Standard III: TEACHERS PLAN AND DELIVER EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTION AND CREATE AN ENVIRONMENT THAT FACILITATES LEARNING FOR THEIR STUDENTS
B. Assessments – Teachers plan and consistently deliver instruction that draws on results of student assessments, is aligned to academic standards, and advances students’ level of content knowledge and skills | H. Feedback – Teachers use appropriate methods to assess what each student has learned, including formal and informal assessments, and use results to plan further instruction |
Wed. 9-17-14: First, the day before, a student was asked to run fast, then slow down, then walk medium speed over three different distances that we measured out on the floor. Each distance segment was 3 meters. Then, three students timed how long it took the student to cross each segment. Then, on this day, the students were shown a quick
video tutorial
, then I demonstrated on the board how to plot the points and construct the graph. I then told them that they were going to go outside with their teams and gather their own times for distances that they would set on the ground. But, before we went outside, I wanted to know if everyone understood how we were going to do it. So, I asked students to volunteer random numbers that I would plot on the board as examples of times and distances for plotting. I had students pair-share with their partners, and used thumb signals to identify where they were with the understanding before proceeding to the
lab activity
Plotting points on the board and asking students for understanding by using “thumbs up” for full understanding, “thumbs sideways” for slight understanding but need help, and “thumbs down if they don’t understand at all. | |
Soliciting student example numbers for more points to plot on the continuous motion graph. This time, I would ask something different. Since I made this number a negative distance, “how would it look on the graph?” Students had to do a “pair share” with their table partner before I plotted it on the board. I would call on someone to see if they could predict where it went. Then plotted it while explaining. Then, asked for a thumbs up, sideways, or down. | |
Finally, I asked for another number, made it the denominator. But added a numerator of zero over it. They had to say which number was distance and time: numerator was distance, and denominator – time. Then, asked the class to share with their partners how would this look on the graph. After a debate ensued, I asked for a volunteer to share how that would look. Then, plotted it in front of the class while explaining that time doesn’t stop, it just keeps right on ticking, as you are stationary, so it makes a flat horizontal line on the graph. Then, asked for a thumbs up, sideways, and down for a final check for understanding. | |
This is a short vid clip of my third period. They have been asked to Pair Share about how they think a plot on a continuous motion line graph would look for the time of 2 and the distance of zero. So the point to plot on the graph is 0/2. It ends up being a straight horizontal line. | |
Then, we went outside to set down tape at three measured distances. Each team used three timers, and had one student run, walk, trot at three speeds to graph continuous motion that changes three times over the three distances. | |
September 22nd: Gave Clicker Quiz on Aspects of Speed in a formative style. Students were allowed to talk to each other, use their notes we had taken over the past week, their books where I gave related page numbers, and calculators for speed calculations.
10/20/14: Acceleration Questions The first question was given on the following quiz on October 23rd, and an estimated 90% of the students understood and passed this question!
1/6-7/15: Before the winter break students had learned about how we had derived the Kinetic Energy Formula 1/2MV^2. I recreated the experiment Thomas Young had done in 1801. But, we had not actually done anything with the formula. I felt that we needed to do something formative with the formula, and decided upon a demonstration, which would then lead to all of the students doing the same calculation and helping each other to find the kinetic energy. So, I had one student measure the distance between a row of desks. Another would find the mass of a golf ball on a scale. And, another would time the ball with a stopwatch as it rolled between the desks and hit the timer’s foot. The students used our classroom set of computers to answer two questions from my website about the energy that the ball carried on its roll. ENERGY QUESTIONS I used an exemplar to help the students see what an “A+” paragraph would be as they calculated and wrote their answers on a google form. ENERGY EXAMPLARS
block (A) days, Monday March 2nd, and Wed. March 4th A first time experiment with my 6th graders. Transition time of year between physical science and chemistry. We had learned 3 column note technique and were taking notes on the differences in physical and chemical changes the day before. I had them look on p. 42 and 43 of their textbook at schematic of the physical separation of a three chemical mixture; Iron, Sulphur, and Salt. I decided to make a contest out the recreation of the separation of substances on those pages. But, since we no longer have Sulfur, I substituted pepper, it being mostly insolvent in water. The class separated into teams and followed the textbook’s example of the mixture separation by using magnets to pull out the Iron, adding water to dissolve the salt, and filtering out the third insoluble ingredient with coffee filters inserted into funnels. I chose to give a minimum of instruction, though I showed where everything was located. I gave them a template for writing down their masses, and told them the goal of first measuring the mass of the mixture given to their group, then separating everything out into the three pure substances, measuring each separate mass, and adding them together to compare the original mass of the mixture to the sum of the separate masses. The team with the best match of mixed mass compared with the separate summed masses would win and each winning team member would get a prize. I had them answer questions from their book on this topic during the lab, whenever they weren’t needed immediately for measurements. We debriefed on the second day before starting, and after finishing up. Students learned what they had done right and wrong from doing the lab, and were able to discuss what they would do differently the next time, or what were good ideas to share. Some of the things they learned were; don’t put the magnet directly into the mixture, because it’s quite difficult to get the iron off of the magnet. Better to put paper around it, or place it in a ziplock bag, extract the iron, then drop it onto a pre-massed piece of paper to find its mass. Also, when boiling off the water, the salt begins to pop, so cover it with paper towels. An interesting result of this experiment was that each class had teams that would get closer. The closest in the first period was off by one gram. The closest the next was 2 tenths, then two teams tied with one tenth, then in the final class, two groups had the exact same mass before and after! This whole process was invaluable to our upcoming chemistry labs, and using the block period was super helpful to get through it all. Test on Friday 13th March Almost every student got the mixture separation question, number two, correct! Quiz 7 page 1 |
STANDARD V: TEACHERS DEMONSTRATE LEADERSHIP
F. Student Collaboration – Teachers provide students with opportunities to work in teams and develop leadership qualities |
September 25th: On day 2 of Inclined Roll Lab. Instead of giving a debrief to the class, then saying, “go”, which is my normal technique; today, I had teams do a group-think before they started with materials. I wanted them to plan out how the lab is going to work; who gets the ruler and measures, who gets the tape, who is getting the books to stack for the plank and angle, who gets the car. I wanted them to get used to planning ahead before jumping into things. They also checked each other’s data tables to see that everyone in their group had it right. Then, they looked at the graph and discussed how they would probably plot it later. Also, some group dynamics were worked out before the “heat of the battle”. I told them that some are leaders that push others to do things, and that the others should respect that. Also, that there are “silent” leaders who watch, know, understand, and have good stuff to offer when people allow them to give their ideas. And of course the “doers” who love moving the stuff around. They’re important too. So, this will hopefully help out group dynamics in a general way.
Only after the group-think meetings did they then get materials and continue on with the lab. Most teams were able to get the time data for all of the 5 angles they had chosen
I asked each class afterwards if they thought the group-think meeting at the beginning of class helped, and they mostly all agreed that it was in fact effective!
B. Professional Leadership – Teachers contribute knowledge and skills to educational practices and the teaching profession
LMS Tech Contact 2013-14-15
Science representative for Louisville Middle’s LCC 2014-15
Innedco Presenter on Flipping The Classroom June 16-19 2014
Guest Speaker on Flipping Lessons at Google Summit Oct. 11th 1:30-2:30 at Monarch High School:
Google Summit Sessions
Jan. 21: 30 min. morning Presentation on Educator Effectiveness to the LMS staff
Feb. 4: 10 min. morning Presentation on experience with Consensus Training, from the previous week’s BVSD sponsored workshops, to the LMS staff