Successes and Why I teach.

Warning: This is my obligatory “feel good” teaching post. In our prompts for our weekly blog posts, the last idea written was “successes”. This was a topic I initially avoided because I cringe when I hear all of the mushy things that teachers say about why they teach. However, As this year comes to a close, I actually feel inspired to make a list of the things that keep me going when the year starts to get tough. SO…

1. Teaching has never felt like a job to me. This may sound cliché, but it is true. When I am in my classroom or even in my free periods, I never feel like I am in the wrong place or am looking at the clock, waiting to get out. I am actually bored and a bit bummed out when my students are not in my classroom. This year has highlighted that for me. We work on a two-week schedule, and every other week I have free periods until 2:10 in the afternoon. During grad school, this was a great time to get work done, but by 2:00, I was so excited when students started trickling in. They, of course, were exhausted and this was last period. However, I always find a way to get the students up and moving for that period.
2. The extracurriculars. Coaching, leading outdoor trips, watching my students in the plays, musicals, chorus or jazz band. These are all things that I love about the school where I teach. I have never been a part of a community where I work 12 hours a day and then volunteer to come back to support my own students. They are so talented at what they do, and it makes me proud to teach the students when I get to see what they accomplish, or the fun I have on the many different trip that I go on with them
3. And obviously, the students. I have  had days where I am dragging my feet into school, but as soon as the students walk in, I find it impossible to be grumpy or tired. They are what give me the motivation and energy to get through the day.

So there it is, my final mushy blog post of the year. I am so glad that I have completed my masters and I look forward to improving myself as a teacher for the rest of my professional life.

Extra Help

Student Ability is a tricky thing. I think that all students have the ability to learn, but I also think that students need the right tools that work specifically for them in order to make it happen. I have an interesting class composition because it is an IB class, but it is standard level, which means I have both high and low achieving students. This means I have to differentiate every assignment, activity and assessment. For assessments, I have found that the most effective way to differentiate for my students is to give them short answer questions. This allows for more flexibility in answers, and I emphasize questions that allow students to use their own examples of the content so that they can answer in a way they are most comfortable. They are allowed to use bullet points on the tests and for comparisons they can use charts. In class activities, I have the students sit in assigned groups that are arranged with a mixed level of achievement in mind.

At my school, we have tools for students with learning differences that come from a number of different sources. First, we have the learning specialists and a learning center, of which I am a part of. I help in the writing center, which is designed to have students bring their papers for guidance and proofreading help. In reality, I end up helping students with math, science or writing. These students often come in convinced that they are “never going to learn [insert material here]”. When in reality, they need a one-on-one, step-by-step walkthrough of the material. It is moments like this that make me think that students can learn just about anything, given the time and the extra help. The problem with some of these students is their ability to complete the material on their own. Sometimes, we hit the roadblock of a complete lack of motivation from the student when they leave. But that is conversation for another blog post.

Office hours are another tool that students have at their disposal at our school. Recently, I have had students come into my room during office hours to complete work simply because my room is quiet. It is interesting when a student is resistant to extra help, comes to my room to work and then asks for me to proofread their work. I have had a few students over the years do this which has ended up helping these kids in the long run.

Formative Assessments

Before I began taking classes and Stevenson, I had no idea what a formative assessment was. I did implement some type of formative material, but I don’t believe that they were as effective or utilized to their full potential. I knew that quizzes were a good way for students to see where they were, but I did not attach rubrics to large projects and I definitely didn’t have any reflective activities. The ability to implement formative assessments has increased my ability to teach materials and allows student to feel valued and listened to in the classroom. It also serves as a confidence booster for many students because it allows them to physically see the material that they have learned over the course of a lesson or topic.

One of my favorite formative assessments has been the KWL sheets, which I am going to try to use for every topic next year. KWL stands for what I Know, what I Want to know, and what I have Learned. In the K column, students write what they know, regardless of whether their “facts” are correct or not. They then write down any questions they have regarding the topic they are about to begin. After the lesson or unit is completed, students look at their KWL sheets again to reassess what they have learned. This allows students to reflect in a very productive way, and can be fit into a short, 10 minute segment at the beginning or end of a class period.

Another thing that I have learned to use over the last two years has been entrance and exit tickets. I learned about exit tickets in the second course at Stevenson, regarding curriculum, and realized how important they are to track the progress of a class. Exit tickets, which I now try to implement at a quick, 2-3 question drill at the end of class, allow me to see how a class as whole is doing with that day’s material as well as check on individual students to see if they are confused or even paying attention to the lessons. This allows me to do things like take 5 minutes during the next class to clarify any misconceptions, rearrange seating for a student if they are distracted or distracting a classmate, or maybe give a short pop quiz at the beginning of class to keep students on their toes.

Entrance tickets are something that I learned from my University Mentor, and are something that I use at the beginning of labs now, any time we have  lab day. I post the lab packet days before the actual lab with 3-5 questions regarding the main ideas and safety procedures to make sure the students are paying attention to the most important things. This also ensures that the class can complete relatively complicated labs in a 70 minute long-block. Students know that they are not allowed into the room during a lab day without handing in the entrance ticket. This has had a profound impact on the way I run labs and I am truly grateful for this strategy.

Formative assessments are important to the inner workings of a classroom and have had a very huge impact on the way I teach. It is one of the things I am glad I have in my pocket now!

Summer Reading

                         One of the most argued things right now among faculty is how we do summer reading. Currently, summer reading works like this: students and faculty choose a book to sponsor for the summer. When the book is approved, the sponsor may set up a meeting in person or online to facilitate a discussion. A number of teachers have argued that departments or classes should be able to require a book. However. The argument among faculty is somewhat of a waste of time because our principal, who was an English teacher, has made the rules and believes in as much autonomy for the students where it can be placed. I understand both sides of the argument. In the faculty’s corner, there are classes that would greatly benefit from required summer reading. For example, my course is a two-year course and I could have students read something to help retain that knowledge that would be lost over the summer. I have tried asked to assign Silent Spring as summer reading, but was turned down. The argument against this is that most students either wouldn’t read it until they return from summer or would try to cram it in right at the end, defeating the purpose of summer reading altogether.

Despite the missed utility of assigning summer reading, I have actually enjoyed sponsoring a book. In the past, I have sponsored Dune By Frank Herbert and Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck by Adam Cohen. Both books have had a decent number of students that participate in my sponsored books and the discussions have been pretty great. In a way, it also works like teacher coach dynamics in that it allows me to meet students that I otherwise would not have met.

So, while there are two sides to this issues, I will make the best of what we have until the rules change. By the way, I have chosen to sponsor How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction by Beth Shapiro. I picked this book up at a teaching conference this year, and have been meaning to read it. I think it will give me some awesome material for my biodiversity and conservation lessons. I guess one added benefit of the autonomy is that it forces me to read books on my reading list!

Summer Trip to Arizona

Before I had started teaching, I did an internship with the National Park Service as a bio technician for Tuzigoot, Montezuma Castle and Montezuma National Monuments, about an hour North of Phoenix, AZ. During that 6 month internship, I familiarized myself with the local ecology which I used in my work and in working with local high schools in educational programs. Having lived there, I learned the area fairly quickly, figuring out where the best camping spots and hiking was in the area. Last year, my coworker and I decided to use this “insider scoop” to design a trip to Arizona for our students.

            The idea for the trip came from a frustration shared between us that our school offered many trips to Europe and Asia, but students manage to graduate from our school having never seen any of the major Naitonal Parks West of the Mississippi River. Last summer, he and I took a trip out to scout out the trip. We started in the Grand Canyon, hiked a few different trails for three days and then headed down to Flagstaff, AZ to camp in a national forest where we visited Sunset Crater and Walnut Canyon National Monument. In the last days, we visited Sedona and camped next to the three monuments where I lived.

            We learned a number of things on that trip that made me very glad that we did the first trip without students. First, we decided that we will do the trip in reverse. This is because I overexerted myself in the first day and between the dry climate and the altitude, got hit with altitude sickness very badly on day two. Starting the trip low and going high is the logical choice to do this. To make a long story short, we were able to essentially let the trip plan itself by being in the area for seven days. It was hard work and much less of a vacation that our colleagues joked that it was. We will be bringing at total of ten people, including me and my colleague this June. There will be three teachers total with seven students. The faculty going on the trip were chosen to allow for the most educationally diverse experience possible. I will focus on the local american and ecology of each biome we will be hiking through. My coworker, a chemistry teacher, has a vast knowledge of western American Geology, having grown up in Santa Fe. The third teacher is a PhD candidate for Central American Studies and knows a significant amount about the migration of the Hopi tribe up through the American Deserts.

            This combination gives the students one of the best experiential and interdisciplinary experiences that we can offer at our school. In the future, we plan on offering this trip for academic credit, where the students will pick a presentation topic to teach during one of the nights at the campsites. This will allow for the students to take a more active role in learning about the area they are travelling to. To say I am excited about this trip is an understatement. I have even been asked by the administration if we would consider doing a Faculty and Admin trip next summer!

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Grading

When I tell people that I am a high school teacher, the most common reaction I get is some comment about how they would never be able to handle dealing with the teenagers. I disagree, of course, because if a teacher does not like dealing with students, what is the point? One would think that this explanation would be obvious, but what I have seen since I began teaching has proven that not to be the case. Obviously, the kids are my favorite part of teaching.

The truth is, my least favorite part of teaching is the grading. To me, it is a time-consuming, mindless task that always seems like such an immensity painful task.  It takes me an hour of bumbling around at home to start grading something. Once I start, it goes by relatively quickly and I am always frustrated with how long it took me to get started. So, it is merely the thought of completing it that discourages me. Recently, I have taken to allowing students to grade each other’s quizzes, which I then double check, but this has cut down on my burden of grading significantly. One of my coworkers uses an extreme method for homework. He has a policy that state if a homework or paper is not graded within a week's time, that assignment is an automatic A. It helps to hold him accountable for a timely turn back period. I have found that spending Saturday mornings at my favorite coffee shop is the best way for me to get work done. The barista there knows my name and order now, which is awesome! So, I really just need to change my mindset to one that reflects the reality of grading: when I sit down to get it done, it's not that bad and it really doesn't take that long.

When I first started teaching, grading was also a major point of anxiety for me. I saw every poor grade as a reflection of my teaching. I automatically assumed that I had done something wrong of a student failed a test or quiz. It was incredibly stressful and took me an entire year to setting with the fact that as long as I am preparing a lesson and taking the time with students that need help, that the grades were their responsibilities and not mine. The key to ensuring that this is true is to keep very good track of your lesson plans. When I do that and a student or parent claims that their low grade was due to “things we never went over”, I am able to show the student in writing where the material was covered.

When grading, I avoid bias by taking breaks. I have found that if I grade for more than 45 minutes to an hour, I start grading harder or easier, depending on my mood. This leads to biased grading and inconsistencies that the students see, especially when it is on a test or quiz. It is important for me to walk around or at least step away from a screen or work for 15 minutes every hour to ensure that I am taking the proper amounts of brain breaks.

Grading is a necessary evil in the world of education. As I become more experienced in my teaching, I have found ways of lessening my burden and streamlining the grading process. This is key to keeping me sane as a teacher! 

The Teacher/Coach Dynamic

As the spring season closes, it allows me to reflect on the importance of the student/teacher dynamic at St. Paul's. I have discussed this with my friends that teach a public school, and their immediate response is along the lines of "But you get out of school so late!". It's true, during the fall I am not home until 6 and during the spring, we are home after 7. However, I think it is a minor cost for the value that it provides at school in the classroom. Time is really the only negative aspect of a teacher/coach dynamic in school. Being a coach allows me to establish a rapport with students that I normally would never meet or have anything in common with. I have had students that I have coached but never taught come to me for extra help in their Science, or even other classes, simply because they respect me as a coach.

This same dynamic also helps when a student in my class is not doing well academically or behaviorally and I have trouble motivating them. I am easily able to contact their coach (or theatre teacher, if they are more arts inclined) to reach out and help that student. There have been a number of times where a student avoids meeting with me, but I can reach out to a coach who can chat with them on the field or back stage, in a much more informal setting. The teacher/coach dynamic also relieves some of the pressures other schools have with grades and athletics. Because our coaches are mostly teachers, there is never any question as to whether academics or sports comes first. If a student is missing significant amounts of work, coaches have no problem placing them in Afternoon Study Hall to miss half or all of practice after school. This, above all else, is a fantastic motivator for students to focus on school before their athletics.

I have rarely heard a coworker at our school complain about the time commitment for coaching. When teachers from other schools ask about the extra work that is put in, it is very easily justified!

STEM Elevator Speech: Round 2

In my first "Elevator Speech" that I did for 690, I spoke about the need for real-world examples in the classroom. However, after taking this class and researching the deeper issues in STEM in a classroom, I realized that it is more about accessibility. STEM arose out of a need for connection between concepts that are considered abstract, hence the real-world examples. It also is a way to inspire students to follow their passions and create a framework to tackle problems that seem too hard at first. If these things are achieved, gaps in gender, race, and academic achievement can be overcome. STEM is a way for us to inspire students and engage them in a way that gives them the skills to succeed in many 21st-century careers. If we can make math, biology, physics, chemistry and engineering fun, engaging, and less abstract, it will allow the students to connect the dots and see the practicality in learning about these subjects that can have a major impact on their lives as they move into the real world.

STEM Project Outline!

Here is a link to my STEM Project outline (Running updates): here

Professional Development!

This weekend was completely filled with conferences and professional development opportunities. On Friday, our entire school faculty attended the National Association of Independent Schools. We started our day with Sir Ken Robinson as the keynote speaker, continued on to visit a number of awesome booths (with tons of free books and other stuff), and a number of breakout sessions. The two meaningful breakout sessions I went to were "Failure 2.0: Teaching children to fail successfully" and "Turning your class into an ARG". Failure 2.0 was about how to use proper language and praising to embrace effort over achievement. This helps prevent discouragement when a student does not get a good grade. It also helps promotes self-motivation because parents and teachers show appreciation when they know a student worked hard to achieve what they did. It also allows for space for improvement. The ARG session was all about how to effectively use Google Cardboard ($5 each) googles to create an interactive learning experience for the classroom. My favorite was ARIS (https://arisgames.org/), a program where a teacher can create an ARG in their classroom or school for the students to walk around and interact with. An example in the lecture was to use ARIS to teach students about lab safety.

On Sunday night, I when to Park School's Brain sPark event. This was a conference where people from the Park School community spoke in 50 minute segments. You were allowed to pick three, and the most impressive ones that I chose were about art in space and another about what it is like to be a woman pilot in a field that is dominated by men. The art in space lecture involved four scientists who worked with exoplanets and on the James Webb telescope, as well as with the Hubble Space Telescope. The idea is to take the imagery from space, which is often times beautiful and commission artists to create their own interpretations from imagery. The scientists spoke about how these images are hard to comprehend, but if artists create pieces of art from them, it combines human aspects and emotion into something that can be very abstract. It was the first time that I had listened to a very clear example of why STEM should be STEAM.

While this weekend was busy, it was very worth it for me in terms of professional development. This has inspired me to register for the NSTA and ISEEN conferences for next year and I look forward to using these and future opportunities to improve my teaching in the classroom.

Link to my planning worksheet for my STEM Research Project

It is found here

Blog: Work/Work Balance

Going in to the spring for me is a bit terrifying. I have a ton on my plate normally, and grad school adds to that significantly. However, I realized this week after a particularly bad moment of panic that if I don't teach well this semester, what is the point of getting my degree in the first place? The funny part was that once I was accountable for grading and planning well, the rest of my work fell into place and made me feel so much better about life in general. I told my coworker about this on Friday, and we came up with the term "work-work balance" (as opposed to work-life balance). As much as we laughed about this, there was some significant truth to it. I need to find time during my day to do both my grad school and my planning and grading. I also realized that it is much more beneficial for me to get to school early (6ish) to get work done because by the end of the day I am too tired to do anything productive. I am glad that I have figured this out, but I am a bit disappointed that it took me this long to get there. The effects have been great. In just a week, I have a better rapport with my classes, they are more focused, and I feel that the students are better able to be challenged during the day to reach their full potential.

STEM Issues

During this week, we were assigned to research a random topic regarding issues in STEM. Of all of the topics, the one that interested me the most was community-based STEM projects. Recently in my classes, my students have been looking at concervation and global warming. Specifically, the students have been looking at the personal or  "grassroots" impacts that a decreasing biodiversity or climate change can have on one's life. Using community-based educational opportunities for my students in these scenarios would be incredibly useful to the area, and would build empathy with students and, ideally, their parents. I have found that there are still a number of students and their parents that push  back against a number of environmental issues. However, when I change question from "how does this impact the planet?" to "How would you feel if this was happening in your back yard?" the conversation shifts. To that end, if I were able to get kids and parents involved in ways that could build awareness that a lot of this stuff IS happening in their backyard, it could drive a number of points home. I also think the idea of using a combination of education and service could be so useful in countless ways that really speak for themselves. Students could address food deserts in neighborhoods by helping start community gardens or could clean up the wetlands down by Port Covington, which would build a sense of belonging and pride in their communities.

Baseline STEM Description

Recording Link: Here

690: Reflective Blogpost 1

1) How would you describe STEM education to a friend or family member in informal conversation?

When I speak to people about STEM education, my goal is to dispel the idea that it is a contemporary “buzzword”. Many people’s first impressions of the term “STEM” is that it was born out of a bureaucratic process like NCLB or Common Core, and will be pushed out of the education system in a few years. My first point is to explain that STEM is a way of getting rid of the question “Why am I learning this?” in classrooms. STEM has such a strong emphasis on real-world scenarios and career-oriented tasks that, when a lesson is planned properly, a student never has to wonder why they are learning a subject. STEM education also has emphasis on learning through problem solving. It is a much more organic way of learning, rather than having a student take notes in a lecture. Hands on learning is a great way to keep students active and engaged in the classroom.

2) Why do you think STEM education is (or is not) important?

            STEM education has become important, and more so than ever in the last ten years. With more career fields popping up all over the nation, it is important to allow students to learn about potential careers that can have an impact on their lives and the world. With STEM education properly implemented, concepts that are abstract in a textbook become tangible and easily understood concepts that can inspire students to become engaged in science and math classes that may otherwise seem too intimidating.

 3) What is the value of incorporating or enhancing STEM in public education.

            I think that STEM has the ability to inspire boys and girls in classes that are often deemed boring or difficult. Negative stereotypes in classes like math, biology, physics and chemistry often prevent students from even enrolling in these course unless they are required. If STEM education in public schools goes beyond teaching towards a standardized test and becomes relatable to a student’s everyday life, it may not become such a daunting prospect.

1) How were your initial thoughts reinforced by the resources you explored?

I think that the Huffington Post is incredibly relevant to the way STEM should be taught. Instead of fighting students over their use of personal technology, the teacher in the article invites and encourages students to use their cellphones in a way that is positive in the classroom(Mason 2016) . It also provides students with a new use for their phones, as a research tool. I agree with Bullington (the teacher from the article) when she states that while the material in class is important, the process of problem solving using modern technology is more important. To be able to point out to students that their phones are more useful than just a tool for social media is an incredibly important lesson.

2) What are some additional reasons to incorporate STEM education into your planning and instructions?

            One of the things that I had not considered before reading the U.S. News article what the factor of diversity in the STEM field (Bidwell 2015). Increasing the amount of STEM education in public schools, as I mentioned before, allows science and math to become more accessible fields in school, which could inspire entire classrooms of students, regardless of socio-economic status, gender, or ethnicity, to pursue careers. One needs to think of STEM education not as a means to complete tests at the end of the year, but as a means to inspire students to strive towards successful careers, lifestyles, and societal contributions.

Social Media Survey

So, I misinterpreted the assignment (but as a result found out about the Magic School Bus reboot, so I'll take that as a win). So I when back to Facebook and reached out to my friends via social media regarding what STEM is to them. Here's what I got:

References

Bidwell, A. (2015, February 24). STEM Workforce No More Diverse Than 14 Years Ago. Retrieved January 26, 2017, from http://www.usnews.com/news/stem-solutions/articles/2015/02/24/stem-workforce-no-more-diverse-than-14-years-ago

Mason, R. (2015, November 19). Student Solutions to Global Problems: STEM Education in South Carolina. Retrieved January 26, 2017, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randal-mason/student-solutions-to-glob_b_8591808.html