Wasted Time

All my plans of course went out the window for the week with the strike. Most classes were at 5-10 kids all week, so I let them catch up on missing work or do some regents review work from one of the review books we have at the school. Today is anybody's guess - strike is off but it's Friday after 3 days of no school and the day before holiday break - will the kids be bored from staying at home and all show up today, or will they say screw it, it's Friday, and stay home again?

Either way, Friday Random 10 goes on. Here's my list from the week, this time actually taken from my mp3 player (portable), so it's newerish stuff that I actually listen to, but again it's getting time to download some newerer material.

Artist Track

1.U2......Beautiful Day

2.Pixies......Gigantic

3.Pearl Jam......Light Years

4.Snow Patrol......Raze the City

5.Ocean Blue......Between Something & Nothing

6.Interpol......NYC

7.Weezer......Island in the Sun

8.Radiohead......My Iron Lung

9.The Arcade Fire.....Une Anee Sans Lumiere

10.World Leader Pretend......New Voices

Intelligent Smackdown

(edited - 3:15pm)

Judge rules against 'intelligent design'

Sorry for the juvenile reaction, but honestly I'm pretty disgusted by the ID crowd, and seeing their little masquerade exposed is just too satisfying not to revel a bit:

We find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board’s real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom...

I grew up with a pretty strong religious belief, and the unethical tactics used by these people would have appalled me even back then - the lying and subterfuge are below the ethical teachings of most religions - that I know about anyway.

via Pharyngula

Strike!

So the Transit Transport Workers Union is on strike. NYC subways & buses are shut down. I have no idea how I will get to work - the city seems intent on making the situation worse, clearly with the intent of making everyone angry and then pointing the finger at the union. Schools are in session in spite of the fact that vast numbers of students and teachers will be unable to get to work today. I work downtown, but driving is not an option - 4 passengers per vehicle are required to drive below 96th street. At 5:00 AM the highways are already backed up as the police literally stop and check every vehicle for the occupancy minimum. It's fricking cold - "mad brick," so riding my bike could be hazardous to my health with icy spots still on the ground from the recent snow & rain.

But I support the union. The press is totally biased, the commentary of the anchors and reporters is laced with subtle and not-so-subtle stabs at the union. The MTA has billion dollar surpluses and is giving away money to the riders, then they want to screw new workers coming into the system - I can tell you that creates a lot of animosity among membership. As a teacher I am still pissed at my union for negotiating contracts in the past that set up "tiers" within the teacher ranks and some tiers have benefits that I'll never get and in some cases teachers had teaching loads lighter than mine - think about that: Inexperienced and overwhelmed new teachers working side-by-side with experienced teachers who have fewer teaching periods per day. It is unconscionable for a union to sell out it's new members to maintain a level of income and working conditions for it's existing members.

Another consequence of the strike is that our lesson study has been cancelled. I don't know at this point if or when it will be rescheduled. Since it is content specific and part of unit study, it would be impossible to just postpone the lesson that we've now spent so much time planning.

UPDATE (9:30AM)


I took a chance on the bike, and arrived at 8:30 to work without incident. I thought I might have gotten frostbite on my toes as the frigid west wind (in my face, more or less) kicked in hard at about 96th street, but an hour later and the pain is gone - worst case of cold feet I've ever had. Temperature around 22F with wind chills in the teens/single digits and worse with bike speeds factored in.

Friday Random 10

OK. A little late, but I did post the list in my classroom on Friday. For the first time in my teaching career I have a good number of students whose musical taste overlaps at least somewhat with my own.

I don't know the origins of the FR10, but I got the idea from Pharyngula, but he hasn't done it in a while. One student in particular keeps recommending tunes to me, and I return the favor, so I though it might be a good tradition to start. The basic idea is to hit the shuffle button on your iPod and list the first 10 songs that come up. I don't have iPod, but most other digital music players will have a similar function. I just went into my laptop's library of songs and created a random 10-song playlist. Here's what I got.

1.Belle & Sebastian....Family Tree

2.Ben Folds Five.......Selfless, Cold, & Composed

3.Bryan Ferry..........Heart on My Sleeve

4.Pearl Jam............Elderly Woman Behind the Curtain in a Small Town

5.Smashing Pumpkins....Tonite (Reprise)

6.9 Inch Nails.........Head Like a Hole

7.Belle & Sebastian....Boy with the Arab Strap

8.Nirvana..............You Know You’re Right

9.Breeders.............Divine Hammer

10.Looper...............The Spider Man

Most of this is older music that I don't actually listen to so much any more - I like it, but I've heard some of this too much and haven't had time since summer to add to my library. I load a smaller number of songs onto the mp3 player, which I listen to almost exclusively while exercising, so I'm looking for a particular sound in that context.

Original Ideas

I don't believe I've had a single original idea this year. Mind you, I think original ideas are overrated in the first place and it should not be the job of science teachers to come up with an original idea every week for instructional purposes (it's called re-inventing the wheel, and we do it anyway in the absence of a legitimate curriculum from those whose responsibility it is to produce such things), however I do at least like to create or find an interesting new activity or project every now & then to supplement or improve my existing "repertoire." But honestly, I'm still working - and here it is December - at least 10 hours a day at school and just keeping my head above water, and no time left over to dream up new material. When I do have a few moments available lately I've been totally vegging out, unable to focus, which a sure sign of burn-out. So what's up?

Firstly, my school takes PD pretty seriously and right now we are engaged in a science "lesson study." If you aren't familiar with lesson study, here is a short primer. Basically as the name implies, it is the study of a lesson, created in this case by our science team, and implemented by one of the science teachers while a group of other teachers observes. In our situation, the lesson will be presented, we will debrief and revise as need, then the lesson is presented again with a second class, then we debrief again. We have spent numerous hours after school working on the project, and I will have more to say about it after we go through the presentation next week.

Secondly, my school produces 6 report cards per year - that's one every 5 weeks as I've already lamented. I like giving students and parents feedback, but the formality of report cards and the ridiculous bubbling process take their toll on me and I usually need practically the entire week that they are due to get them done. I realize this is partially a problem I've got to solve by streamlining my grading policies and getting the kids work in on time before the panic sets in.

Thirdly, we have an "academic probation" program with after school tutoring for those kids in danger of failing a particular subject. It's another 2 hours of after school activity. I prefer to think of it as "academic intervention," and I hope the school adopts a more friendly term in the near future, but for now that's what it's called. We also have the option of providing an additional 2 hours per week of after school tutoring for students regardless of their probationary status, and I use those two hours from time to time as well to help kids get caught up on missing work.

Combine all this with the day-to-day preparation and checking papers and it adds up to too much work and not enough play.

Enough excuses. I do have a lab that I developed last year with Mathew Davies from Columbia University's GK-12 program. It is a computer modeling lab using NetLogo. Mathew deserves all the credit for leading me to netlogo and helping me figure out how to use it. He also developed a couple of models himself for use in our classroom last year, which I will link below. We worked together on developing a lab for students that involves the wolf-sheep predation model. I never had a chance to use the lab last year due to the difficulty of getting access to computers, but I plan to use it next week and will report back on how it goes. In the meantime, you can go yourself and play around with the NetLogo models. If you like it, you can download and use my lab worksheets.

Wolf Sheep Predation Model

Homeostasis Model. A simplified negative feedback loop based on temperature regulation.

Mealworms Model. A population dynamics model involving only the mealworms and a food source. Several variables that can be manipulated in an attempt to produce a more stable outcome.

Instructions on using NetLogo with Wolf-sheep Predation

Student Labsheets for Wolf-Sheep Predation

PDF Versions:

NetLogo Instructions.pdf

NetLogo Student Lab Sheets.pdf

You will probably want to print out the instructions and go through it with the program running. Also do some kind of whole class demo with the kids before turning them loose with the lab.

Ecology Simulations

I spent most of last weekend trying to refine a hands-on, predator-prey population dynamics simulation for a lab this week. It is, I believe, a "classic" simulation that demonstrates the boom & bust cycle of a predator - prey interaction similar to the real cycles observed over long periods of time in the lynx-hare populations of Canada.

Making the game simple enough for students to understand and still get the desired result continues to elude me. If you aren't familiar with the game, a good detailed description can be found here, or try the version that I copied and pasted into word and modified (slightly) into lab worksheets, which I've posted here. I hope the originators aren't too upset, since I do give them credit and encourage everyone to visit their site and look at other stuff they have created - that's all I would ask of anyone who found something useful on my site, adapted it, and wanted to share it - link and give credit. The idea is that students are given a large sheet of paper (11x17), which represents their meadow, several small squares of paper that represent the prey, and several larger squares of paper that represent the predators. Start with three prey spread around the meadow. Toss one predator onto the meadow. If the predator manages to capture (fall on) 3 prey in one toss, the predator lives and reproduces. If the predator fails to capture three, it dies. Next generation a "new" predator moves in if none survive, so that there's always at least one predator to start the new generation. If done properly, students will see through about 20 generations, two population explosions and 2 crashes. The predator population lags a little behind the prey in both directions (explosion & crash).

Ideally there would be no other variable in the model, just predator & prey with unlimited resources for the prey, but I just don't have enough materials for unlimited growth, and the potential for error among the students is too great so I limit the rabbit population to 75, explaining to students that the meadow simply won't support any more and anything above 75 moves somewhere else.

Problems students have had with the game:

--Forgetting to double the populations.

--Forgetting to remove prey that have been killed.

--Tossing all the predators at once before removing killed rabbits - I've revised that rule.

--Stopping before 20 generations - How to tell them why we need 20 generations without telling them what will happen?

--Just keeping track of the numbers - requires some concentration that they have trouble mustering in groups of 4.

I'm getting to the point where I'm seeing the need for some formal group roles, so the next class that does the simulation will have a designated recorder and rules enforcer - I just have to pick the right people who will be obsessive about doing things the right way - hope I can find 7 such people in one class!

UPDATE 12/11/05


I've just devised some roles for my groups. It's a little incongruous in that I'm using more or less courtroom analogies, but I think it will work for this particular class. I have judges who will know and transmit the rules or procedures of the game (or other activities in the future), a sheriff who works with the judge to enforce the rules and keep the peace, to the point of having the power to issue tickets if necessary, a bailiff who is essentially the materials manager, and a stenographer whose role should be self evident. For this class I have 29 students, which leaves an odd man out in groups of 4, so I have created a special role for this person - Devil's Advocate. The devil's advocate will be assigned a home group, but will roam around to other groups to play the role for all groups. I already know who will get this role!

I have personally selected the judges. I will send them to a private place in the school (an empty classroom or the AP's office) with a list of recommended sheriffs. They will select their own sheriffs and are free to suggest alternatives to the ones I've recommended. Then together with their sheriffs, they will select the remaining roles for their groups. I hope that giving them this responsibility and freedom will create a more positive environment. I do have a lot of faith in the judges I've selected.

I've created role cards that you can download here.

Professionally Agnostic

I've been mulling over the recent field trip to the American Museum of Natural History, where we watched the IMAX film Galapagos. In class discussions afterward, the conversation turned, of course, to evolution and eventually the religious implications. A small but vocal number of students were quite outspoken in their religious rejection of evolution - God put us here the way we are and how could evolution possibly turn monkeys into humans - the usual objections. I am also fortunate to have some very informed students who may also be religious, but have no trouble being religious and understanding evolution at the same time. They were quick to jump into the discussion and present the scientific point of view as they understand it.

My professional position on religious matters has always been agnostic - I tell students when they ask that I do not discuss my religious beliefs or lack thereof, and they can make any assumptions they wish, but I will neither confirm nor deny any particular belief. The problem is that refusal to discuss religion is always taken as evidence that you are an atheist. I often wonder if I shouldn't just come right out and tell them, but I remain silent as a matter of principle and wish my colleagues would do the same - not just the science teachers, not just the religious ones, or the agnostic ones, or the atheists, but all of them. I have heard many teachers sharing their belief in god with students. They don't proselytize per se, but talk openly of their activities with their church, their religious observances, their faith, etc. On the other hand, I've never heard a teacher discussing his/her atheism with a class. I know that most of my colleagues are silent on the subject most of the time, but wouldn't hesitate to answer if students asked. I think the answer should always be a polite "none of your business."

The only acceptable position for a public school teacher is, in my opinion, professional agnosticism - "there may be a god or gods, there may not be, but as an employee of the state I have no personal position on the matter to discuss with students." This is not a denial of one's god or religion, it is an understanding of our role as public school teachers and our obligation as such to remain neutral on religious matters.

Turkey Brining

In my NYC family, I take turns with the in-laws for the annual holiday festivities. Beginning with Thanksgiving, which I am usually responsible for, my sister-in-law and her family then host the Christmas dinner, we do New Years Day, they do Easter, we do Passover - I think that's it in terms of the regular rotation - there may of course be other special occasions from time-to-time.

For many years I "experimented" with different turkey recipes for the Thanksgiving feast. I tried different cooking techniques - covered/uncovered, basting/not basting, high heat/low heat. I tried free range turkeys, smaller turkeys, all the while refusing to go the butterball route with the industrial strength water infusion. Still, I was never happy with the finished product, and many years I swore I wouldn't even try turkey again. Then every year tradition would pull at my conscience and I go for the turkey again anyway.

A few years ago, I tried brining a turkey at home. Brining is simply soaking the turkey in a slatwater solution, which I will discuss in a little detail below. The results were OK - the turkey was less dry, but too salty. Not only that, but the the technique is quite cumbersome and messy. So I decided to try the kosher turkey route, since brining is basically part of the koshering process already, it was a ready-made, brined turkey. And it came out pretty good. It's still a little salty, perhaps I will try a little soaking before cooking might to draw out a little of the salt next year. It's mainly an issue when using the drippings to make gravy. That seems to concentrate the salt (makes sense, a lot of evaporation takes place in making gravy anyway) and leads to a salty gravy.

At first thought, brining seems a little counterintuitive. You might think that soaking a turkey in saltwater would cause water to diffuse out of the turkey (from higher concentration in the turkey meat to lower concentration in the saltwater solution) but apparently the process is a bit more complicated, and I'll summarize here, but you might want to click on the links to get more detailed in formation. Basically, it is true that the saltwater is a hypertonic solution, compared to the turkey, which should result in diffusion of water out of the turkey. But, at the same time, salt diffuses into the turkey meat. As a result, the salt starts to break down or denature proteins within the cell, increasing their water holding capacity, as well as their osmolarity (more solutes per unit water) - the relative concentrations of water then favor the diffusion of water into the turkey, and you get a moister piece of meat. This is my synthesis of the explanations offered by the two science-related websites below that discuss brining. Other explanations are offered on various food websites, mostly summarized in this Virtual Weber Bulletin Board article.

Links:

MadSci Network: How does brining a turkey before smoking make it juicier

Cooking for Engineers: Kitchen Notes: Brining

Now if I can just figure out a way to use this application of osmosis in a science lab activity...

Recent Labs

My schedule imposes a sort of lab routine on me that is not always easy to keep up with. Each week students either a) come in very early at 7:45 for a required lab period or b) come back early from lunch, meaning that they only get 20 minutes to get food & eat and get upstairs for their required lab or c) have a double period at the end of the day, as with my highly energetic 8th graders, including an already 10-minutes-longer-than-usual 8th period. In either case, not having a formal lab isn't really an option, as students will begin to resent the lab period and question why it is necessary and start skipping - and who wouldn't at least think about it if no labs were given in the "lab" period? Or in the case of my 8th graders, almost 2 hours together without a lab would be unbearable. So I feel compelled to find a lab for them every week, and on topic.(*See Comment below.)

Last week I used a cheese making lab that I got from a listserv - I would like to give credit where credit is due, but I can't find the author of the lab. This lab was more or less on topic as we were discussing biochemistry (proteins, carbs, lipids, etc.) and the cheese making lab has to do with denaturing proteins with a mild acid (we used lemon juice). Most of the students refused to taste the cheese (I used food prep materials for the heating and "fresh" lemon juice and paper cups to keep everything clean). I mixed in some sugar and tasted it myself - not unlike cheesecake in some ways. What really grossed them out, for some reason, was when I drank a little of the whey. Of course I mentioned Little Miss Muffet as well:

Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet,

Eating her curds and whey;

Along came a spider, who sat down beside her

And frightened Miss Muffet away.

This week we created food webs for a lab, based on a set of cards that depict various players in a Chaparral ecosystem. I reduced the cards so that they would fit on 2 sheets of paper, then students cut them out and arrange on poster paper, draw lines connecting them based on information on the cards. Understanding why the arrows point toward the consumer (away from the energy source) is a real challenge for the students.They always want to point toward the one that gets eaten.

On Friday we had a field trip to the American Museum of Natural History to see the Galapagos IMAX film and the Biodiversity exhibit. I didn't prep them as well as I would have liked to. This being my first experience taking a high school group on a field trip, there were a number of issues I didn't anticipate or really have a good grip on - logistical issues, not behavioral. For instance, in high school there are no real "official" classes, so my 2nd & 6th period classes have students who are in different humanities and math classes - in other words, unlike middle school where students form a pretty much cohesive unit that stays together all day, in high school students get individual programs, so the whole field trip experience is in many ways a more disruptive process. The museum was also packed, so completing the "lab" was problematic, just as a matter of being able to view all the necessary exhibits and stand in a position to read the material and gather the necessary information. It was, however, all-in-all a positive experience.

Comment

I may have given a false impression here regarding my feelings about labs (vs. lecture, e.g.), so a little clarification. The difficulty I have is not with the idea of doing lab or hands-on activities, but doing them on commmand according to a set schedule and set time limit regardless of whether we are at a point in the unit where a lab makes sense or not and regardless of the fact that we may have a lab one week that takes several days to complete, and the scheduled lab time falls on a day where some discussion/lecture would be a more pressing need. I would much prefer a schedule where all science classes were 55 minutes long and one meeting per day, allowing me to schedule activities according to the needs of the unit rather than the needs of an artificial and outdated model of lecture and lab periods.

Dumb Smart

I learned a new slang term today, a replacement I suppose for "mad," as in "mad hot ballroom" and all that. The new (probably already outdated) term is "dumb" and I wish I could remember exactly what the expression was, but I was just too taken aback by the realization that I had just heard something for the first time.

Anyway, later that day someone was remarking on some cool feature of the smartboard I was using and I couldn't resist noting that yes, I guess you could say it was "dumb smart." (Groans all around.)

We've finally got most of the computer issues resolved, and I've been using a lot of PowerPoint recently, trudging through the chemistry that the LE curriculum assumes students know (thus no time is budgeted for actually teaching these concepts) but of course the majority of them are clueless. It seems to me that there is a tremendous leap from what students are expected to know in middle school (or at least what they can reasonably be expected to learn) and what they are assumed to know (or need to know) for the LE curriculum. I just don't know how we can get very far with cellular processes, genetics, homeostasis, or cycling of matter without some basic understanding of chemistry. So I've been killing them with the chemistry content these last couple of weeks with lectures, asking them to understand as much as they can and just memorize the rest, because we will return to the concepts over and over in the context of the above mentioned topics. And I left a lot of things that I do think I can teach better in context - like acids & bases, enzyme action, etc. I may be wasting my time and theirs, but I don't know any other options here for teaching covering these largely middle school topics like atoms, elements, compounds, mixtures, solutions, etc. - basic chemistry in just one week!

Which brings me back to the smartboard, the main purpose of which seems to be delivering lectures. Makes sense, I guess. I find it useful for elaborating on a slide, answering questions by drawing a little diagram or picture or adding an aside or throwing in an "enrichment" vocabulary word that I hadn't thought of when making the slides. It's also useful for helping kids learn to take notes, simplify drawings, etc. I'm thinking of incorporating more note-taking skills in these presentations, since kids usually just copy word for word or letter for letter what's on the slide, without processing. I want to try showing a slide just long enough for students to read, then moving on to a blank slide, and then asking volunteers to come up and write how they would summarize the material on the smartboard. Again, I would prefer not to lecture so much, but sometimes you just have to plough through some material to get to something more interesting or just to make it through all the stuff that's in the LE curriculum. I only have 6 periods per week this year - last year I had trouble getting through the material with 8 periods. So I want to make the most of it when I do use it, and get students to take notes both more efficiently and more effectively.

Time Management

I complained recently (me? complain?) about the amount of non-instructional time science teachers spend on both the regular teaching duties that all teachers struggle with (such as planning lessons and grading papers) plus all the extra work associated with getting materials together for labs. Keep in mind that most of these labs involve consumable materials that have to be re-organized and replenished after each section goes through the lab plus there's always some clean-up, even if you successfully complete the lab in time for students to participate in the cleaning.

The first marking period ended last Wednesday - I am totally unaccustomed to the 5 week marking period. So of course I had a ton of projects and lab reports due on or before Wednesday not to mention a last minute quiz, so I've spent now the last part of the school week working those 12-14 hour days trying to catch up with all the paper and all day today getting grades entered into those awful new report card scan sheets with over 500 bubbles to fill in for my 110 students, not to mention agonizing over the standardized comments (2 per student) that have to be entered along with the actual grades. At least now I have the computer do all the grade calculations - I can't imagine how I did it all with paper & calculator just a of couple years ago.

It's also Sunday night and next week is the real start of the new marking period and I would like to be ahead of the game, but I'm just a little too burned out right now to think more than a day ahead. I have a lab period first thing Monday mornings, and I think I may have to start making Saturday mornings at the school a regular part of my routine just to get the labs ready for the following week. This Saturday (yesterday) was my twins' birthday party, so I was pretty occupied all day. Otherwise I would probably have been at the school yesterday.

I'm looking at ways of streamlining some of the paperwork - including assigning less of it, having homework monitors at each station just check to see if the work is done or not for the minor stuff, and getting some peer assessment going - not sure yet how I will do it, but when we get more into the meaty content and regents practice questions it should be a lot simpler. I do know that when faced with mountains of work to correct, I start looking for quick, easily recognizable criteria for grading.

For example, I had students write reports about scientists and asked them to write in their introductions about their motivation for choosing the scientist and in conclusion to write about the qualities that made the scientists successful (usually hard work, determination, imagination, etc.) and whether those qualities might also be important for the student's own personal goals in life. In between they were to discuss the biographical information and a summary of the scientific work. Most of the student's papers were plagiarized in the middle sections (copy & paste with various degrees of editing from one or more sources), so I found myself focusing on the intro and conclusion. Their grades depended on the extent to which they made those personal connections. I might be more explicit about those things in the future, or better yet, warn them that I will focus only a particular point as a sort of "spot check" without telling them ahead of time which particular point I will "spot check." Yeah, I like that idea. Here's a perfect example of why I blog - I get to think through what I've done and sometimes ideas just crystallize.

I've got a few ideas kicking around, but not much time to flesh them out or write about them now. I discovered a nice 3-tier "GroLab" that was about to be given away and quickly claimed it for the biology department (me). So I'll be looking for some ways of using it, maybe with some Wisconsin Fast Plants if I can get any. I have a small allowance to spend on biology materials, but it won't go very far.

A New Living Environment Blog

Check out Living Environment Blog by Chris. It's new, looks promising, and obviously a welcome edition to the biology teacher blog world.

Working on a Response

I've been trying to draft a coherent response to the teachers' contract now under consideration in NYC, and I just can't get all my thoughts untangled and presentable in blog format. So I'll give the readers' digest version and maybe post the unabridged account later. Frankly, I haven't the time to polish it up, and lack of time is one of my major points!

Anyway, I'm leaning strongly against the contract. I've been complaining almost since I began my career that teaching conditions in NYC need to IMPROVE, and if that means compromising on salary increases, then so be it. I would rather have the 11% salary increase with improved working conditions. Why wasn't that feasible instead of 15% plus deteriorating working conditions that we are faced with now? Yes, 15% sounds great, but hey, 11% sounds pretty good too, over a shorter period of time with the likelihood of making up most or all of the remaining % points in the next contract. Improve working conditions by lowering class size and incorporating more time in the school day for planning, marking papers, and individualized/small group instruction, interacting with parents. I don't expect these things to happen overnight, but I've been teaching 13 years and there's been not one single improvement or even a plan for improving the class size problem. Can't anyone even outline a 10 year plan to get class sizes down to 22 or so? That gives you 2 years to start building schools and 8 years to reduce, one student per year, down to 22. That reduces by almost a third the number of student papers I have to grade, and increases the amount of time I can spend actually reading and responding to each child's work. It also means my science lab will actually conform to the safety recommendations of the NSTA and other science organizations - yes, the currently allowed 30 students in a science lab is an unsafe situation for the students.

So instead, I am now faced with teaching not fewer students but more students. In the short run, the union position may be honored and I will only get students I already teach in a more or less tutorial capacity, but I agree with union critics that the writing is on the wall and we are headed toward a 30 period per week teaching load in the near future. I'm sorry, but I just don't have any more time to give. If the contract passes I will do what I have to do, but I can only see my family life suffering even more than it already is. I guess at least I will have more money to buy stuff for my kids in place of spending time with them - one day they will understand, right?

My Classroom

I just love the look of these gas valves. Hopefully we will get the bunsen burners to go with them some day.

Terrible fluorescent light color in this picture that I can't correct because of problems with my computer that I won't bore you with. It's a decent angle, however, from which to view the room. Facing front, we have one of those cool whiteboards with sliding panels, so I can hide things, or save things since I share the room with one other teacher. To the right I have a smartboard, and if you look closely you can see the projector - unfortunately it is placed on one of those long student rows, and that's a little cumbersome, but I'm not complaining! Hey, I've got 11 freaking sinks in the room. The only legitimate complaint I have is the size of the room - there's little or no room to move around, so students will be pretty stationary and I have trouble circulating during group work. Also not much room for all the fun biology stuff like places to grow plants, a place for the aquarium, etc - very tight space. I'm going to have to look for some wall shelves or something, there's practically no floor space for tables or cabinets other than what's there already, which isn't enough. But I'm not complaining!

Living, Non-Living, and Everything Else

Another busy week, and still not caught up. Decided not to go in this Saturday, but next weekend (sandwiched as it is between two holiday-filled weeks) my science department is coming in to get the supply room in order after the chaos left in the wake of summer renovations to the 3 adjoining science classroom-labs.

I put together a "lab" on living vs non-living things. I still don't like the way this subject is treated in texts and I still haven't got a good lab to go with it - and yet I think what could be more fundamental to a biology class than understanding what a living thing is? I think I know why I'm having trouble. My pie in the sky curriculum would incorporate this question into a culminating activity, rather than an opening activity - yes, begin with the question "what is "life," but let the students develop the idea over the course of a year's study rather than cramming the "characteristics of life" down their throats (OK, drumming it into their heads? Pick your cliche) as a content objective to be more or less memorized at the beginning of the year.

So I've spent several days in class on the activity and devoted ridiculous amounts of time to thinking about and planning it, only to realize that it just doesn't fit in or work as a one-shot lesson or activity. It's not too late to salvage some things from it, but I need to think more long-term about how to keep the question alive, no pun intended, throughout the year.

I have this tendency also to overcomplexificate. I have too many things going on in the activity and that, in part, leads to a lack of a clear message to the students. So let me summarize the lab. It's a pretty standard sorting of things into categories. Some are living, some non-living, and some - heck, I'm not even sure how to classify within that dichotomy. In my mind I had created a different set of categories that includes living/non-living, but adds a group of "dead" things such as beef jerky and a dried bay leaf, and a group of things "derived from living things" like milk, gummi bears, and apple juice*. At the time I thought it would be a great idea to incorporate some dichotomous sorting strategy into the lab. I also thought it should be an open-ended task. Big mistakes for a couple of reasons.

First, a lot of the sorting criteria used by the students generated ridiculous amounts of discussion - I know, that sounds like a good thing, but remember the objective here is to introduce the idea that living things share certain characteristics yadayadayada. So now I've opened up whole other areas of debate including natural vs. unnatural, edible and non-edible, etc. Great topics for discussion and ultimately relevant, but a distraction from the objectives of the lab/unit at hand. I guess that underscores why we prefer to use observable features as sorting criteria.

Secondly, students don't have enough information in front of them to really get into the content I want them to get nor do they have the prior knowledge to focus in on it. There's no way they are going to infer or observe most of the characteristics of living things going on in front of them, especially not in a single lab period or two. Or to know that gummi bears are made of gelatinous proteins and sugar, neither of which is "alive" but both of which are derived from living things. How would they know or observe that? Again, this is an argument for thinking of this question as a long-term inquiry investigation that should be infused into the course and revisited at appropriate times.

At the suggestion of my science coach, I did include a section of the lab worksheet for students to write down any of these questions that came up. I will pick the more interesting ones to put up (A "Wonder Wall") around the room and return to them at appropriate times during the year. I had done this kind of thing in the past, but for some reason I stopped doing it in the last few years. It's a good habit to get back into.

*Items for sorting included a mealworm (live), a sprig of mint (alive I think), acorns (freshly harvested from the park), a glass marble, a rock, a paper clip, coffee beans (roasted), and the above mentioned beef jerky, dried bay leaf, powdered milk, and apple juice. I would post the lab sheets, but they were frankly a disaster in practice. I will simplify in the future and ask students to categorize each item as living or non-living. This would lead to some speculation about what criteria must be met to qualify as "living." It might also lead to an idea that paper clips and beef jerky just don't belong together. There's something fundamentally different about them. Using foods as the "dead" materials was probably a mistake as well. I should have included wood, perhaps, or a preserved specimen. Again, I would leave it at the question stage here, and revisit the materials as the year goes by and ask students to refine their categories.

Annenberg/CPB - Learner.org

I just re-discovered this resource for teachers while looking for an activity on living vs non-living things (I still haven't found one so I will probably have to make one up).

The Annenberg site contains a library of "on demand" streaming videos. Some of them are appropriate for student viewing (either in class or as homework assignments) while others are more strictly professional development videos. I'm currently watching a video on a teacher doing an inquiry (High School level) investigation of crickets. It's given me some ideas on improving my mealworm investigations, which I will post a little later.

Definitely a website worth exploring when you've got an hour or so to just sit and watch someone else teaching.

Annenberg/CPB - Learner.org Home Page

Science Page

Teaching High School Science Page (Includes Cricket Investigation)

Quick Run-down of the Week

I still like the black box activity to generate lots of discussion about the nature of science and how we know what we know. Today we also brought up some ethical issues relating to scientific honesty - someone couldn't help him/herself and cracked open a corner of a box to peek inside. In the course of our discussion a student mentioned the just discovered Kuiper Belt object, EL61, and the accusations of scientific dishonesty around it. I hadn't read the Times article yet, so I looked into it after school today. It's an interesting story and the website I linked above is quite readable and discusses a number of interesting points. See also the same group at Caltech who discovered the "10th Planet." They discuss the definition (or lack thereof) of a "planet," for example, and the issue of following standard scientific protocol in terms of sharing information and so on. It is from the point of view of the scientists who feel they have been wronged, so keep that in mind. Read it!

I know it's still honeymoon time, but I'm in love with my new school. It's a totally professional environment among the staff, the admin is supportive and positive, the students are lively but mostly hard working, even when they have self-control issues and difficulty curbing their enthusiasm. It's a small school - I have 4 science department colleagues and we are all specialized, for the most part, although each of us has at least one class outside our main area of expertise - I have Health (which obviously overlaps a lot with biology, but it's a little different), the Chem teacher has a 7th grade Physical Science class, and the Earth Science teacher has a 6th grade Life Science. The Physics guy has a Math program. All the middle school kids (one class per grade) have science at the same time, which is probably why I didn't get the 6th grade class, since the 8th graders are taking my regents class.

I could say so much more about the school and what is right about it, but I don't want to raise anyone's hackles. I also don't want to jinx anything. I will, however, post some pictures of my classroom as soon as I get a few moments.

Swamped

Transitioning to my new school has been unexpectedly time consuming. I'm thrilled about the school and will write more about it soon, but I'm still settling in, getting used to the new location, a new culture, and even a new curriculum - I've got a section of Health to teach now. Fun, but extra work. My classroom was still under construction the first two teacher days back, so what already ridiculously little time the DOE made available for teachers to set up was even shorter for most of the science teachers in my building (they are still putting on the finishing touches after school). On top of that, all my materials are still sitting in boxes at home. We weren't able to get a permit to come in last Saturday, so it'll have to wait till this weekend. I could bring things in during the week but I don't have a DOE parking permit yet. I expect another week of 10-12 hour days and 7 days a week working until I get my head above water here.

Blogging

With the beginning of the new year upon us, I thought I would post a little discussion of my rationale and approach in starting and maintaining this blog.

First, a little history.

A few years ago, around the time my twins were born, I rediscovered an old photography hobby. I was never particularly talented at the art, and never devoted the time necessary to improve beyond pretty amateurish efforts, but I always enjoyed it. In looking for advice on buying a new camera (so much had changed since I gave up the hobby in the early 80's I didn't even know where to start), I stumbled upon photo.net. It was my first exposure to "online communities" and featured a number of services to keep people with a common interest connected. I particularly liked the bulletin board interface that included e-mail notification and thought it would be a great model for getting science teachers together to share information. In my brief stint as staff developer in my district, I spent a lot of time trying to create something similar, which is still up and running but at this point almost completely dormant as other services with larger pools of potential users have proliferated (NSTA listservs, e.g.). The forum never really took off. It was useful mainly as a mailing list, since I could post information on the forum and the message went out as an e-mail to about 100 teachers in the district who "signed up" for the forum (I collected e-mails at every PD activity and let them know they would be added to the list).

I still think the majority of classroom teachers of science are behind the times in terms of taking advantage of all the web tools out there and continue to think of the internet solely as a place to look up information rather than a place to form a community. How many teachers have websites to support their instruction? How many regularly read science-related blogs? How many know how to take advantage of subscription services like Bloglines (it's free dammit!)? How many are signed up for NSTA's listservs? What about Podcasts? Google Alerts? And those are just the ones I know about. I'm sure others out there can point to plenty of useful services that I don't even know about. So one goal of this blog is to spread the word.

I decided from the beginning to specialize. I pretty much limit my posts to discussing the teaching of high school biology. I generally avoid topical political events and school issues unless they are directly relevant - I have complained a few times about the facilities and policies that I think are detrimental to teaching science. I have not written much about biology in the news, but that will be something I work on this year.

I write first and foremost as a means of reflection on what I am doing in the classroom. This helps me to analyze my practices and, I hope, improve upon them. I try not to sugarcoat and I am pretty self-critical, which may or may not be a good idea in a public forum. I think, however, that an honest, critical assessment is important both for my own needs and to let any other teachers who might stumble upon this blog know that we aren't all super teachers who know exactly how do handle every lesson and students always come away both enjoying the activity and learning what we wanted them to learn. Teaching and learning are both iterative processes, to throw a little jargon around, and I've always been a little skeptical (or is it resentful?) of published educational materials that make it seem like a straight-forward linear process: Plan - implement - assess - success! It just isn't that easy.

Lastly, most of my posts will be rather short. I find writing a rather laborious task, which should be pretty evident to the average reader. I obviously will also not be the most prolific writer around - for that you will have to check out PZ Myers at Pharyngula - the man must never sleep or there are two of him. If I post once or twice a week I'm doing pretty well. Because of this, I may be asking other science teachers to contribute here. Annie Chien has already contributed and if I find any interest, I will re-configure the blog to make it a group project - much as Sean Carroll did with Preposterous Universe which morphed into Cosmic Variance.

UFT Launches Blog

I am always a little slow about posting this kind of "news" information on my blog. Edwize is the UFT sponsored blog that's been a round for a couple of weeks now and looks pretty promising as a way for the UFT to get ideas out there and to get feedback from members and the general public about those ideas. They do allow comments, but I'm not sure to what extent they are moderated. They do not appear to be deleting comments they don't like.

The official announcement of the blog is coming out next week, but it is up and running. Check it out and make your opinions known!

First Day Dilemmas

I have these conflicting impulses for how to handle the first day.

On the one hand, I would like to jump right in and start teaching, to show that my classroom is about the business of learning. Start right away with classroom academic routines, set the tone, demonstrate high expectations, learn something concrete and significant immediately, don't smile until Christmas, and all that.

On the other hand I am inclined spend a little time getting to know my students, introducing myself, letting them introduce themselves, setting the tone that my classroom will be a nurturing, caring place, minimizing anxiety so that students feel comfortable sharing and helping one another.

If either approach were equally effective, I would probably go with the first option. I'll get to know my students over time, and I always hated those overt attempts to produce a positive affective environment in classes I take or in places where I work - you know, the icebreakers, the sketches, the company picnics or office parties, etc. And yes, I have had to participate in all of those activities in different organizations I have worked for.

I hate them, but they can be effective when the goal is to have people interacting with one another and working in teams. And therein lies the dilemma. My teaching style is generally geared toward group work and students working together. As such, it is imperative that they feel comfortable talking to one another. This doesn't happen by simply putting people in a group and telling them to get to work. The ice has to be broken and a non-threatening conversation about any sort of silliness is a good way to warm things up.

So my first day will include the usual introduction to the course followed by some silliness. We will do a little icebreaker activity with "Getting to Know You" playing as background music. I have recorded 15 minutes worth of music from 4 different versions - Deborah Kerr/Marni Nixon from the original MP Soundtrack, Bing Crosby, a piano instrumental version (Fred Hersch), and finally Della Reece. I'm hoping the tongue-in-cheek corniness of it all will be appreciated.

Of course I still need to establish some routines and set the academic tone, but I think I can do it through this little activity by treating it as a serious pedagogical tool - setting it up, establishing a rationale for it, monitoring everyone's participation, and holding everyone individually accountable for it.

UPDATE

After reading Annie's comments below I realized I had forgotten to give proper credit to the source of this activity. The basic idea came from Fred Jones in an article in Education World. It's also a nice discussion of the importance of icebreakers. Scroll down the article and there are several other examples discussed. This one is called Scavenger Hunt. I stole the basic idea but I made up the questions and came up with the background music.

Still Hate E-Chalk

If you aren't familiar with it, E-Chalk is a packaged website for educational institutions. It's terribly unfriendly for teachers who are new to web publishing. There's no preview option for many of the functions, no captions for uploaded images, no idea where files go when they are uploaded, or how to edit them once they are uploaded, and it's difficult to visualize what it will look like before hitting the "Add" button. It is both rigid and cumbersome. I've been trying to set up class pages at my new school, and I may give up and simply post a link to my other website. There's no place for a permanent header or introduction, the layout is blocky. It tries to get way too much information on a single page, and I have no idea what happens when I keep adding material - will it create one long unwieldy page, or start chopping material into separate pages, and then how do I determine what gets on the main page?

There will probably be some training at some point on using E-Chalk, but I don't know if it will be worth the effort.

UPDATE (9/1/05)

OK, I'm getting a little more familiar with the user interface and I'm not in love, but it does offer some advantages. For instance, since I have 3 sections I can upload materials to all 3 sections with one stroke as needed or I can customize each section, Since they each have different lab days and of course the class that has labs on Mondays will inevitably fall behind due to holidays and the like, I will need to post individualized calendars for each class. Once It's up and running properly I'll post a link if I can - I'm a little worried about copyright issues with some of the materials I may want to post, so I may have to limit access to my students. More about that anon.

Preparations

I've usually done a lot more work at this point in time to prepare for the beginning of school. But then again, I don't usually have the luxury of teaching the same topic a second time, so I don't need to work as much to get prepared. Nonetheless, I would like to spend the remainder of this week immersed in praparations.

I have decided to follow, roughly, the NYC draft scope and sequence as described here. I find lots of fault with it, but then again I find lots of fault with my own sequence from last year. And I find plenty wrong with the textbook my school uses, the Prentice Hall Biology: NY State Edition. (I already complained about this "NY State Edition" marketing BS here). There is, of course, no perfect way to sequence a biology course. My preference is to start with big ideas or concrete phenomena, then work down to the abstract or microscopic level, but that is often a tme-consuming approach and I've yet to find a textbook written in this manner.

The Prentice Hall, for example starts as many texts do with the abstract scientific method, as if it were some piece of information to be learned, when in fact it is really more of a skill and way of thinking that has to be practiced. Then they move into the atomic/molecular level. Next a jump to Ecology, then back to an extended period of study of the microscopic & abstract world of Cells and then Genetics, followed by a unit on Evolution. I don't quite get the logic. The NYC draft doesn't improve much on that by throwing Human Biology and Reproduction in between Cell Bio and Genetics. But until I can write or patch together my own textbook, I'll have to just fit in with the existing paradigms.

So, here's a link to my rough outline, skeletal and subject to modification.

Slowly Returning

It's been a busy summer so far and I have spent barely a moment yet thinking about next year. I taught a course at City College for the month of July using GLOBE's hydrology protocols to do a little study of the Hudson River. It turned out nicely for the most part, my first experience teaching an entire course to adults, fellow teachers at that. I've done plenty of workshops over the years at various professional development venues, but this was quite an intense amount of work given the compressed summer school format. Luckily I had a very nice, bright, enthusiastic, hard-working, and forgiving group of teachers to work with.

I've also been dealing with some identity theft type of activity. At this point I don't know the extent of the problem, and I'm reluctant to say more about it for now. I have filed a police report and done all the necessary notifications and I hope the scoundrel gets caught. A warning for teachers, though, to be extra careful around school (with all the time sheets you have to fill out for extra work you do) with both your address/contact information and your SSN. I don't actually think my problem is related to school, but the experience has made me think hard about how easy it would be...

Lastly, with my transitioning to a new school in September I'm looking at about 45 minutes of commuting (door-to-door) each way and I decided I don't want to waste that time just staring at the advertisements on the subway car and day-dreaming. So I bought an mp3 player. And just to show what a geek I am, at this point it's loaded entirely with Science Friday podcasts. I might eventually add some music, but I would rarely listen to it except perhaps while running on the treadmill.

I expect to be doing a lot of planning over the next couple of weeks and will post my progress as it goes.

I need to say something!

As guest blogger, I need to say my thing in regards to the LE regents.

After teaching it for the past 6 years, The recent decision to give back waivers to the Regents exam to the consortium schools puts SOF off the Regents requirement list.

Sure I'm relieved. I get to do my own things. That idea I had about using classroom portfolios awhile back, now I can actually research and implement it. That idea I have about expanding biology as a full two year course, now I can plan! And that idea about start a biotechnology course, gee that might actually happen!

I think a lot of the success I had with my students and the regents was the fact that I was teaching test taking strategies when it comes to the regents. It as drill and kill, I was teaching them to pass. I got frustrated when I had to tell those students who flunked my course and goofed around all year that "yes, you pass the regents". My scores range between 65's to mid 90's, of course I was dealing with a much larger group - 100 tenth graders who spend 2 years with me preparing for the test.

Funny thing though... having the regents there was almost a "safe net" for me in regards to seeing how my kids fit in the larger picture. We took the January 2005 Regents, of the 100 students, 3 failed, and 1 didnt show up. It kept me informed (a little bit) about the standards, and what kids should know in their science career by time X. So when they took my safe net away a few days ago, I didn't know if I should celebrate, or think about whether we just hurt our kids... I mean, now that we dont need to face these exams, are we preparing them for the stressors of the SATs and other standardized exams?

I know that test can be revised to be better. I know that test means well - it does pose some challenging and rigorous questions. But my conclusion is that our students should be assessed based on a number of factors, not simply through one exam. I've made the decision to implement more exams (finals, midterms), in addition to the labs reports, projects and student-centered melodrama that constructivism is so famous for. My exams will be designed correctly, to really assess what they know and need, as well as ways to improve on instruction - pretty much how testing should be used.

NYC LE Scope & Sequence Draft

While the exam is fresh in my mind, I thought I would look more closely at the NYC scope & sequence for regents living environment, scheduled to be implemented this fall. Here's the draft version, which I will post without comment, any thoughts from fellow LE teachers appreciated.

First Term: September - January

Unit 1

Scientific Inquiry (10 days)

The role of scientific inquiry in studying biology

The methods of science

Forensic Science investigations

Problem-based learning

Unit 2

Origin of Life (3 days)

Unit 3

Ecology (22 days)

Relationships

Interactions

Aquaculture

Unit 4

Organization and Patterns in Life (20 days)

Cell structure

Cell Physiology

Cell Chemistry

Photosynthesis

Respiration

Diffusion and Osmosis

Mitosis

Unit 5

Homeostasis and Immunity (25 days)

Body system overview

Homeostasis and feedback systems

Immune response

Second Term - February through June

Unit 6

Reproduction and Development (15 days)

Meiosis

Reproductive systems

Fertilization

Development

Stem cells

Unit 7

Genetics and Biotechnology (25 days)

Mendel overview

DNA/ RNA

Protein synthesis

Diseases

Mutations

Bioengineering

Bioethics

Unit 8

Evolution (15 days)

Natural selection

Evidence

Unit 9

Human Influences on the Environment (15 days)

Positive influences

Negative influences

Review (10 days)

First term topics

Regents exam prep

Note: Scientific Inquiry (e.g. asking questions, making discoveries, gathering data, analyzing explanations, and communication) is an integral component of this course.

Aftershocks

I'm in a true blue funk about the exam results, so I will be writing about it for a while as I try to sort it out and come to grips with what I consider failure on my part. I will likely be posting a lot of shorties as I work through one issue after another, and if time permits I will link them all together.

First Up: The Exam

I've gone through the exam now and I could really only identify a few specific questions that I thought were unrealistic as individual questions. The one I alluded to in the comments of a previous post asked students to explain the role of antigens in an immune response. I still believe this question was designed to confuse and should have been worded differently - a student may well have thought she knew what antigens were, but was convinced by the wording that she must have gotten it backwards, and then screwed up on that question. Now, mind you, that's only one point out of 85, and not a reason to throw out the test. Another question asks students to find analogous structures between some cell organelles and some organs of the human body. The correct answer is the cell membrane and the kidneys. I think that a pretty sophisticated level of understanding is required to answer that one, and I'm not sure it's reasonable.

The difficulty in this test is that almost every question requires a high level of thinking and a lot of distractors - irrelevant information that causes confusion. I know that sounds silly, that I seem to be complaining about a test that requires a lot of thinking, but remember this is a three hour exam for an introductory level biology course for 9th or 10th graders - it's not supposed to be an IQ test. The questions are grammatically and logically complex even for students with strong language skills, and we certainly have our share of students who struggle with reading and writing. They ask about biology concepts in a round-about way. Some have complained, rightly I believe, that the exams have too many items that are designed to show how clever the item writers are. The exam reminds me of the content specialty test (NY State) for biology. That was a grueling 4 hour exam for biology teachers with a pretty high degree of difficulty. I left that exam without a clue whether I had passed or not (I did), and I took the full 4 hours to complete it. Most of my students are far more easily frustrated and prone to giving up under these circumstances.

Still, with proper preparation and LOTS of practice on these kinds of questions, students can do well on the exam. I'm just not sure the state's instructional objectives are aligned with the requirements of the exam.

Update

Test Items by Topic

Ecology - 31 points

Experimental Design - 11 points

Genetics - 10 points

Evolution - 10 points

Reproduction & Development - 9 points

Biochemistry - 8 points

Cell Bio - 8 points

Human Bio - 8 points

Obviously there's a lot of overlap in many of the questions among the topics (numbers do not equal 85 points), and some are open to interpretation, but this is a rough, quick analysis of the breakdown of questions.

Results

Overall about what I expected based on the last month of school. I had surprises in both directions - students I thought would pass didn't, and others I thought didn't stand a chance wound up passing.

Out of 60 students, 11 did not take the exam for various reasons - including one unfortunate soul who left in the middle of the exam very sick - she woke up the morning of the exam with fever & headache. During the exam it progressed to nausea, and she just could not make it through the exam. A real heartbreak, because she was certain to do well and just a great kid all around. Several students did not bother to finish labs or get their binders in order, so they weren't allowed to take the exam. Others were relatively recent additions to the regents classes who missed over half the year, so I exempted them from the exam. So that leaves 49 students and here's how they did (all scores are scaled scores - the one that counts):

Number who passed 38


Number who failed 11


High Score 91


Low Score 46


Average 68.7

So that's about a 77% passing rate for those taking the exam. For my own personal tally, I would calculate in a portion of those students who didn't take the exam - 8 students who failed to finish the lab requirement and I take responsibility for not making sure that the labs were done. So factoring in those students brings it down to about 67% passing rate - which is abysmal.

Let the Hand-Wringing Begin

So what went wrong? There are so many variables, I don't know where to begin. I'll start with myself, since that's the one variable I have some control over. And I'll put this in the format of "what to do better next time" to avoid wallowing in self-recriminations.

1. 
   Work on sequence. A question I struggled with all year, which topics to cover in which order. The city is working on scope & sequence for the regents curriculum for next year (I've seen the draft version), which I will probably follow it to a large extent next year. All my creative tinkering with traditional sequence was for nothing, at least as far as the test goes. I do know that as much as possible the curriculum should be front loaded - cover a lot of material early on, consolidate & review at the end. I definitely had too much material to cover at the end of the year when kids were spent. I didn't plan it that way, which brings up the next point...
   
2. 
   Pacing. I frequently dragged my feet because of the sheer amount of work involved in moving from one topic to another - i.e., putting lessons together, or developing a project, or getting everything set up for a lab. Fact is, I know that this is a personal weakness, partly attributable to burn out from teaching a different subject almost every year I've taught and constantly repeating this nonsense of re-inventing the wheel every year. But partly just because I'm really a little slow and disorganized, which is why I need a some simplicity and continuity in my life. Next year I will have so much already in place that I can move at a faster pace and hopefully, in the process...
   
3. 
   Work on student motivation. I think the pacing definitely affected student interest, which clearly waned as the year went on. I probably did more labs, hands-on activities, & projects than I've ever done in the past, but somehow I wasn't able to find a way to connect it all to the students' interests - biology, of all things, which you might think would require a minimal effort to connect directly to students. Somehow I just didn't pull it off. And when I did find individual topics that seemed to connect (reproduction, human bio in general), it didn't seem to carry over to other topics or the big picture.
   
4. 
   Just plain staying on the kids in an effective way, about keeping up with work and staying focused. Obviously this will be more or less necessary depending on how well the previous issues are worked out, but there will always be times when some students need a little extrinsic motivation in the form of rewards or calling parents or whatever.
   

There. I feel better already. In a separate post I will talk about some issue I have with the curriculum, the test, regents in grade 8.

At least SOMEBODY is panicking

(Besides me)

I usually get around 50-100 hits a day. I don't track this in any organized way: SiteMeter gives me free info that's pretty limited - they want me to be curious enough to pay for more detailed analysis, but I don't need it. I got a little spike in hits recently when I posted a message on a bio teachers listserv about blogging, then a link and a mention from Jenny D. provided a little bump, but here in this past week hits have been through the roof by my standards- around 700 1000 for today. Most are hit and run.

A quick look at the referring URL usually reveals a generic sort of google search for something like "regents living environment," sometimes adding "answers" is a pretty good giveaway that it is a student looking for help here in the final days before the exam. I feel bad that there's not much on this blog to help students, and maybe that's something to consider adding next year, although there are lots of other resources out there. For some reason my blog comes up pretty high on google's results for regents-related searches, so maybe I should add links in the sidebar for students to point them to the right place.

Anticipating the worst...

...and hoping for the best.

A feeling of helplessness creeps in. I've been unable to compete with the overwhelming message my 8th graders get that school is over. This started in late May, with the first "end of year" festivals. They aren't called "end of year" events, but they do in fact signify the end, and why we begin this nonsense in May is beyond me when school runs to the end of June. It affects the entire school, not just grade 8. Spring Concert (chorus, band) was first. Then comes the award ceremony, then Grade 8 exams in Social Studies & Intermediate Level Science, then senior T-shirts (which have to be signed, of course), prom night, graduation rehearsals, yearbooks distribution/signing, graduation itself, report card & diploma distribution. All that and we are still waiting for June 22nd and the Regents Exam. Of course the regents students want to relax & enjoy the festivities like the rest of their grade 8 classmates, but their mean old science teacher won't let them. For an entire month getting time with my students has been hit or miss. I've had to require that they come to class & work on days when other students are signing year books or other activities, the details of which I won't go into ("seniors" get a lot of privileges, let's leave it at that). As a chaperone I joked about "homeostasis" when we were sweating on the cheese bus going to the prom. I won't allow them to get report cards or diplomas until after the exam, when their non-regents classmates are getting all that on Monday - and if they don't show up for the exam (as some have whispered about) then they will have to wait till the last day of school. In the end I've had to resort to threats, and I don't feel good about the whole situation.

I knew the schedule in June would be weird, but I was totally unprepared for the level of active resistance and apathy I've seen in a lot of the kids. One day I threatened half seriously to cancel the exam, hoping to light a fire under them, and instead they cheered - and these are some of the top academic students in the school. In May I was realistically hopeful that only a handful of kids would fail outright. Now after the month of folly, it's looking like 15-20 out of 60 students will likely fail to reach 65. I've got two days to review if they show up - and I fear the ones who need the most help won't even come to the review sessions.

I know I've made mistakes and I'm compiling a list in my head of things to do differently next year, but I'll save that until after the exam - right now I'm not thinking clearly. I probably put too much of the wrong kind of pressure on them at the wrong time, which I will elaborate on later. And who knows, maybe they will surprise me next week and show up ready to get it together.

Search Bar Added

Saturday afternoon putzing around waiting for it to cool off a couple of degrees before going out for a little exercise. I've added site search below. I use google site search because blogger only offers an in-your-face NavBar at the top of your blog, which I find a little more unattractive than the google search box at the bottom of the page. I post links to activities and other websites from time to time and then spend too much time coming back here and looking for them in the archives, month-by-month, so I needed the site search for myself as much as anything.

Biodiversity Lab Set-up

Wow. The state estimates 4 hours to set up this lab the first time. This is my first time. The state is about right. I don't know if I will be able to get the plant specimens, I may have to copy some pictures from the web and show them on the projector, discuss the characteristics as a class. There's still some hope that I may be able to get out this weekend and collect some samples, but that's tricky in NYC - where does one legally go looking for plant specimens? Not in the public parks, and where else is there? So if I can get upstate this weekend, then I'll have some.

The lab:

Examine chemical, morphological, and genetic characteristics of 4 different imaginary plants, and propose a cladogram to represent their evolutionary relationships (phylogeny). Everything is "simulated" in this lab. We use real plant specimens, but a fake names. We use real seeds, but not the seeds of the actual plants we are using. Chemically, there is simulated plant extract which will be examined by chromatography and a test for the presence of a specific enzyme (again, simulated - the extract is a mixture of food colorings and either water or vinegar, the enzyme test is really an acid test w/ baking soda). Morphologically, students compare leaf structure and seed characteristics. Genetically, the students are given a segment of DNA code to figure out its amino acid sequence, and they also do a simulated gel electrophoresis using strips of paper with a genetic sequence, which are cut into fragments of various lengths. Students shade in a chart that simulates a stained gel pattern in electrophoresis.

Here's a nice graphic interactive simulation of gel electrophoresis, suitable for kids.

Tonight is "prom" night - combined with the mini heat wave we are having in the city, this whole week has been an epic battle for student attention. I won't even be able to do this lab till Monday. Today and tomorrow are pretty much wasted days, and next week only gets a little better with "graduation" rehearsal and graduation itself on Thursday.

UPDATE

Eureka! Grocery store herbs for plant specimens. Curley leaf parsley, flat leaf parsley, cilantro, mint. Or some other possibility that my students might not immediately recognize. Thyme. Oregano. Marjoram. Sage. Depends on what's available. Should all dry nicely and I get to cook with the leftovers.

Finished Diffusion Lab

OK. Not to contradict my previous post, but the red onion plasmolysis part of the diffusion/osmosis lab is pretty cool when you do it right.

(Image from Bioschool, which has a number of micrographs free for teachers to use in PowerPoint presentations - this is a good representation of what we were able to see.)

In order to do this well, however you really need a microscope for every child, because it's really nice to observe the whole process without fighting for "eye time." It could conceivably also be done in stations, but that would be difficult given the way the lab is formatted. Of course I don't have a microscope for each child, and there are other problems to solve. I do, however have a FlexCam that I can hook up to a microscope and a Monitor for showing the whole class.

As with other aspects of the diffusion lab, there are some issues with complicated procedures and manual dexterity. The lab calls for cutting an onion into little pieces, then taking a little slice and peeling off the top layer of skin from the onion (not the thin and easily separated layer on the underside). The top layer is where all the purple pigment is concentrated, but it isn't easy for students to peel off the thin skin without taking a thick chunk. Now this piece of skin curls up on itself quite readily, but it needs to be placed flatly against the slide. I think it might help to have pre-moistened fingers, but I didn't try that yet. I tried to flatten the skin with a foreceps, but managed to rupture most of the cells in the process and lose most of the purple pigment - I could see the color leaving the skin. I was nonetheless able to find a few pockets of intact cells and focused on them. On the monitor we were able to see the cytoplasm/cell membrane shrinking away from the cell wall quite nicely when exposed to 10% saltwater solution, then plumping up again in distilled water.

Still a cookbook lab, but under the right circumstances interesting and useful.

Diffusion Thorugh a Membrane Lab Follow Up

So I already complained about the set-up for this lab. I'm afraid it simply isn't worth the effort. It is on the one hand a cook-book recipe lab, a traditional approach to lab activities that I just don't care for. It is also overly complicated, consisting essentially of three parts, although only two parts are listed officially. But I'm gettting ahead of myself.

Let me list some of the issues.

1. Safety. Goggles, gloves. I guess this is always going to be an issue, what school has a steady supply of gloves for students? I used up all my gloves earlier this year. I tried to minimize any hazard by distributing the chemicals in dropper bottles to avoid spillage. Not enough goggles, so I had to keep reminding people without goggles to keep back from the materials, or switch and put some goggles on - then there's the hygiene issue...

2. Poor instructions. No way were my students going to make sense of the instructions. I had to demonstrate just about every step of the procedure and go over the lab sheets to help them fill it out. At least a cookbook lab should have instructions the kids can follow. I would definitely write a companion set of instruction for next year.

3. Space. Not that there isn't enough, but that the ameneties are inadequate. No sinks, no running water. No outlets for setting up waterbath. Clean-up was as much work as set up, since I could not have every group clean up their own station, since their stations don't include sinks or water. And just going through Part 1 took all of a double period (80 min) with almost no time left to discuss the results. I planned the lab for today when I knew my room would not be used in between my lab periods by other classes, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to clean up. If I were doing this lab again under these circumstances, it would be a demo lab. Sorry. I mean come on, seven test tubes & ten medicine droppers per group? Only one sink and it'a across the hall?

4. Complexity. I would have broken this lab down into at least 3 parts, three days. Part 1: Indicators. Part 2: Diffusion through a membrane, incorporating the indicators. Part 3: Osmosis in plant cells. I realize the idea is to learn about indicators in some sort of context, but this should not be the students' first introduction to indicators - there just isn't enough time to explore them. For example, one of the lab sheet questions asks students to suggest a way to demonstrate that it is the combination of Benedict's Solution and glucose that causes the color change - not just the Benedict's and not just the glucose. But there's no provision for actually testing it (I did as a demo anyway, of course). Likewise, students should have time to explore Lugol's solution with other materials.

Kick myself for waiting until now to do these labs, but maybe doing it this late will get them the extra points they need for the exam. I just hope that with all the graduation-induced haze, they don't go completely brain dead between now & the 22nd.

UPDATE

Final Thoughts on Part 2

About Those Changes

I spoke recently of changes in the air. I am waiting for globat to set up FrontPage extensions on my site so I can publish, and I have finalized, more or less, my plans for next year. I will be transferring to a high school, which will remained unnamed for the moment, until all is settled. I know for certain that I will not return to my current school, and have notified my principal. Separate post on why I am leaving at a future date. My current school has a number of good qualities and lots of good people struggling to do good things, but it just isn't the right fit for me.

So, barring some unforeseen calamity, I know where I will be next year, but I want to get everything completely settled before announcing any details. In the beginning, way back in grad school when I decided to become a teacher, I wanted to teach high school. I never wanted to teach middle school and just basically fell into the job, initially thinking it was a temporary situation to pay the bills. For technical reasons I was never able to make the leap - that technical reason being that I didn't have a secondary science license, which I now have. There were a number of years at my middle school where I thought that middle school was great, and in many ways it should be great - middle school students can be incredibly enthusiastic and fairly easily wowed with science. But getting past the "wow" and into the "how" is often a struggle, and the older I get, it seems, the more difficult it is to deal with some of the nonsense 11-13 year olds can put you through, especially in an large, overcrowded, often overwhelmed school.

I'm excited and a little nervous about the transition. I may well be in for a let down in thinking that high school will be different, but my own experience and what I hear from colleagues is that for the most part the sturm & drang of middle school does indeed diminish in early high school. Either way, the main attraction for me is that I will be able to concentrate on teaching biology, and if the difference between 8th & 9th grade is subtle rather than radical, then I'm certainly prepared to deal with that - 8th graders are actually pretty cool anyway.

Love Teaching, Hate Grading

The thrilling parts of my profession are planning and developing a lesson or unit and implementing it. I actually enjoy curriculum mapping and creating lessons. I enjoy setting up labs in the lab room, even though it takes a lot of time. I like measuring out the materials and dividing them into sets of 10 and preparing the chemicals, the seeds, or whatever - of course I hate the clean up. I love teaching a lesson when students are engaged in class - whether it's a lab, a project, or even a discussion/lecture. I love talking to small groups of students after school about a concept they are having trouble with. I even like preparing PowerPoint presentations, even though it takes me forever to finish one.

I hate grading papers. I know I don't assign enough writing activities to my students, but marking even just 90 student writing assignments (that's how many I teach this year) borders on torture - and if ever there were an argument for smaller class sizes and reduced teaching load in terms of total number of students served, reading student writing and giving meaningful feedback to help them improve their writing skills is it.

Based on the work I receive (written reports on exit projects, e.g.), the process of writing must be as painful to the students as the correcting process is for me. Even without the basic grammar & spelling problems, their thoughts are a tangled mess of knotted and twisted logic. The ideas are out of sequence, the point of many sentences is unclear, the idea may be clear but isn't really relevant to the topic, the major topic they are supposed to address is nowhere to be found - And I have to try to give comments that convey these deficiencies. I try to give positive comments as well, obviously, but sometimes that's nearly impossible except to note that they did a good job of starting sentences with capital letters and ending them with a period. I suppose that's worth something, but we are talking here about an accelerated grade 8 regents class!

So as I sit here this Memorial Day weekend going cross-eyed, I dreamed up an idea for a program to provide one-on-one tutoring for students who need help with writing. The idea came to me as I was editing a couple of papers that were submitted to me via e-mail by a couple of students. I decided to try editing in MSword - which I had never done before - and sending the edited papers back to the students via e-mail. It was surprisingly easy, and for someone like me with remarkably poor penmanship, the added bonus is that the students will actually be able to read my comments. And I thought, what if I could get some local college students to volunteer (or write a grant & pay them) to do this with students? A minimal amount of training would be necessary, and the volunteers would help students through several drafts of one major writing assignment. Almost all of the contact would be through e-mail, except perhaps for an initial meeting and an end of the year expo or something to celebrate their work.

Now, I know that there are models out there for students to help each other through peer editing and whatnot, but I frankly don't want to spend science class time having students edit each other's writing on a formal assignment such as an exit project. And I wonder how effective that strategy can be in a science class, where everyone may be struggling with the content understanding. Would the students even be able to formulate questions to guide their peers to express an idea more clearly? Would they be able to recognize when a process is completely out of sequence, or that a sentence is totally off-topic? I'm pessimistic on these questions, but then again I haven't really tried the strategy.

I still think back to my own experience with writing, which you may have noticed doesn't come naturally. I was in grad school faced with writing an 80-page master's thesis. I had always found writing even 5-page papers a struggle, and here was this monumental task in front of me. I couldn't have done it without the help of my wife, who was my full time editor, proofreader, & critic throughout the entire process, draft after draft. That's how I learned to write. It is still a struggle, but at least I know what I need to do. Whether I actually take the time to do it is another story.

Writing a full-fledged lab report must be a similarly daunting assignment for our students, and yet they get little support for the writing process. I think I'll look into this idea a little more.

Update

Somewhat on-topic, a NY Times piece today criticizes the new essay portion of the SAT. Relevant because it shows the new importance of writing skills for students today, the article criticizes the approach, which apparently values Bill O'Reilly style certainty over studied analysis & consideration of opposing viewpoints.

Lies, Damned Lies, & Rhetoric

(See Update Below)

I try to avoid blogging about political issues, but this one has my blood boiling for a couple of reasons. The New York Times reports that the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History is screening a film by the Discovery Institute that tries to make a case against evolution. First of all, the Discovery Institute is one of those slimy "think tanks" whose mission is to promote right wing conservative ideology. They employ a hardball rhetorical approach that is, in my eyes, a worse offense than outright lies. The announcement of the screening of the movie at the Smithsonian is a typical example of this method:

The president of the Discovery Institute, Bruce Chapman, said his organization approached the museum through its public relations company and the museum staff asked to see the film. "They said that they liked it very much - and not only would they have the event at the museum, but they said they would co-sponsor it," he recalled. "That was their suggestion. Of course we're delighted."

The truth is that the Smithsonian officially "co-sponsors" any film that is screened at the museum. The rhetoric implies that their film received special treatment because it was so intriguing. And I thought honesty & integrity were "conservative" values. How naive of me.

Now, the obvious point that should have everyone concerned is that the National Museum of Natural History is screening a film at all that tries to discredit evolution. The anti-evolution camp has done a great PR job in convincing a lot of people that having their voices heard is all about fairness and balance. This of course appeals to everyone's democratic sensibilities. The New York Times article even falls prey to this fallacy, reporting blandly:

Although Charles Darwin's theory is widely viewed as having been proved by fossil records and modern biological phenomena, it is challenged by those who say that it is flawed and that alternatives need to be taught.

To show how silly this statement is, substitute the idea of a heliocentric model of the solar system for "Charles Darwin's Theory:"

Although the heliocentric model of the solar system is widely viewed as having been proved by astronomical observations, it is challenged by those who say that it is flawed and that alternatives need to be taught.

See how stupid that sounds? Would you want your tax dollars supporting the screening of a film that supported the discredited notion that the earth is the center of the universe? The Times refuses to state the fact that "those who say that it is flawed" are almost universally political and religious hacks and NOT biologists. That seems to put the showing of the film squarely at odds with the museum's policy not to sponsor "events of a religious or partisan political nature."

The fact is that there is no scientific debate about the validity of evolution. It is purely political and the Smithsonian should be ashamed.

UPDATE

For more commentary, see the following blogs, which place a lot of emphasis on a point I left out, which is that the deal is essentially payola - the Discovery institute is paying the Smithsonian $16,000 to show the film to a private (and trust me, sympathetic) audience. I also implied above that tax dollars are being spent showing the film, when in fact the museum seeks to make money from the deal:

Panda's Thumb: Smithsonian Warming to ID?

Pharyngula: The Discovery Institute at the Smithsonian?

UPDATE(6/3/05)

Washington Post: Smithsonian Distances Itself from Controversial Film

Panda's Thumb: Fumble in the Endzone

The Smithsonian has withdrawn their status as "co-sponsor" of the Discovery Institute film, "Privileged Planet." Apparently outraged at the way the Discovery Institute was implying that the Smithsonian endorsed the film, they also are returning the $16,000 initially paid by DI to show the film. They will still show the film as per the original contract.

Diffusion Through a Membrane Lab Set-up

I spent several hours today setting up the fairly elaborate lab required by NY State for the regents exam, "Diffusion Through a Membrane." It's a nice enough lab, but way too much set-up for teachers in my situation, in rooms with no running water that are used by multiple teachers and classes throughout the day. The basic idea is to produce cell models with dialysis tubing, cut into segments, filled with a mixture of a starch solution and a glucose solution, and tied at both ends a little like a sausage link. This "cell" is placed in a hypotonic environment (distilled water) into which a few drops of Lugol's iodine solution is placed.

While allowing the cells to soak in water, students will perform a series of tests, using known solutions of starch and glucose, plus Benedict's solution and the iodine mentioned above as indicators. They will observe that the light blue Benedict's solution will turn orange/red when heated (water bath method) if glucose is present, and the Lugol's solution will turn black in the presence of starch, without heating. There are of course controls to show that it is indeed the glucose & starch that are responsible for the color changes.

Meanwhile, the little cell will have turned a dark purplish-black color inside, showing that iodine has diffused across the membrane into the cell. A test of the distilled water outside the cell will reveal that glucose has diffused through the membrane out of the cell. The color of the distilled water outside the membrane will remain amber from the iodine, indicating that starch has not diffused out of the cell through the membrane.

• Glucose - diffuses out of the cell, no indicator in the water, so no color change. Only detected when water is added to indicator and heated.


• Iodine - diffuses into the cell, turns color inside the cell to indicate starch.


• Starch - does not diffuse out of cell, so water outside cell with Lugol's does not change color. Inside cell turns blackish.

And that's just Part 1! In part 2 We get to hook up the microscopes and watch onion cells shrivel or plump up when placed in saltwater or distilled water environment.

Follow-up Post