A lesson plan for my substitute (Thank you, 'Jing'!)

 Assuming I am sick, I have used 'Jing' to record an audio message to my students, and this could be used not only by the substitute teacher but also I could tweet the link, posted below, to all my students. For example, one could also capture a video and add one's voice to it. Screencast lessons, using Jing, could be a great resource for students who have missed classes, and even teachers could use 'video capture' to explain the working of a new gadget or an abstract concept.

http://www.screencast.com/users/Vee1117/folders/Jing/media/600839f4-cf2a-45a4-8722-87eadc7d9459
(This may take a while to load.)

My Take on Literacy in Science

How do we motivate our students to read non-fiction when they are so used to enjoying twist-filled mind trips on Marvel Comics and the Harry Potter Series? This question has been intriguing me for a while. First of all, to make reading non-fiction motivating, the teacher should recommend a good textbook, one that explicitly explains, with meaningful examples and fine digital imagery, how and why things work in a given way in science. Worked problems with detailed explanations could be immensely motivating, too. And most of all, the reading techniques employed by students could have a worthwhile impact on their own comprehension. Having read Marlene Thier’s article titled “Science and Literacy: Tools for Life”, I have found some interesting ideas to encourage my students to read science text in the short-term, so that they would become active readers and thereby, lifelong learners. The first strategy lies in incorporating performance expectations for literacy. These are blueprints that will promote independent learning among students. Apart from summarizing lessons and analyzing themes, I think making meaningful connections between students’ reading and their own life is a very powerful idea, and I think that would deepen the understanding of the content. For example, for a problem-solving assignment, I could ask my eighth graders to analyze why a parallel arrangement of light bulbs is brighter than those in series, assuming the two electrical circuits contained the same number of light bulbs. The literacy assignment that could be blended here would be to explain, using their personal experiences of traveling, how the vehicular traffic changes when more highways are available. To evaluate my students’ analysis of an author’s intents and biases, I could give them a reading comprehension rubric that is similar to the one used by their language arts teacher.

The second strategy is called explicit teaching strategies. It is not only a smart note-taking technique, where students are doing a ‘mental filtration’ to distinguish between key ideas and the supporting statements, but also could serve as an efficient differentiating tool.  My students’ question marks next to certain less comprehensible parts of the text are my pedagogical bookmarks. These are the areas where I need to lay a greater emphasis on, either by providing more hands-on experiences or by using alternative teaching methodologies, say using an effective simulation.

Finally, the third strategy is called metacognition, which is also my favorite. I would use this tool efficiently in my science and chemistry classes if I could allow my students to ‘think aloud’ as they edit lab report exemplars. The strategy is to not only have an internal conversation, but also they would communicate in mixed ability groups and take turns to read loud as they think. Such collaboration clarifies the misconceptions associated with a concept/method, so that they could understand the finer details associated with scientific writing or solving complex problems.  A think aloud strategy could also be a valuable linguistic tool for EAL learners. As these students communicate with their native-speaking peers in groups, they learn to pronounce complex words correctly and also understand the contextual usage of new words. I do agree with the author that a synergy of the three ideas mentioned above would help improve their achievement at school, and I believe that the ultimate goal of such a practice should be to enable them to make meaningful conclusions and connections when confronted with complex text in their real lives.

An Interesting Summer Read

As I was browsing through Amazon.com last month, I virtually stumbled upon this book titled "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer", and I have immediately requested my school librarian to get this book for us. Trust me, this one is phenomenal, in terms of storytelling, in terms of giving an overview of the disease since its birth, for its detailed account of the treatment, the research, and above all, the human struggle against the disease. This beautifully-written book will definitely impress the scientist in you and will even inspire the scientific writer in you. I have already recommended this book to all my high school students. To learn more, listen to this audio piece.

My Five Reasons to Tweet at School

Being a Chemistry teacher, I cannot possibly expect complete success with conceptual understanding of my students. This is where I could employ Twitter to increase the pace of my professional communication, thus fostering quality learning among my students.

Firstly, I will be linking my ‘Edmodo’ page to my twitter account, and I hope to tweet updates to this site. This would make them ‘early birds’ for their work and even reduce anxiety among some students. Secondly, I could tweet reminders to my students about due dates for tests, lab reports, and related homework assignments. Thirdly, I want to encourage my students to tweet about concepts/topics that are not clear to them. This would allow me to provide them with supplementary study material or even re-teach the concept(s). Fourthly, I could use this tool to tweet answers to last-minute test or exam questions. Fifthly, and finally, as a Co-Chair of the Health and Safety Committee, I would like to tweet about safety drills, volunteer requests, or even the regular progress to the school community at large.

Guiding Principles for Using Technology

Goal: To maximize student learning in a limited school year

Technology should be used to:

1.      Increase the participation of students in the lesson.

2.      Allow students to learn at their own pace.

3.      Enable active collaboration between students.

4.      Allow students to verify their background knowledge.

5.      Collect and analyze data accurately and precisely.

6.      Make objective conclusions in the post-experimental period.

7.      Deepen the understanding of the content.

8.      Provide alternate means of student learning.

9.      Constructively criticize one’s own knowledge as well as review peers’ understanding.

10.  Differentiate instruction, with a special emphasis on EAL learners.

11.  Evaluate teacher’s performance in the classroom.

The following are some of the ways in which the teachers could provide innovative learning opportunities for their students.

• Teachers should design SMART Board lessons using ‘Notebook’ software.
•  Teachers should lead twitter discussions on the SMART Board and students will respond and view their peers’ views on a given topic/question.
•  Students should be allowed to Skype to brainstorm ideas for a science experiment.
•  Students should be allowed to blog to criticize their own understanding of a concept.
•  Students should be allowed to develop an online inventory that lists all their favorite learning tools, such as concept maps, puzzles, flowcharts etc.
• Students should be allowed to take online surveys to evaluate their teacher’s performance.

Using 'Logger Pro' for data collection and analysis

Logger Pro 3.6.0. is a user-friendly software program that could be easily installed on any p.c. or mac. I have been strongly encouraging all of my students to use this program for collecting and analyzing their experimental data. Take a look at this exemplar.

How to write a coherent eighth grade 'design' lab report

·         Scientific writing is a key skill to be mastered by every middle and high school student. Take a look at this PowerPoint presentation that corrects the common errors made by eighth graders while writing a design lab report. Quite often, the problem is that the research question is either not described accurately or the method lacks detail. This could be due to a lack of sufficient background knowledge or understanding of basic science concepts. This is why I recommend non-fiction reading to all my students. Giving reading assignments from textbooks, science-based novels, and journals throughout the school year will go a long way in improving the students' scientific writing skills.

·         http://www.slideshare.net/vee177/lab-report-writing

"Setting the Stage" Reflection

“The technology itself is not transformative. It’s the school, the pedagogy that is transformative.”

- Tanya Byron

Through this quote, I do not mean to undermine the power of technology, but it’s my firm belief that technology alone can’t take us to the summit of academic achievement. However, I am a firm believer in concept and skill-enhancing technology.

When I was in middle school in the 80’s in India, watching science videos on VHS was quite a luxury. I used to scramble for a front row seat. Also, I have used a magnifying lens to read vernier calipers, and I have replotted umpteen graphs on grid paper in my senior Physics class. It was frustrating at times, but I had no choice.

I have never imagined that twenty years later I will be flooded with countless gadgets and CD-ROMs piled up in my professional locker. Today, in my capacity as a high school Chemistry teacher, I take technology for granted. I begin my day plugging my laptop to a SMART Board, and I use Java applets to explain chemical equilibrium. A majority of my students use data loggers and probes with ease. They use LabQuests in place of magnifying lenses and Logger Pro (software for data collection and analysis) instead of grid paper.  They collect and process data at the click of a mouse, and save it on their USBs to work in the convenience of their living rooms. I kind of 'envy' them.

As I mentioned earlier, technology should add value when used for classroom practice. It should catalyze the ‘aha’ moments in my science class. I want technology to be a game changer. I also want technology to encourage more boys and girls to opt for complex sciences in their junior and senior years. I want technology to bridge curricular gaps and accelerate skills in student communities. How do we reach there? Of course, there is no magic wand. I am an optimist, and I think technology could be one of the key ingredients of this achievement formula.

  

This is where Web 2.0, which is usually referred to the new breed of internet-based tools, can impact my student learning in a meaningful way.  For example, I want my students to blog; so that I could gauge their conceptual understanding, and that would even allow me to reform my teaching strategies. I want to use ‘Edmodo’ (a social learning network) to keep my professional communication alive and up- to- date. I want to tweet to give a sense of pedagogical security and assurance to all my students. But this is not everything. Technology is more than social networks.

It’s not important how trendy a particular gadget is. Even video analysis using a digital camera could be of great help in my ninth grade Kinematics class. A TI calculator could be used in place of a broken data logger. My eighth graders could just watch a You- Tube video to figure out the mechanics of human transport. My senior Chemistry students could write an algorithm to describe the orbital shapes. In short, my technology oath lies in using a set of flexible tools consistently and coherently, so that my students could achieve the following goals in about a hundred and ninety working days: 

-To deepen content understanding

-To enhance reasoning and problem-solving skills

-To improve presentation skills

-To promote environmental awareness

-To foster academic honesty and integrity

Introduction

Hello, everyone:

My name is Vee, and I am an IB Chemistry and Combined Science teacher in Tokyo, Japan. Also, I have taught the Advanced Placement and the UK national science curriculum in Taiwan and Thailand, respectively. Prior to becoming a teacher, I was a research chemist at an organic synthesis lab in Baroda, India. Apart from teaching, I enjoy reading, watching movies (read science fiction and political thrillers), and traveling in my spare time.