Wake, NCSU? What bar are we setting for them?

Now, I have the opportunity to let them pursue something they are interested in. Tomorrow we can talk about GMO's, I can throw some stuff up on the board and we can have a little discussion and they will know enough to pass the test at the end of the year. But by letting them control the class I know that the work I get will have a little bit of passion in it, it's something that they might remember later on, it might actually change their view of the world...maybe.

Right after this great back and forth they asked to listen to Megan Trainor so we clearly have a long ways to go in terms of changing their views...  I should have been writing my 40+ page paper for grad school tonight but as S1 said "That's boring..." and writing this was way more fulfilling. Now I need to go draw a picture of S1 getting eaten by a monster because that sounds better too.

Week of Creativity

Funny how a week can have a theme through coincidence, or maybe someone is trying to tell me something. In reverse chronological order, in grad class we talked about whether the makeup of school was killing students creativity? Are we educating them in a complete manner? Are we neglecting certain aspects of it? Nearly every educator has seen Sir Ken Robinson's TED talks but they are worth watching again. Lots of fundamental assumptions we make about education that maybe we should being to reexamine. Is anyone going to do it? Probably not outside of small pockets of charter schools and private institutions. Second, on Tues at a talk put on by google Chris Craft discussed the importance of teachers being role models for modeling creativity. Often the teachers are the road block to allowing a student to being creative. His example was a student who really wanted to learn more about coding. He didn't know how to code so he taught himself, so he could in turn teach the students. How often do teachers go out and learn a new skill so they can bring it back into the classroom. The skills we grew up learning, are not always the skills this generation of students are interested in. Just as we encourage them to learn new material and be creative, we need to as well. The best way to do that is to simply do it, but then communicate with the students what you are learning. A simple suggestion he gave was replacing/adding to your "What I am reading now..." poster with "What I am learning now..." Mine will be going up shortly.

Diseases

I had no idea how interested my students would be about Ebola. It has made teaching this unit so easy because they are super interested in all things disease right now but frustrating because literally every class I have to answer Ebola related questions. We can be talking about dangers of fungi and the next question be "is that like the symptoms of Ebola?" No, an itchy rash on your foot is not like Ebola. This age/grade level/community historically has not been the most empathetic group. With Ebola starting to hit closer to home, it has made students realize that, to a certain degree we do need to concern ourselves with the well being of other countries. The once popular student opinion of "letting them die" is not only a very harsh stance to take but also not always in our nations best interest. Many are beginning to appreciate just how interconnected our world has become. It is terribly unfortunate that it is taking something as destructive as Ebola to get them to realize it.

Backchannels and movies

A "backchannel" is a method of communication that is happening under the surface of the regular classroom discussion. Students are experts at the backchannel as they are listening to you while snapchatting their friends about how bored they are. You are simply taking a structure they are familiar with and harnessing that power for good. I am a fan of todaysmeet.com . It allows them to post to a window while limiting their characters (like twitter). Others use twitter, padlet, or just a simple google doc. 

We watched episode 2 of Cosmos with students paired up on a chromebook or ipad. We combined with Mr. Cooke's class so there were ~50 students or so all with the capability to communicate. As the movie plays we are all keeping an eye on the todaysmeet page looking for comments and questions. This provides students the chance to ask questions without stopping the movie or talking over each other. Everyone's voice can be heard and some of the quieter students really come to life on it. It is kind of crazy to think how often we encourage questions during a class period but then want them to be silent while watching a 45min. video. At the end you can print a transcript of the conversation (which I am kicking myself for not doing) to go back and highlight certain posts for further discussion or grading if you are into that.

Evolution Game

Pretty fun game. Who can survive the longest. I will keep a running top 3 on the board and will post the top 3 for the day on here for all of the world to see!

http://www.sciencechannel.com/games-and-interactives/charles-darwin-game.htm

Change over time

One of my goals is to update once a week and I missed last week so I am trying to make up some ground. We are looking at how technology, the earth, and living things have changed over time. Discussing  evolution is one of the highlights of the year for me, not because of any personal convictions, but because the students are really engaged. Whether they are very much in favor of, or against the theory, nearly every student falls on one side or the other. Very few fence sitters which leads to some great conversations. One more week and then we will be taking our first major test of the year.

Field Trips

This is how all field trips should be! I took a small group of interested in students into the field to conduct a river health analysis. It was open to all students with the stipulation that there would be extra work and part of that work would be a small public speaking segment. The trip was free and the Patterson School was kind enough to provide some shelter for eating lunch. Mr. Lail also took a group of social studies minded students to Fort Defiance. Neither of us had any issues whatsoever. The students were engaged the whole time and were able to get the attention and assistance they needed. How many times do we go on a field trip and just herd cats the whole time. Not much learning is done, students are upset because they paid for a trip they didn't want to go on, and teachers are annoyed because of the extra running around. It's a lose-lose situation. Instead, offer multiple, customized field trips that the teacher and some students are interested in. Offer it to the students. If they don't go on this one, maybe they will go on a math or english trip later in the year. Maybe they will do a different science or ss trip. This style of trip allows unparalleled opportunities. Because you are taking smaller groups you have a more flexible schedule and can get places you can't go with 100+ kids. Here were the (informal) steps I took to make this happen. A) Have an idea "It would be cool if ____  B) Informally ask students in class and hallways if they would be interested in this. C) outline a plan, including assessments and commitments from stakeholders D) offer it to the students. E) take the trip. This opportunity was granted with a supportive admin and a ridiculously awesome group of students.

Sandwich Stratigraphy Lab

Sandwich Stratigraphy Lab

This week we are wrapping up relative age dating with the Sandwich Stratigraphy Lab.  We were going to do a quiz but shockingly the class voted on a lab instead. In this lab students are creating a statigraphic cross section using slices of bread, hot magma jelly, bean fossils, and scissor induced earthquakes. Good fun all around. Next week we are getting into climate change and our first quiz. They will be using a some of what they learned in Mr. Walker's and Mrs. Hubbard's english class on opinion writing. Climate Change: Nature or Man.

First Day jitters

In 12 hours I will be in the middle of corralling students, going over endless amounts of paperwork, and doing my best to show the students it's going to be a good year. There will be 185 days of instruction this year, however there is only 1 first day.  This will be my 7th "first day" of school and I can assure you, I am jittery now, on the drive in it will be worse, there will be a slight calm before the storm where I assure myself I have everything together, then I will hear the incoming rush of feet pattering down the hall and it will all go out the window. I almost wonder why I meticulously plan for the first day, since it has never gone according the script. Which come to think about it, is how most of my days are.

Bio accumulation

Yesterday we took advantage of the nice weather and went outside to show how toxins can build up in different species. In the picture the salmon are running up "stream" while trying to avoid the herons that are picking them off.

Concrete lab

I like to add some helpful information and skills to labs that don't necessarily fall under the standards. Today that skill was creating concrete with the right water/cement ratio. Nearly everyone of them added way too much water. The main purpose of the lab was to create concrete that would harden not in 6-8 hours but closer to 24 hours by adding sugar to the cement. The sugar prevents a chemical reaction from occurring as quickly this slowing the hardening process. 

Element Webpage

This rubric is subject to change (a little). The content will remain the same, the formatting might be tweaked. Click here for the rubric.

Periodic table battleship

The students had fun playing periodic table battleship. It was meant to get them interacting with the table and becoming familiar with where things are located on it. They can call out their targets by element name or group#/period#. So far they are enjoying it without going overboard.