In the coming year, were my students given iPads to use in a 1:1 setting in the classroom, I would be able to take my students outside the walls of our classroom to collaborate with others around the globe. Already in my class the students are doing several different assignments that incorporate technology, and have done at least one assignment that took them outside the walls of William Fremd High School. During this school year, for example, my students were involved in a project in which they were trying to get a cell organelle elected president of the cell. As part of their campaign, the students were required to promote their organelle and smear at least 5 others. The students were encouraged to use Twitter or Facebook to help them accomplish their goal. As a result of going on to Twitter, my students began interacting with scientists from around the globe! The project took on a life of its own as first cell biologists in England began tweeting with my kids, followed by biologists in France, the Middle East, and the United States. At the end of the project, the students used the website Storify to turn their social media work into a story that summarized the highlights of their project. They were able to incorporate any videos they made during the project, any tweets they sent out, any Facebook or Tumblr pages they made, and add captions underneath them to create their story. Here are links to some examples of what my students produced that would fall under the Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity Standard:
This first link is from a group whose organelle was the ribosome. One of their tweets highlighted in this story has an active link to the video the group made as part of their project. Creating and editing the video would have been really easy for them had they had an iPad and an app like iMovie!
2nd Hour Ribosomes
This next link is from a group whose organelle was the Endoplasmic Reticulum. This Storify story does a great job highlighting all of the ways in which the students used technology on this project, from using Twitter to creating videos and memes to support their organelle.
3rd Hour Endoplasmic Reticulum
Finally, these students chose to use poetry in their Storify story to highlight their work on Twitter, which won them the election in my 3rd period class. Talk about incorporating writing and creativity into science!
3rd Hour Cytoskeleton
In addition to the student-directed project above, my students also complete many other assignments involving the use of technology, including learning about the discovery of the structure of DNA. For this, they use a website that I created using resources at DNAi.org. This project would fall under the Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments standard. Here is a link to the website:
Discovery of the Structure of DNA
Finally, my students use my website as a resource for learning as well. Almost all of the documents they need for class are linked there, as are many answer keys for review assignments, PowerPoints used in class, videos to watch at home, and my blog for the parents that communicates what we have done and will be doing in class each week. Here is a link to my webpage:
My Webpage
Friday, January 4, 2013
Friday, December 30, 2011
The Craft of Teaching
Being an educator is about being able to motivate kids in your classroom to learn. Over the course of the last fourteen years, I have found that there are several keys to being able to achieve this goal.
First, a teacher must be relevant. To be relevant, a teacher must be able to take classroom content and give students a reason to care about it. There are many topics in the freshman biology curriculum at our school that can be really dry. For example, the properties of water or the structure of a protein are not the most exciting topics for a fourteen year old child. However, last year, a parent e-mailed me that her daughter, ". . . has been bringing up what she has learned as we cook or just in ordinary conversations--'that's because of the H2O bond in .....' or 'that's because there are amino acids....'. She seems to relate what she is learning to real life. . ." I knew if she was making those connections at home, I was making learning relevant for her.
Second, a teacher must be current. With each new year there are new technologies to utilize and new scientific discoveries to learn about. An example of one way I am staying relevant is by using Twitter. Many of my students use it, and are surprised that I have an account of my own. I do not use it to communicate with them, but rather to communicate with other teachers. I have found it to be an invaluable professional development resource. There are educational theory and educational practice discussions that take place on a weekly basis on Twitter. These have been great tools to help me reflect on my own teaching practice.
Also, since so many people are turning to the blogosphere to gather their information, I began a blog of my own last year. I use my blog to communicate to parents about what happened in my classroom the previous week, and what will be happening in the coming week. In addition, I have a Geek of the Week feature that I use to highlight a student each week for their accomplishments in my classroom. By staying current with new technology, I am discovering new ways to improve my teaching performance and also opening the doors of my classroom to the community.
Third, a teacher must be knowledgeable. As my knowledge of biology has grown, so has my effectiveness as a teacher. One of the most important aspects of helping students understand biology is to help them make connections between what we are currently learning and what we learned before. In order to be able to help students I have to know those connections myself. I recently heard from a student of mine who is now a junior at Emory University who said that his genetics class has been almost all review so far from what we did in AP Biology. Knowing my content well, and then being able to teach it well, had a lasting impact for my former student.
Finally, a teacher must be passionate. A teacher must be passionate about two things: their subject matter, and their students. For me, being passionate about biology comes naturally. I have always found it interesting to learn how living things work, and how they are related to one another. I have found that letting that interest show really helps foster an interest in biology in my students. One parent sent me an e-mail last year to let me know that, ". . .my daughter must really like your class. In prior to this year, I had only heard her talking about being a lawyer or fashion designer when we talked about future career choices. Lately she has mentioned several times that she likes biology and science and maybe should go for a medical degree." I could not have been more proud when I read that e-mail.
Teaching is not an easy profession. I spend long hours during the school year planning, grading, developing tests, and analyzing data. It is all too easy to lose sight of the reason I decided to become a teacher in the first place. When I find myself getting upset or stressed by happenings around me in the school, I find it helpful to escape into the classroom with my students and engage with them. The 275 minutes a day I spend in the classroom with students are more rewarding than any other experience I think I could have in any other profession. When students see that their teacher is passionate about teaching, it can help spark a lifelong interest in learning. I have several former students that have thanked me for helping instill in them a desire to learn and love biology. One of my former students, whom I had as both a freshman and a senior in high school, and is now a sophomore at the University of Minnesota, had an opportunity to take a research position in the Neurology Department at the Mayo clinic over the summer. She is continuing to do research in the neural engineering lab on campus during the school year. She credited her knowledge of biology from high school with opening up the time in her schedule to pursue those opportunities. She also told me that her work could eventually help her save lives, which, she said, essentially meant that my class actually saves lives. That made me smile, and was one of those little reminders of why I teach.
My fourteen years as a teacher have been some of the most wonderful, challenging years I have ever experienced. While I have spent many hours teaching my students about biology, they have been spending the same amount of time teaching me how to be a teacher. It has been a truly rewarding relationship, and I know that, while I am certainly not done teaching kids, neither are they done teaching me.
First, a teacher must be relevant. To be relevant, a teacher must be able to take classroom content and give students a reason to care about it. There are many topics in the freshman biology curriculum at our school that can be really dry. For example, the properties of water or the structure of a protein are not the most exciting topics for a fourteen year old child. However, last year, a parent e-mailed me that her daughter, ". . . has been bringing up what she has learned as we cook or just in ordinary conversations--'that's because of the H2O bond in .....' or 'that's because there are amino acids....'. She seems to relate what she is learning to real life. . ." I knew if she was making those connections at home, I was making learning relevant for her.
Second, a teacher must be current. With each new year there are new technologies to utilize and new scientific discoveries to learn about. An example of one way I am staying relevant is by using Twitter. Many of my students use it, and are surprised that I have an account of my own. I do not use it to communicate with them, but rather to communicate with other teachers. I have found it to be an invaluable professional development resource. There are educational theory and educational practice discussions that take place on a weekly basis on Twitter. These have been great tools to help me reflect on my own teaching practice.
Also, since so many people are turning to the blogosphere to gather their information, I began a blog of my own last year. I use my blog to communicate to parents about what happened in my classroom the previous week, and what will be happening in the coming week. In addition, I have a Geek of the Week feature that I use to highlight a student each week for their accomplishments in my classroom. By staying current with new technology, I am discovering new ways to improve my teaching performance and also opening the doors of my classroom to the community.
Third, a teacher must be knowledgeable. As my knowledge of biology has grown, so has my effectiveness as a teacher. One of the most important aspects of helping students understand biology is to help them make connections between what we are currently learning and what we learned before. In order to be able to help students I have to know those connections myself. I recently heard from a student of mine who is now a junior at Emory University who said that his genetics class has been almost all review so far from what we did in AP Biology. Knowing my content well, and then being able to teach it well, had a lasting impact for my former student.
Finally, a teacher must be passionate. A teacher must be passionate about two things: their subject matter, and their students. For me, being passionate about biology comes naturally. I have always found it interesting to learn how living things work, and how they are related to one another. I have found that letting that interest show really helps foster an interest in biology in my students. One parent sent me an e-mail last year to let me know that, ". . .my daughter must really like your class. In prior to this year, I had only heard her talking about being a lawyer or fashion designer when we talked about future career choices. Lately she has mentioned several times that she likes biology and science and maybe should go for a medical degree." I could not have been more proud when I read that e-mail.
Teaching is not an easy profession. I spend long hours during the school year planning, grading, developing tests, and analyzing data. It is all too easy to lose sight of the reason I decided to become a teacher in the first place. When I find myself getting upset or stressed by happenings around me in the school, I find it helpful to escape into the classroom with my students and engage with them. The 275 minutes a day I spend in the classroom with students are more rewarding than any other experience I think I could have in any other profession. When students see that their teacher is passionate about teaching, it can help spark a lifelong interest in learning. I have several former students that have thanked me for helping instill in them a desire to learn and love biology. One of my former students, whom I had as both a freshman and a senior in high school, and is now a sophomore at the University of Minnesota, had an opportunity to take a research position in the Neurology Department at the Mayo clinic over the summer. She is continuing to do research in the neural engineering lab on campus during the school year. She credited her knowledge of biology from high school with opening up the time in her schedule to pursue those opportunities. She also told me that her work could eventually help her save lives, which, she said, essentially meant that my class actually saves lives. That made me smile, and was one of those little reminders of why I teach.
My fourteen years as a teacher have been some of the most wonderful, challenging years I have ever experienced. While I have spent many hours teaching my students about biology, they have been spending the same amount of time teaching me how to be a teacher. It has been a truly rewarding relationship, and I know that, while I am certainly not done teaching kids, neither are they done teaching me.
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