Thoughts from the School Year 2014-15

Random Thoughts and Decisions to make...

I had another year of students needing more time to get a lesson completed than previous students had needed. I hope this isn't a growing trend!

I had to use a new curriculum sequence this year because my school district adopted fully Vail's Beyond Textbook wiki and curriculum for us. So yes, I did this year have something that added to my workload. I had to reorganize my whole Moodle website yet again because the BT sequence did not match the curriculum sequence I had on there. I and the rest of the Science department has submitted our preferred calendar of units for next year, with high hopes that our district does approve them and these calendars get uploaded to the BT wiki for us for next year. We had been told that we needed to give their calendar a try for one year, then we could upload our own if we found that to be better for our students. I really hope that promise is kept. 

I have helped write many formative assessments of the POs (performance objectives) we teach, and I have used them throughout the year to gauge my students' learning of the new concepts. This year I made them have a point value, granted only 10 points, but still, they counted for a grade. I wonder if I should change this for future years? Or if I can make students do a retake, until they achieve a passing score of 70 or 80%?

The notebooks went well this year in general. Many students did a superb job on their pages each week, and took pride in keeping their notebooks looking professional. I had students using a composition notebook all this year. I wonder if I should instead use spiral 5 subject or 3 subject notebooks next year. The loss would be that hard covering on the composition notebooks, the gain would be students could remove pages from the back section to use for making some of the foldables. If they only used a section for each quarter, that 5th subject section would be available for removing pages without messing up the actual notebook. The 8th grade Math students for the teacher I have been learning from used this type of notebooks this year, and it went really well for her. So I am wondering if I should change too?

I have a really out of date classroom for a science teacher. We have only one working sink in the room. I have discussed with my curriculum department about working with a local company to get the room updated but I am not sure that is really going to happen within this school year if at all so I need some improvisation tactics to make things smoother next year on Lab days. My idea is to use the 8 buckets I already own, and each lab day, fill with some warm soapy water and have both a handtowel and dish drying cloth at each table, maybe on the floor. Students can then wash and dry their equipment and glassware at the table, AND wash and dry their hands without the never ending line at the sink. I already have purchased the towels, I will need a good supply of dishwasing detergent though if I am going to use it both for dishes and hand washing each hour. But I think this will work to smooth the lab days.

My students get a hands on lab, or some kind of hands on activity, or a computer simulation day every week. Yet they still want more... that is the message I got again, loud and clear from their reflective letters to me at the end of the year. They love when a lab takes several days to complete, like the Egg Osmosis Lab from 1st quarter this year. I need to build more lab days into the week, or even more demos by me up front would please them. They really wish that we studied Chemistry in 7th grade, but we don't. So I have to dream up more Astronomy, Geology, and Ecology labs to excite them, at the same time as they are learning the concepts and standards for 7th grade.

I am also looking for some power point backgrounds that move, or animate for me to build my power points on. I am not sure if I will find free options online, or if I need to spend some money on this... my pastor at church uses something like what I want for his sermon outlines... I need to ask him about them.

Okay, that is enough for this blog entry... I am sure I will have some more ideas though.

Maura 

Summer Vacation Week One

Well, my first week of summer has been focused on organizing school papers into binders, uploading some files to TPT for sale, working on my Moodle website to get ready for next year... why?

I wonder if all teachers have this denial phase at the start of summer, in which they just can't stop working on school things?

I persuaded my husband that at the very least we had to take one day to do something fun, and he agreed. He works from home, and often 7 days a week puts in several hours of work each morning on his photography, so the only way to truly take a break for both of us is to leave the house!

We are heading up to Tucson tomorrow, hopefully to do a bit of shopping for fun, eat out a a unique restaurant, and visit Tucson's Botanical Gardens for a chance for some photography opportunities. So I lied, he will still be working a bit on this fun trip, but the truth is, he loves his photography.

Maybe next week I will truly take a complete break from school work...

Does my nose suddenly look a bit longer?

Maura