Focus..Ch.6

"What do you think would happen if...."  A powerful question that can be answered orally or written.  This changes the way I look at Science.  Lots of prep...no time...no materials
I would add the question, Why?  Why do you think that would happen?  That is some higher level thinking that we can handle in first grade.
Is Lebanon looking into a new science curriculum?  Maybe we should be going towards more textbook and less kits?
I use Scholastic news and non-fiction picture books to bring science into the classroom.  We highlight, look for the main idea and sometimes, just enjoy these tools.  I am going to try to add more discussion and writing activities as offshoots from these materials.

Focus: Ch 6

I'll be honest...I didn't read the entire chapter this month. I actually woke up this morning at 5:00 with an "oh, crap" thought that with pregnant brain, I spaced it. It's very difficult for me to get into a chapter about science when science isn't a subject that I teach in my classroom or ever expect to teach in my classroom. I know that sounds terrible, but when I took over this class 5 years ago, the previous teacher had huge goals of teaching the kids about rocks. That teacher quit in November of his first year in the classroom. The students never learned about rocks, the staff was more concerned about the students being able to follow a schedule, raise their hands in group, SIT in a group, and not be quite as physical.

I really try and work hard to make each chapter pertain to my students, however, last month and this month especially, that just has NOT been my strong point. Sorry. :(

Data Class

So we've been collecting data like crazy on one student. She is in the fourth grade, but in my self-contained special ed classroom. She leaves my room for two 30 minute sessions every day and joins another special education classroom for some higher academics. We love her, but we really enjoy that hour total of not hearing the word "poop." When we started collecting data, we heard the word "poop" 633 times in one day! After taking data day after day and trying to implement different strategies, we were able to cut that almost in half, depending on the day. We did an FBA on this student last week and came up with some really great strategies that we have been trying to implement, the most recent being an iPod with Disney music on it, which we started today. Let me just tell you that when I leave here this afternoon, my head will not be pounding and I've heard "poop" less than 100 times today!!! Now for us, THAT is success!!!!!

Focus: Chapter 6

This chapter was even more difficult for me to connect to the work I do with students, especially since one of the times that I take some of the older students at Pioneer for speech is during their science period.  Science and social studies are two of the times that pull out groups can happen since we can't take students during their core instruction time or times like PE, music, library, etc.  So, those students that are pulled for specially designed instruction in reading, writing, math, and speech/language often fall further behind in the other context areas like science.  This is a very hard balance because it is often the subjects like science that help keep some of these students engaged and connected in the classroom.

School Improvement Mapping

This chapter is speaking to what Pioneer has been working on this year in our benchmark teams.  My teaching partner and I have worked very hard together to set a joint goal around our reading instruction and is tied to the OAKS testing.  We know our kids, have done a lot of formative testing, have collaborated on exit tickets, common assessments, and how to run intervention groups when we have limited time and resources.  I can see it paying off.  We check in on a regular basis and can and do make changes when they are necessary based on the data we are getting from kids.  We want 80% of our kids at or above grade level in reading skills.  After our first round of OAKS we are close and have some kids achieving higher than we thought.  I believe that by really working together, identifying the key components that needed to be retaught or taught more efficiently and effectively, and getting students motivated to stay with the learning is going to pay off.  Our kiddos are working so hard.  They are rising to the challenge and it is inspiring.  I am not a fan of a lot of testing but a lot of formative checking in with kids makes a huge difference when they have to perform.

Data: School Improvement Mapping

The school improvement mapping seems like it would be a helpful tool for the SLPs in the district to use to sit down and talk about how we can improve our speech therapy sessions given the high caseloads that we have.  It is so easy to focus on what the barriers are to providing quality instruction to our students, instead of focusing on what we can do (strategies/actions) to help our situation.  Hopefully now that we have 1 Wednesday a month to meet (this just changed!), we can take time together to work through this dilemma, instead of working through it by ourselves in our separate buildings.  

Focus: Ch. 6

I run into a lot of the same barriers teaching science in first grade as I do with social studies.
Materials:
Schmoker argues that as in any other discipline, reading, writing and talking are essential. I like to use a lot of non-fiction texts for read-alouds. We also discuss and write about what we are learning. The biggest barrier is finding enough material that the students are able to read in first grade. I appreciate that he mentioned a few resources for elementary teachers such as TIME for Kids and Junior Scholastic. I just wish that these were resources that my school provided. If I want them I will have to pay for them myself, and they will have to be purchased each year.
Curriculum:
The next barrier is that we don't have any science curriculum to follow. Teachers seem to each do their own thing.
Time:
In first grade our main focus is reading instruction and math. I would love to be able to spend more time on science lessons, but most of my students are struggling with reading. I hope that by dedicating the majority of my time in first grade to getting kids on track with reading, it will provide future teachers time to spend on science.

Data: School Improvement Mapping

Our school is doing a lot of work with goal setting right now. My frustration is that we are more focused on goal setting, than what we are going to do to help our kids meet these goals. We can set any goal we want, but we aren't going to get there until we start doing something about it. At our last grade level data team meeting we spent all of our time coming up with a goal, and didn't have any opportunities to talk about what we can actually do for kids. I have several kids who are in serious need of interventions, but haven't had an opportunity to bring those kids to the table. Our next data meeting is Tuesday, and I'm really hoping that we will be able to move on to the "Clear strategies" and "specific actions" steps.

A Fork in My Data

My data collection this year has focused on my chemistry class.  Data from this year and others shows students in our district are less likely to take chemistry than those in neighboring districts.  Common assessment data from this year has revealed that chemistry students in my class score substantially lower on the same tests than their counter parts in the next town over who are one to two years younger.  I have always known that due to socioeconomic and other factors that we have more students in need of a lot of support than the students at many nearby schools.  What is new to me (perhaps because I have never had a chance to work with this group before) is that our high achieving students are not working at the same level as high achieving students in surrounding areas.  To compound my dilemma halfway through the school year I have lost about half of my original chemistry students that started in September.  The gap just seems to keep increasing.  This problem is big.

Luckily I have my FBI (Feedback Initiative) coach helping me with an exterior perspective on this problem.  She broke my dilemma down into two separate paths.  The first is chemistry specific– the content that students struggle with and the attitudes of students and adults in my building that keep enrollment so low.  The second I hadn’t consciously recognized as fundamental to my problem.   Now that she pointed it out I know it is what really gets me so fired up about this whole things  - the college readiness of high achieving students in our school and district.  I want to focus here.

Now that I think about it I realize science teachers at LHS have known this is a problem for sometime.  Discussions always spring up around senior project and graduation time as dozens of LHS seniors share their plans to go into medicine or other science related fields.  As yet another student announces they want to be a veterinarian or pediatrician we talk amongst ourselves about who has had that student in class.  Did they take chemistry?  No.  AP Biology?  No.  Physics?  No.  Are they going to be able to compete with their peers when applying for colleges and in college classes?  The answer seems clear.  Too often students seem to choose a higher GPA over the appropriate college prep classes. 

Pursuing this issues seems a bit intimidating as it requires gathering data about students that are not my own, but it seems the right choice to make.  I would really appreciate advice about data you think I should collect to help me investigate this issue!

Focus: Ch.5

Social studies is a subject that I think often gets put on the back burner. There isn't always a great curriculum provided and teachers have to often invent the path. There's so much focus on math and reading that social studies instruction becomes a small part of your instruction. I often feel that I don't get time to teach social studies effectively or consistently. One of my favorite parts of teaching 4th grade is teaching then Oregon Trail. I've completely made up a unit and I enjoy every second of teaching it and my students love every minute of the unit. I easily integrate it into my reading and writing instruction and I need to start doing that with other pieces of social studies instruction as well. That's a goal of mine! I think it is so important for students to reflect on how far our world has come in time and gain a better understanding of it.

Focus: Ch. 4

This chapter really made me reflect on my current reading instruction. I've never been fully satisfied with what I've been doing as far as it goes. I often find both myself and my students bored with the stories the basal provides for curriculum use. I dream about creating these elaborate units based solely on amazing novels but there just hasn't been enough time in my career so far to be able to make my dream a reality. Based off what I saw in my student teaching, I see how much more meaningful the use of novels are to students and how much more engagement there is in the classroom during that instruction time. I'd love to see my class reading 15-20 novels a year as mentioned in the chapter!

Thinking Critically about Nothing

It is so hard to choose where to start when it comes to Schmoker’s chapter on science. For example, my heart rate increases every time I read the line, “Worse yet, the majority of these activities have little or no connection to essential science content.”  He makes such ridiculous connections between bad instruction and activity and good instruction and literacy.  Quality content-relevant teaching and activity-based inquiry instruction are not mutually exclusive.  To save you all from the rant-like post that would follow if I continued thinking about this quote I have instead decided to focus on this one:

“You cannot think critically about nothing.”

The problem with this line is that when it comes to science students are not starting with nothing.  La Tabula Rosa is an old idea – but it just doesn’t pan out (we talked about this a lot in my grad program.  How about you?).  Students develop all kinds of ideas –especially science ideas –outside of school: ideas about plants, animals, the sun, their own bodies, what happens when you throw something, and so many more.

Please watch this video.  I know it is a little long (~8 min), but I find it pretty powerful and all around awesome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVtCO84MDj8

To highlight:

“If you just present the correct information five things happen:

1.      Students think they know it.

2.      They don’t pay the utmost attention

3.      They don’t recognize that what was presented differs from what they were already thinking

4.      They don’t learn a thing.

5.      They get more confident in the ideas they were thinking before”

When you challenge student preconceptions they think it is confusing, they have to work harder, they might not like you very much (that one is mine)– but they actually learn!

I find active, authentic inquiry labs a great way to challenge misconceptions while at the same time teaching science content and nature of science.  When students do something expecting certain things to happen and then get surprising results is just the jolt they need to shift their thinking.  To not be hypocritical literacy-based instruction can also, of course address misconceptions.  I have a unit I love based on misconceptions about sea-level change due to global warming that is all based on newspaper letters to the editors. 

Time to catch up! :)

So I'm a bit behind on my posts, but there's no better time than now to catch up right? Look forward to many posts by me today! Lol Starting back at chapter 4: The Data Toolkit...

In this chapter I really connected with the information because it was talking about analyzing your students and sorting them based upon their need, or target. For my project, I was faced with the challenge of over half my class in the red zone at the beginning of the year for math. I decided that I was going to tackle this and I wanted my students to be a part of this journey each step of the way to them being successful and in the "green." I took my students and a green, yellow, red chart and issued each child a number. I then placed the students numbers in the category that they stood in for math in the fall. It was amazing how the students took the information. It was very confidential as they only knew their own number, but when they saw where they were they were merely blown away! I really think that students take these easyCBM assessments and they just blow right through them and don't see the benefit of them. I took the time to really talk about the assessment and how the data is used once they take it. I had many students upset with themselves and determined to move to the green. The amount of students who suddenly got serious during math instruction time increased tremendously and I had students make great gains in the winter easyCBM assessment not only because I was providing interventions to increase their knowledge, but because I felt that they valued the test more now and they took their success into their own hands. I look forward to seeing how far they have grown at the end of the year.

Social Studies in Science

I love teaching science because the subject is its own little microcosm of all the other subjects.  We of course teach literacy and tons of math, but there is much more beyond these two most typical tie-ins.  Foreign language can come into play.  My Spanish-speaking students have a leg up when it comes to the periodic table.  (One of many examples, the chemical symbol for gold: Au --> Aurum (Latin) --> Oro (Spanish)).  PE ties in (I teach physics of sports to my freshmen).  I really want to get into the chemistry – art connection in the future. 

While social studies may not be as obviously important as math or literacy to the science classroom (or pander in such a way to the current trends in education) I think its significance is on par with these “Big Two.”  Science has its own whole branch of history to study.  I love my science history texts.  Right now in physical science we are researching the men (yes, all men, we talk about that too – another important social studies topic) that have made substantial contributions to the atomic model.  We focus in on the changes in this one science concept throughout history  - how it has been shaped by technology and how it shapes how we think about our world. 

I love teaching about the history of the atomic model or H.A.M. as I call it, but I think my favorite thing to teach is my physical science semester on chemistry and climate change.  While the science of climate change is well established the social sciences side of global warming pulls in that controversy Schmoker recommends when we are trying to engage the “indifferent” student (Which we all know is all of the time).  It has taken me some time to get this curriculum to where it is today.  It has taken a lot of making things from scratch and “stealing” things from other science teachers, but I am actually teaching central science content (atoms, energy, temperature, density, chemical bonds, reactions), nature of science, literacy, math, and social studies together in one logical package.  If you all enjoyed the same autonomy I do and if we each had our own Timer-Turners like Hermione I would say we should get together and develop similar integrated curricula for your classroom so that science could be easier and central to the work in your classrooms instead of something extra to worry about.

Focus Ch. 6: Science

Focus Ch. 6: Science

It is interesting to me that this chapter from Schmoker goes against many things I was taught in a college Science pedagogy class but actually makes me feel better.  I took a class where we learned all about doing science experiments with kids and coming up with labs.  The emphasis was that Science is best learned by doing.  The professor was energetic and had us doing all sorts of fun things and when we developed our own experiments we had a whole lab of equipment to use to design anything.  Then when I began teaching in my own classroom, reality changed.  I found that the Science kits were normally pretty picked over, missing, not restocked, and coordinating a science experiment was a lot of work on my shoulders preparing, buying or borrowing things, and setting it all up since there wasn’t much of a Science curriculum to follow.  I tried many times to send out a list of what types of things we would need for a Science unit but very rarely got parents to donate anything.  I always felt guilty for not doing enough Science inquiry. Planning for Science was always something that stressed me out and made me feel inadequate as a teacher teaching multiple subjects it took more plan time to coordinate than I had available.  So when I read Schmoker’s chapter on Science I realized that I didn’t need to feel guilty for using the textbook, picture books, writing and research and putting more of an emphasis on literacy with Science.  Students have to have a firm foundation in the material before they can do an experiment and “get it” and be able to use higher level thinking about the concept.  Now I still think you can do demonstrations or other things to pique student interest and inquiry is important to include but it doesn't need to be every day for every concept.  After reading Schmoker, I know that teaching Science from reading is what students need also and is what high Science performing countries do also. 

Another thing that frustrated me about Science, in particular, is it seemed like the content area where teachers just teach units on whatever they enjoyed teaching or whatever they have materials to teach (since there are so few materials).  My first few years of teaching I felt like my students had a mishmash of units on penguins, the rainforest, whales, hurricanes, etc.  It felt like, as Schmoker discusses on page 168, that students knew “a lot of disconnected facts”.  I think that with our move towards common standards that this will make it easier for teachers to teach what they need to for their grade level---things are seeming to get better in regards to alignment which I think will help students not have a hodgepodge of Science units that are different from another student in another class in the same grade.    

Ch. 5 Social Studies

Social Studies has always been a subject that I have enjoyed teaching but felt overwhelmed by the massive amount of standards and the small amount of resources (even enough textbooks or the materials that go with the textbook have always been missing!) so I understand the argument Schmoker’s makes completely.  I agree that we need to use more primary documents and incorporate more about current events into the Social Studies curriculum.  I have already started doing more with current events using the newspaper and Time for Kids but primary documents is a little harder.  Luckily, with the internet we have access to lots of ideas but often it uses a lot of time to wade through the junk to find the one nugget that is a good quality primary document to use related to the unit.  Hopefully, Social Studies textbooks will start incorporating more primary sources within them in the future. 

I liked what Schmoker said about the need to “include something woefully lacking in the majority of classrooms: regular opportunities to mark up, annotate, or highlight one- to three-page articles and documents.” (pg. 153)  I have started doing more of this just this year thanks to a training I went to on teaching non-fiction.  I am also having students learn different styles of note-taking methods which I believe will be helpful for them.  This has not been easy as students are not used to having to do a deep, close reading of the text or take notes before but hopefully as more teachers move towards this they will become more accustomed to it being the expectation.