I was able to do some PD reading this week. I read NSTA express and found out about a food computer and citizen scientist programs that I may share with some students to help them with our independent projects. Data gathering sources may help students who are struggling.
Science Friday was about how to create sci-fi worlds and how they relate to our world today. It was interesting, but not really applicable to my situation. I loved the piece where Jane Goodall was interviewed, and I would love to go see the new documentary about her. I think it is only playing in a theater that is an hour away. I will have to wait until it is more widely available. The final piece was about baby talk and how the timber is important. I liked hearing all the updates about science in the news. The story that I found most fascinating was about the amount of soot on birds in museums. Researchers have found our environmental protections have been working because air quality is so much better than it used to be.
Truth for Teachers was 6 ways to stop worrying about problems before they happen. This was great for me because I am a worrier and it helped me realize how far I have come on my personal journey. I already used many of the strategies already. This was a great positive message to hear as I was going into another busy week.
We had a long weekend, so I tried to not do any school work until tonight. It was great to refresh a bit with some family time.
Fingers crossed that I will get a chance to do a full amount of PD reading and Twitter. I am so behind on #IMMOOC!
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Report Cards Done!
This was by far the week with the least Professional Development since school started. Why? Report Card comments! I tried to get a head start so I wouldn't be overwhelmed by them, but all of the other things like grading, coaching, being a wife, and a parent all demanded my attention, too. I made it though ~ maybe I will go to bed before 11 pm tonight. As a result of all the extra hours spent on report card comments and grading, all I did was a tiny bit of Twitter and listening to my weekly dose of podcasts.
Truth for Teachers was particularly timely because it talked about how to reduce work hours by streamlining parent communication without looking like a slacker. The tip that stood out most to me was making standard email responses and then customizing them instead of spending hours crafting individual emails. Now if I can only find the time to sit down and type out the responses! I think I will go back through my sent email to copy and paste some I have already written.
Science Friday, as always, had a myriad of topics this week. I learned the most from the piece about how bitcoin currency works. I had no idea it was so complicated and that it required "mining." Another cool story was about the return of the whales to NYC. They talked about how the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Act had allowed the manhaden to return. Once the manhaden returned as a food source the whales followed. So cool! I also learned about how large the wild mustang population is in the West and the insane amount of money that is being spent to "control" the population. It seems like there should be a more efficient and natural way of controlling these populations without the huge cost or animal cruelty. Flooding in Louisana, Chronic fatigue patients trying to get accurate diagnoses for themselves, and Neanderthal DNA were some of the other topics this week. I also found out about the #neatrock activity they have going where you take a picture of a cool rock and post it on social media. They will then have geologists check them out and tell you what kind of rock you have. I am going to do this with my children, just for fun!
On #IMMOOC I am behind and hope to watch 2 episodes this week. Seriously looking forward to my chair massage tomorrow!
Truth for Teachers was particularly timely because it talked about how to reduce work hours by streamlining parent communication without looking like a slacker. The tip that stood out most to me was making standard email responses and then customizing them instead of spending hours crafting individual emails. Now if I can only find the time to sit down and type out the responses! I think I will go back through my sent email to copy and paste some I have already written.
Science Friday, as always, had a myriad of topics this week. I learned the most from the piece about how bitcoin currency works. I had no idea it was so complicated and that it required "mining." Another cool story was about the return of the whales to NYC. They talked about how the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Act had allowed the manhaden to return. Once the manhaden returned as a food source the whales followed. So cool! I also learned about how large the wild mustang population is in the West and the insane amount of money that is being spent to "control" the population. It seems like there should be a more efficient and natural way of controlling these populations without the huge cost or animal cruelty. Flooding in Louisana, Chronic fatigue patients trying to get accurate diagnoses for themselves, and Neanderthal DNA were some of the other topics this week. I also found out about the #neatrock activity they have going where you take a picture of a cool rock and post it on social media. They will then have geologists check them out and tell you what kind of rock you have. I am going to do this with my children, just for fun!
On #IMMOOC I am behind and hope to watch 2 episodes this week. Seriously looking forward to my chair massage tomorrow!
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Yep, definitely October!
This is still Friday, right? I am doing my weekly reflection right on time then! LOL! The process of writing comments for my report cards has begun, so there is very little time for anything else right now. I did jot some notes on a sticky note though, so hopefully, this will still be pretty thorough.
I must have spent more time in the car last week because I listened to four Truth for Teachers and two Science Friday podcasts. In Episode 108 Angela Watson shared 4 things that drained her energy as a teacher and shared some ways to avoid being drained. Who can't use more energy, right? I also went back and listened to some of the old episodes that Angela made. Episodes 5, 4, and 3 were from 2015 but still had some applicable advice. Not letting negative coworkers get you down, how to shift ownership to your students and how to gain energy from your students are all really helpful tips. I really enjoyed Science Friday this week because they talked about Charles Darwin and some of the experiments he did in all areas of science, even psychology. There was also a story about how smartphones are robbing us of cognitive resources and how to take a healthy break from tech. With the news round up there was a story about how to help Puerto Rico in the aftermath of two hurricanes as well as a story about how nuclear bombs cause so much destruction from the initial blast to the after-effects of radiation.
I watched the second episode of #IMMOOC for Innovator's Mindset that I read this past summer. The guest speaker was Alice Keeler. She was super full of energy and had great info about using the 5E model for teaching. I also read an article from NSTA's Science Scope and it talked specifically how to use the 5E model to teach a unit on waves. I am teaching waves for the first time, and I really like the idea of using the 5E model, unfortunately, my team teachers do not feel the same way. Any suggestions for convincing them? I may just try to branch out on my own next year and hope they follow my example. I am finding it hard to keep up with all the assignments for #IMMOOC, but I figure everything I am doing is more than I have ever done before, so as long as I am learning and growing it is a success ~ especially during October!!
On Twitter, I read a cool article about Otzi the Iceman and how they have linked a newly discovered copper ax to the one Otzi carried upon his death. We study Otzi in my science class, so I am excited to share this new finding with my students. I also watched some Veritasium (Which I keep mispronouncing because of Harry Potter's veritaserum!) videos which I was happy to be reintroduced to. I am using some of them for my unit on waves to help with breaking some misconceptions.
On to comments! (I have all weekend because it is still Friday right? ;o )
I must have spent more time in the car last week because I listened to four Truth for Teachers and two Science Friday podcasts. In Episode 108 Angela Watson shared 4 things that drained her energy as a teacher and shared some ways to avoid being drained. Who can't use more energy, right? I also went back and listened to some of the old episodes that Angela made. Episodes 5, 4, and 3 were from 2015 but still had some applicable advice. Not letting negative coworkers get you down, how to shift ownership to your students and how to gain energy from your students are all really helpful tips. I really enjoyed Science Friday this week because they talked about Charles Darwin and some of the experiments he did in all areas of science, even psychology. There was also a story about how smartphones are robbing us of cognitive resources and how to take a healthy break from tech. With the news round up there was a story about how to help Puerto Rico in the aftermath of two hurricanes as well as a story about how nuclear bombs cause so much destruction from the initial blast to the after-effects of radiation.
I watched the second episode of #IMMOOC for Innovator's Mindset that I read this past summer. The guest speaker was Alice Keeler. She was super full of energy and had great info about using the 5E model for teaching. I also read an article from NSTA's Science Scope and it talked specifically how to use the 5E model to teach a unit on waves. I am teaching waves for the first time, and I really like the idea of using the 5E model, unfortunately, my team teachers do not feel the same way. Any suggestions for convincing them? I may just try to branch out on my own next year and hope they follow my example. I am finding it hard to keep up with all the assignments for #IMMOOC, but I figure everything I am doing is more than I have ever done before, so as long as I am learning and growing it is a success ~ especially during October!!
On Twitter, I read a cool article about Otzi the Iceman and how they have linked a newly discovered copper ax to the one Otzi carried upon his death. We study Otzi in my science class, so I am excited to share this new finding with my students. I also watched some Veritasium (Which I keep mispronouncing because of Harry Potter's veritaserum!) videos which I was happy to be reintroduced to. I am using some of them for my unit on waves to help with breaking some misconceptions.
On to comments! (I have all weekend because it is still Friday right? ;o )
Monday, October 2, 2017
It must be almost October
I definitely did not get to my reflections in a timely manner this week! Calling all of my homeroom families is taking lots of time, so other business got pushed to the back burner a bit.
Twitter was the most affected. I did read an article from NSTA express instead. It was about the visiting scientist program and how teachers have integrated these visitors into their curriculum. I definitely want to try to get something like this going, but the topics covered are not in my curriculum, so I am going to try to find a scientist that can be an expert in something I am already covering.
I also listened to a live streaming class called #IMMOOC on YouTube that I referenced in my last reflection. It happened last Monday night, and it had Jo Boaler as a guest speaker about why innovative mindsets are important. I had heard most of Jo's topics before because I took one of her classes this summer, but it was great to hear her talk about the importance of being open to new challenges in any class. She shared a personal story about how people tried to discredit her research, and she talked about if you are not making some people upset you are probably not challenging the status quo enough. We are still using math curriculum that was developed in the late 1800's and it is time to teach students to be problem solvers, not computers. We have really powerful computers so we need to have a HUGE paradigm shift to teach students not to give up when things get difficult. This is especially applicable to my school which is fairly traditional college prep curriculum. I have homework to do before the second episode of #IMMOOC, so that will be part of my PD time this week.
I still listened to two Science Friday Podcasts and I learned about research studying wildfires and how management strategies for these public lands have changed over time. I learned about Malaria testing and how it is changing treatment in areas that are plagued by that disease. There were some interesting facts about studying glow worms (That aren't actually worms.) in New Zealand caves. I learned about memory manipulation, research on jellyfish sleep, and how dinosaur research can help us now or even in the future.
Truth for Teachers was pretty short this week and it was about infusing growth mindset into your teaching all year. I really wanted to re-listen to this podcast, but I was having technical issues and ended up listening to some of the earliest episodes about positive self-talk and classroom management strategies. These were both informative and a helpful reminder for me about how far I have come as a teacher. I am going to try to figure out how to re-listen to last week's TfT and I am eager to hear more of Angela Watson's insights from previous podcasts if I have time.
I got a new Science Scope magazine, so I want to focus on reading that this week, so Twitter may suffer a bit again.
Twitter was the most affected. I did read an article from NSTA express instead. It was about the visiting scientist program and how teachers have integrated these visitors into their curriculum. I definitely want to try to get something like this going, but the topics covered are not in my curriculum, so I am going to try to find a scientist that can be an expert in something I am already covering.
I also listened to a live streaming class called #IMMOOC on YouTube that I referenced in my last reflection. It happened last Monday night, and it had Jo Boaler as a guest speaker about why innovative mindsets are important. I had heard most of Jo's topics before because I took one of her classes this summer, but it was great to hear her talk about the importance of being open to new challenges in any class. She shared a personal story about how people tried to discredit her research, and she talked about if you are not making some people upset you are probably not challenging the status quo enough. We are still using math curriculum that was developed in the late 1800's and it is time to teach students to be problem solvers, not computers. We have really powerful computers so we need to have a HUGE paradigm shift to teach students not to give up when things get difficult. This is especially applicable to my school which is fairly traditional college prep curriculum. I have homework to do before the second episode of #IMMOOC, so that will be part of my PD time this week.
I still listened to two Science Friday Podcasts and I learned about research studying wildfires and how management strategies for these public lands have changed over time. I learned about Malaria testing and how it is changing treatment in areas that are plagued by that disease. There were some interesting facts about studying glow worms (That aren't actually worms.) in New Zealand caves. I learned about memory manipulation, research on jellyfish sleep, and how dinosaur research can help us now or even in the future.
Truth for Teachers was pretty short this week and it was about infusing growth mindset into your teaching all year. I really wanted to re-listen to this podcast, but I was having technical issues and ended up listening to some of the earliest episodes about positive self-talk and classroom management strategies. These were both informative and a helpful reminder for me about how far I have come as a teacher. I am going to try to figure out how to re-listen to last week's TfT and I am eager to hear more of Angela Watson's insights from previous podcasts if I have time.
I got a new Science Scope magazine, so I want to focus on reading that this week, so Twitter may suffer a bit again.
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