1) Youtube upgraded its requirements this weekend. Now you need the latest version of firefox to view videos. I tend to supplement my lessons with videos. You can find a lot of great demos, and other ways of enriching your content with videos. I placed a helpdesk ticket, and IT installed Adobe Shockwave, and the latest version of Flashplayer. So I now have access to videos again (and probably Prezi as well). I want to try out som Prezis as soon as I can. If you have never heard of Prezi, google it.
We started our unit on weather this week. I used the document camera to project an image of a household sponge. As a class, students discussed how much water they thought the sponge could hold before leaking out the sides. After the discussion died down, I slowly poured water from a graduated cylinder. It turned out that the sponge could hold approximately 50 mL of water. I then framed the demonstration in the context of relative humidity and saturation. We had used the sponge as metaphor for the air and the amount of water vapor that the air can hold. This activity was definitely influenced by the Suchman model that we learned about during the inquiry lesson at the MOST.
2) Students did relatively well on the mapping/density exam. I think that I need to revisit isolines (which we will during the meteorology unit), and also contour intervals (I am going to re-teach these, and include them again on the next exam.
3) I am going to start focusing on using formative assessment during my lessons. This is basically using informal methods of checking for understanding periodically throughout a lesson. I already use some formative assessment in my lessons. For example, when I transition from the teacher-guided to the student practice steps in my lessons, I call for all students who still don't understand to meet me at the back table, and I re-teach to these students.
My goal is for some of the formative assessment to become the responsibility of the students. I want them to check themselves for understanding. I am currently working on developing leading questions and group structures that will provide opportunitities for formative assessment, differentiated instruction, and cooperative learning elements. For example, students will be doing poster presentations on various pages from the textbooks (meteorology section) on Tuesday. They will be working in pairs. This will be a new structure for the students, but I want to revisit it consistently throughout the year. I have already implemented this structure with my IB class.
4) Today is Halloween. Laura made chilli, and we are gearing up to hand out some serious quantities of sugar this evening. I am excited to see Evan's response to the costumes/mayhem that are associated with this holiday. He will be dressing up and growling like a lion. Marty will be a dinosaur, back from extinction.
5) Quote with no context: "I'm not black, I'm Bosnian".
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