Most teachers in America (and the world) are venturing into the weird world on online teaching and remote learning. In some cases, you can't grade it but you still have to provide learning opportunities. In other cases, you must have daily attendance questions and daily assignments. Other teachers have required office hours and meetings with students. So many of us have been working hard to integrate authentic learning experiences with NGSS SEPs, teaching our kids skills and inquiry, rather than focusing exclusively on content. So what to do now? I'll take you through how I am integrating all of the SEPs while we explore this new way of teaching and connecting with our students. Here is a great document to familiarize yourself with the SEPs and grade level expectations. Asking Questions and Defining Problems + Developing and Using ModelsJust because we can't do live phenomenon, does not mean we can't do them! To introduce a concept or review a previous concept, find a video, gif or even video yourself doing a phenomenon. Great phenomenon resources here and here and here.
Planning and Carrying Out InvestigationsWhat a great time to do at home labs! So many labs you do in class can be done at home, especially for the physical sciences. Motion, momentum, chemical reactions (think cooking and baking) and ecosystems in student's backyards. My physics students are doing one of four motion mini labs using materials in their own home.
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Social distancing, self isolation and quarantine seem to be vocabulary words no one used until March 2020. This pandemic will be something that will be written about in books, movies will be made and stories will be told. If my future children ever complain about being bored, they'll know I start talking about these weeks in March and April 2020 when we had to stay home as much as possible. As someone with anxiety, these times would probably be the worst. While I've had up and downs, cried for no reason and spent too much time watch Love Is Blind, I found a few things that helped me thrive and find a new side of myself I never knew Create a Schedule and Working HoursTeachers already work too much and it is easy to continue this pattern now. Set working hours, for instance mine are 8am-3pm. Those are the only hours I work on anything school related, including email. Your school may mandate different hours, so keep those in mind. However, this doesn't mean you are working the whole time. This is where a schedule comes in. Here's mine!
8am-10am: School 10am-11am: Yoga and Walk Dogs 11am-1pm: School and Lunch 1pm-2pm: Break 2pm-3pm: School 3pm-5pm: Workout 5pm-7pm: Dinner and Walk Dogs 7pm: Relax with TV and Games Schedules help us keep some sort of normalcy. That schedule isn't rigid, but it gives me guidance throughout the day, especially when I am unmotivated. Take your Remind notifications off your phone and your school email. No checking that outside your hours! :) What a time to live in! We have an entire online/offline organizational tool that is collaborative and easy to use!It's called Google Drive! I'm sure you know about and whether you are an expert or beginner. Chances are your school has their own Google Drive and you have your own. It is a powerful tool and there are so many amazing features. I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to KonMari your Google Drive.
I find so many colleagues who use Google Drive, share and create but they can't find anything! I . have other colleagues who save everything on their computer or the very, very disorganized staff shared drive (it honestly scares me and no one can find anything). Vintage Google Drive I guess. Whether it's poorly named, not in a folder or just named "Copy of 2018 Final", this isn't efficient. Let's KonMari our Google Drives! I'm about to finish up my 5th year teaching. I cannot believe it.Happiness. Anxiety. Excitement. Dread. Stress. Relief. Laughter. Success. I've experienced it all. After 5 years teaching, I reflect on what I've learned and what I remember and will always remember about what it takes to be an amazing educator! 1. Break the NormAsk why your school do things a certain way. If the answer is "we've always done it that way", break the norm. Transform your classroom, do things you've always wanted to do and don't be afraid. I did SBG and Flipped Learning when people told me it wouldn't work. I started the Sunshine Club when I thought no one would come. Change happens when you step out of your comfort zone. Speak up and make it happen. 2. Classroom Management is EverythingIt doesn't matter if you're the smartest person in the world and you know your subject the best or your have the most engaging lesson in the world. If you don't have classroom management, you have nothing in your room. I work on this every day and embrace it as my challenge as an educator. Every kid can be engaged and on task. My favorite resources are here, here and here.
Why do we grade students?I've always wondered... why do we have grades? To see students' knowledge? To hold students' "accountable"? To get into college? To be valedictorian? I saw kids who teachers would describe as "they're smart but they don't care" with Cs and Ds and other kids who played the game so well they knew nothing but had A's but didn't always know the content and skills. I was think kid in high school A's and some B's in AP classes. However in college, going to liberal arts school I realize that my skills and experiences outweighed my grades. I still got decent grades but I did care less. So to write this blog post I did a little digging. According to Wikipedia, grading began in in 1785 at Yale and the quantitative scale was first implemented at The University of Cambridge. GPA is from a 1.0 to 4.0 scale and turns out doesn't show a correlation between grades and job performances (shocking). And grade inflation is so bad at universities grades are becoming useless. It seems like grading is a practice that was made such a long time ago, we just do it because it's what we've always done.
When I first arrived my current school a few years ago I kept to myself. I interacted with people in my department and tried my best to do my own thing. I rarely ventured out my department and didn't realize how many cool people there were in my school.
The next year I began to meet new people. I ventured out of my department, finally. I realized how much I had in common with other new teachers in the building and how progressive and like minded a lot of other teachers were throughout the school. I met a Spanish teacher Ann, who was new to the school, when we went to a randomly organized potluck on a Friday. We were talking about how maybe we should organize Secret Santa. Ann was used to a lot of social events at her past schools in Las Vegas. Well, Secret Santa was a hit! We had about half the staff participate and it was awesome to watch teachers and support staff get to know each other (even our principals participated)! I watched lots of staff members get to know each other even though they work on other sides of the school from each other. We had fun the week before finals sending kids across the school with gifts, surprising people with a Starbucks coffee and starting off each day with a smile. So Ann and I decided it was time to (re)create Sunshine Club at our school. Sunshine Club is a better term for a social or morale club at a school. Here's How We Create Our Little Sunshine |