It's Your Turn to Change the World.

I didn't run all weekend, to give my knee a rest. It sucked. I did, however, get in a nice 12 miles on a bicycle, in Saturday's lovely almost-60-degree weather. It was beautiful. Otherwise, the weekend was uneventful, and incredibly relaxing.

It's Monday, and I have the Mondays. It's also the first workday after daylight savings, which means that I'll be tired all day up to the moment that it is time to go to sleep, at which point I'll be wide awake.

On Friday, I had a non-teach half day, so I could observe a science teacher an another North Star school. It was an awesome experience, and not only because I didn't have to do any work. It was incredible watching a talented teacher with an extremely different teaching/learning style. The teacher I watched was clearly a spatial learner. He learned by looking at the physical and spatial interactions between concepts. This was both interesting and unnerving to watch, because I am NOT a spatial learner. I do not understand the spatial relationship between anything. I was able to predict that this teacher had a very good sense of direction (which he confirmed after class).

I found the lesson very frustrating, because of the way it was taught. Students were given a blank white paper on which to take notes, which were done with drawings and arrows and non-linear note-taking. It was completely unlike anything I have ever done, which made me realize something: there is probably someone sitting in my class, equally frustrated, because I don't address their learning style. I need to, over the course of a unit, address more learning styles. This led to two action steps I created on Friday:

Instead of just taking notes on a concept (esp. physics), have students draw the forces to prove it (by teacher modeling), and then take notes on it

Address multiple learning types (How can I do this if each topic is only 1-3 days long? Multiple types in a lesson? Or make sure spiraling addresses all learning types?)

Oh good, I was just starting to feel like I had mastered teaching. Ha.

 

Today, I got a lot of housekeeping done. During my 3 hours of observation on Friday, I managed to get ahead by 2 lesson plans. So, today, I spent the day working on miscellaneous activities. I updated the signage in my room, including making a sign that says, "Isaac Newton was a critical thinker and developed the Universal Law of Gravitation. These students show evidence of critical thinking that would make him proud" and is posted above some exemplar student work. It also has this picture on it:


I also completed a decorative project that had been on my to-do list for a while: I printed out a series of colorful posters that say things like, "Thomas Alva Edison, Age 14. Built his first lab and later a lightbulb. It's your turn to change the world." I took the idea from the Google Science Fair website. I posted them around the hallway, including on the wall around the water fountain. I'm pretty excited about them.

I work hard so that they'll change the world. I like to think it'll happen. Some of them, I can't wait to see what they'll do.

Bookstore!

I guess I should be proud that it took 2 months and 100 miles until I had my first cancelled run of the year. I got on the treadmill (sleet is non-negotiable), and 3 minutes later I stopped because my knee hurt. Poo.

It was probably because I spent almost the entire day on my feet. We had our annual trip to Barnes and Noble! We piled all the kids who regularly make their paycheck onto buses, and split the 7th grade among two stores. We went to the one at the Livingston mall. The kids had a good time, and it was easy management, but it was work.  We brought them back in time for lunch, and then had I taught three in a row. Ouch. My feet were feeling it. It was worth it to encourage the students to build their personal libraries, but I'm pretty sad I had to skip a run.

Fortunately, tomorrow is a half day "to catch up on work and on life". I'm going to catch up on swimming, and maybe running on the treadmill at the Y. Not only that, but during the school day, I am going to observe the 8th grade science teacher at another North Star school, so it'll be a super easy day.

I'm hoping I feel 100% tomorrow. In the meantime, I will have a glass of scotch, watch shameful television, and eat lots of things. With chocolate.

100th Day

Our elementary school celebrated 100th Day, which is the 100th day of school, and an excuse for kids to do projects that give them a sense of what a hundred means (collect 100 stickers, write 100 words, etc). That was a couple of weeks ago--today was my 100th Day. That is, today I ran my 100th mile in 2013. For some comparison, last year's 100th mile was in June!

I also ran my longest short run (that is, the longest run ever that was not a long run) of 4 miles. Actually, the GPS gave me 3.99, but screw it. I ran 4 miles!

This week, I've been teaching the kids to calculate the force of gravity (F=Gmm/r2), which requires them to use scientific notation and graphing calculators. They have experience with scientific notation, in that they understand what it is, but they have never seen graphing calculators before. This resulted Monday's lesson carrying through today, and still without a terribly satisfying conclusion. About 1/3 of the kids are really comfortable with the calculations, 1/3 can do it with some prompting, and 1/3 are lost and cranky. Not the way I like to end a lesson. Fortunately, tomorrow is another day of practice.

Next year, I will have a whole day of calculator familiarizing. We'll start with simple operations, then an introduction to entering scientific notation. Then, we can manipulate some exponential expressions, and move up from there. The best part about teaching is that there's always tomorrow, and next week, and next year.

(Fun fact: I just learned on Wikipedia that the reason calculators use "EE" to signify exponential notation is because they want an "E", but don't want it confused with "e". I understood that, did you?)

Joy

Since our PD a few weeks ago was on joy, we had to film a 10-minute clip, and comment on "glows and grows". My IL had asked me to videotape my lab last week, as a potential instructional video for new science teachers (!), so I had the video already. I watched it, and it's pretty easy to be joyful during a lab. I also noticed that I'm really good at giving clear directions. There are a few more things I can do, like more positive narration, but I've been better at not narrating the negatives (and giving private corrections).

I was ALMOST 100% on workouts. I did 100% on running, which is my priority between now and April 21 (UNITE Half Marathon). 16.5 miles total this week, with a long run of 7 miles. The most exciting part was that the long run was not too hard (until about the last mile). Also, the last 7 mile run I did was in July, it was 9 minutes slower, and it took me out of running for 2 weeks with shin splints. This time around, (almost) no pain. My manicure is shot, though.

After my SAT class on Saturday, I went to the Y...and the pool was closed. Some Girl Scout event. Poop. Out of my control.

Sunday, it was supposed to be 45 and sunny. Instead, it was 39 and windy. It was far from idea conditions for riding a bike, so I only got 40 minutes done of my planned 60. All in all, not too disappointing. I'd say it was an 80% week. Now, I've got at least one more build week, and then I'll see if I need a rest week. It's going well.

I also had a weekend full of parents. Saturday night was dinner with the boyfriend's family, and Sunday was lunch with both sets of parents. All enjoyable, though a bit stressful. I think the families get along. No major complaints. And there was good food. Lots of good food.

Weekly Update

Blogging is a good thing to do during detention, because it doesn't take up my attention quite like planning or grading does. However, today's detention is especially boring (1 red, 2 yellows, and 2 greens), so I've got nothing to say about it.

It's getting to be that time of the year. It's too far away from September, but too far away from June. Everyone is sad and cranky and tired. Fortunately, I've learned how to inject joy into my classroom. In fact, last Thursday's faculty meeting focused on making the classroom more joyful. I even got a shout out for my Lab Coat Fridays! I've learned, and noticed since then, that when I get excited about the content, so do the kids. On Friday, I introduced my lesson as, "I'm so excited, this is my favorite lesson. Today we get to connect the lines on our speed vs. time graphs!" Several kids rolled their eyes, as 7th graders do, but one kid, the type of student who can score a B if he's really on his game, made a fist and whispered, "Yes!" If they can get excited about it, so can I.

This Saturday night, we had our annual staff karaoke night. Since we're a 100% school, I made sure to attend. We only ended up with about 75% of the staff there, but it was still riotous fun, including the principal and my IL and the DOO (and the secretary and most of the teachers). The best part was that most of the songs chosen were not recent pop songs that I never heard before. There was a lot of Disney, and somebody (it wasn't me, really) instigated an 8-or-so person rendition of Defying Gravity. There also might have been a drink or two.

Not only did I realize how amazing it is to work with such a good group of people, I also realized that I'm no longer 18 and can't go out like that regularly. I spent a lot of Sunday being not-too-happy, and I'm still pretty tired today. Totally worth it, though.

This week is another 100% week in workouts. I think I can. I already started with tonight's run moved to last night, because the weather was so nice. I did 3.5 miles at a 10:26 pace, which is a little longer and faster than usual. I had worried that my times were slowing down due to the higher volume, but an easy week brought me back up to par. Tonight, I'll do a 45 minute easy bike ride (or however long it takes to watch this week's episode of Bunheads). I'm really hoping to go to sleep before 9 tonight. I'll be proud when I can go to sleep early after finishing 2/7 of my workouts for the week!

This week is going to be a week of distance records. 16 miles of running, 1 mile of swimming, and hopefully a 15 mile bike ride in the real outdoors (45 and sunny on Saturday) + 1:15 riding indoors. I think I can!

Mid-Year Evalutaion

Today, I received my mid-year evaluation. Well, I was evaluated a few weeks ago, but today I met with my principal and IL to discuss it. I was pretty happy with it. Mostly, I was very unsurprised about the action steps. In fact, everything on the form was something that either I have previously discussed with my IL, or something I put on my self-evaluation. I was also happy to see a lot of positive feedback. I got shouted out for my love of data analysis and my strong relationships with students. I was also complimented on being reflective (duh!) and receptive to feedback. Apparently, I have made a 100% turn around since last year. Or something. In addition, they told me again and again how happy they are to have me. You're happy? I'm happy.

Last week was just as crazy as I expected, but I finished it all just in time for 4:30 PM Friday. I had my weekend to myself. The weekend was also as crazy as I expected, but that's a story for another time...

Teacher Reply Form for Mid Year Evaluation

After reading my evaluation…

I am pleased about:

o    Having shown some improvement in student work quality, including starting to implement No Opt Out and overseeing answer quality

o    Positive feedback on student relationships: I have always struggled with non-planned, non-scripted student interaction, so I am happy that it has been working out.

o    My passion for science shows. I’m here because I love it, and it is good that that is evident in my classroom (I am also passionate about data

o   Finding no major surprises: All of the action steps have been skills that I have already begun to work on, or that I have planned to fix in the near future

I plan to work on the following goals:

o   Right is Right – push students to answer 100% correctly by adding correct answers to my plans, then pushing the students to provide them

o    Management – consistently use strong voice by not talking over murmuring (but instead fixing the problem) and using private corrections

o   Keep my classroom neat – weekly tidying

o   Take ownership of skills students’ success – meet with Mr. Walter proactively to make sure students are prepared for assessments and major assignments, identify questions to pre-call students in plans

o   Engagement – focus on more hands raised

I have questions about or could use assistance with:

o    Examples and specific ways to show Right is Right