About Me
I grew up in MI on a farm where experimentation ruled. Fixing tractors, taking care of animals, and keeping crops healthy were just the beginning. I'm incredibly thankful for the scientific mind that farm life instilled in me from early on. My wife and I joke on a regular basis about how different our families are. She says: "my family talks about politics and religion while yours is always talking about animals and how things work." It's so true. I have a heart for service, a heart for sharing knowledge, and most of all a heart for the Gospel. I'm a sinner saved by grace. Because of that grace, I'm increasingly motivated to serve others, namely through teaching and the relationships that I make with students, parents, and fellow teachers.
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Learning Goals for the 2014-15 School Year
1. Improve the instructional design of project-based learning units
2. Use and increased amount of formative assessment to inform instruction
3. Integrate more faith-based discussion and activities into the 8th grade science curriculum.
4. Take on leadership roles at school and in the global education community
2. Use and increased amount of formative assessment to inform instruction
3. Integrate more faith-based discussion and activities into the 8th grade science curriculum.
4. Take on leadership roles at school and in the global education community
Learning Artifacts + Reflection
1. Improve instructional design of project-based learning units
Last year was the first year I did the Serving with Solar project with my students. I was confident in the mission of the project, but I didn't know how to pull it off. It was my first project-based learning unit, and I didn't have much experiences or training. My goals this time around were to: 1. Really focus on one 21st century skill and rigorously assess it. and 2. To cover significant content in the process. The 21st Century skills I focused on was collaboration. I checked in with each group on a daily basis. During those meetings and observation times, I had multiple opportunities to discuss compromise, communication, and responsibility, things that I assumed would "naturally happen" last year (but didn't). One specific story I'll mention from this year is a group that had completely different opinions about the design of the cooking device. They could NOT come to resolution on what design to choose. What could have been a fist fight turned into a compromise. Why not build both and compare the results? After that, tell the people at the cookout about your findings. The group came to common ground, built both designs, and learned more from working together. It was a fantastic learning experience for that group.
I also wanted to tie in significant content to the project. It's not that I didn't do that last year, but I just wanted more. I re-created 6 different flipped videos and added two labs. I incorporated the use of Educanon to give formative feedback to students so that video content became more engaging. I made a concerted effort to discuss video content the day after I assigned it to be watched, and I added lessons about lenses and the electromagnetic spectrum. All in all, kids learned more. Their test scores were better and their ability to explain the science behind solar cooking was more articulate. Next year, I hope to improve on modeling some designs first and connecting with a geography teacher. In Haiti, it helped to model a working solar cooker and actually cook some food before letting them make their own cookers. There's something about biting into a steaming hot hard boiled egg that is awesome! It's amazing what a little sun can do. My students cooked a lot of easy things this year that didn't require a lot of cooking. They were more things that required warming like nachos and quesadillas. While those things aren't bad, I'd like to see some REAL cooking of potatoes, eggs, and maybe even some meat if we get ambitious. |
2. Use an increased amount of formative assessment to inform instruction
Just a day before this activity, we held a professional development meeting where my wife and I presented on the differences between formative and summative assessment. We had a fantastic discussion with other staff members and learned a great deal from them. For those of you not in education, formative assessment is feedback given to the student that isn't graded. It's strictly to help with learning and can be used to help the teacher direct their instruction AND/OR for the student to improve their work before they're assessed on a test, which brings me to summative assessment. Summative assessments are tests and quizzes that are counted as grades.
Katelyn (POPCS HS Physics and Chem teacher) talked about an app called Nearpod that allows the student to draw something on their ipads that the teacher can see on their computer or ipad. Essentially, all 24 of my kids could be drawing something or working out a problem and I can see what they're doing. As I prepped my lesson on modeling atoms, I thought wow, Nearpod would be awesome for this. I used to use a worksheet for this activity, and it worked alright but the feedback wasn't instant and some students tuned out. Each student finished at a different time and the feedback all came later after I graded all their wksts.
With nearpod, I could ask students to draw a model of an atom such as fluorine. After they finished modeling it, I could ask "who's confident in their model?" I picked the first student to raise their hand and pushed their drawing to the rest of the student's ipads (Nearpod lets you do that, awesome!). Then I would ask the student questions about why they chose 3 circles, why they put 2 electrons on the first energy level, etc... After that, we drew another one and did the same thing. This time, more students raised their hands; their confidence was building. I did this two more times and by the end, every student was nailing it. They had achieved mastery in a time of about 15 minutes. I was so proud. Nearpod, an excellent tool for giving formative, ungraded, confidence-building feedback to students.
Katelyn (POPCS HS Physics and Chem teacher) talked about an app called Nearpod that allows the student to draw something on their ipads that the teacher can see on their computer or ipad. Essentially, all 24 of my kids could be drawing something or working out a problem and I can see what they're doing. As I prepped my lesson on modeling atoms, I thought wow, Nearpod would be awesome for this. I used to use a worksheet for this activity, and it worked alright but the feedback wasn't instant and some students tuned out. Each student finished at a different time and the feedback all came later after I graded all their wksts.
With nearpod, I could ask students to draw a model of an atom such as fluorine. After they finished modeling it, I could ask "who's confident in their model?" I picked the first student to raise their hand and pushed their drawing to the rest of the student's ipads (Nearpod lets you do that, awesome!). Then I would ask the student questions about why they chose 3 circles, why they put 2 electrons on the first energy level, etc... After that, we drew another one and did the same thing. This time, more students raised their hands; their confidence was building. I did this two more times and by the end, every student was nailing it. They had achieved mastery in a time of about 15 minutes. I was so proud. Nearpod, an excellent tool for giving formative, ungraded, confidence-building feedback to students.
3. Integrate more faith-based discussion and activities into the 8th grade science curriculum.
I have to give credit to Mrs. Baker for this idea. It was a GREAT way to connect science with Christian faith. The assignment is called God is Like. We generally did it the day after a test. First, we brainstorm all the topics and terminology from the chapter we just finished and make a gigantic bubble diagram on the board. After that, I'll make a couple analogies so the students can see some examples, get the wheels spinning (i.e. air pressure is like guilt and shame. Too much pressure can cause a container to explode. In the same way, too much guilt and shame in our lives will cause us to harm others or harm ourselves. Thankfully, forgiveness through Jesus is like a valve that lets the pressure out. Even though we continue to fall into sin, guilt, and shame, he releases the pressure through forgiveness.) Next, students make a visual to help illustrate the analogy further, and then they follow it up with the scripture verse that gave them the idea for the analogy. To the right are a few students samples.
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4. Take on leadership roles at school and to the global educational community - 3 risks...
Risk 1 - Lead more professional development sessions for teachers I sometimes feel ill-equipped to lead other teachers, but this year I began to realize that I don't have to always have it all together. The power of learning comes from our community. Taking the time to have open and honest discussions about our teaching practice, our needs, our successes, and our failures. This openness creates a community of learning that is powerful. Leading Edcamp this year was a great example of the learning community that is growing at POPCS. Leading a session at Edcamp this year, wasn't about preparing a flashy presentation (though that's helpful); it was about taking the time to have poignant discussions about educational practice. The tweets to the right are from POPCS Edcamp 2015.
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Risk 2 - Participate and post questions to online communities like Twitter and Edmodo It takes some guts to ask a question to 440,000 people (that's about how many teachers are in the Edmodo Science community.) In doing so, I came across many resources that one, I'd never seen before and two, were AMAZING. If I was teaching science again next year, I would be starting the year with so many great resources. I won't hesitate to continue to reach out on these communities to look for resources and insight.
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Risk 3 - Make my work public on YouTube, Weebly, blogs, and Twitter I felt convicted this year to be more of a creator that a consumer. There are hundreds of thousands of teachers that consume resources every day via YouTube, Twitter, and Edmodo. How many of them create and contribute to the body of knowledge and learning? I would like to publish more next school year (2015-16), but I think this year was a fantastic start. I've helped a few other teachers along the way by sharing lessons, video material, websites, and various insights on topics I felt confident.
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