Get SEATed

I have a grant proposal to write with a maximum value of $750.  I have a few ideas on what I’d like to get, but there’s nothing that I desperately need for my classroom. 

If you were given $750, what would you want to get?  It is a science related grant, so it has to apply to either a physical science or environmental science class.  I like incorporating technology, but it doesn’t have to be tech stuff. 

Share your ideas and let’s get a big list of things going here.

You know how you mean to keep doing something, but you end up just putting it off, over and over again?  Yeah, thought so.  It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I’ve been meaning to get back a whole lot sooner. 

I’m almost done with the 5th week of our new school year.  I can’t believe it’s gone by so fast.  Of course, it’s almost like the last school year never ended for me.  Right after the school year ended, I started teaching summer school.  After that was done, I worked at school every day getting all of the computers ready for the new year.  School started and it’s been full speed ahead ever since. 

I’ve got a physical science, an environmental science, a yearbook class, and a computer repair class.  I’m enjoying all of them very much and I believe the kids are as well.  We’ve been working on so many different things so far this year and it really keeps things moving quickly. 

I did recently get my very first proposal submitted on DonorsChoose.org.  I’m very excited about that site because I feel that the students can learn two lessons as a result of it.  First, they’ll learn the science topic that the funded project is intended for.  Second, they’ll learn that making donations when you are in a position to do so is important.  I want to teach them saying thank you for something like this is important.  The DonorsChoose process is very good because that thank you part is built in.  Have you tried submitting a proposal on that site?  If not, I suggest giving it a try. 

* Shameless plug – if you want to check out my proposal and send a couple of bucks, it would certainly be appreciated by me and my students http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=312188 *

I was watching a baseball game a little while on TV.  The announcers started talking about batting average and how this player or that player is off to a good start because he has 2 hits in 7 at bats.  The guy is hitting the ball in play 29% of time. 

Through the course of 162 games, roughly the same amount of days a class meets in a year, a batter is considered to be amazing if he has a 40% batting average.  Let’s say a student comes into the classroom each day and does his/her assignment on 40% of those days.  Is that student considered amazing?  Far from it. 

Not only do these ball players gain all-star status for a 40% perfomance, but they get paid millions of dollars to do so.  If a student gets 40% in a class for the year, he/she has to repeat the class the following year.

Yes, I understand that baseball games and classrooms are two entirely different things and that this post is a bit on the exaggerated and dramatic side, but it gives a good example of perspective.  From the perspective of a coach or ball player, 40% is awesome.  From the perspective of a teacher, it’s not so hot. 

I am an online tutor.  I’ve been doing this for about four and a half years now.  In that time, I’ve helped literally thousands of students to complete questions ranging from drawing an atomic model to geologic time scales and everything in between. 

Today’s students are natural multitaskers.  They have grown up in the computer age and are so used to using chat programs and surfing the web that they don’t have to give it a second thought.  It all comes very easy to them.  Why not take advantage of their interest in the online environment to provide a method of completing homework? 

For me, there are so many advantages to this type of work.  I can work from home, any day of the week.  I don’t have to use gas to get to a student’s house (neither do their parents).  I get to help students who really want to learn and are interested in trying.  The extra income is wonderful (and sometimes vital in these economic times).  So many times, I get into a session with a student who doesn’t understand a topic, but through questioning, we reach a “light bulb” moment when you can tell things start to click.  That is an excellent feeling.

Of course, there are some disadvantages, although they are far outweighed by the advantages.  It’s hard to get tone across a written chat, so you have to pick your wording carefully at times.  Also, you aren’t able to carry out hands on experiments as you would in a classroom, but most of the time, that is not really a problem since the students have the data already and just need to answer questions about it.

I plan on doing this for the foreseeable future.  Even after a long day at work, I enjoy coming home and helping out students online.  In an odd way, it actually helps me to relax because I know I’m helping out students from around the country to get their work done. 

Anybody else out there do online tutoring?  Share your thoughts and experiences please.

The state superintendent of education recently suggested that school board members have limits to the number of times that they can serve.  He also wants to get rid of their monthly salary.  I’m in favor of both proposals. 

Around here, the politics run thick and some board members have been in place for many years.  How can we have change when it’s the same ol’ thing time after time?  Sure, the people keep voting them in, but it’s because they’re so firmly entrenched, anyone running against them doesn’t stand much of a chance. 

I don’t know exactly what the salary for board members is, but anything is too much.  All of these people have their “day jobs” so why not give up that paycheck for the time spent working to “better” the schools?

Another thing that I’ve never understood is why it isn’t a requirement that school board members have some experience in the field of education.  On our local school board, there are two or three (out of nine) who have been in the classroom.  The rest have no idea what it’s like.  How can they properly run a school system if they have no experience with what goes on within the system? 

Is this the same situation around the country?  What are your thoughts or experiences with your local school board?

State testing is over for my groups of students.  No more worries and it’s all downhill from here, right?

Nope.  The challenge now becomes what to do with the last few weeks of school.  The last few weeks have consisted of reviews and prep work to take the tests.  The kids are tired, so I have to make sure that the material we cover prepares them for next year and is engaging enough to keep their attention. 

The attention part is hard enough as it is, but with each passing day, the students are focusing more and more on “The Countdown.”  How many out there have already started marking off days on the calendar?  I imagine quite a few calendars have fallen prey to the big red numbers that dwindle down to 0. 

In my physical science class, we’ll be doing some group projects, various experiments, etc.  I might even get them to work on one more big project to summarize what they learned throughout the year.  We’ll even have our egg drop contest to see which group can build the best container.  We did that last year and the students enjoyed that quite a bit. 

What will you be doing to battle the end of the year blues?

I’m tired.  It’s been a long week.  We started with state standardized testing on Wednesday and I concluded testing my group today.  I’m always glad when the testing is done. 

I don’t mind giving the test.  It’s just all of the rules and regulations that must be adhered to throughout the week.  Test security is such a major issue.  It is certainly important, but exhausting.  Everything went great for our school and there were no problems with the whole process, so at least there was no stress from any trouble. 

As a reward for the hard work of the students, we were able to reward them with some time outside during the last hour of the day.  They played volleyball, football, baseball.  Some sat around and relaxed in the shade.  Clear, blue skies…70 degrees…slight breeze blowing…it was a great way to release the stresses of the week. 

Now we have to wait several weeks to find out the results and that will be a whole new stress of its own, but the students did seem to work hard overall.  Of course, that doesn’t guarantee high scores, but it’s much better than having them make no effort at all. 

Last night, I was reading a news article about a teacher placing advertisements on class tests, handouts, etc. 

A few months ago, I remember reading about the same thing happening somewhere else.  At the time, I didn’t pay much attention to it because I figured it was just an isolated incident.  Now I see that it’s not as isolated as I thought.

In these times of lower budgets and cutbacks, is there any harm in having a kid-friendly, relatively small advertisement on a handout or test paper?  The argument is there that it could be distracting to the student trying to take that test, but couldn’t that be said about any number of things in a classroom setting? 

I would think that it could lead to some great discussions, especially in an economics class.  Too many of the students that I teach everyday have no concept of what it takes to run a business, create (and pay for) a yearbook, etc.  As far as I’m concerned, I see more positives than negatives on this issue.

What are your thoughts on this topic?  Is it something you do or have tried in the past?  Is it something your school or district would allow?

I never really enjoy grading a stack of papers.  I think I put it off for so long because I hate sacrificing a perfectly good red ink pen in the neverending battle of good versus evil. 

In any given stack of papers, I do have a few that are perfect.  Those are the hero papers.  They are filled with complete, correct answers.  They are peace loving and would never dream of drawing first blood.  My red ink pen doesn’t have much to worry about with those.  

Unfortunately, they are too few and far between.  The villain papers make up the majority of the stacks.  They are always looking for a fight and aren’t afraid to show off their battle scars, dripping with the life essence of my red ink pen.

I give them back to the students, but do they care about the hardships that their lack of effort have put upon my red ink pen?  No.  They look at the gory mess that has befallen their paper with no more than a passing glance.  Apathy rules the day. 

After a two hour grading battle, for which my red ink pen has only sporadically trained, it lays down on the desk completely exhausted and drained.  It did not ask for this abuse, nor is it deserved.  I wish the students would realize that they’re not only hurting themselves, but my red ink pen as well, when they don’t do a good job with their work. 

How can I get it through to them that their futures, and the life of my red ink pen, are hanging in the balance?  I don’t want to have to show them the remains of an empty, lifeless red ink pen, but it may come down to that.  They need something to shock them into reality when the threat of failing the class for the year is not enough. 

I dream of the day when the bloody battles will end and peace will reign through the classwork, once and for all.

I just read a great article in the latest issue of The Science Teacher from the NSTA.  It is entitled, “Thinking, Teaching, and Learning Science Outside the Boxes.”  It focuses on interdisciplinarity and leads off with an introduction about Young.

So, why a class full of Youngs? 

Thomas Young is commonly referred to as “the last person to know everything.”  Of course, when he lived around 1800, there was a lot less “stuff” to know about than there is today.  Anyone would be hard pressed to “know everything” in current times.  It would still be great to have my students relate science to other subject areas.

In many high schools, there is a clear distinction between science, math, social studies, and English classes.  A student leaves biology and heads to algebra as if they are two separate worlds, without thinking about how those subjects, and others, are tied together.  This is the case at my school and in the surrounding schools.

I have been making a greater attempt to relate other subjects to science in my class this year.  For example, we recently constructed timelines on the history of the study of motion.  Students always see dates given for major scientific discoveries, but do they realize how that relates to history?  We also did a project relating forces (physical science) to plate tectonics (earth science).  I do tend to stay within the realm of just one subject a majority of the time and it’s something I need to work on. 

The article makes a great statement by saying, “…growing evidence shows that we must give students opportunities to see the world more holistically as we count on these students to solve increasingly complex problems.”  In my opinion, that is exactly right.  The entire world is more accessible to these students and with that, its problems.  If we don’t apply these classes to real-world experiences, the students will not see the lessons as meaningful and connections to their own lives may not be made.

It doesn’t matter what subject you teach, try to make the relations to other subjects clear and as often as possible.  If you can tie three or more subjects together, even better!  Let students know that what they learn in one class does relate to material covered in their next one.

Let’s hear what you do in your classroom to bring out the Thomas Young in your students.