Next year

I would love to teaching the Modeling Physics curriculum, but I've not been able to convince my district to spring for training. I enjoyed Stephen Murray's efforts, but they don't fit me. (I will definitely continue to use them and await all updates for his labs which are great inquiry.) I need to do something that meets my students needs for stimulation and my need for structure so that I can adjust and build appropriately. 

AH-HA MOMENT #1
If students are to be generally college ready, they need general college skills 

At the end of the year, my kids behaved (very) poorly during while I was out for training. As a result, the project they were assigned was scrapped for an outlining assignment. An exceptionally large portion of the students did not know how to do this. Additionally, given a short informational essay, about half got it returned  for copying. They did not understand (or professed to not understand) that listing a web site did not give them license to copy whatever they wanted from that website without any citation other than the works cited page.

Implemenation: 

• Regular text outlining
• Regular writing via abstracts and article summaries. (I would love an assist on this if you have any ideas.)

AH-HA MOMENT #2
Problem-solving mastery requires self-guidance
OK, this is less about a particular moment than general frustration at the amount of hand-holding a bunch of high-school juniors appear to require.

Implementation:

• Goal-less problems, a la Kelly O'Shea
• Projects vs. Labs

AH-HA MOMENT #3
It's OK to just jump into a project.
After testing this year, I did a summative project for circuits - building an electric house. It was a blast and I really think the students learned a lot. However, it reinforced the need for time. And let's face it, I am still learning how to bring my students along at a fast(er) pace. The death of CScope might help with this. :)

Implementation:

• Build projects around units not as end-caps to them. (Of course, this means finding good project fits.)

Hello, summer

I did summer school, again, this year. As a result, my summer vacation didn't actually start until June 28. I've spent the last week engaging in relatively sloth-like behavior, shunting aside anything remotely resembling intellectual stimulation (or cleaning!). But that doesn't work for long. My brain keeps popping up ideas and questions as the new year approaches. 

(Seriously, Facebook. Did you need to post an ad for a back-to-school sweepstakes in June?!?!)

But before I get into that, I must share with you a cool blog find from Pedagoge Padawan. The author has succeeded in one of those summer organization projects we all have (and generally forget): He has organized his links. Not only that, he's done so through my favorite organization tool, Evernote. Even better? He's shared with us a resource of topical links at we can further share with our students. (and some teacher links, too.) Try it, I think you'll like it.

I am entering my fourth year teaching high school physics.In reflection, there was not much structure to my first two year's teaching. It was more about putting one foot in front of another. I look back, and it's a bit of a blur of reinventing the wheel every time. At the start of 2012-13, I had a brief, heady flirtation with SBG for my regular classes and Stephen Murray's scaffolded worksheet approach. It all ended during pre-year training when all teachers were informed that it was to be all CScope, all the time. If you want to know how that ends, we need margaritas. Suffice it to say, CScope is (for) now banned across Texas. (For non-Texas teachers: CScope is/was a vertically/horizontally aligned (state) K-12 curriculum.)*

I've made it through this year, and the others, a paper success with 95+% of students passing the state comprehensive science exam. [Even 100% of my physics students this year - the last, phase-out year of TAKS. ;) ] But we all know that those scores don't mean much and are built on the successes of previous teachers. 

But now, CScope is gone.  I am in the enviable position of just being able to teach. Until the year starts, I have no testing for which to prepare and the only alignment I'm concerned about is what comes to me. That said, there are standards and goals, but that outside pressure is off. And I can focus on building something of substance, on teaching my students physics and, more importantly, preparing them for college and life.

*Do you have any idea how many times I've deleted part of this paragraph to eliminate personal opinions on that curriculum? 

Slow-motion NSTA13 Round-Up

Via the NSTA's New Teacher Academy*, I had the opportunity to attend a Professional Development Institute Class. These were special, one-day, all-day sessions on a number of subjects. I chose Inquiring Into Inquiry: Creating an Inquiry-Based Classroom. This is a topic in which I am fully vested because I feel completely incompetent (scared, even) of letting my students take control. 

But here's the thing. You know that party that you're so excited to attend, it's going to be just the BEST time E-vah. And then you go and it's just not - not what you expected, not what you wanted, maybe even not what you were told it was going to be? Well, that was this PDI. It was a let-down. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't actively bad. It just wasn't what I wanted - needed - it to be. It was the type of thing that by the end of the conference, three-plus days later I could barely recall anything but blah.

Intervention

This was about to violate  "Keri's Theory of PD" -- "anything learned from PD makes it a good PD". And that could not be allowed to happen. Into the breach stepped Nick (Last name unknown), another NTA Fellow. He had shown himself to be a remarkably upbeat type, so I asked him what he got out of that class. His answer dispelled the Charlie Brown cloud that had been hanging over my head regarding the entire thing. So here is what I learned from PDI-8:

1. There is no one "look" of inquiry. It can involve text/article readings just as much as it involves labs. (Thanks, Nick!)
2. I now have a great list of sentence stems to offer my students so that they can beging to "think like a scientist". I plan to combine this with a tip from another PD and create a "word wall" that we can point to as we develop a more formal register.
3. Not so much learned as met. By attending this pre-conference even, I made connections that really helped for the remainder of the conference and . As a result, I felt so much more comfortable and got more our of the remainder of the conference because we were able to share/compare our experiences. 

Upcoming: Electric House Project and more reflections on NSTA

Cool find: Scroll down until you see the headphones. What a great idea!

*New Teacher Academy is organized by NSTA and sponsored by many other companies including DOW (my sponsor). If you are in your first five years of teaching science, I highly recommend applying for this program. It is a year-long program that provides an online mentoring community, in-depth explorations of topics that help you reflect and improve on teaching, webinars that cover topics from classroom management to lab safety to inquiry to whatever and finally, the program sends its fellows to the annual NSTA conference. 

My students made me want to cry.

In my first year teaching, the thing that made me want to cry the most was the knowledge that the teacher they would have in five years would be so much better than the teacher I was then.

Three years later, I feel like I'm in that same place. Today, we were doing review for our state test. This was the question: 

As we were breaking it down, I asked them to compare  inertia and mass. In a Pre-AP physics class, not one student could do this. Not one. 

Wouldn't you cry, too?

Of course, my next question is - short term and long term - how to fix this. 

What would you do? Have you been here, too?  

Ironically, I leave you with this:

Pre-Conference Reflection

I’m lucky enough to have received a fellowship to the NSTA’s New Teacher Academy.** One of the boons of this gig is the opportunity to attend the annual NSTA Conference. This year it’s in San Antonio.* I’m sitting in my hotel right now, Psych in the background, as I type this. I meant to do this reflection post about a week ago, but good intentions and all that.

With one day’s schedule topping out at 595 offerings (and there’s 4 days of conference), deciding what to do is intimidating. My first choices are primarily related to how to teach. At the 2011-12 state conference, I obviously focused on content. At the 2010-11 state conference, my first year teaching, I was focused on strategies and management. None of this was planned, but looking back on it and planning for tomorrow, I see my conference “themes” as indicative of my growing confidence in the classroom. Additionally, I’m shifting my focus from what I’m teaching to how I’m teaching.

Among the workshops I’m taking are:

·        Creating an Inquiry Based Classroom

·         A Lab Workshop Using the Modeling Method

·         Flex Paced Flipped Mastery Physics

·         Thinking Like a Scientist: Inquiry-Based Activities to Jump-Start Critical Thinking

*Do you know a new teacher? One with less than 5 years in the classroom? Send them to the New Teacher Academy page. This could be the best professional development they ever do.

**Irony: The last year I can apply for the program is when the conference is in the same state I’m from. Le sigh.

Your turn:
What are you focusing on to become a better teacher?

February Reflection

Just jumping in because otherwise it will never happen. I'm  using a springboard question from an NSTA forum as a model for this because it sounds good..

What went well in the past month1. I've gotten in one more unit than I did last year by TAKS. Last year I got through math review, kinematics 1-d, forces, energy, momentum and electrostatics. This year I've gotten through math review, kinematics 1-d, 2-d, forces, energy, momentum and circuits. There's a chance I'll get through another short unit before TAKS - have to decide which would be most beneficial.

2. The decision was made to switch circuits and electrostatics. The idea is that focusing on the more concrete/hands-on with circuits will help with the more abstract once we get to electrostatics. Additionally, the state exam is more likely to have a circuits question than an electrostatics question. While I haven't gotten to ES yet - and likely won't until after the exam - the circuits with an emphasis on math refresher for the upcoming unit seems to be going very well. Especially for Pre-AP. 

Make better for next year
I used the same basic series circuit inquiry lab for both pre-ap and regular physics. While I found it overall effective, it was overwhelming for my regular students and has taken up a lot of time. I want to revamp it for my regular students and add in reflection for pre-ap students. (Question: How do you grade reflection?) For the curious, the lab is from materials developed by  Steve Murray of Mr. Murray's Physics. 


Additionally, there's been a fail on the lesson-planning front. It's been in my head, but not on paper. The result is that horrible working-a-day-ahead thing that makes teaching so stressful and panic inducing.

Aside: One of my department head's pieces of advice my first year - received early in his career - was this: "Make two lists and keep them with you - One of things to do again, One of things to never do again. On second thought, you just need the second list!"[/i] 

Things for next month
Texas' TAKS is coming soon - April 24 for Science. I have a pretty good review setup that I've used the past 2 years. This year though, I'll be gone for almost a week due to the conference. One of my spring break goals is to revamp that exam review period using a menu-based strategy I found. I'm attaching it to this in case anyone wants to see it. I teach exit-level students and this is for 8th graders, but the idea, activities, shape of it all are good across the board

Yeah, that didn't work. Too much work for something that won't be used again. Instead, I'm using my old, revamped topic packets - thank you Patrick Haney. However, that menu is still a great idea. It is now a summer project for next year's EOC.