1) I used the LCD projector to show some clips from Rick Beal's lectures at ESF about Hunters/Gatherers. I think that if I prepare notes and present them, it is usually more effective. I think that the students respond better to live powerpoint notes, than to a video lecture. Still, I think that it is useful for students to experience some college-style lecturing. Earth Science students watched a video clip of a quick experiment involving compressed and exanding air. They use their own breath to illustrated how expanding air has a cooling effect, while compressing air has a warming effect. This was used to illustrate the principle of adiabatic cooling/warming. Students also viewed a map of the Cascade mountains between Seattle and Spokane, WA, and it was used to complete a lab illustrating the orographic effect. Also, my demo that uses high pressure to levitate a ping-pong ball was big hit with students.
I turned in my "individual growth plan" today, and made specific reference to this reflective blog. Hopefully some people check it out. I also met with the ARRA EET coordinators. They were very encouraging, and suggested that I had students read and comment on this blog as a way to introduce them to reflective practices. I am going to get that going ASAP so that students will be able to look back and gauge their growth as learners. Also, I am going to use Classmarker as a vocab quiz during the energy unit. Students will have 1 week to complete the quiz. I think that it should work pretty well. It will essentially be an open-book quiz, but I think that it will be a good way to ensure that ALL students work with the vocabulary terms. I will also use test scores to evaluate if there was a measurable difference in learning. I plan on also using classmarker as review later in the year.
2) The Earth Science students are really getting the meteorology unit. My co-teacher gave me the idea to develop a worksheet with a blown-up version of the temperature and pressure conversion charts from the Earth Science reference tables. I expanded the images, and had students number each individual line. This really helped students to understand the scales. The students are understanding the big ideas of air masses and high vs. low pressure. I am excited to see how they do on the unit exam. They were also successfull with the hurricane lab (latitude/longituded re-teach), and the graphing lab with mountains vs. precipitation. I also used ten laminated sheets of practice regents questions as review for the exam. The ESF students created their planets, and are experimenting with the concept of ecological imperialism. I think they are really enjoying it, and will enjoy the reading assignment by Crosby.
3) I feel that the classwork assignments and class readings may have been mis-staggered for the ESF class this week. I feel like I would teach the concepts, and then the students would read the content. I will reverse that sequence in the future. I think it is better when students read content as an intro, and then elaborate upon it in class. The Earth Science students reworded regents questions as an instructional structure. Then students came up to the front of the room and shared their re-worded questions with the class (projected using the document camera). Two students became involved in a confrontation while transitioning between presentations. In the future I will project answers from the document camera and have students share from their seats in order to avoid such a transition.
4) We became members of the MoST (museum of science and technology) this weekend. I cannot tell you how cool this place is, and how worth it it is to become a member. I cannot wait to go again. Over winter break, it is my goal to write a lesson that accompanies a field trip to the MoST. I would like to bring my top 20 Earth Science students as a reward. Marty is finally sleeping (only waking up twice a night). Maybe I can now start staying awake past 8:00PM on a regular basis. Syracuse basketball is undefeated, but they have had some close calls. Hopefully they can pull it together before the bulk of the season gets underway. I broke out the telescope to check out the moon this week. I couldn't believe the resolution of the craters. Also, I was able to distinguish atmopsheric banding on Jupiter. I also discovered that I have Google Sky on my school computer, and cannot wait to use it during my Astronomy unit.
5) "We have medicine for depression" - ESF student during a hotseat debate on the merits of hunter-gatherer society vs. modern civilization.
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