Education Maze
A blog of current trends and questions in education
Are you at my NSTA session today? Do you want immediate access to the resources we are using?
Here are some of the resources from today’s session and the interactive handout. More resources will be posted after the session. Feel free to use these resources in your classroom for free. If you are interested in more resources, please reach out to me on the website or through email for additional support.
This past weekend I led a session on NYSSLS and the NGSS focusing on performance expectations at the SCONYC conference. Whether you attended my session, supported me from another room, or just love the standards you can join me here with resources from my session and links to supporting materials related to the topics covered.
My Session:
I shared an overview of three-dimensional learning and performance expectations at an entry level. In the attached ppt. (at the bottom of this post) you can find a selection of my slides from the session.
Websites and Resources:
New York State P-12 Science Learning Standards Implementation Roadmap: Did you know that New York State had an implementation roadmap for the new science standards? A lot of people do not, so this is a great time to get involved an become an advocate. Phase I, “Raise Awareness and Build Capacity,” is slated to end in July and Phase II “Transition and Implementation” is slated to begin in August.
New York State P-12 Science Learning Standards: A link to the standards, New York State style. A few performance expectations added, a few special additions just for fun.
Science Teachers Association of New York State (STANYS): Oh, did you want to be part of a super cool group that learns about science? Perks: conferences, resources, professional development specials, newsletters.
The Wonder of Science: A lot of people know Paul Anderson for his wide array of videos that cover everything from the disciplinary core ideas (DCIs) to the science and engineering practices (SEPs), but his website is so much more than just videos. On this sight, he jumps into how to use phenomena, presents anchor charts from his professional develop sessions, and provides a plethora of resources. I frequently use his materials within my trainings and you can use these everywhere from your own learning to in your classroom.
EQuIP Rubric for Lessons & Units: Science: So you know the basics, do you have to reinvent the wheel? Try working with the EQuIP rubric, this will help you analyze existing units and lessons, analyze products, and build new curriculum.
Kentucky Through Course Tasks (TCT): Whether or not you are a beginner, assessment is happening. I have never been to Kentucky, by my love for their science assessments and their former commissioner of education Stephen Pruitt is well known. These well crafted assessments are strong models of three-dimensional tasks and can show you how to apply your burgeoning or firmly planted knowledge and skills.
New Visions Science Curriculum: The first line on the website reads “NYSSLS-Aligned, Full-Course Materials for High School Science,” and if you teach high school…what else could you want? Open source is the dream that modern technology promised us and has yet to fulfill in education. New Visions curriculum provides an open door to fully aligned curriculum and materials that is crafted by experts and with the support of teachers.
Thank you for coming to my session, or reading my materials afterwards. Sorry it took me a few days to get the materials posted! I hope to see some of you at NSTA. Please feel free to reach out to me directly if you are interested in professional development or curriculum support.
All systems in education come branded with their own individual vocabulary. One of the helpful features of NGSS, is that there is familiar language integrated into the new and complex features. Models are an important feature of skill featured in both Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs) and integrated into Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs). Today, I want to share with you some practical ways to use and integrate models in your lessons.
I was raised for many years in a bilingual household. I learned simultaneously to read in English and Spanish. My first word was in Spanish and my first book I read independently was in Spanish. When I started attending daycare, my mother dropped me off with a list of words I only knew in Spanish so that we could communicate. When I went to preschool, I was the only Spanish speaker.
I had blonde hair curly hair and blue eyes. My father’s parents escaped Poland before WWII and moved to Argentina. He was born and raised in Buenos Aires, learning only Spanish. When he moved to America, he was Argentinian through-and-through. My mother, who spent much of her youth in South America, is bilingual and they chose to raise me in a bilingual home for many years.
Home, however, was where it often ended. In school, with friends, and in classroom libraries, I was immersed in a different world. My kindergarten teacher would give me books in Spanish, a kind gesture, but these were different. I desperately wanted to “fit in.”
Today, children’s literature is developing into a diverse field. Characters are inclusive of more socioeconomic groups, identity groups, and culturally relevant stories. Over the weekend I attend the conference, “Diverse Voices in Latinx Children’s Literature” to learn more about developing field.
The conference was opened by ALA President Loida Garcia-Febo. She is a Puerto Rican American, and librarian, who speaks with passion about community through libraries. I wrote down the phrase “glint in her eye” in my notebook, but that doesn’t really do her justice. It is more like an ethereal float.
The day is filled with panels that touch on the different elements of diversity in Latinx children’s literature. The first looks at graphic novels and visual literacy, the second at heroes, and so on. Each session presents new opportunities for educators to find books to create libraries that create strong communities. Each session demonstrates a new genre to help students identify with a character. I am particularly taken with the session on graphic novels. The speakers are passionate and speak to the power of visual literacy.
On Friday, I took advantage of the slightly warmer weather to go on an adult field trip with a friend. I put a on my walking shoes, a comfortable dress, and my favorite dinosaur necklace, and left for the American Museum of Natural History. The entire subway ride to the museum I scrolled through the website considering which exhibits I wanted to view. Did I want to visit the Hall of Ocean Life? Take a stroll through the Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs? Or perhaps I wanted to experience the passage of time while walking along the Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway.
I stepped out of the subway, sped into the museum, paused, and realized I hadn’t been there outside of a school experience in years. How was that possible?
Adults Need Field Trips Too
At the end of the school day, you are tired. At the end of the work week, you want to collapse. By the time a school vacation comes around, you are probably ready to build a fort, make a sign that says “no intruders allowed” and camp out there for an entire week. The job of an educator can be strenuous, but going to the museum or on an adult field trip is often the cooling mist we need to regain our creative forces.
Here are my four recommendations for general organization of adult field trips.
I guess it is kind of cold. As I walked to my favorite coffee shop this morning, I thought to myself, “Hmm, this isn’t so bad.” I was raised in Chicago and my parents reside in the northwest suburbs. Yesterday they sent me pictures of their thermostat hitting negative 20, the cat staring at ice sheets through the window, and the ice cream my mother made outside. Comparably, I just can’t complain.
Twitter and Instagram are littered with stories related to the weather, some stories fun and some scary. My question is, when as science educators should we draw the line between the fun and the fear? Or, can we have fun in the cold and learn at the same time?
It’s January 3rd and I am sitting in my favorite bar thinking about the idea of resolutions. In the past year, a lot has changed in my life. I went from a school-based setting to consulting. A job with a desk to a job with many coffee shops and anywhere that my hotspot may work. I am no longer bound by the confines of the school day or school calendar. For the first time in my adult life, it truly feels like the start of a new year.
When you are in a classroom, in a school, or even in a district, running on a school year calendar makes the new year feel irrelevant. The ball drops, confetti pops, you switch out “2018” for “2019” and move on to your next lesson.
On a recent episode of the post cast Pod Save America (“Pod Lang Syne.”) the hosts spoke to Crooked Media contributors about their New Year’s resolutions. Ana Marie Cox, a woman with many accolades including hosting With Friends Like These, said something that I haven’t been able to shake.
“I hate the idea of resolutions, I feel like they are oppressive.”
She has moved away from resolutions and uses intentions. Ana notes that where resolutions are more pass/fail, there is more flexibility in intentions. I find that as an educator there are many reasons why intentions are a more liberating option.
Are you a teacher looking to bring your curriculum alive? Choosing the right play is the first step for any performing arts or classroom teacher, and also the most difficult step in the process.
Plays can be used in many settings and with little, or no, budget. Take for instance lower school ELA. Reader’s theater scripts can be used during an to practice fluent reading. In middle school humanities switch out your photocopied Greek Myth for a scene study. If you give kids a piece of fabric to drape over their clothes they are suddenly transformed into that character. If you bring an object from home and tell students it will be used a prop your wooden spoon is suddenly a sword. A cardboard box has more uses than you can imagine.
However, choosing the right play is about more than just finding one that fits thematically within the curriculum. Large class sizes, engaging content, and a range of characters are common challenges. I have read countless reader’s theater scripts that have barnyard animals as the main characters and that can get a little tiring.
Ready to get started? Here is some guiding criteria that will help you think about play selection.
The holiday season is a perfect introduction to maker space. Family experiences for me have always centered around hot glue, scissors, and the occasional power tool. I was reminded of these memories while reading the blog A Principal’s Reflections by Eric Sheninger. In his most recent post, “Making is in Our DNA”, Eric speaks about memories with his grandfathers centered around making. These are the moments we remember. The constructionist education movement spoke to the importance of learning by doing. Students, or adults, create their own knowledge by engaging in meaningful tasks. The modern-day maker movement encapsulates this idea by incorporating the constructivist theories and blending them with modern day technologies as the students progress.
The first time I worked with amphipods it was nothing short of a disaster. The boxed curriculum I had been provided with had us culturing them for a life science unit. My first grade class was spending science that period observing the tiny crustaceans in small groups.
The next things I know, his head is half way over the dish. His braids dipped in the container and he is screaming about bugs in his hair.
I am both annoyed because, well, they aren’t bugs, they are crustaceans! And, well, why is his hair in the container!
His group, a plucky band of first graders, pulls him up. One student gets paper towels and dries his braids. Another tells him it will all be okay. The third cleans up a slight spillage. Within moments they are back to their own observations. This then calms me down and the class, which had been distracted from their work, goes back to their own observations. I am still at the back of the room.
