5th Grade Free Write

Having students participate in a "free read" or "free write" successfully, takes some practice. One thing that seems to be motivate most students simply involves watching the teacher participate in the activity. I typed up what I wrote during a fifth grade free write activity in one of the classes that knows me pretty well.

"Free Write 2/16/16

 I LOVE being a teacher. I love watching students learn, grow, change, experience new things, make new friends and start figuring out what they are interested in. I think, looking back, that I taught my high school guys at ~ a 5th grade level. There are so many new things being learned in 5th grade. They are learning how to LOVE reading and writing. Things I love! For so long I wanted to help people figure out how to be successful in college, but now I'm learning that what I REALLY want is to teach people how to LEARN. Learning how to LOVE reading, how to LOVE math, how to LOVE writing. 5th grade seems like a good place to accomplish this."

Thinking about what grade I want to teach the MOST, is difficult. Some of my favorite things to teach:

• Lab Reports!
• Genomics
• DNA

These subjects are not really applicable in 5th grade. So, what do I do? Teach middle school? Go back for a masters in elementary ed? Tough it out in an affluent high school? It's weird to be at a crossroads once again in my teaching career, but exciting and exhilarating at the same time.

 

Science in an alternative classroom

The second term I taught Science,  I framed the class around lab experience. My intention was to hone and strengthen lab writing skills. For unforeseen reasons, that didn't exactly happen. The first part of the term we did two different labs: a virtual lab (an activity I came up with in college and really liked using in practice) and then a chromatography lab. Here was what I wrote about the chromatography lab:

"Did not go well. They hated it, even though they got to do the lab themselves. I think they liked the idea of doing the lab portion, but some of them didn't even like that. I would only do this lab again if I had a group of kids that was really into hands on stuff."

I think this sums up what science looks like in an alternative science classroom MOST of the time for MOST students.

Energy of Matter Unit

The first unit I taught in Chemistry was probably one of the hardest content areas of chemistry to teach. The entire unit is completely abstract. I am so thankful my mentor teacher is as prepeared as he is and literally handed me the material every day to work with. I was able to write several of the warm-ups, but only some. My personality definiely shined through in places as well, just ask the students about my bad energy equation jokes. I enjoyed teaching this unit becuase it is coherent and student progress is really easy to follow. One day they are complaining this makes no sense at all and the next they are writing electron configurations like pros. In the future, I would make sure that I spend more time gauging the algebra skills of my students. Maybe going slower through the light and energy equations to make sure students have a solid understanding of how to manipulate the equations to do what you want them to. I felt rushed through this portion of the unit, understandably becuase I needed to take the time to go through it myself and refresh my own understanding. There were also many instances of questions asked that I couldn't give an answer to, my chemistry skills are not graduate level.

Penny Experiment... good for the first day of school?

On the first day of school, the chemistry instructor used literal demonstrations to show his students what he had signed up for in his class. I like the idea of this, but I don't love the way most people do this. He showed cool party tricks that I think students enjoyed. One involved fire and one involved piercing but not popping a balloon. I found this link from one of my professors at SPU. He writes an awesome blog and is an excellent Biochemistry teacher. This particular glowing penny experiment would be an awesome first day demonstration because it outlines so many different chemical processes. Explaining how this one experiment shows so many different aspects of chemistry, based on something we use every day. So cool.

http://arrowthroughthesun.blogspot.com/2013/08/making-copper-pennies-glow-bright-red.html