Another Year Completed... still I want to try to blog more in future...easy to say, harder to do.
This summer I am reflecting on how well I integrate technology into my classroom lessons, and ways I can do more or better lessons that use technology than ever before. I want to fully start using our BYOD concept to encourage students to stay engaged, and to take control of their learning. While several of my students this past year did submit assignments online using Moodle each week, it wasn't as large a percent as the previous year. Some of that may have been the fact I had two student teachers working in my room, basically the whole year I had an extra teacher in the room! How cool was that! But I gave control of the lessons over to them for a huge percentage of the school year, and that may have effected how well my students got used to the online part of the class.
So this summer I am reading first a book by Kipp Rogers (a Solution Tree conference purchase) about Bring Your Own Device to engage students and Transform Instruction. We shall see what nuggets I learn from the reading.
Until next time...
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Grading Reflections
I attended a superb Solution Tree workshop week focusing on Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), Grading practices, Intervention Tiers, and how to help every student succeed by Raising the Bar and Closing the gap... yes that is a book title too.
One topic that I learned about was the argument yet again about not putting in zeros for missing work. That has always stuck in my craw so to speak because I would not want to give a child 50% of the points for an assignment they never did, when a child who did poorly on it, but tried and did turn it in, but never tried to redo it also got 50%. But I started to see that the scale of 0 to 59% being a F while all the others are only 10 points on the 100 point scale made more sense. Especially when they talked about grading differences between teachers being a much as the same paper could get an A or an F depending on who your teacher is! Really made me think about how many zeros I have given out and was that really a fair and reasonable way to grade. Especially if the number of points possible on the assignment was over 10. The more points an assignment is worth, the worse it hurts those students who can't keep up with the workload for whatever reason.
So I am looking at using rubric scales of 4 to 0 for next year on most items, and I decided that while I wasn't sure about the 50% rule, the 25% rule I could handle. So any student who still had any missing items at the end of last quarter, was given 25% of the points possible for those assignments.* I almost never have a child turn in work and still only earn 25% of the grade.
Plus I will continue my policy of MAKING those students do their missing work in the next class periodinstead of moving forward with the rest of peers to the next assignment. That I was reassured is the best policy, even though it is a lot of work to have students working on multiple assignments in one 55 minutes class period, trying to supervise and juggle it all.....
Another reason I love my student teachers!
*None of my students failed Science this quarter with this policy in place!
I attended a superb Solution Tree workshop week focusing on Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), Grading practices, Intervention Tiers, and how to help every student succeed by Raising the Bar and Closing the gap... yes that is a book title too.
One topic that I learned about was the argument yet again about not putting in zeros for missing work. That has always stuck in my craw so to speak because I would not want to give a child 50% of the points for an assignment they never did, when a child who did poorly on it, but tried and did turn it in, but never tried to redo it also got 50%. But I started to see that the scale of 0 to 59% being a F while all the others are only 10 points on the 100 point scale made more sense. Especially when they talked about grading differences between teachers being a much as the same paper could get an A or an F depending on who your teacher is! Really made me think about how many zeros I have given out and was that really a fair and reasonable way to grade. Especially if the number of points possible on the assignment was over 10. The more points an assignment is worth, the worse it hurts those students who can't keep up with the workload for whatever reason.
So I am looking at using rubric scales of 4 to 0 for next year on most items, and I decided that while I wasn't sure about the 50% rule, the 25% rule I could handle. So any student who still had any missing items at the end of last quarter, was given 25% of the points possible for those assignments.* I almost never have a child turn in work and still only earn 25% of the grade.
Plus I will continue my policy of MAKING those students do their missing work in the next class periodinstead of moving forward with the rest of peers to the next assignment. That I was reassured is the best policy, even though it is a lot of work to have students working on multiple assignments in one 55 minutes class period, trying to supervise and juggle it all.....
Another reason I love my student teachers!
*None of my students failed Science this quarter with this policy in place!
Quarter 4 Week One Review
As before, having a student teacher in my class to assist and slowly take over the teaching while I supervise is such an opportunity to share my teaching skills and to re-evaluate what I do and try to improve even more. So this week, my student teacher is taking over all the classes now, with me simply assisting and guiding, or sometimes co-teaching. I love it!
We have only 9 weeks left now, and two of those will be doozies as we have both our AZmerit testing this quarter, and our Sex Ed guest speakers coming in for a week in our science classes. Not a fan of this, but our principal is trying to make sure every student gets this and more students take science than P.E. so "C'est la vie!"
So we really are going to need to find the absolute BEST lessons to teach our Ecology standards to our students with to help them understand and succeed in this unit. I vote for the best hands on labs and activities I can find, and then make sure the students can analyze the data and results they gain, and make strong conclusions that match that data.
One lab I know I want to repeat is the Transfer of Energy lab using water teams to carry water leaky bucket by bucket down a chain of students!
As before, having a student teacher in my class to assist and slowly take over the teaching while I supervise is such an opportunity to share my teaching skills and to re-evaluate what I do and try to improve even more. So this week, my student teacher is taking over all the classes now, with me simply assisting and guiding, or sometimes co-teaching. I love it!
We have only 9 weeks left now, and two of those will be doozies as we have both our AZmerit testing this quarter, and our Sex Ed guest speakers coming in for a week in our science classes. Not a fan of this, but our principal is trying to make sure every student gets this and more students take science than P.E. so "C'est la vie!"
So we really are going to need to find the absolute BEST lessons to teach our Ecology standards to our students with to help them understand and succeed in this unit. I vote for the best hands on labs and activities I can find, and then make sure the students can analyze the data and results they gain, and make strong conclusions that match that data.
One lab I know I want to repeat is the Transfer of Energy lab using water teams to carry water leaky bucket by bucket down a chain of students!
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Summer Break is Over Already!
Tomorrow I head out of town with 11 other teachers for a training that will last all week, so even though I OFFICIALLY am not back at work until the 30th, it really feels like my summer is over now.
I am looking forward to this training, called Laying the Foundation by the NMSI institute, as others who went last year found it greatly beneficial, and I often find a training like this gets my brain going for the new school year with fresh ideas and plans to put into place. Not that I don't have a lot of new things in place already that I am excited to see how it helps my students, but I can always find something new to intrigue me from the ideas and experience of others.
So sometime between this Saturday, and Wednesday the 29th I have to get in my room and set things up, touch up paint, clean out the supplies boxes and decorate. Maybe make a few copies in the meantime too.
The big plus for me is that most of my calendar and links for resources and assignments is already on our district Moodle Web page. I have been using Moodle for several years now, and it is such a time saver to have these items up ready to use. All I have been doing this summer is tweaking the order, updating a few worksheets, and adding more images and pictures to make it attractive and eye-catching for the students.
The main thing I have to work on this coming weekend is making a couple of new videos that I do not have yet, for my flipped classroom. I made several new ones last year, and I think this year I may actually get to the point where I do have one 10-15 minute video for each week of the year, except testing weeks! That is such a blessing and I am excited to be at this point in my goal of flipping my classroom content from lectures to videos.
Well, I need to finish packing,
Until next time
Maura
I am looking forward to this training, called Laying the Foundation by the NMSI institute, as others who went last year found it greatly beneficial, and I often find a training like this gets my brain going for the new school year with fresh ideas and plans to put into place. Not that I don't have a lot of new things in place already that I am excited to see how it helps my students, but I can always find something new to intrigue me from the ideas and experience of others.
So sometime between this Saturday, and Wednesday the 29th I have to get in my room and set things up, touch up paint, clean out the supplies boxes and decorate. Maybe make a few copies in the meantime too.
The big plus for me is that most of my calendar and links for resources and assignments is already on our district Moodle Web page. I have been using Moodle for several years now, and it is such a time saver to have these items up ready to use. All I have been doing this summer is tweaking the order, updating a few worksheets, and adding more images and pictures to make it attractive and eye-catching for the students.
The main thing I have to work on this coming weekend is making a couple of new videos that I do not have yet, for my flipped classroom. I made several new ones last year, and I think this year I may actually get to the point where I do have one 10-15 minute video for each week of the year, except testing weeks! That is such a blessing and I am excited to be at this point in my goal of flipping my classroom content from lectures to videos.
Well, I need to finish packing,
Until next time
Maura
Friday, June 12, 2015
Summer Vacation Week Three
Here I am at the end of my third week of vacation and I have truly had some success in relaxing and NOT worrying about school work at this point.
I spent the bulk of the second week on a trip to see some of my children and grandchildren and having fun with them. It always seems like there are too many months between visits, but until I retire I am limited by the school holiday schedule for long trips.
This week I got to meet my new principal and chat for half an hour with him, I am looking forward to the new year and seeing how his plan for our staff and students unfolds, but that is always a bit stressful to deal with a new boss.
I have also done a bit of school work, uploaded some more items to Teachers Pay Teachers, and a book I requested from Amazon arrived and I have started reading it. It is called Total Participation Techniques and is by a husband and wife team. They give a whole list of quick techniques to gauge how the students are understanding what they are learning, and at the same time most of them require ALL students to participate in the class as active learners.
As a teacher I recognize a lot of these already, some by different names, but I am already planning a goal of inserting at least one of these into every lesson for next year, if I don't already have something like this in the lesson. And I like the suggestion that you need to write the technique into the lesson plan, or you will probably forget to do it. Highlight or write them in red too to make them stand out. Some of the techniques that are recognizable to me are 'Thumbs up-Thumbs down", "Quick-Writes", "Think-Pair-Share" etc, but another tip in the book is to make a folder or envelope of prepared items such as a whiteboard with dry erase marker, cards that have answers typed on like (Still Thinking/ Ready to Share) that you can use for specific lessons. I am thinking I would like to do this for next year, to have a set of envelopes that are large enough to put my whiteboards in and get the other items printed off and laminated added also. I will need 32 that is the only thing that is going to take some money... unless I can put in a request with my secretary at school to add 32 super large manilla envelopes to the budget for this summer. Our district still hasn't released the new budget to our middle school for spending this summer yet!
I also just ordered myself a WACOM Intuous Pen and tablet set to help with my videos, so now when I record and want to underline a part of the presentation, or add something I can use a pen instead of the mouse for better control. At least that is my plan, wish me luck I am installing it today!
I spent the bulk of the second week on a trip to see some of my children and grandchildren and having fun with them. It always seems like there are too many months between visits, but until I retire I am limited by the school holiday schedule for long trips.
This week I got to meet my new principal and chat for half an hour with him, I am looking forward to the new year and seeing how his plan for our staff and students unfolds, but that is always a bit stressful to deal with a new boss.
I have also done a bit of school work, uploaded some more items to Teachers Pay Teachers, and a book I requested from Amazon arrived and I have started reading it. It is called Total Participation Techniques and is by a husband and wife team. They give a whole list of quick techniques to gauge how the students are understanding what they are learning, and at the same time most of them require ALL students to participate in the class as active learners.
As a teacher I recognize a lot of these already, some by different names, but I am already planning a goal of inserting at least one of these into every lesson for next year, if I don't already have something like this in the lesson. And I like the suggestion that you need to write the technique into the lesson plan, or you will probably forget to do it. Highlight or write them in red too to make them stand out. Some of the techniques that are recognizable to me are 'Thumbs up-Thumbs down", "Quick-Writes", "Think-Pair-Share" etc, but another tip in the book is to make a folder or envelope of prepared items such as a whiteboard with dry erase marker, cards that have answers typed on like (Still Thinking/ Ready to Share) that you can use for specific lessons. I am thinking I would like to do this for next year, to have a set of envelopes that are large enough to put my whiteboards in and get the other items printed off and laminated added also. I will need 32 that is the only thing that is going to take some money... unless I can put in a request with my secretary at school to add 32 super large manilla envelopes to the budget for this summer. Our district still hasn't released the new budget to our middle school for spending this summer yet!
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
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
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
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
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Interactive Notebooks
Since December I have been trying to have my students create interactive pages in their science notebooks. I have not wanted to spend a lot of paper and copies on making them cool foldable or pre printed pages each week, so often have tried to design simpler foldables using the actual pages in their notebooks.
Some students have been doing wonderful jobs creating colorful, neatly done pages each week, taking obvious pride in their work. Others forget on a regular basis to even bring their notebooks to class each day, so make sloppy entries on loose lined paper, that they often lose before they can get them taped into their notebooks.
But this is year one, and I do feel that many students are trying harder to keep their notebooks looking wonderful, and they see the benefit of having those notes and information available to study from and to use on formative tests. So I will keep on 'keeping on' for the future.
I have plans to attend a training on notebooks next month, and a math teacher at school who has taken trainings in the past is going to keep a sample notebook from one of her students for me to use as an idea guide for next year! That I am excited about as she has been an encouragement this year sharing some of the things she has her 8th grade math students do each week in their notebooks.
Some students have been doing wonderful jobs creating colorful, neatly done pages each week, taking obvious pride in their work. Others forget on a regular basis to even bring their notebooks to class each day, so make sloppy entries on loose lined paper, that they often lose before they can get them taped into their notebooks.
But this is year one, and I do feel that many students are trying harder to keep their notebooks looking wonderful, and they see the benefit of having those notes and information available to study from and to use on formative tests. So I will keep on 'keeping on' for the future.
I have plans to attend a training on notebooks next month, and a math teacher at school who has taken trainings in the past is going to keep a sample notebook from one of her students for me to use as an idea guide for next year! That I am excited about as she has been an encouragement this year sharing some of the things she has her 8th grade math students do each week in their notebooks.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
More Technology Issues
I am already considering making use of the lesson feature which has students read information on the Moodle site, then answer questions for credit. This could be a way of helping them progress independently that I would like to try? Also, I plan on no longer requiring students to turn in their folder for credit at quarters end, so I can expect them to upload more lessons and grade them on Moodle more so they can see their scores too.
Around Thanksgiving our district decided that Google site and all it's applications were a security issue that meant we lost google at school! except for the teacher computers with the web override so that meant I had to find a new site to store and link my videos too! Frustrations! So since then I have been uploading both to Vimeo and Google so students can choose which to use at home, but at school Vimeo is available for those who do their homework at school.
I hope nothing else changes in future to add to my workload on this!
Maura
Third Quarter Summary
My students this year continue to need more supervised class time to complete work that previous years could complete in one class period or less...and I am no closer to answering my question of why?
So instead I have modified and adjusted the schedule to give them that time. Not to simplify their work, or expect less of them, simply to allow them more class time with me to complete it by building in more makeup days/enrichment opportunities for those who did complete the work at the pace I expected.
This has meant more reteaching time, and retakes of test...I still see a need to offer formative assessments over smaller chunks of content, as do the other 7th grade teachers, so I plan to add to my test assessments so I have one per chapter for next year...no 2 or 3 chapter unit tests. And keep those enrichment ideas coming for my top students in science.
This is the way my whole school is moving for next year, adding reteach/enrichment class time for all students in all areas. So I am doing this for my own classes independently since I know Math and English will take precedence each week for reteaching time in this extra class we are adding to the schedule.
I am one week behind where I had planned to be for Spring break, so my final week of lessons and the Geology benchmark are set for when we return. Then it is full steam ahead with our state AIMS tests and Ecology/Water Conservation for the end of the year!
This week off I am focusing on my teacher evaluation documentation log and narratives needed. I agreed to skip the second observation since I do hope and expect to get the effective rating, so it isn't necessary. So getting the rest of my evidence and artifacts uploaded and finalized is important. This first pilot year I feel a bit trepidatious about this whole thing, but one often does with new things, next year should be smoother as long as they don't change the rules at all.
Maura
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Fall Break Fall out!
The first quarter is over, and again I ran out of energy to meet my goal of an entry each week. I will endeavor to keep trying though. Part of my goal for this year, for my teacher evaluation plan includes being more reflective and showing proofs of that reflection time and I realize that using my blog entries as artifacts will work for that. So double the reason to try to make time for them.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Week One Completed!
Phew! When our district decided to switch the first week to a full 5 day week rather than beginning on a Wednesday it really makes a difference. I am exhausted, and I think the students are too. But it was a good week considering.
So this past week I spent my time showing the students the Moodle website, where I store all their assignments, to include the videos for my flipped lessons. We practiced watching a video in class, and writing up a summary of what they learned from the video, and we also practiced our vocabulary format for bellwork that I have instituted this year. And I set up my first Curiosity Corner with a complicated series of flasks and tubing bubbling away for them to identify what on earth Mrs Neill was trying to do with her crazy experiment. They seemed to love that! Classroom procedures? They are getting it, slowly but surely.
Next week we are doing a series of lab activities to hone their use of basic equipment and accurate measurements, and they have their first video to watch at home. We shall see how many students do their homework on time this first week!
Over and Out... Commander Neill
- Considering I have much larger classes this year, so about an extra 15 students total to fit into my room, and help get adjusted to Middle School.
- Considering our online assessment site is not up and running yet, so we were not able to start our battery of pre-testing on time, and are still awaiting when we will be able to fit that into our schedule.
- Considering I had to "all at the last minute" switch my lessons and class information over to a new Moodle website, that IT just installed and got up and running the last week of summer.
So this past week I spent my time showing the students the Moodle website, where I store all their assignments, to include the videos for my flipped lessons. We practiced watching a video in class, and writing up a summary of what they learned from the video, and we also practiced our vocabulary format for bellwork that I have instituted this year. And I set up my first Curiosity Corner with a complicated series of flasks and tubing bubbling away for them to identify what on earth Mrs Neill was trying to do with her crazy experiment. They seemed to love that! Classroom procedures? They are getting it, slowly but surely.
Next week we are doing a series of lab activities to hone their use of basic equipment and accurate measurements, and they have their first video to watch at home. We shall see how many students do their homework on time this first week!
Over and Out... Commander Neill
Monday, July 15, 2013
Year in Review
Well, the best of intentions did not pan out obviously last year, and here I am a year and more later remembering to check in with my blog site and see how to work it. So I will review my year of flipping my classroom here as best I can. The issues I faced fell into a couple of categories that I will talk about first, as these will need addressed and I do have some ideas on how to handle them better this coming year.
First I dealt with several Technology issues.
- Students not remembering their passwords...I can work on doing a bulk upload with an excel file and assign passwords to all my students at the beginning of the year, they can change their email to a valid account after signing on. This way I know their passwords and can look them up when they do forget. With Middle Schoolers that is simply bound to happen I believe.
- Moodle is on our school server and at the start of the year there were several issues when the server crashed and my students could not access Moodle to see their assignments or do their homework...I do have the whole year built at this point, so I would have time to upload links to videos and copies of other assignments to Edmodo as a backup internet site for students to use. Also, our district did upgrade our server at Christmas and is doing so to our Moodle website this summer, so I am hoping this will not be such an issue this year.
- Students not being able to get videos to play or files to open at home due to needing upgrades on their home computer system... I am going to set up the Moodle so that students have more time to get their work done, having deadlines that are earlier for work, so that everyone should have the work done by the day I want them to use that knowledge in class. So the only issue will be getting students to try things at home early and if they have an issue they will have time to come in at lunch, or work during class time to get caught up with their classmates in time to meet the deadline.
- Students not having internet at home and needing time in school to get that work completed...I already tackled this issue this year staying after school 4 days a week almost every week for any students who needed to use school computers, spending my lunch time in the classroom, and coming in early to be available to my students. The parents overwhelmingly appreciated and loved me being available for their student to get that extra time with me when needed all year long. It was tiring but I plan to keep it up.
Second was homework issues still, even though the assignments were easier to do for the students, some just simply do not ever do homework for any class.
- Students not doing homework and getting low grades in class... this year our school is starting an After-school Learning Lab (ALL) that is for students who are failing in any class to stay that whole week after school and get all their work caught up. It will also be a study skills time, and a time to get current homework done. So my students will have to stay for this if they do not do their classwork and homework and their grades fall
- Students not doing homework well or completely... I plan to spend some time at the start of the year, and repeat the process if I see a need during the year showing students what good completed homework and assignments look like. They will have opportunities to 'fix' their assignment that is substandard on these days and get to turn in something that is well done.
- Students not doing their work well, or on time and slowing down other students...this year I plan to let students know they can work ahead on the week's work and if they do they will get to do an enrichment activity at the end of the unit that will be both fun, and give them more practice for the quiz or test at the end. Some students will get to this assignment all the time, others will have to finish the other work first and will run out of class time. They will not get a zero for this special assignment, they just will miss out on enjoying it. So in my class by the end of each week, there will likely be students working on different things around the room and I will simply be supervising them, that they do get something done that hour. I hope this peer pressure will cause more and more students to get their homework done, and be ready to participate with this enrichment activity as the year progresses.
I did really like the Moodle website set up and options it gave me for organizing the assignments into sections, adding graphics to draw in my students and send out bulk emails to families reminding them when work was due or events were coming up. There are features on Moodle that I have not used much yet and want to work with more this coming year as I have time.
My students who were doing their homework all the time shared that they really liked doing the videos and other readings at home rather than having to finish something difficult that they might have had trouble with. They liked that we did more labs and hands-on experiments in the class time that was freed up for those kinds of activities. They wanted to include more technology assignments, like having to build their own powerpoints or videos too. That would mean giving up more time to projects, as those types of assignments take time to put together. So the flipped classroom does give me time to do different types of assignments in class and I really like that.
I found that doing one video a week was plenty for my middleschoolers, many are coming from elementary schools that give almost no homework and the amount of homework they are getting in 7th grade is taking time for them to adjust to. Also, I needed to have some way of knowing if they watched the video or not, and one extra assignment for me to grade each week added a lot of work for me as the teacher, never mind the time it took to create and upload that video. In science we learn a new concept and then spend some time with it, so I couldn't really see how to make more videos each week anyway, unless I broke the video down to one key point and maybe only 2 minutes in length instead of 10 minutes and covering a complete chapter. I think I will keep things the same, as it worked well. My top students were able to keep up, though they told me they did have to work at it. I need to remember I am not their only teacher assigning homework each night. I am one of three 7th grade science teachers at our school, and the only one trying the flipped classroom model. We do teach differently as teachers, but we were doing a lot of the same lessons and activities as we share ideas well as a department. When it came time for our benchmark testing, my students consistently scored higher as a group compared to the other two teams of students. This is only the first year trying this so I will have to gather more data over time, but these initial results are very encouraging. I saw better class scores from my students too overall this year compared to previous years, and the main change I made was flipping my classroom, using the videos for introduction of new topics as homework.
This summer I am working up new lessons that incorporate more of the Common Core literacy skills that I am responsible for as a science teacher, and streamlining my lessons more to better benefit my students benefit. I have researched how to better teach vocabulary and deeper reading skills to my students and plan to use that knowledge throughout the year to improve my teaching. I also studied the value of reflection pieces both for me as a teacher, and my students and see this blog as a reflection spot for me to use better in the coming year.
So for this coming school year, which begins on August 5th for my students, I do hope to make time each week to reflect and share how my teaching goes, the nuggets of wisdom I learn, and to honestly share both my failures and successes in Year Two of Adventures in Science class!
Maura
Friday, June 22, 2012
Hi
The purpose of this blog is to keep a journal of my experiences flipped my 7th grade science class. I have been working all summer to build a series of lessons on Moodle and will use that platform to house my videos, powerpoints and other lessons online. My goal is to post weekly on how things go, we shall see...
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