REFLECTING ON REFLECTION

One would think that after many many years of teaching,  I would leave at the end of my work day (which is usually anywhere between 4pm and a night security telling me that I don't have to go home but I can't stay in my classroom) and not think about work.  That is definitely not the case.  If anything, I find myself replaying the events of the day and while most days gives me plenty to smile about some days when the insanely hilarious happens it provides me with tear producing laughter.  On the flip side, there are those days that leave me asking myself what I could have done better. Not all of the days experiences are positive events.   All my experiences whether good or bad provide me with new knowledge that I can utilize to be a better teacher, better person, better educator for students, for myself. It seems that this practice of mine has a name to it that is resonating and trending the field of education.  That term is REFLECTION.                      

According to Jennifer L. Hindman and James H. Stronge, 

              "  Examining your practice is one of the best ways to improve it.  

                    Reflection is about critically examining oneself, and it is a facet of effective teachers".

So as I reflect on reflection, I can honestly say that it has benefited me throughout my career.  It has allowed me to improve on those things that my reflections presented to me as needing improvement and repeating those things that worked well and it has allowed me to be a better teacher as well as a better student. In my opinion, teachers should utilize reflection for themselves and utilize it with their students because having students reflect on their own learning is a way to help them improve on it.   

STEM and STEAM

It seems that Einstein had it right all along.  There is a place and a relationship between art and science.  Thus, the education trend which seems to be causing a paradigm shift in STEM education is adding the A for Art(s) into STEM which would now be STEAM education.  Why the integration?  From what I have read, two words that help answer that question are CREATIVITY and INNOVATION.  Both creativity and innovation are critical parts of both STEM and the arts.   “Creativity is a function of knowledge, curiosity, imagination, and evaluation.  Three important levels of creativity are discovery, invention, and creation”. 1  “STEM lessons naturally involve art (for example, product design), language arts (communication), and social studies and history (setting the context for engineering challenges)”.2   As the shift from STEM to STEAM picks up momentum,  the classroom teacher must be creative and innovative in the application of the arts to the classroom lessons and remember that “it’s not STEM vs. STEAM—it’s about making every student a fully-literate 21st-century citizen”.3

 1 "Creativity and Innovation: Your Keys to a Successful ..." 2013. 14 Apr. 2015 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-burrus/creativity-and-innovation_b_4149993.html>

 2 "STEM vs. STEAM: Why The "A" Makes a Difference ..." 2015. 14 Apr. 2015 <http://www.edudemic.com/stem-vs-steam-why-the-a-makes-all-the-difference/>

 3 "STEM vs. STEAM: Do the Arts Belong? - Education Week ..." 2014. 14 Apr. 2015 <http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2014/11/18/ctq-jolly-stem-vs-steam.html>

What's Old is New Again

What's Old is New Again

 It always amazes me how fascinated my digital native science students are when I pull out my old electric circuit boards to help with a cell studies unit.  Immediately they inspect, observe, fiddle with, investigate, and try to figure out how the wiring is done.  This presents engage and inquiry and a desire to want to "play" with the board.  These are the same students that can't seem to keep their eyes off of the screen of their cell phones long enough to say hello to each other as they walk into the classroom.  What's causing the fascination?  I believe that my students are so inundated by and used to their new technology that it has become old to them and when presented with the "old technology" that is now the new one.  Whatever type of technology is being used in your science classroom for learning, make sure it is fun.  "PLAYING SHOULD BE FUN! In our great eagerness to teach our children we studiously look for "educational" toys, games with built-in lessons, books with a "message." Often these "tools" are less interesting and stimulating than the child's natural curiosity and playfulness. Play is by its very nature educational. And it should be pleasurable. When the fun goes out of play, most often so does the learning” (Joanne E. Oppenheim Kids and Play, ch. 1, 1984).

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"Why Use Games to Teach? - SERC." 2004. 11 Apr. 2015 <http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/games/whygames.html>

DO YOU SPEAK SCIENCE? ARE YOU AN SLL?

DO YOU SPEAK SCIENCE? ARE YOU AN SLL?

Science has it's own language.  It is not always easy learning the language and yet, the success or failure of a student in a science class is in big part due to the acquisition or lack of acquisition of the language. Interestingly enough, each science subject in school has a set of terms that relates to the specific subject much to the dismay of many students, mine included.  This learning of a new language, the language of science, makes all of my students as I like to refer to them, SLL, Science Language Learners.   

Okay, so let's make things a little more interesting and let's compound that challenge by adding the fact that in my classroom, as in many classrooms throughout the United States, there are students who have been identified as ELL, English Language Learners.  Not only is this student trying to learn the English Language, they are  also having to learn the Science Language. Now, that's truly a challenge.  

I have often been asked to describe my job as a science teacher.  I usually respond by saying that although I have one title, Teacher, the reality is that I should have a minimum of four.  I am a Science Laboratory Teacher.  I am a Science Subject (mostly Biology) Teacher.  I am a Foreign Language  (2 languages, Science and English for my ELLs) Teacher.  Last but not least, I am also an Educational Technologies Teacher.  After my response, I usually get more questions.  Usually, why do it?  Why do something that has so many challenges to it and what seems to receive so little in the form of appreciation?  

To that I answer, BECAUSE I SPEAK SCIENCE and more importantly, SCIENCE SPEAKS TO ME and I want my students, actually everyone's students, to learn the language of science or at least to become fluent enough that they can be successful in earning their credit, learn about the beauty of the unseen and seen worlds of science, gain an appreciation for science, and hopefully, have SCIENCE SPEAK TO THEM and when it does, they can have a conversation and they will understand what we all know happens when you learn a new language.  It opens worlds, minds, opportunities, and possibilities.   

DO YOU SPEAK SCIENCE? IF NOT, YOU SHOULD BECOME AN SLL.

FREE is the Right Price

As a classroom science teacher, I'm always looking for new activities and websites that will engage my students. BUT, the price must be right. The right price happens to be FREE. I'm recommending Howtosmile.org.

The How To Smile  website provides a large number of STEM activities for all ages and grade levels on numerous topics pertaining to mathematics, science, engineering and technology.  The website consists of “a group of science museums dedicated to bringing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) out of the academic cloister and into the wider world'.

My Love Hate Relationship With Numbers

My Love Hate Relationship With Numbers

Today’s special events, Pi Day 3-14-15 and Albert Einstein’s birthday, have made me take pause and reflect on the significance of numbers in my life.  If there is such a thing as a relationship with numbers, I have had and continue to be in a relationship with them.  If there are any psychology majors or numerologists out there, get your pens and pads ready because I may be that special case that needs analysis and treatment but then again my numbers might just add up correctly.
 As the first child of the first son of the first son and the first child of the first and only daughter, this made me the first grandchild on both my paternal and maternal sides of the family.  The number 1 has always played a major role in my life.  I, after all, am number 1 and was treated with a distinction that was bestowed upon me by parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles that was not quite the same for any of my siblings or cousins that followed.  This number brought to me a great deal of preferential treatment which as a child living in that moment is the ultimate.  However, great things are always expected of number 1 and enormous responsibilities are handed to number 1.  You must be as close to perfect as possible.  You must be exceptional.  You must set a good example for those that follow because you are number 1.  You are the first to achieve and the first to fail.  You can trailblaze or be complacent.  Whatever you choose, it will set the standard for those that follow.
There are so many memories tied to numbers.  One of my great achievements and favorite memories was learning to count.  My grandfather taught me to count in both English and Spanish at a pre pre-school age.  I liked numbers but as I got older somehow my love of numbers waned and mathematics became a challenge to me.
  In my world, numbers have different meanings, significance, and emotions attached to them.  6/9/41 =my father’s birthday, 49=his age when he died, 16=my mother’s age when she had me,  5/9 my only brother’s birthday, 7/9 my brother’s youngest, 9/6 my brother’s eldest.  66=my parent’s first new car, 76=my high school graduation, 79= my firebird, 80=my college graduation, 2015=master’s degree, 8=octet rule, 6.022×10*23=Avogadro's number, 46=human chromosomes.
Of all the numbers out there, my favorite number is the number 4.  4= number of kids in my family, 4=my p.o. box number, 4=the total number my birth month and day add up to.  This number has special significance to me especially when it is repeated such as in 444.  For many, this is a spiritual number which represents the presence of angels.  I believe I am partial to this number because, for whatever the reason, I feel a sense of happiness and inner calmness when I see that number.
  Today, 3/14/15 pi day and Einstein’s birthday (3/14/1879), take the time to reflect about the roles that numbers have played in your life.  As for me, I don’t think I will be around in 3/14/2115, 100 years from now, but for today, all I can hope for is that no one thinks I’m 1096.  

ASSESS ME

  ASSESS ME

The future holds some amazing tools and methods for assessment in education.  Tools that have 3D projection and wall format display glass that makes it easier to learn and teach with.  These tools can also be used for assessment.  Assessment itself will offer new modes of assessment that will help teachers meet their students’ “need to learn, when they need to learn it to learn what they need, when they need to learn it, in a way that is most interesting to them” (http://youtu.be/7idyNIvVCis).  But, how close are we to seeing schools use technology for assessment and instruction?

In my opinion and using the Texas Teacher School Technology and Readiness (STaR) Chart performance descriptions, I would have to say that we are in the developing technology phase. As a teacher formerly from the north Texas area, I know that there are quite of few schools and districts that are at the forefront of technology education trends such as New Technology High School in Coppell, TX.   Currently, as a teacher in the south Texas area, I know from my own experiences and the experience of my contacts in other school districts in this area, there is still some teacher resistance and lack of knowledge and training in the use of some the current technologies.  Available tools such as rapid response systems, Plickers, Socrative.com, NearPod, e-portfolios, and EdModo just to name a few, are randomly used by teachers within their classrooms.  Unless mandated to use specific assessment tools, the majority of teachers do not use them.  When it comes to the use of a mandated assessment tool, such as AWARE which is the assessment component part of the Eduphoria suite apps, teachers learn to use it because they have to.  Although the assessment component allows for analysis with the hope of individualized instruction and remediation for students, the data may be skewed because the assessments created are only as good as the creators.

Again, I believe we are in the DEVELOPING stage.  The future is here and we,unfortunately, are not adapting as quickly as new technology and assessment methods are arriving.