Final Post on Flashcards (For Now)

Wow, that was a grueling experience. I just finished last night with the last of the 400+ vocabulary terms from the core curriculum. It was a tedious process, a struggle to come up with definitions that were sufficiently clear and understandable without being inaccurate. I suspect I failed on a number of items, and on a number of counts the core itself imposes a certain level of inaccuracy by the way a term is used in that document, which guided my definitions. In other cases the core omits words that seem absolutely essential for defining other words, and in those cases I felt it necessary to go ahead and use the term in question (example: chlorophyll is in the core but not "pigment.")

I still need to go through and proofread some of the entries - I did a spell check but I've also discovered grammatical errors that don't show up in spell check, I've simplified a few definitions, provided examples for a few more, etc. This kind of editing will probably go on for a long time, but I'm at a point where I'm willing to distribute the cards to my students. I'm hoping to get some input from other teachers in the fall.

I plan to keep the google spreadsheet up and available to all, and of course I have the flashcards posted here as well in the sidebar. I may decide for my own classroom purposes to cut back on some of the terms for which I feel students need only a passive knowledge, and focus on those terms that they need to know more intimately. At the same time, I am likely to find other terms in the NY State required labs that need to be added, along with some terms that occasionally show up on the exam, even though they are not in the core.

Problems


--The image cards are still a problem that I discussed earlier, namely the difficulty in getting good results with a variety of images exhibiting a range of contrasts outside the copiers abilities to render properly. It's a big problem that will take a while to fix.


--I priced card stock at staples recently, then looked online, and it's simply too expensive for me to use. So students will have to make their own card stock versions or accept them on regular paper.

Finally, having done all this work, I considering how I might use it as part of my masters project looking at how students learn (science). But that's another post...