Blog Challenge 5: Assessment

The assessments I use most often come in the form of entrance and exit tasks. Every day when students come into the classroom, they know that the routine is to get out their science notebooks (I require composition notebooks), something to write with and begin answering whatever "starter question" I have on the board that day. This serves a couple of purposes, but it is mainly a quick way for me to assess students in a variety of ways. Depending on how a question is written, I can use it to assess the students' prior knowledge of a subject before beginning a lesson, what they remember from the day before, if they are making connections between new and known information, if they know and can use vocabulary...and all by just reading over their shoulder for a minute or two after I take attendance. I started setting a timer for between 3 and 5 minutes depending on the question and students are required to keep writing the whole time. I quickly take attendance and then move around the room reading over shoulders, making notes. Once the timer goes off, I usually ask for a few people to tell us about or read us what they wrote. Then use it as a focus, hook, springboard, review to begin that day's class and am much better prepared now knowing where to start and what to focus on. 

The other assessment I use is what are commonly know as "exit tickets." My version is usually 1-4 questions on a half sheet of paper that takes 5 minutes or less to fill out before the bell rings and they rocket out the door. This again helps me tailor my instruction to the class's needs and assess the effectiveness of my lesson as well. 

For me the important piece that makes both of these effective in my classroom with my style of teaching is the speed and immediacy of response and data. Things that are longer usually end up sitting in a stack on my desk until the feedback I would receive is no longer relevant and the time needed to grade them seems insurmountable. Even if there are 60 exit tickets to look at, I can easily get the needed info without feeling overwhelmed. Usually patterns emerge pretty quickly and I plan or adjust accordingly. 

Lastly, I have found that while being useful assessment tools, having a ritual for the beginning and ending of classes is essential to classroom management at the middle school level where there are so many transitions during the day, and the children have the attention span of a fruit fly. Quick and simple yet thoughtful and loaded with information, "starter questions" and "exit tickets" work for me. 

NOTE: I keep one long Smart notebook file through the year and just add starter questions to it each week. It works as an amazing review that way too. 

Blogging Challenge 4: In the Class This Week

I tried to write this entry several ways, but none of them seemed just right. So, because I love lists (see entry 2) and my brain works best this way, I am going to list a few highlights from this abbreviated, welcome-back week.

1. I started using a digital timer with a loud alarm on it to manage LOTS of activities in my room and it has worked amazingly well on a lot of levels. It has help students to stay on task and complete work and helped me to make sure I am getting everything done and said in a class period. 

2. Got a new student who has already covered the objectives we are doing now, but has not learned the objectives we have already covered. This is a new issue I am not sure how to tackle.

3. I laughed uncontrollably for a few minutes, when a student listed "corn" on his paper as one of the layers of the Earth. Then regained my composure and realized I need to do more visual and less auditory for some students.

4. I taught my kids the sign language letters for "t" and "f" so we could  do some true false questions together without screaming out answers. Worked great! For sure a keeper. 

5. I stopped fighting and just started buying pencils.

Have a great weekend everyone! 

Blog Challenge 3: Website I Cannot Live Without

I am sure this is not news, but here is is. The website I cannot live without in my classroom is Discovery Education. I use it nearly every day in one capacity or another. As a teacher I use it for getting ideas from other teachers, making sure I am not missing any concept I need to hit in a unit, showing videos (especially clips 2-5 minutes long), using ready-made power points, or finding just the right photo of something.  Then I began working with a wonderful colleague, Kelly Hines, who opened me up to a million more things this website can do to bring excitement and creativity into my classroom with the help of an amazing network of teachers and professionals collaborating on the site. It is an ever changing, ever growing invaluable resource for me as a teacher.

Additionally, as a learner, I have to give a shout out to Discovery Ed because I literally could not be teaching science right now without it. When I found out that a middle school science position was coming open, I only had 8 days to prepare for and pass the Praxis in middle school science. I started looking at the study guides and prep books and knew there were some concepts I had solidly, but others I knew it had been way too long or maybe I had never learned it at all. Discovery Ed became my tutor. I looked things up, and read about them, watched videos and practiced vocabulary all on the discovery Education website. I really don't think I could have been prepared for that test the way I was without that website. Discovery Education helped me change my classroom, my career and my life! 

Blog Challenge 1: Favorite Book

When asked about books I love to share, it makes me pine for my days in the elementary school classroom. I miss the daily interaction with such a big variety of texts, and the experience of really digging in to a novel with my class. Now as a middle school science teacher most of the books in my my classroom are non-fiction. Against the recommendations of the NSTA, I do have some favorite children's fiction books with talking animals that I still love to share, but on the whole, non-fiction has taken over my classroom. Now, maybe it's because I was missing teaching novels, or maybe it was because I got to visit England and spend a whole day in Roald Dahl's hometown and museum, or maybe just because my students were being crazy in the lab, I decided we need a novel. Roald Dahl is my all time favorite children's author and this book has everything you expect in a Dahl story; a mischievous but clever child, lots if humor, a little magic, and of course an adult acting horribly who gets what's coming to her in the end. I have used this book in my fourth and fifth grade classrooms, but as a science teacher I can now look at this story in a new light with my students. It is an excellent look at why scientists work the way they do, and therefore how we should work as scientists in the classroom. During the events of the story, George makes a potion in his kitchen and tests it out on humans and animals, but he doesn't write down his procedures, ingredients, measurements or results. Later, under his father's insistence, he tries to recreate the potion he made the first time, but with very different results. He cannot seem to recreate the Marvelous Medicine from his memory the way he did the first time. If only he had written it down!! What a fantastic opportunity to talk about observations and the importance of recording data during everything we do in the lab. Of course because it is Roald Dahl there are lots of opportunities to teach literary elements and reading skills in the context of a wonderful silly story and outrageous characters. And the amazing vocabulary, voices of the characters, and tons of alliteration make repeated readings for fluency practice fun instead of tedious. The book is less than 100 pages, so it reads quickly, and from here on out it may be how I start the school year. Going to test it out this semester on my science elective class. I'll let you now how it goes. 

Blog Challenge 2: Organizational Tips

Confession time. I am not naturally an organized person. I am a pile and purge person. Left to my own devices, things pile up way too long, until I feel supremely overwhelmed then I will go through in a manic frenzy and organize, purge, grade, do...until all surfaces are once again cleared. This is not a tip. This is the ugly truth of my environment. I have struggled with this for many years in my personal and professional life, but have found only one solution to this impossible habit; lists.

I love lists. I have a constant rotating list of things to do on my phone and iPad. I always have a paper list for something in my purse. Without lists I fear I would get nothing done, ever. Lists can be used for everything and are always user friendly. When you erase or check something off a list it is a wonderful positive reinforcement for me to keep working. They help me get things done on time, stay organized, think through things, and feel accomplished. Bulleted, numbered, or plain I love them all. I could tell you about how I love using composition notebooks and sticky notes and huge chart paper, but really just love them because I write lists on them. So make a list. Get organized. Get it done. 

Footnote: I actually have a personal blog that is nothing but lists, sometimes prefaced sometimes not, but always a list. However because it contains writing of a personal nature I hesitate to post it here. Just making the point once again that I love lists.