Hard work feels good when it's rewarding. My day was longer due to a staff meeting and a "Meet the Parents" night. Somehow, though, I'm not that tired. I felt pretty comfortable today as I started to actually teach content instead of just rules and procedures. Of course I had rough spots and changed how I did things throughout the day. Arkansas has some well written science objectives--they are detailed and precise. It's quite easy to turn many of them into test questions with very little work. Many times students are asked to identify and explain terms, explain a concept, or detail a process.
I did have a few bumps, though, with students remembering to do their "do-now" (or bellringer activity) along with remembering to raise a hand to ask questions. While these seem like small things, if I don't address them then they'll lead to larger problems. It's good to "sweat the small stuff" when it comes to classroom discipline.
7th period (last period) was quite chatty, as well. 3/4 of the class gets to leave 15 minutes early due to living so far away and the 1/4 that is left is not too motivated to work after the others leave. I also get dismissal duty on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so I don't even get to stay with the students for the last 15 minutes on those days. One student complained today during 7th that I, "work us to the last minute of each day." I'm still trying to figure out how to keep my last period class on track with what the other classes are learning during their full period classes.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Friday, August 24, 2007
First Week
The first week went really well. Earlier in the week I was a bit stressed, but the last few days have been pretty good. Most of the week was spent on rules and procedures (complete with students acting them out and even creating raps out of them). I was quite proactive in my rules, consequences, and management system and it paid off during the first week. Most will say that I was in my "honeymoon period," but I could tell many of the students were testing me in the last few days and I was able to effectively hand out consequences. I just need to keep these up next week. The week ended with a lesson on the scientific method (making predictions with money being lit on fire with various solution strengths of water/alcohol mixtures) along with a short NOVA video on epigenetics (our first unit is genetics).
Epigenetics is a subfield of genetics that I had never heard of until I saw the video. Essentially, we have another genetic structure that controls which of our genes is turned off or on. This structure can be influenced by the environment such as which foods the mother and father ate and agents in the environment during times such as pregnancy and puberty. The video spent a great deal of time discussing how identical twins can live different lives (such as one developing one type of genetic disease whereas the other does not). It showed how young twins had a similar genetic structure while older identical twins had substantially fewer genes in common. It was quite interesting to see the large effect of the environment on a person's genetic structure.
Tomorrow is another wonderful professional saturday in Helena. I get to drive 2 hours for more training. Lucky me. I am lucky that next week is planned, so I just have to get some papers ready to be copied.
Epigenetics is a subfield of genetics that I had never heard of until I saw the video. Essentially, we have another genetic structure that controls which of our genes is turned off or on. This structure can be influenced by the environment such as which foods the mother and father ate and agents in the environment during times such as pregnancy and puberty. The video spent a great deal of time discussing how identical twins can live different lives (such as one developing one type of genetic disease whereas the other does not). It showed how young twins had a similar genetic structure while older identical twins had substantially fewer genes in common. It was quite interesting to see the large effect of the environment on a person's genetic structure.
Tomorrow is another wonderful professional saturday in Helena. I get to drive 2 hours for more training. Lucky me. I am lucky that next week is planned, so I just have to get some papers ready to be copied.
Monday, August 20, 2007
First Day
I love this job. It was a great first day. I have a very good group of students. I was up at the Institute wake up time of 5:55 am and somehow I was wide awake. I was able to get to school early and make some last minute preparations for homeroom and the rest of the day. I put the agenda on the board, straightened my stacks of papers, and then went down to the cafeteria to meet my homeroom class. Once the class lined up we returned to the room where I introduced myself and shook each student's hand (a practice I saw on one of our TFA videos and something my roommate does as well). It helps the students make a transition and leave anything bad behind in their last class. Part of my training emphasized "creating a welcoming environment" and this is the start. I did it with each class and most students responded positively (the others were simply quite surprised). It's something I'll do each day.
Homeroom was interesting due to the bell schedule We didn't follow it; instead the office dismissed us. Homeroom went longer than expected and I'm glad I had back up activities to do. We first played the name game where students said their name and something they liked. We went around the circle and each student had to repeat all of the names before his or her name. This seemed to go over well and it allowed the students to burn off some energy by being out of their seats.
Each class period was pretty much the same. I had students fill out a survey about themselves and then we discussed my rules, positive and negative consequences, the Super Scientist Friday system and the Super Scientist Money system. The last two are the behavior management systems I'm using that address the students as a class and the student as an individual. In the first, each class is given 15 minutes at the beginning of the week. This 15 is the class' to lose or add minutes. If the class is efficient for each part of the period, then they gain minutes proportional to the time gain. If the class is inefficient, then they lose seconds. This helps with minor disruptions like talking to neighbors, rustling papers, or anything else that makes a teacher stop a lesson or set of instructions for a task. The difference between rewarding with minutes and penalizing with seconds is there because positive incentives work better than disincentives, and therefore I'd much rather put the focus on the students working to gain efficiency and save time.
The money system is your basic token economy where students earn money based on their academic and classroom behavior each day. This money is then used in the store for school supplies, homework/bathroom passes, and other reasonable suggestions by the students. I made it clear that I don't hand out pencils or other materials. If those are needed, they may be bought at a premium price (due to buying them when the store is not open). Students will keep an account and so will a class treasurer so that I do not have to take on extra work.
While it was the first day, I made sure that some academic learning took place. I did a demonstration called "sewer lice." I told this story about my friend who graduated with me and went to New York to help with the sewer lice problem. He goes down into the sewers with protective gear and a net and scoops out sewer lice so they don't clog the sewers. You see, they are these small brown creatures that cause lots of problems in pipes. My friend gets paid $100,000 a year for this job. He recently sent me some because he knew I was teaching science. I bring out this glass container filled with these brown things and some greenish liquid. I ask the students to make observations and to answer whether or not the things inside (the sewer lice) are living. The students came up with some interesting on both sides. Some said that because of the air bubbles around the "lice," their movement, and my description of them as organisms, they were living. Others said that because they were shriveled and not in their environment that they were not living. After these answers I praised them for thinking like scientists as many make these types of comparisons and observations each day. I went on to explain about using reason and the five senses and one of those senses being taste. At this point, I reached in to the jar and pulled one out and ate it. Luckily, it was a raisin in mountain dew. Of course, most of the students thought it was the grossest thing ever. I then made my final point about science. You cannot just accept what you read, hear, or see at face value. As a scientist, you have to gather data, you have to observe, you have to inquire, and you have to seek the truth. I hadn't let them get too close to the demo as they would've smelled the mountain dew (and I let them know this). Almost all had a big smile on their faces and seemed to understand my point. It'll be something memorable I'll return to each time we discuss the purpose of science.
I said at the beginning that I had great students today and it's true. I know, though, that the first few days are the "honeymoon" period. The students will soon be testing my rules and consequences to see if I'm actually serious about what I said. Middle schoolers are quite good at catching insincerity, inconsistency, and when your promises fall short of your actions. The rest of the week will be focused on getting the procedures and rules learned well along with focusing on team building skills, which we'll build upon during the rest of the year.
Homeroom was interesting due to the bell schedule We didn't follow it; instead the office dismissed us. Homeroom went longer than expected and I'm glad I had back up activities to do. We first played the name game where students said their name and something they liked. We went around the circle and each student had to repeat all of the names before his or her name. This seemed to go over well and it allowed the students to burn off some energy by being out of their seats.
Each class period was pretty much the same. I had students fill out a survey about themselves and then we discussed my rules, positive and negative consequences, the Super Scientist Friday system and the Super Scientist Money system. The last two are the behavior management systems I'm using that address the students as a class and the student as an individual. In the first, each class is given 15 minutes at the beginning of the week. This 15 is the class' to lose or add minutes. If the class is efficient for each part of the period, then they gain minutes proportional to the time gain. If the class is inefficient, then they lose seconds. This helps with minor disruptions like talking to neighbors, rustling papers, or anything else that makes a teacher stop a lesson or set of instructions for a task. The difference between rewarding with minutes and penalizing with seconds is there because positive incentives work better than disincentives, and therefore I'd much rather put the focus on the students working to gain efficiency and save time.
The money system is your basic token economy where students earn money based on their academic and classroom behavior each day. This money is then used in the store for school supplies, homework/bathroom passes, and other reasonable suggestions by the students. I made it clear that I don't hand out pencils or other materials. If those are needed, they may be bought at a premium price (due to buying them when the store is not open). Students will keep an account and so will a class treasurer so that I do not have to take on extra work.
While it was the first day, I made sure that some academic learning took place. I did a demonstration called "sewer lice." I told this story about my friend who graduated with me and went to New York to help with the sewer lice problem. He goes down into the sewers with protective gear and a net and scoops out sewer lice so they don't clog the sewers. You see, they are these small brown creatures that cause lots of problems in pipes. My friend gets paid $100,000 a year for this job. He recently sent me some because he knew I was teaching science. I bring out this glass container filled with these brown things and some greenish liquid. I ask the students to make observations and to answer whether or not the things inside (the sewer lice) are living. The students came up with some interesting on both sides. Some said that because of the air bubbles around the "lice," their movement, and my description of them as organisms, they were living. Others said that because they were shriveled and not in their environment that they were not living. After these answers I praised them for thinking like scientists as many make these types of comparisons and observations each day. I went on to explain about using reason and the five senses and one of those senses being taste. At this point, I reached in to the jar and pulled one out and ate it. Luckily, it was a raisin in mountain dew. Of course, most of the students thought it was the grossest thing ever. I then made my final point about science. You cannot just accept what you read, hear, or see at face value. As a scientist, you have to gather data, you have to observe, you have to inquire, and you have to seek the truth. I hadn't let them get too close to the demo as they would've smelled the mountain dew (and I let them know this). Almost all had a big smile on their faces and seemed to understand my point. It'll be something memorable I'll return to each time we discuss the purpose of science.
I said at the beginning that I had great students today and it's true. I know, though, that the first few days are the "honeymoon" period. The students will soon be testing my rules and consequences to see if I'm actually serious about what I said. Middle schoolers are quite good at catching insincerity, inconsistency, and when your promises fall short of your actions. The rest of the week will be focused on getting the procedures and rules learned well along with focusing on team building skills, which we'll build upon during the rest of the year.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Inquiry Based Learning and a Little Help Needed
If any of you come across science topics in magazines like Newsweek or Time or any newspaper, please send them down (especially if they have diagrams or graphs or pictures to go with them). Editorials on science topics are quite good, too. I'm sure I can find much of these online, but things are going to get busy soon (I'll still look). While I'll make copies, it will still be cool to have the authentic materials to show how "science literacy" is pretty important in an adult's life. You don't have to actively search out the materials, but just keep it in mind that they'd be good classroom resources (thanks!).
I attended a really cool workshop yesterday. The presenter had my attention for the entire day (8am-3pm). Ms. C based the workshop around "inquiry based learning." This type of learning is essential for science classes (in my opinion) and can be used in any classroom. To appease those in favor of the standardized tests, it is objective and standard driven and can help immensely on open-response questions (such as those seen on the New York Regents Tests). George Lucas' education foundation supports this type of learning and you can find schools focusing on it completely for any age level.
The main premise of "inquiry based learning" is to allow students to discover scientific concepts through challenging and authentic experiences. To make this more clear, students experience something like friction, genetics, air pressure, etc. before the teacher explains the concept or the student reads about it in the book. Students are asked to do activities with just the materials and instructions (with limited help from the teacher). This raises the bar for the student to rely upon his or her self and work cooperatively with his or her neighbors. They are asked to solve problems, create their own questions, and to take learning into their own hands. During and after the activity, students are asked questions that connect their experience to the learning objectives (and this is helped by the teacher's explanation, too).
Here are some more examples: Students put together a "bot-head" through picking cards with capital letters, lowercase letters, and mutations (these stand for dominant, recessive, and mutated traits). Students then roll dice or flip coins to determine which traits the bot gets (this hits the idea of probability and inheritance). Once students have a "bot-head" they mate their "bot-head" with another and repeat the process outlined above to get a baby, which has some of the traits of both parents. This activity might be more of an application of a previous lesson, but it allows the teacher to make probability memorable (especially for the kinesthetic learners) along with showing how traits are inherited and how different children can have the same and different traits. This experience then sticks with the student for a much longer time than a boring lecture or chapter reading and the result is solid knowledge for standardized tests and real life. Other examples are carrying out cool experiments like alka-seltzer in film canisters (with a bit of water), research projects into topics that interest the students as long as they are withing the curriculum such as genetic disorders.
I'm totally excited about making many of my lessons inquiry-based. It might be as simple as introducing a small activity as the "bell-ringer," and using that as an example for my introduction to new material, or as extensive as students carrying out experiments for a science question that interests them. It's a method of learning and teaching that allows me to hit the Nature of Science strand each day and to give my students an authentic learning experience. If this is successful, then students will also see science as having relevance in their lives as they apply the results of what they experience to not only their learning but everyday problems (nothing beats having a class excited about learning). An understanding of air pressure can help a person understand the weather along with "un-popping" his or her ears when under water or in a plane. But that explanation will have to come later.
I attended a really cool workshop yesterday. The presenter had my attention for the entire day (8am-3pm). Ms. C based the workshop around "inquiry based learning." This type of learning is essential for science classes (in my opinion) and can be used in any classroom. To appease those in favor of the standardized tests, it is objective and standard driven and can help immensely on open-response questions (such as those seen on the New York Regents Tests). George Lucas' education foundation supports this type of learning and you can find schools focusing on it completely for any age level.
The main premise of "inquiry based learning" is to allow students to discover scientific concepts through challenging and authentic experiences. To make this more clear, students experience something like friction, genetics, air pressure, etc. before the teacher explains the concept or the student reads about it in the book. Students are asked to do activities with just the materials and instructions (with limited help from the teacher). This raises the bar for the student to rely upon his or her self and work cooperatively with his or her neighbors. They are asked to solve problems, create their own questions, and to take learning into their own hands. During and after the activity, students are asked questions that connect their experience to the learning objectives (and this is helped by the teacher's explanation, too).
Here are some more examples: Students put together a "bot-head" through picking cards with capital letters, lowercase letters, and mutations (these stand for dominant, recessive, and mutated traits). Students then roll dice or flip coins to determine which traits the bot gets (this hits the idea of probability and inheritance). Once students have a "bot-head" they mate their "bot-head" with another and repeat the process outlined above to get a baby, which has some of the traits of both parents. This activity might be more of an application of a previous lesson, but it allows the teacher to make probability memorable (especially for the kinesthetic learners) along with showing how traits are inherited and how different children can have the same and different traits. This experience then sticks with the student for a much longer time than a boring lecture or chapter reading and the result is solid knowledge for standardized tests and real life. Other examples are carrying out cool experiments like alka-seltzer in film canisters (with a bit of water), research projects into topics that interest the students as long as they are withing the curriculum such as genetic disorders.
I'm totally excited about making many of my lessons inquiry-based. It might be as simple as introducing a small activity as the "bell-ringer," and using that as an example for my introduction to new material, or as extensive as students carrying out experiments for a science question that interests them. It's a method of learning and teaching that allows me to hit the Nature of Science strand each day and to give my students an authentic learning experience. If this is successful, then students will also see science as having relevance in their lives as they apply the results of what they experience to not only their learning but everyday problems (nothing beats having a class excited about learning). An understanding of air pressure can help a person understand the weather along with "un-popping" his or her ears when under water or in a plane. But that explanation will have to come later.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Spiders, Snakes, and Gators
The Delta has quite a large variety of exotic critters. I took apart an entertainment center to move to my house and, while putting pieces of it in my trunk, there was a large hairy spider crawling on the pieces! This wasn't your normal sized house spider. No, the diameter of its belly (?) was about 2 inches and you could see all of the hairs on it. Luckily, the windshield scraper came in handy.
Today I was at the high school for an all day science workshop and one of the coaches came by to get the science teachers. He had seen a black widow spider in the field house. Three of us go out with a glass jar to the door to the field house. Sure enough, there was a small black spider near the edge of the door and the frame. One of the science teachers was then able to put the jar over the spider and the coach used a paint scraper to tap her into the jar. Once in, we saw the red hourglass on her belly. I refer to it as female because only female black widows have the hourglass on the bottom.
Earlier in the day, we were discussing the teaching of the concept of population and it came up that there were alligators in southeast Arkansas. This makes sense given our proximity to the Mississippi river. Supposedly there is an area in the lake that I live on where there are a few gators living.
On Friday, just in passing, we were told that snakes were common around and in our school buildings. They've found small rattlesnakes over at the high school and supposedly one teacher entered a room to find one sunning itself in front of the window.
I don't mean to scare y'all with any of these stories. It's just that I don't have much else to write about right now. My inservice days having been going well, but if I reported on those, then you might get a bit bored. Reptiles and spiders are much more exciting.
Today I was at the high school for an all day science workshop and one of the coaches came by to get the science teachers. He had seen a black widow spider in the field house. Three of us go out with a glass jar to the door to the field house. Sure enough, there was a small black spider near the edge of the door and the frame. One of the science teachers was then able to put the jar over the spider and the coach used a paint scraper to tap her into the jar. Once in, we saw the red hourglass on her belly. I refer to it as female because only female black widows have the hourglass on the bottom.
Earlier in the day, we were discussing the teaching of the concept of population and it came up that there were alligators in southeast Arkansas. This makes sense given our proximity to the Mississippi river. Supposedly there is an area in the lake that I live on where there are a few gators living.
On Friday, just in passing, we were told that snakes were common around and in our school buildings. They've found small rattlesnakes over at the high school and supposedly one teacher entered a room to find one sunning itself in front of the window.
I don't mean to scare y'all with any of these stories. It's just that I don't have much else to write about right now. My inservice days having been going well, but if I reported on those, then you might get a bit bored. Reptiles and spiders are much more exciting.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Pictures
The House:
The living room and the front door:
Into the Kitchen:
Behind each door are bunches of shelves. We won't run out of storage space.
Down the hallway leading to the rooms and bathrooms:
My bedroom (notice the made bed):
My bathroom:
Lucas' bathroom and Laundry Room:
Coolest Part (of the bathroom): Walk-in Closet
I'll have some pictures of the outside of the house once I find a digital camera. Not much else to update. I've been cleaning and arranging my classroom along with preparing my scientific method and life sciences units. I'll have more to talk about once inservice starts on Thursday.
The living room and the front door:
Into the Kitchen:
Behind each door are bunches of shelves. We won't run out of storage space.
Down the hallway leading to the rooms and bathrooms:
My bedroom (notice the made bed):
My bathroom:
Lucas' bathroom and Laundry Room:
Coolest Part (of the bathroom): Walk-in Closet
I'll have some pictures of the outside of the house once I find a digital camera. Not much else to update. I've been cleaning and arranging my classroom along with preparing my scientific method and life sciences units. I'll have more to talk about once inservice starts on Thursday.
Friday, August 3, 2007
What I've been doing
The house is now furnished--we just got our couches on Wednesday. They are very soft and comfortable and we aren't sure whether they are black or midnight navy. They have this crushed fabric (not sure of the technical term), so they have dark and light patches. In some lights, they look black and in others they look like a very dark blue. Either way, they work really well in our living room. Once I find a digital camera, I'll be able to provide a better idea of what it all looks like. I've actually been cooking for myself, too, and not just toast and cereal. Recently, I've made some pork chops with a sauce comprised of jack daniel's bbq sauce, dijon mustard, garlic powder, and brown sugar. It's really nice to pick what I want to eat at each meal instead of whatever is on Aramark or AVI's menu.
Planning for school has taken up most of my days. I've read a few good books on teaching and the stuff TFA has us doing is quite helpful. Essentially, it's alot of backwards planning. We first take our standards and make them easier to understand. Luckily, the science standards are quite thorough and explicit. We then figure out the assessment for each standard--ie how each student will show us that he or she mastered that objective. At the same time, we create a "big goal" for the students, which has a qualitative and quantitative component. The quantitative component is a statement of the measurable achievement we will accomplish at the end of the year. For example, moving all students an average of 1.5 to 2 grade levels in reading or all students mastering 80% or more of the objectives. This goal is usually assessed through a standardized test or other assessment that measures the students' mastery of objectives.
As a blessing and a curse, I don't have a standardized test to prep my students for at the end of the year (8th grade science is not yet tested in Arkansas--last year was a pilot year for 7th grade science testing, though). This means that I get to create my own final assessment; however, the test may not have as much meaning for my students due to the fact that it won't decide if they go on to the next grade level. Of course, I still have to come up with ways to motivate them to take the test seriously. My plans right now are to use questions from the NY Regents tests that are aligned to my standards. NY Regents tests are quite rigorous and unique in that in addition to multiple choice questions students are asked free response questions. My only modification will be to add a few lines under each multiple choice question to ask for an explanation/justification for each answer. I don't believe that circling 1 out of 4 choices on a question shows mastery of the material; I want to see the thought process behind the answer choice as that will show how the student arrived at the answer. It will also drive home the point that all answers (especially in science) need to be justified with reasons. All of my tests leading up to the final one will have this component as this will be an expectation I will have throughout the year.
The qualitative part of the big goal is the more fun part--we get to say what the students will actually get out of "8th grade science." Part of putting this together was creating "essential understandings" for our subject matter. "Essential understandings" are the key points/questions a subject asks in order to carry out its method of inquiry. To put it a better way, "what are the questions that this field asks?" and "what is the whole point of this field?" Not to brag, but for once the philosophy major had a direct application to my work. The idea behind this part of the big goal is that if we get our students to understand the "essential understandings," then they'll have an easier time understanding the reason behind why we are learning the subject matter of "8th grade science" or any other subject. Some of mine are:
The rest of my preparation has been the preparation of a diagnostic test to give at the beginning of the school year. For some subjects it's easier to give a diagnostic test than others (such as cumulative ones like calculus or Spanish). For 8th grade science, where the students get a quick survey of life, physical, and earth sciences, my diagnostic is focused more on skills than knowledge that the students bring. The test focuses on number skills like probability and fractions (we get to do Punnett squares in our life sciences section), measurement, and reading graphs. The test also focuses on basic understandings of science and inferences--students are asked to supply definitions for "hypothesis" and "laws" (among other terms) and to read a scientific passage and draw certain inferences. I know it sounds like the students are tested a great deal under any given TFA teacher, but at least there's a reason. I have to know where my students are when they enter my classroom and where they are when they leave. In order to get feedback on what they are learning and what I'm teaching, then I have to have some method to determine this. I can't read minds. Furthermore, each test or "assessment" doesn't have to be a 50 question MC test. As long as the assessment is objective driven, I have many ways of assessment available (such as short essay responses, lab reports, etc.). I'm sure I can go on at length for more of what I've done, but I'll stop here. I don't feel too scared about the first year due to much of this prep work.
Planning for school has taken up most of my days. I've read a few good books on teaching and the stuff TFA has us doing is quite helpful. Essentially, it's alot of backwards planning. We first take our standards and make them easier to understand. Luckily, the science standards are quite thorough and explicit. We then figure out the assessment for each standard--ie how each student will show us that he or she mastered that objective. At the same time, we create a "big goal" for the students, which has a qualitative and quantitative component. The quantitative component is a statement of the measurable achievement we will accomplish at the end of the year. For example, moving all students an average of 1.5 to 2 grade levels in reading or all students mastering 80% or more of the objectives. This goal is usually assessed through a standardized test or other assessment that measures the students' mastery of objectives.
As a blessing and a curse, I don't have a standardized test to prep my students for at the end of the year (8th grade science is not yet tested in Arkansas--last year was a pilot year for 7th grade science testing, though). This means that I get to create my own final assessment; however, the test may not have as much meaning for my students due to the fact that it won't decide if they go on to the next grade level. Of course, I still have to come up with ways to motivate them to take the test seriously. My plans right now are to use questions from the NY Regents tests that are aligned to my standards. NY Regents tests are quite rigorous and unique in that in addition to multiple choice questions students are asked free response questions. My only modification will be to add a few lines under each multiple choice question to ask for an explanation/justification for each answer. I don't believe that circling 1 out of 4 choices on a question shows mastery of the material; I want to see the thought process behind the answer choice as that will show how the student arrived at the answer. It will also drive home the point that all answers (especially in science) need to be justified with reasons. All of my tests leading up to the final one will have this component as this will be an expectation I will have throughout the year.
The qualitative part of the big goal is the more fun part--we get to say what the students will actually get out of "8th grade science." Part of putting this together was creating "essential understandings" for our subject matter. "Essential understandings" are the key points/questions a subject asks in order to carry out its method of inquiry. To put it a better way, "what are the questions that this field asks?" and "what is the whole point of this field?" Not to brag, but for once the philosophy major had a direct application to my work. The idea behind this part of the big goal is that if we get our students to understand the "essential understandings," then they'll have an easier time understanding the reason behind why we are learning the subject matter of "8th grade science" or any other subject. Some of mine are:
- Science gives us a way to support what we believe with good evidence. If other good evidence comes along that goes against what we believe, we have to change our minds.
- Structure determines function (what something is made of determines how it works)
- How can I understand the world through my 5 senses and my brain?
- What is the pattern that is developing?
- Given these results, what is going to happen next?
The rest of my preparation has been the preparation of a diagnostic test to give at the beginning of the school year. For some subjects it's easier to give a diagnostic test than others (such as cumulative ones like calculus or Spanish). For 8th grade science, where the students get a quick survey of life, physical, and earth sciences, my diagnostic is focused more on skills than knowledge that the students bring. The test focuses on number skills like probability and fractions (we get to do Punnett squares in our life sciences section), measurement, and reading graphs. The test also focuses on basic understandings of science and inferences--students are asked to supply definitions for "hypothesis" and "laws" (among other terms) and to read a scientific passage and draw certain inferences. I know it sounds like the students are tested a great deal under any given TFA teacher, but at least there's a reason. I have to know where my students are when they enter my classroom and where they are when they leave. In order to get feedback on what they are learning and what I'm teaching, then I have to have some method to determine this. I can't read minds. Furthermore, each test or "assessment" doesn't have to be a 50 question MC test. As long as the assessment is objective driven, I have many ways of assessment available (such as short essay responses, lab reports, etc.). I'm sure I can go on at length for more of what I've done, but I'll stop here. I don't feel too scared about the first year due to much of this prep work.
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