Homecoming week, labs, and blended learning during my 9th week of school! In addition to the weekly vlog, I've also detailed the week down below with pictures.
In an effort to play catch up to my district curriculum (and compared to where I normally should be) I am combining two units. On Monday and Tuesday, my students participated in a chemical changes lab. I decided to leave out examples of physical changes and only provided experiments that demonstrated signs that a chemical change had taken place.
The students were engaged during the lab even though I provided materials for a micro-scale version of each of the reactions. There still is some work to be done in regard to basic lab skills, however, the students were on task and completed the activities in a timely manner. I delayed the chemical changes lab because I was asked to hold off doing big labs with my students until my class sizes could be leveled to 28 students or less. To be honest, I also spent too much time on my Numbers in Science unit.
On Wednesday and Thursday, I decided to teach atomic structure. I had shot a 20 minute video over atomic structure before I left work Wednesday evening. I split the video into six smaller videos, uploaded it a hosting site, and created questions in our Canvas program. The idea behind this was to allow students to watch the videos, take notes, and learn at their own pace. Unfortunately, my 1st period students had difficulty watching the videos because the videos kept buffering. I tried to troubleshoot, but my vision for this lesson was dead; at least for first period. I quickly flexed and taught the class as a whole, however, students had to return to the Canvas program to enter their responses.
After first period, I used time during my advisory period to download all six videos from the host site and then I uploaded the files onto Canvas. Thankfully, this solution worked and my other periods were able to watch the videos uninterrupted. As students worked at their own pace, either individually or with a partner, I walked around the room to ask or respond to questions; as well as ensure that students were on-task with the blended learning assignment. The great thing about Canvas is that I can see which students are having difficulty and develop a tailored lesson just for them.
I also had to make a decision about topics to cut out from this particular unit (which I'm combining with the previous unit). For example, I decided to scrap isotopic composition; or at least push it to nuclear chemistry toward the end of the school year. Students will still be required to know what an isotope is, but they will not learn how to calculate the average atomic mass. Since I made the decision to combine atomic structure with my matter & change unit at the last minute, I did not have time to give students all of the handouts; so we used a few minutes in class to prep interactive notebooks. I requested my formal evaluation to be conducted on Monday of next week. I have decided to combine two Student Learning Stations for the evaluation: Atomic Structure and the Periodic Table (mainly because I need to catch up) . I've done stations during previous evaluations and my students have done three other learning stations. I'm not worried about doing two different stations because I've had duplicate sets of a single version during previous lessons and the students did fine. Students should be able to complete all of the stations since I will be using them as a wrap up to the concepts covered in the blended learning lessons.
This high school teacher vlog highlights a 5-day period of the eighth week of school during the 2017-2018 school year. Watch as I show clips of students working on chemical equations to me demoing a few chemical reactions.
The vlog highlights a 3-day window of the seventh week of school during the 2017-2018 school year. I show clips of students participating in a density lab, taking a quiz, and me talking about preparing for a substitute.
This week marked the beginning of a new six-weeks grading period - the 2nd six-weeks. I started off the week making new hall ticket passes for all of my classes. You can check out my hall ticket video here (I talk about what they are and my motive for doing them). On Monday, my A-Day classes participated in the density cylinder lab. My B-Day classes did this on Friday. Each group of 4 received a tube containing four pieces of a particular substance. However, they worked in pairs, and each pair took two of the pieces to determine the densities. After, the pairs switched pieces so that all students at a particular table had the opportunity to establish the densities of all four pieces. The purpose of the lab was to help students observe that the density of an object is an intensive physical property (the size/shape of the object doesn't matter). On Tuesday and Wednesday, my students took an online quiz over density. I had created several videos of myself teaching the various density calculations and had given students over a week to watch the videos. Unfortunately, this did not go over well because I had a large number of students that had not watched the videos and it showed during the quiz. However, with all of my quizzes, I do allow retakes if students come in for tutoring. After the quiz, I began teaching students how to read chemical formulas, and I also started an introduction to balancing chemical equations. I figured I could introduce a topic and leave something general over these concepts with the substitutes on Thursday and Friday. I did not make the sub assignment too tricky, but I did leave something that would challenge them while I was out.
Planning for a sub is a pain; at least for me! I ended up leaving late because I had to put up equipment and prep the sub work for my students. I still hadn't even packed for my trip to New York, and I had a flight at 5 a.m. the next morning! Although, in retrospect, I should have planned a little earlier and thought I could quickly do everything at the last minute. I was wrong.
The following vlog highlights a 5-day window of the sixth week of school during the 2017-2018 school year. Below the video I discuss specific aspects of my week in more detail.
Students completed another stations activity this week, the Matter & Change Student Learning Stations. Since our school will be a 1:1 campus in the spring, I wanted try my hand at a blended learning environment. I've done this before, however, technology has changed since I was last in the classroom (and I'm also part of the tech committee at my school). A few of the activities were hands-on and the other stations were placed on the class Canvas site.
While students were doing this, I asked a table group of students to come to the back of the lab area so that I could teach them how to use a Bunsen burner.
On Thursday, my dual-credit chemistry class visited the University of Texas at Austin. Unfortunately, many of the students were not able to attend because they had extracurricular commitments on the same day. However, fun was had for the few students that did attend the field trip. Perhaps I enjoyed it a little too much because it was my first field trip in over 10 years. On Friday, my B-Day classes participated in a density lab. Prior to that, students had to sketch the objects I had on my mobile demo table.
While there were four students at a lab table, I arranged the activity so that students had to work in pairs. I've done this particular lab before and it has also worked out well in pairs versus a group of four. I am going to complete the same activity with my A-Day classes on Monday. Stay tuned!
The vlog highlights a 5-day window of the fifth week of school during the 2017-2018 school year. Watch as I show clips of flexible seating, introducing two new instructional strategies, and talk about my current frustrations. You can also check out pictures and additional details below the video!
During a staff development last school year, I was introduced to a process known as Talk, Read, Talk, Write (TRTW). I'll spare you with the small details, however, I remember it was a process that I immediately implemented. Although, after reading the book this past summer, I realized that I had implemented a majority of TRTW incorrectly (as described by its author, Nancy Motley). As I planned for this school year, I knew that TRTW was a process that I wanted to incorporate in my class to help increase literacy in my classroom. My second period class was filmed on Wednesday of this week, however, I had originally planned to give the first test of the year on Tuesday and Wednesday. Therefore, I decided to push the test back a class day and come up with a collaborative review that would help students with concepts we had been covering leading up to this week. I decided to combine the TRTW process with a collaborative poster (which I've written about here). For Talk #1, I provided a picture prompt with two guiding questions. I gave students 2-3 minutes to jot down their thoughts and then gave 3 minutes for them to discuss with the people at their table. After, I had asked for volunteers to share what was discussed at their table; or I used Popsicle sticks to call on students if no one volunteered. Then they read an article that connected topics that they had learned in class to a real-world event. Prior to the reading, I had given the students a Pay Attention to List, which outlined some important ideas to help guide their reading; as well as a strategy known as Highlighting Plus. Next, students engaged in Talk #2 for 2-3 minutes and then shared out with the class. I did modify the process and left out the individual writing component for another time. Although, students did do some writing on the collaborative poster. With that said, the posters came out great. Normally, I would have students present to the class, however, I am behind curriculum-wise and could not afford to push material back any longer. Feel free to leave questions in the comment section below!
This high school teacher vlog highlights a 5-day window of the fourth week of school during the 2017-2018 school year. Watch as I talk about the implementation of flexible seating, managing a lab practical and experiencing our first fire drill of the school year.
This high school teacher vlog highlights a 5-day window of the third week of school during the 2017-2018 school year. Watch as I talk about feeling sick to dealing with a stressful day and rebounding to students engaged in a lab activity.
