Summer

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer and are remembering to rest. Parsons - hows the new baby and mom doing?

Tomorrow is the last day of school!

One more half day, graduation, and two teacher work days. Hello summer!

Parsons is doing a great job!

Parsons is really going the extra mile this year. SOLs are over, and most teachers are just relaxing at this point. I mean, I have good lesson plans for the end of the year, but I am definitely not giving them a lot of extra work, tests, homework, etc. Actually, in my class right now my students are doing the teaching. They have chosen a topic and they must present their lesson to the class. But Parsons is teaching NEW material! I am impressed! Great job!

Last week

Any ideas for the last week of school?! I mean, we really have two weeks, but the final week is exams. I'm running thin on ideas...

Great Idea Gneiss Teacher

I will absolutely use that idea next year. I like the idea of having them making a children's book or a picture book.

I really like the virtual labs too... I don't know if your textbook came with virtual labs like ours did, but it's a great activity. The labs are very easy once you get used to them, and they love using the laptops. It's like a video game to them. If you don't have them you should definitely try to get your school to purchase a class set.

:)

Comment

I tried to comment after Gneiss teacher yesterday but my comment wouldn't post!

My co-teacher and I don't have a lot of time to lesson plan together due to our schedules. I use similar lessons for all of my classes, and the earth science department usually plans together. We make our plans so that they work for all levels. We make sure that we incorporate differentiated instruction, plan activities for all types of learners, make time for reading comprehension practice. Of course we have lots of hands-on activities and lots of labs and mini-labs, and we added virtual labs to the mix this year.

What I think we need to do is have some classes where we have several "centers" and make a small group section for remediation (specifically for the inclusion kids) so that they have extra help with soem of the concepts. That's where I'm lookign for some advice: do you have anything that you've done that works!?

I just got my score breakdown today and out of the few that failed, every one except 2 were in special education, so that tells me I do really need to focus on those students more next year...

SOL time... hmmm

Shout out to the teachers in my earth science department for crushing our scores from last year! Mark and Ray-Ray we deserve an early celebration! I think the kids responded well to the iTunes strategies as well as our common planning. I think we will do even better next year if we work more with our inclusion students and differentiate instruction from DAY ONE(as Mark suggested).

"Gneiss teacher" do you have any suggestions for inclusion students?

SOL Testing

Tomorrow (and Tuesday) is the day we have all been waiting for . . . SOL Testing!!!! Hopefully the kids will remember all we have learned this year and not have too much anxiety. Good luck to everyone!!!

Turner Using DI

My mentee is really trying very hard to score extremely on the SOL with her students. I admire her constant use of DI. She has a tough group of 9th grade students. Everyday (it seems like) she comes up with 3-4 activities and breaks her students into groups and her groups work on activities based on ability. Today for her SOL she has some students working on computers, some are doing some review worksheets, and some are making a large poster. If you were to walk by her room the controlled caos may have you thinking that nothing productive is going on, but I am in the next room and her students are loving it.

Anyone else out these use DI? aka differenetiated instruction?

Music in the Classroom

So I brought an old stereo into the classroom and I have had great results playing some soft music to students while they work. Everyone was on task and working quietly the day coming back from spring break. Anyone else ever play any music to help focus students?

Gneiss Ipod Help

We can't answer back at work so I will post the answer here. Call Apple Support. They are great. They will fix your problems and are very quick.

Field Studyb Hoffler Creek

Took my IB classes to Hoffler Creek Wildlife Preserve on Friday for an all day field study. Students had to plan, and investigate a problem of their choosing. It was an amazing day. Not sure why I have not done this before but it was awesome. Students tye-dyed shirts, worn war paint for science. I have pictures that I am puting together for presentations. I will post that link later.

VESTA Meeting this Saturday!

The third organizational meeting for the Virginia Earth Science Teacher’s Association (VESTA) will be held this Saturday, April 2, 2011 10:00 a.m. – Noon on the campus of James Madison University’s Memorial Hall. The agenda includes election of officers, development of committees, planning for the VAST PDI in November, and completing the requirements for NESTA affiliation. Please come out if you can.

ipad trouble

So am I the only teacher with apple issues?
I got the ipad and i had to go to the apple store to get the file maker go loaded because it kept timing out on me at home. Then when I go to use it I click on the DCD_Toolkit and it shuts the program down. =(
Then I got the ipod yesterday in the mail and went to load it and it said it needed to have the update then times out as well. Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong?

Apparently I'm not suppose to own apple products! So its back to the apple store after school today or Monday (got a meeting this weekend in Harrisonburg).

SURN Visit

I really thought our earth science team was on point with Itune into literacy observations that took place yesterday! Go team!

June 20-21st SURN

My wife is due on June 21st with a baby boy! I am going to have to miss the SURN training. :(

Social Media

Seems like teachers should be using facebook, twitter for school and appriopiate use with students. I wonder why these social media sites are so frowned upon by educators. I mean if teachers kept it professional and set-up an seperate account for social media students might be able to really use these websites. What do you think?

Video for LET2.0

I am currently creating a video for Dr. Rozzello and Dr. Dipaola. I will post the link to the video when it is edited and complete. Talks about the impact of these programs in our educational system.

Time is flying!

I can't believe it's already the end of February! I have been so busy lately that I have been neglecting to include literacy practice into all of my lesson plans. Well, I broke that bad habit... I found a good article from NASA about the E..... Volcano in Iceland (I cannot possibly spell or pronounce that word), and we practiced coding the text, find the main ideas, and writing a summary. Luckily my students weren't too rusty, and they did a good job with their summaries.
Now I have to continue on this path... SOL's are only two months away, so time is short, but I will definitely fit in some power tools!

Finals

Finals have come to an end and the lack of student understanding of deadlines still amazes me. This year's kids really seem to lack work ethics and most feel as those they can simply sit in class, talk, text, sleep and/or do NO work and I the teacher am suppose to pass them. I mean am I crazy for thinking that a little work should have been accomplished before a passing grade is assigned? Finals were done by Thursday at 11:30am so explain to me why I have 10 assignments in my email this morning (Saturday) from various students? Sorry guys, I just needed to vent for a bit. Hope you guys had a good close of the semester. Anyone have an really cool ideas for next semester? We are covering oceanography, atmosphere, meteorology, and astronomy.

Learning Plans

I'm glad that's over with. I have never been so frustrated in my life! Sometimes I feel like it is impossible to communicate my thoughts electronically. I am afraid I might come across a little bit b-wordy.

Crunch Time

It's getting close to midterms... now we are starting to feel the time crunch, reevaluating our pacing, trying to get as much as we can out of each block. These nine weeks tests are a reality check for us. We think we're doing a good job, but will this be reflected in our students' scores? Will the extra effort we have been putting forth, especially with regard to reading comprehension strategies, translate to these standardized tests? At the end of the last nine weeks, we noticed that test scores had improved. I expect to see a similar change in the data for the midtem exams.
I just finished grading a batch of quizzes, homeworks, classworks, etc. and took a look at my students' grades... overall they are doing much better than the first few months of school. A lot of my students who were "on the fence" last marking period (with an average in the "high" F range) have pulled their grades up to a C. These are also the same students who are "on the fence" at the end of the year when we take our SOLs, so these are the students that we really have to focus on.
Time to get back to planning the rest of the semester... cross your fingers for some good news after midterms!

Reading Comprehension!

Today my students read part of their textbook (the section on igneous rocks) and created a Venn diagram for extrusive vs. intrusive, and basaltic vs. granitic. I was surprised that they were able to complete the assignment as quickly as they did (especially with the holiday laziness "hangover"). My students can get on my nerves some days, but I see a big improvement with certain skills such as this one. Not only did they stay on task, but when we went over it as a class (and as I walked around the room), I felt that almost everyone "got it". They actually comprehend what they are reading! Hooray!