Ms. Bethea and her Wise Words

http://blog.msbethea.com/

I had the opportunity to venture out to another Edublogger.  I came across a fellow chemistry teacher, Ms. Bethea.  In the blog posted above, she is discussing about going to another AP Chemistry PD.  She offered amazing tips on textbooks to consider, some I hope to be purchasing or acquiring.  Ms. Bethea makes a valid point that she doesn't even realize.  Sometimes teachers need books FOR THEMSELVES so they can learn, grow and strengthen their knowledge.  You know it's not ALWAYS about the students.  I mean...it is....but #selfcare,   My response to Ms. Bethea was the following:

Anthony on October 26, 2014 at 4:13 pm.

Posted to Ellena Bethea’s “Teaching/Chemistry” blog

Thanks for the advice on books for chemistry teachers! It may be obvious to think about “considerate texts” for the students, but once in a while it’s important that there’s reading material for the teacher. Teachers will be forever learning. Well, an effective teacher that is. I hope I can learn how to get 500 lbs of free textbooks! Please share the details on that.

I thanked her for her advice and tried to make her realize that her blogging advice had been very meaningful.  The book that she recommended, "Principles of Chemistry" (shown below) is a text that I am seriously considering purchasing.  Ms. Bethea claims that this text might not be appropriate for high school classes, but it is definitely helpful in helping the chemistry teacher think about chemistry in different ways in order to help students understand.  I am trying to think of the content, so I can teach effectively.

(Principles of Chemistry text)

So Some Dude Came to Our EDUC 504 Class the other night and all I took away was TweetDeck...

https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ 

             So the other night, in our EDUC 504 class we had a guest speaker, Tom Ward, who had a lot to say about technology in the classroom.  He showed us some awesome ways Vine can be used in the classroom.  Students would only have 6 seconds to make a video to support a prompt.  I really like that idea because it helps students become concise.  I also recalled on an idea that I stole from an English teacher about using twitter to post summaries to text because twitter only allows a certain numbers of characters.  This word limit is great discipline to help students learn to be concise.  

             However, the moment Tom Ward mentioned this thing called TweetDeck...I was lost.  I bet Naomi, who was sitting next to me, thought I was being extremely rude- but I was fascinated at this twitter organization idea that Tom Ward shared.  My BIGGESt issue with Twitter was that all these tweets were ALL OVER the place....and I literally had to SURF through tweets to find something "cool" or "interesting" related to education; that's because I just started following the NSTA, Edutopia, NGSS and the Common Core Michigan.   As Tom went on with his presentation, I immediately went to TweetDeck and organized my tweets, shown in the picture above.  It REALLY makes the twitter experience a lot more bearable!  As you can see in the picture, I can look through, say the NGSS tweets simultaneously as NSTA tweets are posted.  THIS IS AMAZING.  Thanks so much Tom for introducing this to us/me!  I also think my energy drink might have given me extra enthusiasm for the TweetDeck, but I still find it awesome!

Any questions? Good- Response to a Blog by the NSTA

Any questions? Good.

              I had the opportunity to read a blog posted by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA).  It was so simple, yet effective.  It's nice that a source as prestigious as the NSTA does not overwhelm the user with complex professional vocabulary and syntax.  

           This article addressed the concern for how to properly assess students after instruction.  In simpler terms, this question was addressed:

I need suggestions on encouraging students to tell me when they don’t understand something. I ask my classes if they need any help, but no one seems to have any questions. The next day, it’s as if they never heard of the topic before! —A. from Nevada

This is a very simple concern, but speaks volumes to most of us soon to be in the teaching world.  What is going to happen if we go through a whole lesson and we ask- "Do you get it? Any questions?"  Will we actually get questions?  Will we believe when all students say they understand it?  Here's how the blog presented some solutions:

You could rephrase your questions to provide a context or focus, such as, “Any questions about the difference between eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells?” Give the class a few seconds of wait time to think about their learning and formulate their questions. Model the type of questions the students could ask or how they could check their understanding: “When I was first learning this, I didn’t understand that…” “Tell me one thing you learned and one thing you’re still confused about.”

Is your classroom a “safe” place for them to ask questions? Do students know how to ask for assistance? Is asking considered a sign of weakness? Are students embarrassed to ask questions? No matter how trivial the question or comment, never belittle it, reply with sarcasm, or allow other students to laugh at it. I had a student who thought she would hurtmy feelings if she didn’t understand something right away! (I told her that I liked questions —they helped me become a better teacher.) Having a way to submit questions anonymously may help (a slip of paper, a tweet, or an e-mail note).

Don’t wait until the end of the lesson or test time to discover what students are struggling with. Frequent formative assessments—bellringers, tickets out the door, brief quizzes, responses via clickers or white boards, and thumbs up—may also help students reflect on what they know or don’t know and give you some concrete feedback on their understanding during each lesson.

These are very accessible answers for all of us as teachers to think about and use.  Soon in our EDUC 422 class we will delve into assessment strategies.  This is a nice prequel to that content.

Focusing on the implementation of voice recording? The Audacity!

     Last week in EDUC 504, some of our classmates presented to us how to use Audacity.  I've never really been good with using audio technologies, but the way my classmates presented it were very efficient.  It's a shame it comes on a Thursday afternoon, after a long day of student-teaching, where little attention is readily available from me.  I did participate in making an audio file- which was interesting, and still somewhat difficult, but I couldn't see how I would use this in the future.
           
   I know in our EDUC 511- Records of Practices class we will have to take videos and make audio recordings, but I think I would take the simple approach and use a voice recording app on my phone.  I just feel like the buttons and operations are too complicated for what is required of us in EDUC 511.  I also do not think I'll need to use audio recordings in my future as a teacher.
           
  I claimed that Audacity is complicated, but I am really comparing it to the simplicity of Padlet.  I am waiting until another group wows me with another technology to use that is better than Padlet.