P4- Practice the integration of appropriate technology within instruction.

P4. Practice the integration of appropriate technology within instruction. Teacher-candidates use technology that is effectively integrated to crete technologically proficient learners. Technology is an ever-changing aspect of modern life, included education. Technology can be used to entice and excite students, but in order for the use of technology in the classroom to be effective, students should be taught how to effectively use the technology that will be in their academic lives. To introduce bacteria, I showed two YouTube clips. One was about 2 minutes long and the other about 5 minutes. I showed both clips twice instructing students to watch and listen the first time through and then as we watched it again to answer the questions I wrote to go along with the clips.  I have included both the clips and the lesson plan I used for the day they were shown. By showing these clips I was able to accomplish several different tasks.  The clips bring up many interesting facts about bacteria, including antibiotic resistance and a short piece on evolution and natural selection, acting as a hook for the upcoming unit. In addition, I showed students how to use youtube clips effectively by watching them twice so they hear the information and then pick up the important ideas the second time through. From this lesson I learned that videos are a great tool to use when starting a unit. Once the unit begins, various concepts come up that can be referred back to the youtube clip so students have a reference point. Students  were not only introduced to bacteria in a way that they will remember, but they were also given an underlying lesson in learning from video clips. In the future, I want to make sure that I use video clips sparingly enough that they are thought of as a "treat" but often enough to enhance various lessons.

introtobacteria_LP

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjR6L38yReE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcXdfofLoj0

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.

O1- Offer an organized curriculum aligned to standards and outcomes.

O1- Offer an organized curriculum aligned to standards and outcomes. Teacher Candidates align instruction to the learning standards and outcomes so all students know the learning targets and their progress towards meeting them. One way to differentiate a classroom is to cater to different learning styles. Some students are visual and require learning goals posted on the walls. Other students may need the overall goal of the unit in front of them before they are able to delve into the details. O1 attempts to cater to multiple learning needs. By showing students what the learning standards are and helping them track their own progress, differentiation happens naturally in the classroom.  In chemistry, students are given a handout titled "learning goals" at the beginning of each unit (attached at the bottom). The front of the sheet includes the key ideas for the unit as well as space for students to check off the concepts as they learn them. On the back of the sheet there is space for students to ask questions and list what they are struggling with to turn in two days before the test. From student feedback we are able to compile questions to help students solidify any concepts they may not be fully confident in right before the test. This handout not only alerts students to learning standards and outcomes, but allows students to keep progress of their own learning and then identify their weak spots in their learning. As a teacher, I value these handouts just as much to gauge student learning as the unit progresses. While using this handout, I find that I am more in tune to the unit content myself at the end of the unit I find that I am more aware of how my students are comprehending the material. Students clearly benefit from learning goals presented in this way as they take time to reflect on their learning progress in preparation for the test. In addition to providing each student with a learning goals handout, I would like to incorporate a reflective time as a class to analyze various aspects of the unit and how far we have come as a whole. This could include analyzing pretests prior to the unit test or getting in groups and going over learning specific learning goals.

learning goals

H1- Honor student diversity and development

H1.- Honor student diversity and development. Teacher candidates plan and/or adapt learner centered curricula that engage students in a variety of culturally responsive, developmentally and age appropriate strategies. Each student is vastly different from the next. As a teacher, it is so important to see "the student" as an individual versus "the studentS"  all blurred together. One way to honor student individuality is to offer activites and projects that allow indiviudality to shine through. Each student is in a unique stage of life. Giving them the opportunity to express their own thoughts is critical to the high  school population. One way to honor student individuality in Biology involves project-based work. I assigned my students the "cell analogy project" (figure 1) to complete with their table groups.

[caption id="attachment_384" align="alignleft" width="257"] Figure 1. Handout/rubric for cell analogy project.[/caption]

This project is based off of an article I read outlining various ways student diversity may be honored in the science classroom (attached as "Culturally Relevent Teaching in Science"). This project is great for all age and developmental levels because it leaves room for excelling students to go deeper and other students to gain an understanding without as much work. Through this project I was able to gauge student understanding of the central focus (cells) and give them an opportunity to relate what we were learning in biology class to their own lives. From this project I learned several things about classroom culture. Students were able to choose both the analogy they based their project off of as well as the way they presented their analogy. I found that students were engaged with the other presentations because I made sure all presentations were different. Not only was student individuality honored, but I as the teacher was in control of classroom engagement. Students worked intimately with the various components of cells and gained a well-rounded understanding of how the cell works. As an audience, students were asked to write down three things they learned from the presentations. I read through these comments when I graded notebooks after this unit so I had physical evidence that students were learning during the presentations.

In future years, I would be interested to work out a way for each student to do an individual project. Although table groups were effective for this project, I would be interested to see if individualized projects would impact students (and their grades) differently while still working out logistically.

culturally relevent teaching in science

E1.- Exemplify professionally-informed, growth-centered practice.

E1.- Exemplify professionally-informed, growth-centered practice. Teacher candidates develop reflective, collaborative, professional growth-centered practices through regularly evaluating the effects of his/her teaching through feedback and reflection. E1 encourages a reflective teaching practice that includes building a professional community fostering collaboration and reflection on ones practice.  As part of the undergraduate certification process, I am required to observe practicing teachers. Several of these observations can be found here, here, here and here. During these observations, I found myself to be incredibly reflective on my own practice. I am fortunate to be placed at a school with excellent teachers. The above observations are all of teachers who love to teach and are in the field to expand their practice. The teachers I observed were all very different but each one was able to relate to students in a unique way. One of the observations I did was of my own mentor teacher. I taught the same class earlier in the day and he gave me specific feedback about how I did. I asked to watch him teach the same lesson later and he agreed. It was great to see how I handled the class and the content similarly, as in I covered the same material in the same general order, but differently in my approach and rapport with students.  Through watching various teachers and the various techniques used, I am beginning to narrow-down the type of teacher I strive to be. For the majority of my life I have jotted down various teaching techniques I appreciate about teachers in an effort to compile teaching characteristics I hope to adopt. Now, as I watch others teach, I am able to discern whether the teaching traits I see are something that would work for me, or not. The traits that don't work for me are not bad, I appreciate that others can utilize various tips and tricks, but I am no longer bogged down by having to strive to do every cool thing I see other teachers do. Students in my own class will benefit from the reflections I have made of myself through this process because I will be able to play to my own strengths and therefore serve my students in a more natural and holistic way. In my remaining time at my placement school and throughout my career, I hope to take advantage of any observation opportunities I have. I enjoy watching others teach and find that not only do I always learn something (about content or teaching itself) but I am constantly analyzing my own practice when I watch others. Scheduling regular observation times will keep me reflective and fresh as a teacher.

Teacher Observation: Chemistry

Yesterday I taught electron configurations and atomic orbitals to my chemistry students. My mentor teacher and I spent a long time going over various aspects of the lecture and how it was going to go. I felt good about my teaching, despite the varying response from students. Many were frustrated by the new language they were learning. One student came up to me after class and said "I think you did a great job, they're (the other students)  just crazy." I was interested to see my mentor teach this same lesson for several reasons. First, I haven't seen him lecture a whole lot and felt I could benefit from watching him do so. Second, I wanted to compare what I did to what he did. So I observed my chemistry mentor teach during sixth period, a class I have never interacted with.

ML opened the class with a warm-up that was part of his notes but he had them fill out in their warm-up sheets. I like the way he elicited prior knowledge about the topic he was covering and I think the students benefited from this exercise. He then used a mix of questioning techniques to hear answers to the warm-up. He both randomly called on people and asked for volunteers to answer. Once the students were through the warm-up, he posted announcements for the students to write down and while he passed out a handout to the class. This was a great use of disrupted time as the students needed to copy down the homework and it gave him an opportunity to pass out something the students needed. One classroom management technique I observed ML use was the power dynamic he set up at the beginning of class. I'm not sure if it was the words he used or the way he said it, but there was a tone set that he was in charge of the next fifty minutes and the students were to follow his lead.  At various points throughout the lecture he reminded them of this by saying things like, "will you let me finish?" "hold your questions for a second," etc. As far as instruction goes, I know that ML does not lecture very often. There are scattered lecture days among many work days, work sheets, drills, labs, web explorations, etc. The lecture days are used primarily to get a concept across so the students can then interact with that concept and master it. Electron configuration charts must be taught because of the abstract nature of the drawings. Asking students to come up with how to do that would be extremely time-consuming and unrealistic. However, ML uses the time following lectures to give students a chance to interact with the concept and explore different patterns they may see. Towards the end of the lecture, ML encouraged students to try the new material on their own or in their groups using white boards. Although not highly technical, white boards are essential to chemistry classrooms so students can interact with the abstract concepts they learn.

There were several differences between ML's lecture and mine. I think several of the differences are just in our personalities. Additionally, he has been doing this for so long and is so comfortable with the material that he is able to free the mental space to expand his teaching repertoire. One way he does this is with many different analogies. I need to use more analogies to explain the chemistry concepts. Chemistry is so abstract that models and analogies are necessary to master the concepts. I thoroughly enjoyed observing my mentor teacher in this informal way with a set of students I have no responsibility for. It was a good experience and gave me an even better understanding of the chemistry class at my placement school.

P1.- Practice intentional inquiry and planning for instruction.

P1.- Practice intentional inquiry and planning for instruction. Teacher candidates plan and/or adapt standards-based curricula that are personalized to the diverse needs of each student. At my placement school, I have several students with IEP's in my classroom. planning and adapting standards-based curricula seems to go hand in hand with adapting classroom materials to meet the needs of specific IEP students. In sixth period Biology, I have a student (ES) with both physical and mental issues. He is partially blind, partially deaf and partially disabled. He learns slower, most likely due to the physical ailments he deals with on a day-to-day basis. Due to his partial blindness, each handout or warm-up I create, I print out in bigger font for him to read. Attached is a screenshot of various documents I have enlarged for ES. His IEP states that accommodations as such are necessary for his learning success... for obvious reasons. If his eyes have to strain just a little less his mind is more open to think about the biology we are discussing in class. When creating any lesson, I work to meet both state standards, national standards and preparation for the Biology EOC. This means that everything we do in Biology class is for a purpose. Students are constantly asked to think creatively and make connections between subjects. For students that have physical or learning disabilities, tasks as such can be monumentally harder. accommodating students in simple ways such as increasing the font-size is a great way to give these students a leg up.   From this experience, I have realized the necessary balance between accommodating students and having high expectations. ES is enrolled in a mainstream science class so the expectations we have for him are high. He is expected to reach the standards we teach to in biology. ES works hard and truly benefits from the accommodations spelled out in his IEP. If accommodating ES by creating larger documents allows him to reach the standards, then I am happy to serve this student in this way.

[caption id="attachment_371" align="alignleft" width="300"] A few documents that were enlarged for ES as well as a folder where I keep most of the enlarged documents for the cell unit, for future students who may need this accommodation.[/caption]

For ES, giving him accommodating documents improves his learning environment . Improving the learning environment allows for more organic learning and will hopefully help ES succeed in high school biology.  Seeing the benefit that accommodations give IEP students, my next step is to accommodate students of all abilities in any way I can. Not every student is on an IEP but many students could enjoy an accommodating classroom environment in one way or another. Without the IEP or 504, it will take an open atmosphere in my classroom to discern what accommodations students may need. Whether enlarging documents for partially blind students or other accommodations, my goal as a teacher is to best serve my students.