Another terrific workshop! We did pracs :-)
It's been soooo long since I actually participated in a chemistry prac, and it reminds me of why I loved them back in the dark ages when I studied chem. I like the 'doing' and the unpredictability (say, of power cords catching fire, spectrometers not remaining calibrated etc.) and the fun of trying to find work-arounds to these problems. I like the measuring, and the uncertainty of doing something but not quite knowing for sure if it's right....in a word, exciting.
The biggest thing to strike me was the excellent way of changing pracs around to get students thinking harder. The group I was in was not given the procedure up-front; we had to work out what was going to happen in the prac before we ever got near the steps to follow. How much more thinking did we do - heaps! I'm going to try to sabotage all pracs from here on, b/c this was so much more effective in employing the higer-order thinking. It has similarities with POE in this regard.
I thought it was interesting how many people seemed instantaneously frozen at the 'emergency' of our plug catching fire - I suspect as science teachers we probably need to expose ourselves to emergency situations and find ways to quickly solve them. I really don't think fire drills cut it! It reminds me that I should know where every plug, tap and off switch is in each lab....
I had a really good discussion with Deb about assessment. It's been a common theme bugging me for a bit, and now I think I've come to a place where I'm comfortable. Assessment is against the learning continuum - that is, it's OK to mark a student harder than their peer for equal content work, if I set personal learning goals for them that is individualised based on what I expect they might be able to achieve. In the end, I will be reporting about where they are in respect to the continuum, and the brighter kids will end up further up on the dots than the kids who are struggling. If both groups work hard and make a quantum leap in understanding, they need to be rewarded for that in terms of marks. However, where they are in the continuum is the over-arching assessment that allows them to see where they are in respect to the standards for their year level. The trick will be to make that explicit, b/c you don't want little Johnny's mum coming in and blasting you for giving him good passes, but showing him only just at or below the VELS level for that year.... This approach sits well with me - I have tutored kids privately in maths, and have wondered how to incorporate the personalised learning that they do in that setting back into the classroom. Last year I had all but been convinced that you can't do that, but I have reverted back to being a believer in individualised learning plans. It will be effective for the students (although rather tiring for me!!). Feeling happy about that :-)
Somehow I thought we had another two weeks until full time placements, but my diary and Deb seem to think otherwise lol! The project is coming along, although it is a challenge. I was hoping that the wiki idea would minimise the amount of face-to-face time we need, but interestingly I don't think it works as well on that front due to dependencies on people working in order on their respective bits. The key advantage that I see is that we can all see the final project in one spot, vs. the usual email mess that has issues with which version is right. The other is that it is easy to track who has been doing the work, which I think is important from an assessment perspective. I realise we're going to have to work a bit like this once we're planning with colleagues in the workplace, but I suspect it will have a different dynamic. It's difficult to make progress - we spent much of Thursday's hour still talking about structure, which I really thought we should have had bedded down by now. The other downer is that Kate is the only one presenting our work next week - I have an all-day meeting on the project I'm working on and Julia flys out on Tuesday. In reality, we need to get this finished by Tuesday & I feel very guilty that Kate is being dumped with the presenting (and also crummy that I'll miss out on hearing the feedback!). Anyway, for those interested in looking at what we're doing (which is a bit sketchy at the moment), the wiki site is.... http://edf4403.scribblewiki.com/Main_Page. If you want to comment, could you leave it here on the blog rather than on the project for the moment though, as we are trying to keep the project to just us 3 temporarily.
Will add more to the journal as I go...
Cheers!
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Following Chem workshop 2
Wow! This was a brilliant workshop & it's been a real pain having to wait until now to get to write about it :(
Let's see...where to start. Assessment, I think! What a lively discussion we all had, but I am still undecided about what I will take from Uni as a whole in regard to assessment. The unit we covered last semester really appealed to my statistically focused background, in that rubrics, clear criteria, inter-rater and intra-rater reliability checks etc etc all provide a dependable framework from which we can fairly and consistently report on each students' skills. The volume and variety of assessment is also important, to ensure a diverse enough range of data to be able to make correct inferences on student learning. This is all clearly really important, but I do hear the comment that students don't actually receive the feedback they need from this type of reporting on assessment. Are they going to improve when they receive a result of 69% or a circle on a rubric? Not likely. I found it personally dissatisfying as a student too. In reality, teachers do much thinking about what they read of a student's work - this also needs to be reported and from the student's perspective, it is what allows them to improve. So, this is the multiple-focus of assessment - one is to reliably allow the teacher (then parents and other stakeholders) to concisely identify whether a student is reaching expected learning goals for that year level (lots of words is just too difficult to monitor), and the other is to provide information to the student about where they went well, and where they can improve/further their skills. The mark is important though - it is a quick indicator for the student to see if they're on track. For eg - if a student gets 90% on an assignment along with a whole bunch of comments suggesting where they can improve, the student will understand those comments are based on a more individualised learning plan, but that they are tracking very well with regard to year level expectations. I see them both as being important - the highest achievers are often very self-critical and I can imagine self-efficacy being undermined if they aren't made aware that they are "performing" well. Perhaps Deb's idea of the mark being handed out after comments have been read and discussed is a key here....unfortunately I can appreciate both sides to the assessment debate so this may end up being my middle ground. It was a very interesting and worthwhile discussion though & I am very glad we all had it - it's challenged my ideas just a bit (lot!).
The creative writing task was hilarious, and I can easily see it's value in determining student understanding. What a brilliant idea, and I am hoping to see an opportunity to use something similar to this on practicum :-) In terms of assessment, I see VELS as providing a really clear framework for marking this type of thing - it's interdisciplinary in that language and science domains should both be assessed. As the science teacher, I am going to be focussed on the student understanding of key science concepts, and think it should be marked accordingly. I could also provide a different mark for the language component, or better still, involve the English teacher and allow that person to use the task as part of their overall assessment of the student. As Oosterhof pointed out - items that are unrelated to instructional objectives should be excluded from grades (p222) and I really think that marking a student down for language troubles (for whatever reason) in a science class is unfair as it's assessing something unrelated to what we are intending to teach. If a student struggles in English, they need extra help, not marking down in every subject for it. There is another angle to this type of task - how do you assess from it? In theory, we're supposed to have criteria set up front, and correct the work accordingly. If it was formative assessment, would this really be necessary in a formal sense? A broad rubric identifying the key ideas expected to be demonstrated, with a HML assessment might be adequate....I need to see when I try it myself. Does the absence of comment on a particular scientific idea indicate lack of understanding, or creative omission because it doesn't fit with the storyline - could be either & therefore the task would be of limited value summatively (or even formatively). Hmmm....
I liked Deb's idea about interviewing technique - one to remember! Write the comments in pencil so parents can't look over the table and read what you've written. Also, identify ahead of time which parents are teachers, and which ones are on school council. Good political advice there!!
Next topic - movies in chemistry education. Actually, turning off the sound or video (not both lol!) was such a good idea! I have personally zoned out on many a DVD in classes - a moment to relax and not think too hard, so I can't imagine it's all that different for other students. The pedagogical ideas that we're encountering are so brilliant - I just don't think there will be enough time to learn them all before we're teachers ourselves, at which time I worry that we won't have a source of new tricks. Maybe I'll be lucky & get a helpful mentor in year 1.
List of good movies noted in class for chem and science ed - Contact, The Dish, I am legend (start off on cancer), Happy Feet (about Antarctica), Mad Max, Harry Potter (Biol & Chem - good descriptions of animals eg scrute, how might we create that spell), James Bond (Die another day has a disappearing car - physics), Indiana Jones (How have we changed our science?), Outbreak (biol), The Matrix, LOTR, Mythbusters (what is a valid test?), No reservations (chef).
Reminder to self - borrow the VisChem DVD from Deb (if she doesn't mind!) as I really loved the representation & want to see all that's on it...
Science Learning Hub website - http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/ is a really good website that Deb mentioned! If anyone reads this who hasn't checked it out yet, then go take a look!
On to the project - we're in the midst of trying to muddle ours in a Wiki format, which is kind've interesting & it will be fun to see what the other people in my group think of it. I like it so far, but will really jump in later tonight, once I put some real content up myself.
Anyway, enough blogging for now. See you next instalment!
M
Let's see...where to start. Assessment, I think! What a lively discussion we all had, but I am still undecided about what I will take from Uni as a whole in regard to assessment. The unit we covered last semester really appealed to my statistically focused background, in that rubrics, clear criteria, inter-rater and intra-rater reliability checks etc etc all provide a dependable framework from which we can fairly and consistently report on each students' skills. The volume and variety of assessment is also important, to ensure a diverse enough range of data to be able to make correct inferences on student learning. This is all clearly really important, but I do hear the comment that students don't actually receive the feedback they need from this type of reporting on assessment. Are they going to improve when they receive a result of 69% or a circle on a rubric? Not likely. I found it personally dissatisfying as a student too. In reality, teachers do much thinking about what they read of a student's work - this also needs to be reported and from the student's perspective, it is what allows them to improve. So, this is the multiple-focus of assessment - one is to reliably allow the teacher (then parents and other stakeholders) to concisely identify whether a student is reaching expected learning goals for that year level (lots of words is just too difficult to monitor), and the other is to provide information to the student about where they went well, and where they can improve/further their skills. The mark is important though - it is a quick indicator for the student to see if they're on track. For eg - if a student gets 90% on an assignment along with a whole bunch of comments suggesting where they can improve, the student will understand those comments are based on a more individualised learning plan, but that they are tracking very well with regard to year level expectations. I see them both as being important - the highest achievers are often very self-critical and I can imagine self-efficacy being undermined if they aren't made aware that they are "performing" well. Perhaps Deb's idea of the mark being handed out after comments have been read and discussed is a key here....unfortunately I can appreciate both sides to the assessment debate so this may end up being my middle ground. It was a very interesting and worthwhile discussion though & I am very glad we all had it - it's challenged my ideas just a bit (lot!).
The creative writing task was hilarious, and I can easily see it's value in determining student understanding. What a brilliant idea, and I am hoping to see an opportunity to use something similar to this on practicum :-) In terms of assessment, I see VELS as providing a really clear framework for marking this type of thing - it's interdisciplinary in that language and science domains should both be assessed. As the science teacher, I am going to be focussed on the student understanding of key science concepts, and think it should be marked accordingly. I could also provide a different mark for the language component, or better still, involve the English teacher and allow that person to use the task as part of their overall assessment of the student. As Oosterhof pointed out - items that are unrelated to instructional objectives should be excluded from grades (p222) and I really think that marking a student down for language troubles (for whatever reason) in a science class is unfair as it's assessing something unrelated to what we are intending to teach. If a student struggles in English, they need extra help, not marking down in every subject for it. There is another angle to this type of task - how do you assess from it? In theory, we're supposed to have criteria set up front, and correct the work accordingly. If it was formative assessment, would this really be necessary in a formal sense? A broad rubric identifying the key ideas expected to be demonstrated, with a HML assessment might be adequate....I need to see when I try it myself. Does the absence of comment on a particular scientific idea indicate lack of understanding, or creative omission because it doesn't fit with the storyline - could be either & therefore the task would be of limited value summatively (or even formatively). Hmmm....
I liked Deb's idea about interviewing technique - one to remember! Write the comments in pencil so parents can't look over the table and read what you've written. Also, identify ahead of time which parents are teachers, and which ones are on school council. Good political advice there!!
Next topic - movies in chemistry education. Actually, turning off the sound or video (not both lol!) was such a good idea! I have personally zoned out on many a DVD in classes - a moment to relax and not think too hard, so I can't imagine it's all that different for other students. The pedagogical ideas that we're encountering are so brilliant - I just don't think there will be enough time to learn them all before we're teachers ourselves, at which time I worry that we won't have a source of new tricks. Maybe I'll be lucky & get a helpful mentor in year 1.
List of good movies noted in class for chem and science ed - Contact, The Dish, I am legend (start off on cancer), Happy Feet (about Antarctica), Mad Max, Harry Potter (Biol & Chem - good descriptions of animals eg scrute, how might we create that spell), James Bond (Die another day has a disappearing car - physics), Indiana Jones (How have we changed our science?), Outbreak (biol), The Matrix, LOTR, Mythbusters (what is a valid test?), No reservations (chef).
Reminder to self - borrow the VisChem DVD from Deb (if she doesn't mind!) as I really loved the representation & want to see all that's on it...
Science Learning Hub website - http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/ is a really good website that Deb mentioned! If anyone reads this who hasn't checked it out yet, then go take a look!
On to the project - we're in the midst of trying to muddle ours in a Wiki format, which is kind've interesting & it will be fun to see what the other people in my group think of it. I like it so far, but will really jump in later tonight, once I put some real content up myself.
Anyway, enough blogging for now. See you next instalment!
M
Friday, July 18, 2008
Following Chem workshop 1
Hey, I'm back :-) Looks like another fun semester of blogging, so strap yourselves in folks. I notice for no good reason there's been another 6 visitors to the blog since last semester (the counter went on for the final post), so hello to all those bots out there too lol!
OK - on to more serious business. The first chemistry workshop - it was really good. The irony of my saying in week one that I'm a bit relieved there were other people besides me in the class who clearly felt their content knowledge wasn't as tight as it could be doesn't escape me. Deja vu from week 1 of science ed! Content knowledge is extremely important, and I know expectation is that we are all experts in this. For my own sanity though, I need to keep reminding myself that my observation over the last year and a half is that I can remember quickly what I thought I'd forgotten & in many ways I seem to put more perspective around it through refreshing. Another observation is that I still need to refresh what I really did think I knew, as to teach requires a different perspective than to learn and do. So, I must stop worrying so much, and trust a bit more in myself I think!
I found the like/dislike/remember/don't remember discussion we had interesting. Not remotely surprising that the outcome highlighted we all have different personal preferences, but I did think it was interesting that pretty much everyone audibly *groaned* over at least one topic in chem. Why is this? Who is so passionate about chemistry in the room that they could say 'I love it all' (besides Deb!)? I wonder if you'd get this for every subject in teacher education. I don't think I could put my hand up to disliking *anything* in maths (not even calculus, which seemed to amuse Kate!), yet there are certainly parts of chemistry that I felt were a drag & had to be tolerated to get to the good stuff. I need to think about why this is so a bit more, because it smells of being important when it comes to inspiring my own students. I need to find something to love about every aspect of chemistry, before I can bring it all to life in the classroom. This would need to be part of the 'refresher' I'm undertaking!!
It's good to see Shulman's seven knowledge domains link back into this unit. It makes very good sense & particularly the idea of PCK resonates well with me. This is where I need to focus some attention this semester - *how to decide* which is the best way of teaching various topics of chemistry. Are there any specific pedagogies that are used well in chemistry - I felt I was making progress w.r.t. maths and general science, but I need to do a mental shift to notice the ones that work well for chemistry specifically.
We also had a very useful discussion about VELS - the idea that the progression points don't actually constitute part of the standards is just amazing to me, and to be honest, a relief! I really didn't think they had much guidance for science when we looked at them, so I'll be very glad to not have to stick to them too rigidly. It'll be a very painful thing to have to report against them though (ugh!). I need some good skills w.r.t. how to design lovely open ended tasks in chemistry that will allow students to shine at their real level of knowledge (& VELS level!!). I wonder if there's a chemistry educator's book that can give examples, which might help me shift my thinking to how to construct really good questions that promote higher level thinking, whilst at the same time cateing to varying levels of ability and knowledge. Peter's one for maths has been very enlightening, but I'm struggling to know how to do this for such a practical subject as chem. I'm thinking in particular of two girls in year 8 that I think would've benefited from better questions than the ones I put forward in my last teaching rounds. Deb says the key 'thinking' questions should be created before the lesson, which I did, but I need to improve them to stimulate every student & not just 'most students'.
I liked the idea of the different faces of chemistry (which was also in the notes from Blackboard). The scientific face, technological face, the craft face (eg cooking, art, making beer!) and the magical face (eg SFX). I suspect it might be an inverse relationship to engagement for many students - the magic and craft is much more fun that the science and technology at first.
The model put up from Morene-Dershimer & Kent regarding the progression from PK to PCK is thought provoking. Right now I think I'm somewhere just to the left of the middle arrow....developing the context specific PK. The boxes on the right are still entering the equation for every lesson I plan, but they are much more challenging to incorporate, so I think I'll stick with assessing myself as being mostly in the middle at the moment. I still think the word 'reflection' should appear more than it does though - I would think as a teacher you'd need to reflect on whether your content knowledge is current (journals etc to be kept up with), whether your curriculum knowledge is current, whether the assessment was most appropriate etc etc etc. Everything will need reflection, not just the PK as these boxes would imply.
As an aside - one student put up An Oil Rig Cat as an acronym for Anode, Oxidation is loss, Reduction is gain, Cathode. Quite nice :-)
The activity - planning a unit. One thing I really like about this is that it's *not* marked, because I truly loathe group work being marked, but I do like group work! The activity will be really useful & I'm so glad it's all being shared on Blackboard!
OK - now let's see what the questions I'm meant to be answering are, since I've finished my brain-dump of the lesson!
Have a good week :-)
M
OK - on to more serious business. The first chemistry workshop - it was really good. The irony of my saying in week one that I'm a bit relieved there were other people besides me in the class who clearly felt their content knowledge wasn't as tight as it could be doesn't escape me. Deja vu from week 1 of science ed! Content knowledge is extremely important, and I know expectation is that we are all experts in this. For my own sanity though, I need to keep reminding myself that my observation over the last year and a half is that I can remember quickly what I thought I'd forgotten & in many ways I seem to put more perspective around it through refreshing. Another observation is that I still need to refresh what I really did think I knew, as to teach requires a different perspective than to learn and do. So, I must stop worrying so much, and trust a bit more in myself I think!
I found the like/dislike/remember/don't remember discussion we had interesting. Not remotely surprising that the outcome highlighted we all have different personal preferences, but I did think it was interesting that pretty much everyone audibly *groaned* over at least one topic in chem. Why is this? Who is so passionate about chemistry in the room that they could say 'I love it all' (besides Deb!)? I wonder if you'd get this for every subject in teacher education. I don't think I could put my hand up to disliking *anything* in maths (not even calculus, which seemed to amuse Kate!), yet there are certainly parts of chemistry that I felt were a drag & had to be tolerated to get to the good stuff. I need to think about why this is so a bit more, because it smells of being important when it comes to inspiring my own students. I need to find something to love about every aspect of chemistry, before I can bring it all to life in the classroom. This would need to be part of the 'refresher' I'm undertaking!!
It's good to see Shulman's seven knowledge domains link back into this unit. It makes very good sense & particularly the idea of PCK resonates well with me. This is where I need to focus some attention this semester - *how to decide* which is the best way of teaching various topics of chemistry. Are there any specific pedagogies that are used well in chemistry - I felt I was making progress w.r.t. maths and general science, but I need to do a mental shift to notice the ones that work well for chemistry specifically.
We also had a very useful discussion about VELS - the idea that the progression points don't actually constitute part of the standards is just amazing to me, and to be honest, a relief! I really didn't think they had much guidance for science when we looked at them, so I'll be very glad to not have to stick to them too rigidly. It'll be a very painful thing to have to report against them though (ugh!). I need some good skills w.r.t. how to design lovely open ended tasks in chemistry that will allow students to shine at their real level of knowledge (& VELS level!!). I wonder if there's a chemistry educator's book that can give examples, which might help me shift my thinking to how to construct really good questions that promote higher level thinking, whilst at the same time cateing to varying levels of ability and knowledge. Peter's one for maths has been very enlightening, but I'm struggling to know how to do this for such a practical subject as chem. I'm thinking in particular of two girls in year 8 that I think would've benefited from better questions than the ones I put forward in my last teaching rounds. Deb says the key 'thinking' questions should be created before the lesson, which I did, but I need to improve them to stimulate every student & not just 'most students'.
I liked the idea of the different faces of chemistry (which was also in the notes from Blackboard). The scientific face, technological face, the craft face (eg cooking, art, making beer!) and the magical face (eg SFX). I suspect it might be an inverse relationship to engagement for many students - the magic and craft is much more fun that the science and technology at first.
The model put up from Morene-Dershimer & Kent regarding the progression from PK to PCK is thought provoking. Right now I think I'm somewhere just to the left of the middle arrow....developing the context specific PK. The boxes on the right are still entering the equation for every lesson I plan, but they are much more challenging to incorporate, so I think I'll stick with assessing myself as being mostly in the middle at the moment. I still think the word 'reflection' should appear more than it does though - I would think as a teacher you'd need to reflect on whether your content knowledge is current (journals etc to be kept up with), whether your curriculum knowledge is current, whether the assessment was most appropriate etc etc etc. Everything will need reflection, not just the PK as these boxes would imply.
As an aside - one student put up An Oil Rig Cat as an acronym for Anode, Oxidation is loss, Reduction is gain, Cathode. Quite nice :-)
The activity - planning a unit. One thing I really like about this is that it's *not* marked, because I truly loathe group work being marked, but I do like group work! The activity will be really useful & I'm so glad it's all being shared on Blackboard!
OK - now let's see what the questions I'm meant to be answering are, since I've finished my brain-dump of the lesson!
- What happened/what did I do....covered ("check")
- What was important - actually edit above - I only write about what I think was important. Yes, we did roll-call. It was important for Deb, but not for me so I don't generally blog about it. So "check".
- Which goals, resolutions or learning wishes does this give rise to? Included above where I thought of them.
- What was I thinking...well, at the time I'm not sure, except I've included all the relevant thoughts as I recalled them.
- What was I feeling? Wow - well, a little unsure of myself at first. Still am, I suppose. Happy to be diving into a worthwhile activity, as I always learn something from them. Happy that I know a couple of faces in the classroom, and that Deb is very approachable. Enthused.
- What did I do - I think this repeats question 1?
- How can I use the sessions to practice the type of behaviour I want to learn? Another good question - I imagine the development of the unit in conjunction with others will be reflective of what could happen in schools, so this is great practice. Also observing Deb's teaching pedagogies will be useful (eg. the 'best worst remember forget activity). Hmmm - one to think about!
Have a good week :-)
M
Friday, May 23, 2008
Following lecture & Tute 7
The Lecture
The focus for the day was pedagogical content knowledge, but I'm going to start by talking about transmissive teaching (because it came up as pretty much being the opposite teaching style).
Here's a question. If the lecture we attended was a transmissive style of teaching, and transmissive teaching = 'comparatively poor' teaching, how can we (as learners) have gained so much from it? What has sparked that question in my mind particularly is one of the students in my tute explaining that she loves sitting in lectures to learn - transmissive teaching works for her as a learner.
I can tell you when I think lectures work for me. Firstly, Mandi's deliberate pauses for us to discuss thoughts amongst ourselves was brilliant as a medium to express the inevitable questions that pop into my head during hour-long listening sessions. I often forget these thoughts, except this time I didn't because of the opportunities to discuss them and write them down. Incidentally, the usual lack of pauses is why I get frustrated by lectures that are designed around students copying notes down, as personally I don't have time to write notes + thoughts and I struggle to let go of the former (which I probably should) to make sure I record the latter. The pauses was very powerful & I will make a point of doing this if I ever use powerpoints in my own classrooms. Mandi, if you do read this journal entry, can I ask how terrifying as a lecturer it is, handing over to students to discuss their thoughts independently of you? How do you know they are on task properly, given the volume was so loud I could barely hear the person I was talking to (so I assume you were in the same boat)?
Secondly, lectures are like reading very directed books to me. They give me the opportunity to hear expert opinions on a topic that is 100% relevant to what I am learning at that time. In honesty though, it depends on my mood & what else is happening in my life as to whether I then go away and properly think about them, or if I need a task to consolidate the content. This journal, for example, forces me to do that even in my busiest moments of time. But, I have heard enough students complain about the journal to know that it doesn't work for everyone. I also know not everyone is actually doing them, so they miss out on the potential benefit. These are thought provoking concepts - if some of what we must teach is transmissive (because it would seem sometimes inescapable) how do we best overcome the problems associated with it? Pedagogy, by the way, is probably going to be the key theme in my meta-reflection!!!
OK - PCK. What a clever trick, linking two words to be deliberately uncoordinated to say, so that people will have to think about them to remember it. Another cool thing to remember.
I liked Mandi's comment that 'the essence of PCK is active teaching'. Somehow, this came through in the readings and in everything that was discussed throughout the lecture & it really resonates with me as something to strive towards. When you break it down, there is SO much knowledge over and above the content that is needed to teach students really well (Kate and I jotted down 12 different points, but I'm certain there's hundreds). To me, PCK = excellent teaching, and it is going to require an enormous amount of thought before each and every lesson to make sure I do the best job I can. Will I ever be satisfied that the best job I can do at that time is the same as the best job I will ever be capable of? Will I ever master it to my satisfaction? Sounds a bit tormenting :-)
Tute
Speaking of enormous thought, I foolishly thought that the table Mandi popped up, detailing 'big ideas' vs. teaching & learning factors would be pretty straightforward to fill in, if a little time consuming. However, it turned out to be a terrific activity that highlighted just how difficult it is to even work out the big ideas, let along the teaching and learning aspects. Erin & I didn't finish it, but we both wanted to so I'll try to do it before next Thursday to share with her. It would seem a very good tool for distilling your thoughts on teaching & I can see it being useful when topic planning with other teachers.
However, this is discussing the tute in reverse, so I shall go back to the beginning.
I agree with Deb - I don't at all look like the photo on my student card, but I blame the *high quality* webcam that took it :-) Hehe. Her comments on who looked like their photos, and how many Jessicas there are in the class really remind me of how I feel when I am coming to grips with who is in my class on placement. It takes me ages to work students out, and after 2 weeks at Fintona I can't say I know every student from any of my 4 classes (less than 5 hours total exposure to each class), which bothers me. How many students did Deb feel she knew by the end of the tute? I'll wager more than I would've in her shoes. How am I going to get better at that initial student assessment?
In an over-simplified summary of lecturer's teaching styles in tutes, I'd say Mandi likes to create discussions, Deb likes to have a good debate and Keasty likes to put students on the spot (they all get a chance of the spotlight). They are all really effective, but incredibly different teaching styles which absolutely highlights for me why this course cannot spoon feed the students with a 'right' way to teach. I think I'm just getting tired, but my patience is wearing thin on how many times I've heard other students complaining that they're not getting 'answers' - there honestly isn't one answer, there's hundreds. Best practice is an open ended activity - there's loads of different but equally correct outcomes. I might've grumped at one of the other students in tute a little b/c of these thoughts (I'm vowing to keep my mouth shut tight next week!).
I was very, very happy to have a group discussion that had such a focus on VCE. It bothers me enormously that it is usually taught in such a transmissive way, but hearing Deborah agree that it shouldn't be is really liberating. The challenge for me is to find a way to teach it differently, when I have had no example of how to do this either from my own learning background, or in any placement situation. I feel like I'm going to be making it up, which is really scary because the consequences of me getting it wrong are huge for the students & there's no time to backtrack at this level of education. The other influence is that students, parents and colleagues may not like me approaching it differently to the 'usual way', which will be even harder to overcome as a beginning teacher. A comment that Helen Forgasz made last year w.r.t. maths was that we have to teach 'smarter' - activities that are well designed will produce learning outcomes that are superior and more engaging to traditional methods. I have seen examples of this at work for junior/middle level maths, but again, not for VCE, although I now think I understand how to apply those concepts at any level in maths. Not so with chem, but perhaps I'll gain skills next semester in this regard & hopefully the book I borrowed from Deb (THANK YOU) will give me some good ideas for context driven activities. I also need to look at PEEL more - maybe there's some good year 12 stuff there so I don't have to become some creative genius (which I am certainly not!!).
I also liked the concept that if you teach year 12 chem well & the students learn well, the exams will be straightforward - that is, you don't need to teach to the exams. However, I don't think everyone was so convinced of this - even me to an extent. I think there's a happy medium - explicitly pointing out what may be of relevance to the exam would surely be helpful for students, but I don't want it to be restricting my teaching methods too much. The exams are an unfortunate fact of life & regardless that only 30% of students go to Uni, the mark at the end of their year is very important to many students, as well as knowing the content. I think balance is the key word, and it might take me quite a while to work out what that actually means!
So it was another interesting, thought provoking lecture and tute that has left me with more questions and some answers. I'm getting an idea that this might be how I muddle my way through actual teaching!! Poor kids loool!
The focus for the day was pedagogical content knowledge, but I'm going to start by talking about transmissive teaching (because it came up as pretty much being the opposite teaching style).
Here's a question. If the lecture we attended was a transmissive style of teaching, and transmissive teaching = 'comparatively poor' teaching, how can we (as learners) have gained so much from it? What has sparked that question in my mind particularly is one of the students in my tute explaining that she loves sitting in lectures to learn - transmissive teaching works for her as a learner.
I can tell you when I think lectures work for me. Firstly, Mandi's deliberate pauses for us to discuss thoughts amongst ourselves was brilliant as a medium to express the inevitable questions that pop into my head during hour-long listening sessions. I often forget these thoughts, except this time I didn't because of the opportunities to discuss them and write them down. Incidentally, the usual lack of pauses is why I get frustrated by lectures that are designed around students copying notes down, as personally I don't have time to write notes + thoughts and I struggle to let go of the former (which I probably should) to make sure I record the latter. The pauses was very powerful & I will make a point of doing this if I ever use powerpoints in my own classrooms. Mandi, if you do read this journal entry, can I ask how terrifying as a lecturer it is, handing over to students to discuss their thoughts independently of you? How do you know they are on task properly, given the volume was so loud I could barely hear the person I was talking to (so I assume you were in the same boat)?
Secondly, lectures are like reading very directed books to me. They give me the opportunity to hear expert opinions on a topic that is 100% relevant to what I am learning at that time. In honesty though, it depends on my mood & what else is happening in my life as to whether I then go away and properly think about them, or if I need a task to consolidate the content. This journal, for example, forces me to do that even in my busiest moments of time. But, I have heard enough students complain about the journal to know that it doesn't work for everyone. I also know not everyone is actually doing them, so they miss out on the potential benefit. These are thought provoking concepts - if some of what we must teach is transmissive (because it would seem sometimes inescapable) how do we best overcome the problems associated with it? Pedagogy, by the way, is probably going to be the key theme in my meta-reflection!!!
OK - PCK. What a clever trick, linking two words to be deliberately uncoordinated to say, so that people will have to think about them to remember it. Another cool thing to remember.
I liked Mandi's comment that 'the essence of PCK is active teaching'. Somehow, this came through in the readings and in everything that was discussed throughout the lecture & it really resonates with me as something to strive towards. When you break it down, there is SO much knowledge over and above the content that is needed to teach students really well (Kate and I jotted down 12 different points, but I'm certain there's hundreds). To me, PCK = excellent teaching, and it is going to require an enormous amount of thought before each and every lesson to make sure I do the best job I can. Will I ever be satisfied that the best job I can do at that time is the same as the best job I will ever be capable of? Will I ever master it to my satisfaction? Sounds a bit tormenting :-)
Tute
Speaking of enormous thought, I foolishly thought that the table Mandi popped up, detailing 'big ideas' vs. teaching & learning factors would be pretty straightforward to fill in, if a little time consuming. However, it turned out to be a terrific activity that highlighted just how difficult it is to even work out the big ideas, let along the teaching and learning aspects. Erin & I didn't finish it, but we both wanted to so I'll try to do it before next Thursday to share with her. It would seem a very good tool for distilling your thoughts on teaching & I can see it being useful when topic planning with other teachers.
However, this is discussing the tute in reverse, so I shall go back to the beginning.
I agree with Deb - I don't at all look like the photo on my student card, but I blame the *high quality* webcam that took it :-) Hehe. Her comments on who looked like their photos, and how many Jessicas there are in the class really remind me of how I feel when I am coming to grips with who is in my class on placement. It takes me ages to work students out, and after 2 weeks at Fintona I can't say I know every student from any of my 4 classes (less than 5 hours total exposure to each class), which bothers me. How many students did Deb feel she knew by the end of the tute? I'll wager more than I would've in her shoes. How am I going to get better at that initial student assessment?
In an over-simplified summary of lecturer's teaching styles in tutes, I'd say Mandi likes to create discussions, Deb likes to have a good debate and Keasty likes to put students on the spot (they all get a chance of the spotlight). They are all really effective, but incredibly different teaching styles which absolutely highlights for me why this course cannot spoon feed the students with a 'right' way to teach. I think I'm just getting tired, but my patience is wearing thin on how many times I've heard other students complaining that they're not getting 'answers' - there honestly isn't one answer, there's hundreds. Best practice is an open ended activity - there's loads of different but equally correct outcomes. I might've grumped at one of the other students in tute a little b/c of these thoughts (I'm vowing to keep my mouth shut tight next week!).
I was very, very happy to have a group discussion that had such a focus on VCE. It bothers me enormously that it is usually taught in such a transmissive way, but hearing Deborah agree that it shouldn't be is really liberating. The challenge for me is to find a way to teach it differently, when I have had no example of how to do this either from my own learning background, or in any placement situation. I feel like I'm going to be making it up, which is really scary because the consequences of me getting it wrong are huge for the students & there's no time to backtrack at this level of education. The other influence is that students, parents and colleagues may not like me approaching it differently to the 'usual way', which will be even harder to overcome as a beginning teacher. A comment that Helen Forgasz made last year w.r.t. maths was that we have to teach 'smarter' - activities that are well designed will produce learning outcomes that are superior and more engaging to traditional methods. I have seen examples of this at work for junior/middle level maths, but again, not for VCE, although I now think I understand how to apply those concepts at any level in maths. Not so with chem, but perhaps I'll gain skills next semester in this regard & hopefully the book I borrowed from Deb (THANK YOU) will give me some good ideas for context driven activities. I also need to look at PEEL more - maybe there's some good year 12 stuff there so I don't have to become some creative genius (which I am certainly not!!).
I also liked the concept that if you teach year 12 chem well & the students learn well, the exams will be straightforward - that is, you don't need to teach to the exams. However, I don't think everyone was so convinced of this - even me to an extent. I think there's a happy medium - explicitly pointing out what may be of relevance to the exam would surely be helpful for students, but I don't want it to be restricting my teaching methods too much. The exams are an unfortunate fact of life & regardless that only 30% of students go to Uni, the mark at the end of their year is very important to many students, as well as knowing the content. I think balance is the key word, and it might take me quite a while to work out what that actually means!
So it was another interesting, thought provoking lecture and tute that has left me with more questions and some answers. I'm getting an idea that this might be how I muddle my way through actual teaching!! Poor kids loool!
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Following Tute 6
Well,
I finally made it to the journal before the next lecutre/tute session :-)
A different format for the tutes again. First up a debrief from practicum for our science specialism - mine being Chem. I have to admit that I think I gave my already sore neck (with mildly prolapsed disk) a workout carrying all my practicum work in as requested. We didn't (and clearly couldn't have, given time) look at the lesson plans or reports (as was mooted), but this doesn't really matter in the scheme of things.
The key focus of the class was to list the things we want to learn before our next teaching rounds and what we want to do better next time, which was a good idea. It got me thinking, and I suspect the answers I gave weren't as thorough as I would now like them to be for two reasons - firstly it was the first time I had been reunited with some classmates fng practicum which is somewhat distracting (sorry for talking so much Deborah!), and secondly I like to spend 'think time' on something that clearly has relevance to my future learning. So here goes the somewhat revised list, that I might improve on again as time goes by:
M's To-Do list - completion before next practicum/before I'm a fully fledged teacher...
After the tute, there was around half an hour to kill....one of the sessions was cancelled (the discussion group on the course) and it was too late to gate crash general science. Time to catch up some more with Kate, since we didn't finish our yammer in chem tute ;-)
OK - next session with Eryn O'Mahony
IT in science - WOW! This was really really great. Unfortunately, I haven't found the promised presentation on blackboard yet, that contains the wonderful links to websites, and overview of what was talked about. The key technology that I thought I would use well, was:
A really good chance to debrief on the assignment and discuss misconceptions with other students. We hadn't really done this properly before, so I found it really great to hear other people's experiences and the misconceptions they identified. As usual, I talk too much - I hope nobody minds (it's coming to something when one of the students in the Chem tute said "Oh you're Meredith" - hmmmmm). I hope the other students all agree to put their assignment 2a up on blackboard, b/c I know how long it took me to research acids and bases, and the thoughts of doing that over and over and over every time I teach a new topic is, well, actually just not possible & I'll resort to the high level stuff on that handout from a few weeks back. Sharing info would be great (it worked well in Maths last year).
BTW - thanks to the student who passed on the link for making a $100 interactive whiteboard (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/) with a Wii remote, bluetooth, laptop and IR pen. I'll be doing this over the holidays for fun (my kids have a Wii so I'll borrow one of their remotes...even better!).
The extension on the assignment was a welcome relief, btw. It had been a busy few weeks, and it gave me a couple of night's peace before it was due :-) It occurred to me that there was a huge similarity between the assignment for EDF4113 and EDF4004 (make up 2 lesson plans in our specialism area). I wonder if anyone actually copied their assignment from one unit to the other? It would seem possible to me for both units to combine forces, and review the same lesson plans, each with a different focus (4004 for assessment procedures, 4113 for science education rigor and misconception busting). It might be a bit difficult to coordinate though....
That's all for now folks.
See you next time!
I finally made it to the journal before the next lecutre/tute session :-)
A different format for the tutes again. First up a debrief from practicum for our science specialism - mine being Chem. I have to admit that I think I gave my already sore neck (with mildly prolapsed disk) a workout carrying all my practicum work in as requested. We didn't (and clearly couldn't have, given time) look at the lesson plans or reports (as was mooted), but this doesn't really matter in the scheme of things.
The key focus of the class was to list the things we want to learn before our next teaching rounds and what we want to do better next time, which was a good idea. It got me thinking, and I suspect the answers I gave weren't as thorough as I would now like them to be for two reasons - firstly it was the first time I had been reunited with some classmates fng practicum which is somewhat distracting (sorry for talking so much Deborah!), and secondly I like to spend 'think time' on something that clearly has relevance to my future learning. So here goes the somewhat revised list, that I might improve on again as time goes by:
M's To-Do list - completion before next practicum/before I'm a fully fledged teacher...
- Go through the Chemistry course (using texts?) topic by topic and try to think up what students might query. They won't be the same things I did, and I need to be able to better anticipate the currently unexpected, as it's really hard to answer questions *well* on the fly. This is the "unpacking" and "reconstructing" process for teaching we were talking about in tute, and for me I think it will be very important to do in advance.
- To think up interesting ways to teach chem - not just the chalk and talk, with a few experiments in between to hopefully prove the theories. It annoys me that VCE (not just Chem) is so dull in this way...as though the only way to teach the "real" work is with a whiteboard, powerpoint and textbook (ugh). The word 'authentic' springs to mind - why will my students care about the trends in the periodic table? Why should they give a hoot about the construct of an atom? What about chemical reactions, etc etc - I need to find some meaningful and engaging contexts to place around at least most, if not all of the chemistry topics. I'll start with the topics I might be teaching the year 11's next time.
- Find some good software! For God's sake, this is the age of technology, and if I can imagine it, surely someone else has built it!! Try telling that to my Google search engine at 2am during practicum :(
- Learn if there are any current 'best practice' things I should know about Chemistry, that I haven't thought up yet.
- Look into common misconceptions for Chemistry in particular, but also for other 7 - 10 science units. Is there a recommended book? I found one reasonably comprehensive book, in the library, but would like one of my own for down the track (can't keep coming back to Monash!).
- Investigate Deb's three big ideas. I'll put down my guesstimate now, and compare with what I learn through the tutes (I'm hoping Deb will fess up the ideas before the end comes!) Idea 1 - atomic structure/intramolecular forces. Idea 2 - Intermolecular forces. Idea 3 - Reactions between molecules. I wonder how naive I'm being with these guesses...
- Resources, resources, resources - and good ones to use with students at that! I saw some brilliant polymer models at GTAC (electronic and physical), I love the magnetic molecules, and even the slightly boring Effex plastic molecule builders. What else is there to help students understand the abstract?
- Learn about Wiki and set one up in advance of practicum.... I want to try it out on the year 11s!
- All things related to above research lol! Seriously though...
- Improve communication with the year 11 group - there aren't enough lessons per week to actually feel connected with their level of understanding (I only got to teach 5 classes in the fortnight I was there). Try this via a Wiki, plus up-front establish a tute-group time.
- Better focus on assessment for year 11. Why do I feel I was I noticeably better at this with the junior levels?
- Difficult to gauge prior knowledge (I assumed too much & had to backtrack) for senior chem - start with a very brief pre-test to get a better handle on their current understanding & let that guide the lessons. Also, go in to observe the chem classes for a week prior (I'm sure Ruth wouldn't mind).
- Think of relevant contexts and links when teaching chem. I feel I did well with this for year 7 and 8, but not quite as well with y11.
- Find some good resources to introduce students to (general science and chem). What resources do Fintona have that I didn't notice? I know their slogan is 'technology doesn't teach students, teachers do', but I'm sure they must have more tech. than I noticed!
After the tute, there was around half an hour to kill....one of the sessions was cancelled (the discussion group on the course) and it was too late to gate crash general science. Time to catch up some more with Kate, since we didn't finish our yammer in chem tute ;-)
OK - next session with Eryn O'Mahony
IT in science - WOW! This was really really great. Unfortunately, I haven't found the promised presentation on blackboard yet, that contains the wonderful links to websites, and overview of what was talked about. The key technology that I thought I would use well, was:
- webcam/stillcam/200x microscope-cam attachment to the p.c. What a versatile tool, that I can see having so many applications within the science classroom. If the school doesn't have one that I go to, I'm going to have to buy one myself. It's that good.
- Wiki - duh! Why didn't I think of that? I'm on the 'net all the time, but setting up a Wiki for my students to chat to each other about a topic, with me (teacher) moderating is such a beautiful use of an often maligned technology that I simply never thought about before.
- The pH meters were good - I wonder how many schools have these.
- Inspiration looked like a nice piece of software, but really just reminded me of html web links. If the school I go to doesn't have it, that's what I could do to create more interactive presentations. It looked useful for 'mind mapping'.
- PodCasts. A while ago I thought podcasts could be a great way to give students prac. instructions in science, but since the girls at Fintona don't have the mp3 players, I can't test it out. I still think this has potential. e.g. for a dissection.
- I loved the photostory idea - get students to think of the process as much as the endgame. In a way, that's what this journal is doing too (I wonder if everyone's actually doing it each week....).
- Other things to look at, that were mentioned in the presentation include:
-Learning Federation Software (www.thelearningfederation.edu.au)
-SEAR (good for writing assessments)
- The science continuum (already mentioned in lectures)
- http://del.icio.us/
- mbarlow blog (gross science)
- Tain Lab (data logging device) cost
- pH probe cost (around $30??) - for anyone reading the blog that wants Eryn's email for the genetics/electrophoresis presentation, she wrote it up as being omahonye@colomba.vic.edu.au.
A really good chance to debrief on the assignment and discuss misconceptions with other students. We hadn't really done this properly before, so I found it really great to hear other people's experiences and the misconceptions they identified. As usual, I talk too much - I hope nobody minds (it's coming to something when one of the students in the Chem tute said "Oh you're Meredith" - hmmmmm). I hope the other students all agree to put their assignment 2a up on blackboard, b/c I know how long it took me to research acids and bases, and the thoughts of doing that over and over and over every time I teach a new topic is, well, actually just not possible & I'll resort to the high level stuff on that handout from a few weeks back. Sharing info would be great (it worked well in Maths last year).
BTW - thanks to the student who passed on the link for making a $100 interactive whiteboard (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/) with a Wii remote, bluetooth, laptop and IR pen. I'll be doing this over the holidays for fun (my kids have a Wii so I'll borrow one of their remotes...even better!).
The extension on the assignment was a welcome relief, btw. It had been a busy few weeks, and it gave me a couple of night's peace before it was due :-) It occurred to me that there was a huge similarity between the assignment for EDF4113 and EDF4004 (make up 2 lesson plans in our specialism area). I wonder if anyone actually copied their assignment from one unit to the other? It would seem possible to me for both units to combine forces, and review the same lesson plans, each with a different focus (4004 for assessment procedures, 4113 for science education rigor and misconception busting). It might be a bit difficult to coordinate though....
That's all for now folks.
See you next time!
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Following Tute 5
Well, last Thursday's tute started off a little disorganised for me, as I found I was supposed to have signed up for rotating tutorials (d'oh!). Mandi mentioned in her blog it was in the unit guide, but I must have domestic blindness & I hadn't checked into blackboard since the weekend (which didn't mention it). Anyway, apart from 2 minutes of confusion, I really thought the structure was brilliant (again!) & very targeted, given the imminent practicum. In three hours, I went to three different tutes and as a general comment, this really reminded me why I like science. It was hands-on, and just a bit (lot) fun! My only problem is that there were more than three sessions that I would've liked to attend! Oh well...
Middle School Science
Key practical points of note:
VCE Chemistry
OK - I'm just not going to re-write my notes of this session here, as they're too huge! Instead, just a reflection (I usually try to do a bit of both).
This was really what I needed - although to be honest I could've listened to Deb talking about VCE chem for much longer than 1 hour! With my supervisor in the upcoming placement being only a VCE chem teacher, the likelihood is that I won't get many (if any) general science classes, and will be teaching 2 chem lessons per day. So, this was well-timed.
As a general comment on the structure, VCE chemistry looks really great, although I personally find it strange that you can do units 3 & 4, without having 1 & 2 under your belt. Not that many people would...just that it's possible. I wonder why? I also like each unit being assessed upon it's completion, rather than saving 2 units up for end of year exams. This is much kinder to the students! It makes much more sense to cover the periodic table at the beginning of the course - looking back to my 1986 text, it was in the last chapter of the book from year 12...makes no sense in hindsight! I'm looking forward to delving into how that will be taught though, because there are useful trends to note in the periodic table that possibly won't have been taught in 1st semester Y11 - something to read up on.
Great that chem has moved with the times by including such things as nanotechnology. I've read a few articles about it along the way, but will have to read the new text to see what's taught.
Deb did highlight that we should download and read the study design, including the rationale. Also the VCE chem assessment handbook (VCAA) is useful & includes rubrics. She mentioned some very good software is out there for structural isomers and covalent bonding lessons....need to look them up!
I thought the practical outline of the structure of VCE Chemistry was useful, but I wonder, will all this be repeated in second semester, as not all the chem pre-service teachers were obliged to turn up to that session & it was pretty important info. Anyway, it was very useful & timely for me!
Lab Equipment
Well, this was just plain fun (and useful). Pulling a Van Der Graaff generator apart and describing how it worked was useful & hopefully I'll be better equipped to fix one if I find it hiding under a desk somewhere! The explanation of how it works was great, and the ideas about activities that can be done with it will be good in class...
The ticker tape and strobe were reminders of useful equipment. I really liked some of the ideas that a strobe could be used for - guitar strings, ticker tape machine, (the centrifuge didn't work so well) - anything with regular movement. I can see this working in a maths classroom too. It was an interesting discussion about the use of the CAS calculator vs. the ticker tape machine - the idea of some groups using one and others using the other was good, but it would be good to get all kids using all machines at some point in their tuition, for the purpose of experience. I got the distinct feeling that the ideas floated last year about students learning some maths via discovery with the calculator doesn't work so well for studies of motion (even though the calculator is capable of measuring & plotting graphs of motion). The ticker tape was considered to be more intuitive - it wasn't just an issue of cost/equipment availability. Interesting. I wonder who would agree/disagree with that thought.
This was another very useful and practical session.
Off to practicum next....will be keeping the journal in terms of reflections on each lesson, attached to each lesson plan, so I won't be posting them up here.
Until sesssion 6!
M
Middle School Science
Key practical points of note:
- Prac is all about keeping control - otherwise, anarchy!
- Have a word (stop) that makes everyone listen - vital for safety reasons
- Always keep the maximum number of students in view at any point in time - when helping a smaller group, be mindful of how to do this (teach side-on)
- Know where the room's main gas tap and electricity switches are
- Year 7 students get a bunsen burner licence (lol!). Key features include:
- Hole closed for yellow flame
- Light bunsen burner on yellow
- Match, then tap
- Only 3 matches in box (or they'll light them all!!)
- Teacher talk = yellow flame
- When away from desk, students must turn off bunsen burner
- Blue flame (hole open = more oxygen) for working
- Don't put the bottom of the test tube straight into the hottest part of the blue flame or it'll explode.
- Always have the test tube facing AWAY from faces
- Always have safety gear on (goggles, some schools have lab coats)
- Turning off - yellow flame, off at the tap.
- Made a simple circuit. Connected up an ammeter (in series -never parallel or it'll blow up the meter) and voltmeter (parallel across the globe). Always check students' set-ups prior to letting them switch on! I fell for the silly trick of picking out an ammeter, not a milli-ammeter (duh!). It's been a really long time since I played with that stuff.... this would be why Keasty stressed that we should ALWAYS do our experiments before walking in to teach them. At least I actually remembered what I was supposed to do with the circuit though. Rusty, but still mostly there. Perhaps I need to draw a few concept maps to help! Anyway, we drew the V-I graph of our measurements. R is the gradient - as V=IR, R=V/I, which is rise/run, which tells you which way around to draw the graph. This was a nice explanation that links back to simple maths, which I liked. Interestingly I get quite tense still when someone is looking over my shoulder & make dumb mistakes like saying micro instead of milli, and incorrect decimal placement, where I otherwise probably wouldn't Keasty rightfully should think I'm a real doofus, but more importantly I'll have to remember this for my own students & have patience with them.
VCE Chemistry
OK - I'm just not going to re-write my notes of this session here, as they're too huge! Instead, just a reflection (I usually try to do a bit of both).
This was really what I needed - although to be honest I could've listened to Deb talking about VCE chem for much longer than 1 hour! With my supervisor in the upcoming placement being only a VCE chem teacher, the likelihood is that I won't get many (if any) general science classes, and will be teaching 2 chem lessons per day. So, this was well-timed.
As a general comment on the structure, VCE chemistry looks really great, although I personally find it strange that you can do units 3 & 4, without having 1 & 2 under your belt. Not that many people would...just that it's possible. I wonder why? I also like each unit being assessed upon it's completion, rather than saving 2 units up for end of year exams. This is much kinder to the students! It makes much more sense to cover the periodic table at the beginning of the course - looking back to my 1986 text, it was in the last chapter of the book from year 12...makes no sense in hindsight! I'm looking forward to delving into how that will be taught though, because there are useful trends to note in the periodic table that possibly won't have been taught in 1st semester Y11 - something to read up on.
Great that chem has moved with the times by including such things as nanotechnology. I've read a few articles about it along the way, but will have to read the new text to see what's taught.
Deb did highlight that we should download and read the study design, including the rationale. Also the VCE chem assessment handbook (VCAA) is useful & includes rubrics. She mentioned some very good software is out there for structural isomers and covalent bonding lessons....need to look them up!
I thought the practical outline of the structure of VCE Chemistry was useful, but I wonder, will all this be repeated in second semester, as not all the chem pre-service teachers were obliged to turn up to that session & it was pretty important info. Anyway, it was very useful & timely for me!
Lab Equipment
Well, this was just plain fun (and useful). Pulling a Van Der Graaff generator apart and describing how it worked was useful & hopefully I'll be better equipped to fix one if I find it hiding under a desk somewhere! The explanation of how it works was great, and the ideas about activities that can be done with it will be good in class...
- Pie hats - pie plates loosely stacked buiding up negative charge and repelling each other, so the top one blows off, then the next, then the next etc.
- A group holding hands - person at one end earths themselves, person at the other end touches the generator and the electrical charge is felt by all of them.
The ticker tape and strobe were reminders of useful equipment. I really liked some of the ideas that a strobe could be used for - guitar strings, ticker tape machine, (the centrifuge didn't work so well) - anything with regular movement. I can see this working in a maths classroom too. It was an interesting discussion about the use of the CAS calculator vs. the ticker tape machine - the idea of some groups using one and others using the other was good, but it would be good to get all kids using all machines at some point in their tuition, for the purpose of experience. I got the distinct feeling that the ideas floated last year about students learning some maths via discovery with the calculator doesn't work so well for studies of motion (even though the calculator is capable of measuring & plotting graphs of motion). The ticker tape was considered to be more intuitive - it wasn't just an issue of cost/equipment availability. Interesting. I wonder who would agree/disagree with that thought.
This was another very useful and practical session.
Off to practicum next....will be keeping the journal in terms of reflections on each lesson, attached to each lesson plan, so I won't be posting them up here.
Until sesssion 6!
M
Following Tute 4
Well, here is the somewhat belated blog entry, awaiting on my actually making the oobleck with my girls that Keasty set as homework. Disgusting stuff to feel, btw! Interesting how it really feels like a viscous liquid, but when you squeeze it, it seems to be a solid. My understanding is that it's really a liquid - cornstarch is a long chain polymer, and the molecules all get tangled up with each other under pressure (not really bonding), causing the solid-like properties. If I'm wrong (which I may well be!) someone let me know!! Interesting, & my girls had a bit of fun too :-)
Keasty had set another question for his students to follow up during week 3 - what happens if you put a beaker with water on scales, then stick your finger in it? Well, having tried it, it got heavier, which I'm thinking is due to the increased pressure on the water molecules by the finger transferring in part to the scales (and in part, by displacing the water) - you can feel some pressure (it's not like sticking your finger in air!), and every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
The other homework he'd set was handed back & discussed - we from Mandi's didn't really have a handle on what had been set, but got the gist of parts of it via the discussion (the group had to make pancakes, then fill in a worksheet. One e.g. was when drawing particles, students should show them in motion, not stationary).
So I learned about a couple of common misconceptions in those two activities. There was a handout for the common misconceptions of 'bit ideas' to help with assignment 2a. Where Keasty had tricked me on the water in a beaker, very little was in question in my mind with the handout which is a bit of a relief, but makes me wonder how differently I might perform on a multi-choice vs. an extended response test (hope not!). I have come to the conclusion that it is easy enough to get by quite well as a learner in science by mostly understanding an issue, but actually teaching that issue requires a far more comprehensive understanding to do it justice properly. It will require research into the best ways to teach each and every topic prior to entering the classroom, and I imagine it will take years to develop that PCK (if I ever succeed to my satisfaction). This isn't really isolated to science, but it is so diverse that I think it might be a bigger task than most subjects!
It was great to be in another lecturer's tute as something different - got to see a different approach to teaching & the greater the variety in this regard, the more ideas I get. Keasty is a very entertaining teacher, which is immediately engaging. I imagine if the content got a bit dry, Keasty's humour would overcome those moments, and I wonder whether I can ever manage to do this. I suppose I'll find my own style, but it would be good to keep the kids smiling in time to come. I liked the way he got regular feedback and was very inclusive via the 'picking on' everyone tactic. It's a little confronting, but I suspect it breaks down barriers and creates a 'safe' environment within a group in a short space of time. Another tip he shared was to deliberately withhold answers to questions posed in group discussions - even if the first student response is correct ("tell me more"). This helps everyone to get thinking. More craft knowledge to assimilate....
However, the key focus of the tute was on lesson planning. I loved the way we each got up and added to the white board one piece of information about cells. I recalled a few things, but as a group we knew a whole lot about them! This is a really great (and again inclusive) tactic that I will certainly bring into my classrooms. Although, it really only worked because we *did* know quite a bit as a group - it wouldn't be of much use unless you could expect the class to have a reasonable depth of knowledge in the topic.
I also liked the pair and group work structure. Three pairs all working towards one final set of lessons. It allowed sensible conversation (when there's more than two or three in a conversation, it always seems inefficient) but still was involving working in a team of 7. This is the most effective group work structure I've seen yet. Anyway, as to lesson planning, it was really good, and for me the biggest highlight was the excellent ideas that you can get when working in a group vs. on your own. I really think our lesson was significantly better working in groups, than it would've been if any of us had worked individually. This isn't something we're likely to have the benefit of once we're teachers :( The lesson plan structure seemed pretty good, but there will be bits that I might add for myself, when I'm on practicum. For e.g. enabling prompts, extension activities. Assessment - will I only have this in the 'what will I be doing' category? It might be useful to specifically target informal assessment ideas in a separate section. What about my own learning outcomes? I also found last year that a section on anticipated difficulties with associated mitigants helped me focus on individual problems within previous sessions, and how to manage or resolve them. A blend of last year's maths and this year's science plans might work out best for me.
So that's about it for tute 4!
Until next time....
Keasty had set another question for his students to follow up during week 3 - what happens if you put a beaker with water on scales, then stick your finger in it? Well, having tried it, it got heavier, which I'm thinking is due to the increased pressure on the water molecules by the finger transferring in part to the scales (and in part, by displacing the water) - you can feel some pressure (it's not like sticking your finger in air!), and every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
The other homework he'd set was handed back & discussed - we from Mandi's didn't really have a handle on what had been set, but got the gist of parts of it via the discussion (the group had to make pancakes, then fill in a worksheet. One e.g. was when drawing particles, students should show them in motion, not stationary).
So I learned about a couple of common misconceptions in those two activities. There was a handout for the common misconceptions of 'bit ideas' to help with assignment 2a. Where Keasty had tricked me on the water in a beaker, very little was in question in my mind with the handout which is a bit of a relief, but makes me wonder how differently I might perform on a multi-choice vs. an extended response test (hope not!). I have come to the conclusion that it is easy enough to get by quite well as a learner in science by mostly understanding an issue, but actually teaching that issue requires a far more comprehensive understanding to do it justice properly. It will require research into the best ways to teach each and every topic prior to entering the classroom, and I imagine it will take years to develop that PCK (if I ever succeed to my satisfaction). This isn't really isolated to science, but it is so diverse that I think it might be a bigger task than most subjects!
It was great to be in another lecturer's tute as something different - got to see a different approach to teaching & the greater the variety in this regard, the more ideas I get. Keasty is a very entertaining teacher, which is immediately engaging. I imagine if the content got a bit dry, Keasty's humour would overcome those moments, and I wonder whether I can ever manage to do this. I suppose I'll find my own style, but it would be good to keep the kids smiling in time to come. I liked the way he got regular feedback and was very inclusive via the 'picking on' everyone tactic. It's a little confronting, but I suspect it breaks down barriers and creates a 'safe' environment within a group in a short space of time. Another tip he shared was to deliberately withhold answers to questions posed in group discussions - even if the first student response is correct ("tell me more"). This helps everyone to get thinking. More craft knowledge to assimilate....
However, the key focus of the tute was on lesson planning. I loved the way we each got up and added to the white board one piece of information about cells. I recalled a few things, but as a group we knew a whole lot about them! This is a really great (and again inclusive) tactic that I will certainly bring into my classrooms. Although, it really only worked because we *did* know quite a bit as a group - it wouldn't be of much use unless you could expect the class to have a reasonable depth of knowledge in the topic.
I also liked the pair and group work structure. Three pairs all working towards one final set of lessons. It allowed sensible conversation (when there's more than two or three in a conversation, it always seems inefficient) but still was involving working in a team of 7. This is the most effective group work structure I've seen yet. Anyway, as to lesson planning, it was really good, and for me the biggest highlight was the excellent ideas that you can get when working in a group vs. on your own. I really think our lesson was significantly better working in groups, than it would've been if any of us had worked individually. This isn't something we're likely to have the benefit of once we're teachers :( The lesson plan structure seemed pretty good, but there will be bits that I might add for myself, when I'm on practicum. For e.g. enabling prompts, extension activities. Assessment - will I only have this in the 'what will I be doing' category? It might be useful to specifically target informal assessment ideas in a separate section. What about my own learning outcomes? I also found last year that a section on anticipated difficulties with associated mitigants helped me focus on individual problems within previous sessions, and how to manage or resolve them. A blend of last year's maths and this year's science plans might work out best for me.
So that's about it for tute 4!
Until next time....
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