Welcome to the Tool Shop

Differentiated Instruction: the teacher assess the student's needs through a pre-survey, observation, or personality test, etc. and uses the data from assessments to design future lesson plans and provide the students with the tools they need to be challenged.

As a science teacher, inquiry based learning is ideal because the students are interested and curious to inquire multiple experiments. This is the ideal situation in a science classroom, questions are presented to students and their answers are challenged. The students are encouraged to defend and provide evidence for their reasoning. The students are being challenged through “inquiry-based learning” because the teacher is constantly using formative assessment in class discussion, small groups, lab, etc. 

In a secondary classroom, I think it is very important to design diagnostic assessment. Each class has certain expectations and benchmarks that should have been mastered before the succeeding class. I think a diagnostic assessment would help refresh the students but also help the teacher design lesson plans to review such information that is not clear. As a student, if a vocabulary term that I didn’t understand was used during class I got confused and lost interest in the subject. If the teacher can make such review lessons or worksheets to raise students to the same level, I think more students will be engaged and retain the information.

In Ms. Duning’s General Motion class she provides some of her students with worksheets to complete during her class. When Ms. Duning uses the whiteboard to work problems and review vocabulary, most students get out their note books and script their own notes. Whereas, some students pull out a worksheet that has fill-in-the-blank options and visual aids. These students were given these worksheets because they have trouble paying attention in class. In order for students to be active during class Ms. Duning had to create a worksheet for those students, and the students will receive credit for completing the worksheet. These students are being provided with this incentive in order to encourage their involvement in class, due to the appeal of more points and the student’s only have to write one word in the blank versus a whole page of notes. Another idea that could challenge students and improve participation could be active involvement. Maybe a review day could include interactive games and students could be presented with a competition and challenges.

The students need to feel challenged in order to be intrigued by the assignment. Through inquiry-based learning the students’ statements were being questioned. But if a student responds to questions with “I don’t know” then the student needs more tools. The teacher needs to assess what concept the student feels comfortable explaining. When I was observing Ms. Ramakers’s Chemistry 1st block class I kept receiving “I don’t know” in response to my questions. The class was reviewing “net-ionic equations” in small groups and one student was struggling to understand the question. In order to assess the student’s content level, I started asking high-order questions. When the response was “I don’t know” I started asking questions that pertained to the previous lesson that the student’s already “mastered.” The student then started to respond to those answers. After finding which level the student was on I started to shape my next questions. This example in Ms. Ramaekers’s class reminds me of the importance of assessment as Wormeli has discussed; if a student is going to be assessed, the results need to be considered and direct the design of future lesson plans. 

I think that differentiated instruction improves the student’s understanding of the material and helps the student’s learning develop. Through differentiated instruction the teacher provides the students with the tools they need in order to be challenged effectively. From my experience as a student, I have learned that I need to be challenged in order to be intrigued by the assignment. But in order to be challenged effectively the teacher has to have a firm understanding of the student’s needs. In order to assess each student’s needs a pre-survey could be administered to gather data about the student’s diagnostic level, content level, personality, tracking of progress, immediate feedback, etc. These methods would be ideal to gather data about a student, but only if the results were observed and used to direct future lesson plans. The teacher needs to commit to differentiated instruction before these methods are employed. 

How to be a superhero

As a scientist, I have always wanted to invent something great that would improve the future of the world. I chose to study chemistry because I wanted to discuss ways to improve the environment, remove toxic chemicals, improve water quality, etc. but I realized that our efforts were meaningless if the people were not educated. For instance, I am currently working for the Iowa DNR collecting and analyzing water samples from urban and rural streams around Cedar Rapids. From the analysis of these samples, the streams are being polluted immensely by the people around them who do not understand the harm their actions have caused. I have realized that change and progress will not be possible if people are not educated. In order to change the world and improve the future, it all begins in a classroom. In this particular case, water quality is not a high priority in the curriculum, but the topic addresses our most critical means of existence, water. Which inspired me to develop a way for water quality to be included in the curriculum. For my research project, I developed an educational website that was easy and accessible to teachers, filled with links that addressed water quality and were applicable to lesson plans.

This past Summer I traveled with eight nursing students and three biology students to Swaziland for a May Term. We spent our days traveling with parish nurses through rural and urban towns, visiting many families in need of medical care. These families had poor nutrition and were not able to travel to receive the medical care they needed. I spent the night with one of these families and was welcomed into their home and experienced their way of life for a day. I traveled with the mother and her younger daughter to preschool. They lived at the top of a mountain and the pre-school was four kilometers south; normally the daughter completes this hike by herself every morning. After an hour of hiking we arrived at the preschool. This school was made out of concrete blocks, had two rooms, one big and one small. The big room was empty, but the smaller room was filled with educational posters on the wall and had a few desks. At the front of the room was the teacher's desk and table. The big room was used for activities. The students would learn the curriculum in the small room and then go in the big room and perform a song to help them remember. The students were very excited to have a visitor and performed all of their songs. The first song was about their arms, left vs. right, then their feet, etc. Singing is an important part of their culture and the teacher was able to incorporate the student's needs to help them understand the curriculum.

In addition to expanding the curriculum,  I also believe that every student should be challenged, not just a particular gender or race, but every student. As a female student, I have experienced what it feels like to be discouraged from the math and sciences because of my gender.  I learned at a young age that I needed to motivate and encourage myself. Because of this experience I have dedicated my time and energy to teaching young women the power of science. In the fall every year, Coe College sponsors a program, “Open Minds, Open Doors,” for female middle school students. During this program, female students attend a variety of workshops where different female employers explain their career, in either the field of science, technology, engineering or mathematics. At this program, I have participated in chemistry and physics demonstrations for the students. I enjoyed asking questions and gauging the students’ knowledge before showing them the demonstration and I received much reward from their learning experience after the demonstration.

I also believe that a student cannot be appropriately challenged if the student is not provided with the tools they need to succeed. Another experience I had in Africa was at a secondary school. We traveled with parish nurses to the rural middle school to do an annual physical. We administered physicals to one class and separated the class by boys and girls. The class was soon transformed into five stations: the first was a counselor, second was weight/height, third was an optometrist, fourth was a dentist, and fifth was a pharmacist. The counselor would talk to the students and ask about feelings, abuse, etc. At the second station, I measured and recorded the circumference of the student's bicep. The third station, the students were checked for Glaucoma. The fourth station, the students were checked for rotting teeth, cavities, gingivitis, and periodontitis. The fifth station, the pharmacist would provide the students with the medicine they needed such as: ibuprofen, vitamins, supplements, ointments, etc. The downfall of the pharmacist was that the students were putting the medicine they received in their pockets. There was no way to ensure that the vitamins would be administered appropriately, or even to the right person. Once all the students completed their physicals, there were some students who had rotting teeth which needed to be removed. The dentist grabbed a chair and placed it along the back of the room and administered Novocain and extracted certain teeth from four students. This experience made me realize how hard it is to help a student succeed. 

In this experience, the parish nurses were providing the students with medicine, but unfortunately this only happened once a year. In order for a student to be healthy and successful the student needs to be supported constantly. These students needed more than just a one-time visit. They needed someone who could provide them with their medicine and toothbrushes daily. I could only think of one person that these students would see every morning and that was their teacher. The teacher is already responsible for washing their lunch dishes and keeping them in a clean lunch bin. The teacher would now be responsible for keeping his/her students healthy enough to survive the next year. In America a teacher will not have a full class of students with rotting teeth. But there are students in the classroom who will be unable to focus on the curriculum and the teacher needs to use resources to make that student succeed. If the students in Africa need to be healthy to focus on their studies, then the teachers are the leaders who can help these students attain their health status and education.

In the classroom, I would like to provide the students with multiple experiences and resources to capture their attention and help students gain a better understanding of any conceptual idea. I believe that a conceptual understanding has more reward than any correct calculation. I would like to embrace the challenges of teaching by creating different ideas and experimenting with different learning styles. I am curious to explore the world of education, to know my students better and curious to find the best way for them to learn. As teachers we need to provide insight and we need to provide for our students with the tools they need to succeed. I would like to have the opportunity to teach because I believe that education is the most crucial element to changing the world.

To tweet or not to tweet...

Who are a few of the educators you choose to follow? What did you get out of their posts?
I followed Mr. Rydstrom and I found his blog to be very helpful. Mr. Rydstrom tweeted many links that he used in the classroom and tweeted about his classroom's success. Many links that I clicked on had to do with a project the class was completing. However he found those links from a fellow teacher on twitter and shared his success with other teachers through twitter. Mr. Rydstrom also tweeted about the importance of making a lesson unique, Kill your powerpoints and teach like a pirate .

Who are a few of the non-educators you choose to follow? Why?
I chose to follow TED talks, Great Minds Quotes, Whole Foods, Earth Eats, I chose to follow these non-educators because I find TED talks inspiring and motivational. I decided to follow Great Minds Quotes because I find that most quotes open my mind to consider life/people from different perspectives, other than my own. Even though we don't have a Whole Foods in our location, I chose to follow Whole Foods because this profile tweeted healthy recipes. As a future science teacher I would like to serve as a role-model and an example of how important it is to note the chemicals we are ingesting daily. The recipes tweeted by Whole Foods explains how to prepare the food and which foods to use and why such foods benefit your body. Along with the health segment I decided to follow Earth Eats, which tweets about food safety, policy, sustainable agriculture and recipes.

Analysis of a hashtag.
The hashtag I chose was #chemchat. Most all chemistry teachers tweeted with this tag, I felt like I struck gold. There were many teachers who would tweet their lesson topic and ask for suggestions. Some teachers tweeted articles that pertained to chemistry news. Some teachers tweeted about projects, science fairs, essay competitions, etc. I found this tweets to be great resources for future teaching. These tweets started to shape my ideas about what I could incorporate in my classroom but also how I could use twitter to my advantage.

Potentials of Twitter as a teaching tool, as a professional development tool or something else.
I think that Twitter has a great potential as a teaching tool. I have discovered that when teachers post a question another teacher is soon to reply. The communication between teachers is advantageous, because so there are so many resources, why re-invent the wheel when you could ask a fellow science teacher for their opinion? I also think that twitter could be used as an easy way to communicate with students, such as reminders, assignment postage, etc. The teacher could also use twitter as a way to track student progress. For example the students could be encouraged to make three tweets a lesson or a day. These tweets could be statements about what they just learned, kind of like keeping a journal of thoughts.

Downfalls of Twitter.
I found the character limit really annoying. However since it is a tweet and not a journal entry, it makes sense to have a character limit. After considering, I realized that tweeting guided the author to make the most catchy phrase or state the exact point. I enjoy the fact that twitter encourages directness. I found that very helpful while scanning through tweets.

Reflections of your own personal Twitter uses.
I found twitter a nice way to network with other teachers, share perspectives, reflect on your day, communicate methods for lessons, share ideas, etc. When I tracked #chemchat, I found that lots of teachers would tweet the topic of their lesson and ask if anyone had any suggestions for keeping the lesson exciting. I think that twitter is able to benefit the world of education by increasing communication between teachers and from feedback of other teachers, tweeting may encourage teachers to add variety to their lessons.