Disappointing Start...

I did my first whiteboarding session on Friday with my Physics classes. We were discussing a reading assignment and during the discussion I kept amazing myself by dropping back into the authority role. The kids would ask a good question and I would immediately answer them or validate their response. It was so frustrating to me. I did better by the end of the day, but it was still frustrating.

Today I pre-labed the initial measurement labs that Don started us off with. I think I did a much better job of illiciting their opinions and questions. Yay me.

Baby steps, Bob. Baby steps.

Time consuming..

Did my spaghetti bridge lab today and I felt it went really well. Will be teaching the excel graphing methods tomorrow so we stopped with some time left. We white boarded about the reading assignment. Unfortunately I needed block scheduling today. They boarded but no time to share. That will have to happen tomorrow. Sigh. I need more time!

A new era has dawned

I began modeling today.... in my Biology class. Broke out the whiteboards already. I began in Physics as well, but no whiteboarding until probably Thursday.

FCI tomorrow at the beginning and then the spaghetti bridge lab from Mark Schober's site. We pre-labed (pre-labbed? Pre-lab-ed?) today and I thought I did a fairly decent job of letting the kids go in whatever direction they wanted. I just set up a strand of spaghetti with the cup and the marbles and let them come up with questions. Eventually they pulled out the ideas I had thought of and two of my classes had ideas that I hadn't thought of at all! It will be interesting to see what they choose to do tomorrow. My first hour struggled to share ideas at first and so I broke them into smaller groups to talk about it first and then came back to the whole group discussion. That made them more comfortable and then they really got going. The other hours were great.

Am I really thinking this?

So yesterday Frank Noschese found my blog and made a comment. As is good blogging manners I surfed over to his page and opened a can of worms. The can was so big that I was up until well after 2 reading blog after blog.

I have struggled for years with my grading policies. Every year it is something different. Straight points? Percentages? How heavily should I weight assignments? I had stumbled across Standard based grading before and thought it seemed like a good idea but I just couldn't see how it could work. Well thanks to Frank, now I can. So the question remains, am I really thinking this?

What is wrong with my brain that I would even contemplate starting modeling and standard-based grading all at the same time? And yet they would fit SO WELL together. I am hoping common sense prevails. There is always next year for standard based grading.

If any of you want to learn more about Standards based grading check out Shawn Cornally's site. He does a great job of laying it out. Then click back to Frank's site here where he gives a bunch of resources to implement it in the physics classroom. You are a cruel one Frank to tempt me so.

A new opportunity?

SO I am about to begin this modeling thing and while I feel I am ready for the physics part, I am chomping at the bit to try and include some of the methods into my biology classes as well. However even though modeling nirvana (Arizona State Univeristy) mentions biology on their homepage, there are no resources yet that I can find.

Well as the saying goes in for a penny in for a pound, I emailed Jane Jackson about it. I asked for a contact for someone to talk to who is working on developing the methods and volunteered to help with the efforts. She replied with her phone number and instructions to call tomorrow to discuss it. How cool would it be to be able to help develop this in a whole new curriculum.

I haven't even taught like this for one day and I'm already signing up for more. Talk about faith!

Details to follow.

Participation Redecision 2010

So after typing up my class handouts and deciding on percentages for participation I went reading through the blog-o-sphere/listserve universe and stumbled across several interesting ideas. One of the threads discussed one teacher's issue with a student who does no homework and yet scores 95% on her tests. In my opinion if he can score a 95 on the test without doing homework then the homework seems to be pretty useless and the student obviously needs greater challenges.

Anyway, some other teacher replied back and the topic went to the fact that grades should reflect what the student is actually learning. I realized that my participation grade is kind of the same deal. If a kid doesn't participate but can score well on tests then aren't I doing the same thing? Well sure you know the material but you didn't jump through my hoops so I will add some punitive damage to your grade so I feel better. I think the better choice is just to require participation through class management rather than by some subjective grade being imposed.

Looks like a rewrite is in my future.

Valedictorian Speech

I don't know if anybody heard about this or not, but I stumbled across this girl's speech while cleaning out my listserve inboxes. I totally get her frustration. However I think she was calling for more classes like modeling. This is the direction that I think all classes need to take because it emphasizes thought above the grade. Yes I still have to give grades because that is what is expected, but in my class grades will be based on the growth of thinking ability of the student and not who can jump through the most hoops. At least that is the plan.