ImagineIT Phase 6: Final Reflection
This school year has been truly transformative for my teaching and my view on education in general. I think we hear that word, transformative, a lot from others in our cohort, but it is truly the best descriptor for what is happening. Reading Dreamkeepers and diving into the chapter focusing on making your classroom a community really made me rethink how my actions appear to my students. In prior years, my focus was on content and grading was easy: the number is right or it is wrong. Lesson planning was easy too: lesson, activity, lesson, activity, lab, test. I was also quite skilled at classroom management and the majority of students were pretty much fine with the way things worked in the class. I got to know a few of the more vocal students really well but a lot of the other students flew under the radar and I only really knew about their capabilities in a chemistry class. Dreamkeepers reminded me that there’s more to education than just the content and that we are teaching these children to be functioning adults in the real world, not just to understand chemistry. Instead of classroom management, I work on the classroom community, which asks students to feel some responsibility for those beyond their individual bubble.
The focus group I conducted with a few former chemistry students was really effective at giving me the student point of view of the chemistry course. They were able to respectfully say that the material was taught fine, but they never really committed it to memory, nor did they see its use at the time. Too much information was handed to them so it became more of a memorization focused course, as opposed to understanding the process and the reasons behind certain phenomena. By adding in a journaling component this year, I am so much more in tune with the students’ feelings on the material and can adjust my teaching appropriately. This is also a way to hear from those students who used to fly under the radar and gives them a safe place to ask for help if they need it. I find that in my responses to their individual entries, I am also giving them pointers on how to learn and interact with teachers and peers more effectively and I can see their confidence growing over time.
I rarely have a lot of time to collaborate with my colleagues, but every time I do I am so grateful for it! I am working with a biology teacher who has only one chemistry class, so she has bought into my new way of teaching the chemistry (and is having a blast and loves it!). But it is so good to hear an outside point of view from someone who never particularly enjoyed the subject, as she helps me see how a connection of one concept to another may be helpful or detrimental to understanding. Anchoring new content in what students already know is so critical in chemistry. I’m seeing that every time I get a little lazy with one concept and I don’t make a solid connection, that very concept is always the one that even the most advanced thinkers struggle with. The students are even noting that concepts are “sticking” better and that they can see the connections in their own lives.
I still have several things to tighten up and work on, as evidenced in my sophomore’s journal entries. Transparency in teaching and learning is very important, and I think I need to be more careful about assuming that students have a strong grasp on a concept. When doing PBLs, a lot of information is discovered, and some students don’t discover the same concepts and topics as other students. It is important that I spend enough time elaborating on the new content and giving them time to practice with it on a level that is separate from the larger scale project. Overall, this experience was, and continues to be, transformative and I am excited to see what improvements I can make to help my students reach their highest potential!
ImagineIT Phase 6: Update on Progress
My ImagineIT project seems to be breaking out into two levels; one that is much more overarching and includes both my Physics and Chemistry classes where the focus is on Project-Based Learning (PBL). The second level is more zoomed in on the lessons I am implementing in my chemistry class specifically and how I am trying to help them see the application of chemistry in their lives. The specific lesson I am currently working through is a combination of a “crime scene mystery”, which engaged us in the project and which we will return to in the end, and a molecule research project. Students had the chance to pick a molecule that they found interesting (choices ranged from compounds in lipstick, to the cause of the smell of bacon, to methamphetamines and drug addiction) and through research and some guided activities on molecular structures they will be able to describe its properties, how they arise, and how they affect the molecule's function or interactions.
I want to try to end the unit with solving the mystery by testing some substances and determining their properties via experimentation, but I am still working through this idea. I’m finding that I am moving through content much slower than normal, but I am seeing those “a-ha!” moments start to pop up more often. I think the way that I am helping them build their knowledge causes us to go slow at first but I am hoping that it will allow us to really accelerate and apply these skills in so many different ways in the future. The work seems a bit endless and exhausting currently, as I am learning so much not only about students as learners but also about so many different fields of science in order to try to pull in as many interests as possible. Despite the constant load, I am really enjoying finding these new connections and sharing them with the students. I am much more connected to the current issues, whereas before (as a teacher and as a learner) I felt very disconnected from the concepts I had memorized and had the students memorize.
PBL overall has been going really well in both classes, though a little better with the freshmen in physics (possibly their higher excitement to learn as opposed to their jaded sophomore counterparts). Every class is different and I try to have an overall plan but to mainly let the students determine the flow of the class. My most recent focus has been to write out the Next Generation Science Standards that pertain to chemistry/physics in an easy to understand way and show students where we have come from and where we are going. When looking over the standards there are really only 3 total for each class and they are almost written in PBL form (“How can one explain the structure and properties of matter” for chemistry, and “How can one explain and predict interactions between objects and within systems of objects” for physics) which has helped me to take a step back and ensure everything we do is aligned with these standards. I am working on getting my colleagues to see these big ideas as well and to try to adjust the way we teach physics from a sectioned off, unit-by-unit plan, to something more overarching that continually hits the big ideas over and over through different projects.
Below is some student feedback that I received from our first PBL project, which not only focused on creating an engaging history presentation on a scientist, but really focused on the basic skills involved in working as a team:
This school year has been truly transformative for my teaching and my view on education in general. I think we hear that word, transformative, a lot from others in our cohort, but it is truly the best descriptor for what is happening. Reading Dreamkeepers and diving into the chapter focusing on making your classroom a community really made me rethink how my actions appear to my students. In prior years, my focus was on content and grading was easy: the number is right or it is wrong. Lesson planning was easy too: lesson, activity, lesson, activity, lab, test. I was also quite skilled at classroom management and the majority of students were pretty much fine with the way things worked in the class. I got to know a few of the more vocal students really well but a lot of the other students flew under the radar and I only really knew about their capabilities in a chemistry class. Dreamkeepers reminded me that there’s more to education than just the content and that we are teaching these children to be functioning adults in the real world, not just to understand chemistry. Instead of classroom management, I work on the classroom community, which asks students to feel some responsibility for those beyond their individual bubble.
The focus group I conducted with a few former chemistry students was really effective at giving me the student point of view of the chemistry course. They were able to respectfully say that the material was taught fine, but they never really committed it to memory, nor did they see its use at the time. Too much information was handed to them so it became more of a memorization focused course, as opposed to understanding the process and the reasons behind certain phenomena. By adding in a journaling component this year, I am so much more in tune with the students’ feelings on the material and can adjust my teaching appropriately. This is also a way to hear from those students who used to fly under the radar and gives them a safe place to ask for help if they need it. I find that in my responses to their individual entries, I am also giving them pointers on how to learn and interact with teachers and peers more effectively and I can see their confidence growing over time.
I rarely have a lot of time to collaborate with my colleagues, but every time I do I am so grateful for it! I am working with a biology teacher who has only one chemistry class, so she has bought into my new way of teaching the chemistry (and is having a blast and loves it!). But it is so good to hear an outside point of view from someone who never particularly enjoyed the subject, as she helps me see how a connection of one concept to another may be helpful or detrimental to understanding. Anchoring new content in what students already know is so critical in chemistry. I’m seeing that every time I get a little lazy with one concept and I don’t make a solid connection, that very concept is always the one that even the most advanced thinkers struggle with. The students are even noting that concepts are “sticking” better and that they can see the connections in their own lives.
I still have several things to tighten up and work on, as evidenced in my sophomore’s journal entries. Transparency in teaching and learning is very important, and I think I need to be more careful about assuming that students have a strong grasp on a concept. When doing PBLs, a lot of information is discovered, and some students don’t discover the same concepts and topics as other students. It is important that I spend enough time elaborating on the new content and giving them time to practice with it on a level that is separate from the larger scale project. Overall, this experience was, and continues to be, transformative and I am excited to see what improvements I can make to help my students reach their highest potential!
ImagineIT Phase 6: Update on Progress
My ImagineIT project seems to be breaking out into two levels; one that is much more overarching and includes both my Physics and Chemistry classes where the focus is on Project-Based Learning (PBL). The second level is more zoomed in on the lessons I am implementing in my chemistry class specifically and how I am trying to help them see the application of chemistry in their lives. The specific lesson I am currently working through is a combination of a “crime scene mystery”, which engaged us in the project and which we will return to in the end, and a molecule research project. Students had the chance to pick a molecule that they found interesting (choices ranged from compounds in lipstick, to the cause of the smell of bacon, to methamphetamines and drug addiction) and through research and some guided activities on molecular structures they will be able to describe its properties, how they arise, and how they affect the molecule's function or interactions.
I want to try to end the unit with solving the mystery by testing some substances and determining their properties via experimentation, but I am still working through this idea. I’m finding that I am moving through content much slower than normal, but I am seeing those “a-ha!” moments start to pop up more often. I think the way that I am helping them build their knowledge causes us to go slow at first but I am hoping that it will allow us to really accelerate and apply these skills in so many different ways in the future. The work seems a bit endless and exhausting currently, as I am learning so much not only about students as learners but also about so many different fields of science in order to try to pull in as many interests as possible. Despite the constant load, I am really enjoying finding these new connections and sharing them with the students. I am much more connected to the current issues, whereas before (as a teacher and as a learner) I felt very disconnected from the concepts I had memorized and had the students memorize.
PBL overall has been going really well in both classes, though a little better with the freshmen in physics (possibly their higher excitement to learn as opposed to their jaded sophomore counterparts). Every class is different and I try to have an overall plan but to mainly let the students determine the flow of the class. My most recent focus has been to write out the Next Generation Science Standards that pertain to chemistry/physics in an easy to understand way and show students where we have come from and where we are going. When looking over the standards there are really only 3 total for each class and they are almost written in PBL form (“How can one explain the structure and properties of matter” for chemistry, and “How can one explain and predict interactions between objects and within systems of objects” for physics) which has helped me to take a step back and ensure everything we do is aligned with these standards. I am working on getting my colleagues to see these big ideas as well and to try to adjust the way we teach physics from a sectioned off, unit-by-unit plan, to something more overarching that continually hits the big ideas over and over through different projects.
Below is some student feedback that I received from our first PBL project, which not only focused on creating an engaging history presentation on a scientist, but really focused on the basic skills involved in working as a team:
“I made friends with the group members and I am pleased how smoothly we integrated each others’ assignments into one cohesive result. I was a little scared to do a project, also, that is aimed towards middle schoolers because my usual audience of schoolwork are my teachers so it was a big difference, and it was hard training my mind to use every day phrases but it was an interesting project where I learned about myself, my group members, my computer, and lastly, Giordano Bruno.”
|
“However, I also feel like a lot of my communication skills have improved. I think that I've gotten closer to my teammates (I do enrichments with J on Wednesdays, hung out with C during Homecoming, and talk to S during gym class now) which makes me feel positively about myself and more optimistic towards being in another group project. Before doing this, I wasn't very comfortable with my table but I feel like now I've developed skills to make new friends easily."
|
“I feel as though academics end up being undermined when extra-curricular activities occupy your time after school, therefore you have the perception that you have less time to finish an assignment/project. You might have less time due to something else, but the reality is that academics come first. Doing well in school gives everyone a better chance at everything in life."
|
“I can recall past projects in grammar school that really did become textbook pages pasted onto a board. I feel that I learned how to set our foundation of a project and build on that within our boundaries. So we wouldn't go off talking about Bruno's last meal in his legacy. We placed important information that actually mattered. I also feel that with seeing the other projects and medias I was able to learn that "wow. We can actually do these things" and that I don't always have to stick with the regular sideshow or poster. That I can really in the future be innovative and make a creative form of media.”
|