Teach Science (.net)

There are lots of strategies I would like to try in my classroom, but I’m not always sure how they would work. But here are a few of the ideas I have been tossing around, in no particular order:

• Make MUCH more use of google tools – I picked up a lot of great ideas at the GAFE summit in April, and I’m dying to put them to practical use. Pages, shared resources, research tools built in, no losing documents.
• 20% time – based on the Google model, where employees spend 20% of their time on a project of their choice.
• On the Fly response forms – using a generic response form and creating questions each day to go with the questions, and/or using it as an exit ticket
• more portfolio, journaling, less testing – build emphasis on ongoing learning, break the dependency on cramming and memorization
• “tests” as formative – Despite making practice tests available, I find students rarely make good use of them, and then doing poorly on a test comes as a complete surprise. I have considered giving tests, just as they are, as a means of  providing feedback on what students still ned to know before they complete their work on the unit – whatever that might be.
• “streamed” course for layering/differentiation – allow students more choice in how they complete each unit. Offer perhaps three “pathways” through a unit, from more traditional reading/lecture/worksheet, to grad-school like complete independent research, with a kind of hybrid/pbl in between.
• change the way I assess. I need to a) make students more independent and responsible for their own learning, b) make it more meaningful, ans c) make it less onerous for me.
• flipped classroom/blended learning – get more videos up, migrate my notes online, build the course in google sites as a sort of online textbook, complete with embedded docs for students to contribute like a wiki
• Project/inquiry based learning. I really like the concept of the modelling method. The problem is that much of the material in grades 9 and 10 is purely factual, which leaves little room for inquiry.
• introduce students to formal logic early. Hey, it’s science. Causation vs correlation is something science students really need to know.
• make simple interactives. Flash, Construct 2, whatever. But something that can be embedded.
• 3 before me – help to emphasize that I may be AN expert but not THE expert, and help break their dependence on me as the sole source of knowledge. They have to consult three other sources (classmates, textbook, internet, for example) before they ask me.
• provide a road map of the course, that students must fill out as they go, with links to their work - students often ask what we did last class, or what we are doing next class. If i provide them with a syllabus/sequence on google drive, they can make a copy, and turn each heading into a link to their own work as we go along.
• change the way I assess – Definitely.
• “do I get it” self-assessment checkpoints
• Incorporate Karplus learning cycle – important, particularly in science, but tricky to make relevant when the information is predominantly fact-based.
• have students measure and graph everything they possibly can – It’s science. Measuring and graphing are what we do.
• Maker Spaces – I love the idea of a maker space classroom. Making something is an incredible exercise in problem solving in the real world, and students don’t get nearly enough of it.
• Change the way I assess. ‘Nuff said.

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