The Reflective Student

There will be times when you are asked to reflect on your work in class. I usually end each unit of study by asking you to write a multi-paragraph essay about your learning.

I do this because looking back at your work and thinking about what you have learned, how you learned and what challenges you overcame is an important part of your education. 

You will come to understand what strategies work best for you and what doesn’t work. 

You will see how your understanding of the science content has grown - how much you have learned. You will see connections between things that you never knew existed.

Think about the Roadmap bulletin board last year's 7th grade made. They were looking back at all the things they learned. When they were working on it, many students said they were surprised about how much they learned last year. You never really think about it in the moment. It is only when you stop, look back and reflect on how far you've come that you begin to see the bigger picture. That's when you can really appreciate how hard you worked and how much you learned.

Your teachers do this kind of reflective thinking all the time. We’re constantly looking back at our work and evaluating how things went. How to improve a lesson or an assessment for example. 

Looking at your work, and using that experience to improve, is one of the most important skills you can develop in middle school. Being able to honestly reflect on your work will serve you well as you move into high school, college and the work force. 

It’s really the only way any of us ever get better at what we do. 

Such A Good Idea

This past summer, a high school ELA teacher told me about a cool way of breaking up a long block and energizing her students. 

Her school does two-hour blocks twice a week for ELA and Math.  She feels it is really hard  for students (and teachers) to concentrate for such a long class. “It’s really asking a lot of active, young students to focus for, basically two, back-to-back, classes.” she said. 

“I like to give them a break about 90 minutes into the class,” she explained.

Her break is to play Sweet Caroline.

The catch is…everyone has to stand up and sing along - just like they do at Fenway Park in the middle of the eighth inning. (Like this)

She described how into it the kids get. “They’re sooooooo loud,” she said. They are so loud the classes on either side of her classroom open their doors and all those kids and teachers sing along as well.

Then, fully refreshed, they all power through the final 30 minutes of class.

What a great idea…so good, so good, so good.

I Do Not Have Turn-in Bins

Something odd happened right at the end of the last school year: A student got up, walked over to the windowsill and dropped a piece of paper into my ”Unclaimed Work” bin.

When I asked him what he was doing, he said “turning in some late homework.” Mind you, there is a label on the bin that says “Unclaimed Work,” and this student had been in my class for about 170 days - he should have known my routines by this point in the year. I guess he never noticed I do not have turn-in bins for homework. 

He probably did not fully understand what ”Unclaimed Work” means either. That bin is for work that I have corrected but can not return to the owner because he or she failed to write their name on the paper. In the 2016-2017 school year, I said “Put your name on your paper” 12,189 times - I counted.

Every time I returned work, in every class, I had a student walk around showing the nameless papers to the other students trying to find the perpetrators of these anonymous assignments. Anything that doesn’t get claimed and resubmitted to me, goes in the ”Unclaimed Work” bin.

I know some teachers do use turn-in bins for homework and assignments, but I do not. 

I collect your work, or have students collect it, clip it all together, and put in my uncorrected work bin for that particular class. I do this because it helps me stay organized.  

If you have late work, hand it to me I’ll put it in the right place. 

Of course, if you don’t usually write your name on your work anyway, you might as well skip the whole collection, grading, returning process and drop it directly into the unclaimed work bin for me. 

That would save me some time. 

Welcome To My Blog: Episode V – The Science Teacher Strikes Back

My new 7th grade is the fifth class I have welcomed to read my blog. This is my forum to write about my life as a teacher, a student and a person. 

Sometimes, I write to amuse. Sometimes, I write to inform and sometimes I write to help my students put things into perspective.

I hope you find it interesting. Please read, share, comment, agree or disagree with my thoughts and feelings.

I started this blog here in Lowell on January 10th, 2014. My teaching partner challenged me to post my thoughts and feelings every day until the end of the school year. 

This is my 181st post. That’s enough for one post for an entire school year plus one day. I guess you can think of this as the first post of my second school-year. But it’s not. 

It’s taken me nearly four years to get this far - 181 essays (‘cause that’s really what they are) is a lot of writing. This is also the third school where I have shared my blog. 

When I started, I was teaching Math and Science at the Hellenic American Academy right here in Lowell. I taught grades 6, 7 and 8. 

After that, I taught 8th grade Math and Science for two years at the Christa McAuliffe Charter School in Framingham.

This is my second year teaching 7th and 8th grade Science at the Bartlett Community Partnership School. 

This should be a great year. I’m excited to be back from summer vacation and start with a group of 8th grade students I know well, and to meet a whole new crop of 7th graders.

Spirit Week

Welcome back to school (almost). 

In case you were not aware, this coming week is Spirit Week - Yeaaaaaaaa

Here’s the rundown on the week’s fabulous activities:

Monday - Wear your PJ’s to school

I realize some of you do this every day anyway, but this is a chance for the rest of us to catch up with your cutting-edge, fashion-forward sense. Remember, it all has to be totally, and completely school appropriate. 

As for me….nope, not doin’ this. Not even thinking about it. Neva gonna happen.

Tuesday - Hat day

This is the day you’ve all been waiting for - you CAN wear hats in school today! After asking students 234,657 times to remove their hats, hoods, tiaras, crowns and bunny ears, today your teachers are taking the day off and letting you wear hats in school. 

Of course it has to be school appropriate - no camouflage, no rude sayings on the hats and, most important of all - NO YANKEE HATS. Okay, that’s just my own guideline. But, seriously, don’t wear a Yankee hat in my classroom or be prepared to face the consequences. BTW - This is field trip day for the 8th grade so consider that in your hat selection process. 

Wednesday - Dress up day

Hump day is the day to look your finest. Put on your finest outfit and be ready for the sly, admiring glances from all your super-impressed friends. Just don’t be that guy who wears

the t-shirt printed up like a tuxedo. I wonder, can anyone outshine Mr. Clark’s Friday three piece suit look?

Thursday - Twin day

Make a match. Find a friend, teacher, paraprofessional, staff member or administrator and dress alike. Last year, my 8th grade had five sets of actual twins so that Twin Day was really something to see.

Friday - Spirit day

Wear your Bartlett gear! This school should be flooded in Bartlett Blue!!! I have multiple shirts and plan to change several times during the day.

Free Advice

Even though no one asked, I’m going to provide some really good test-taking advice. Some of this might seem obvious and the tone might suggest I am making fun of you (that’s because, I am making fun of you, but in a kind and warm way).

First piece of advice: Answer the question that is being asked. 

If a question says, for example, “Calculate the density of the salt water in the toy Billy is designing and decide if the toy will work the way he wants it too; explain why or why not.” Then the answer is not the math you have to do to figure it out.  The answer is an explanation of why the toy will or will not work the way Billy had intended.  In other words, the answer is a sentence or a few sentences. It is not a number.

Second piece of advice: Draw a diagram. 

If an assessment question asks you to diagram something like convection inside a pot of warming water, writing a paragraph would not be a diagram. A diagram is a picture that should probably include labels and arrows. As much as I encourage you to write - and sometimes a whole paragraph can seem like a monumental accomplishment - it’s not a diagram. They are different things.  

Third piece of advice: Number events in order.

When you are asked to number events in the order in which they occur, use numbers. Don’t use letters. Don’t write down all the events in order. Just put the correct number next to the event on the line provided. If you believe drawing arrows will make things clearer for the teacher, especially if you have already provided letters or made a list (and crossed out and rewritten several of those items), you are mistaken. The arrows don't really help. 

Fourth piece of advice: Write complete sentences.

A question that requires a written response will often include the instruction, “Please write 1-2 complete sentences.” You should, and this will be a surprise to many, write complete sentences. If the question asks, “Describe why we see phases of the Moon,” and you answered “Sometimes see more/less - growing/shrinking,” I’m probably going to mark it as incorrect. You really need at least a couple of sentences to properly describe the reason why we see phases of the Moon from Earth.

Fifth and final piece of advice: Use proper vocabulary

In science, we use terms that are specific and intended to clearly convey concepts. If you use vague words and phrases like “one goes around the other,” I probably will have no idea what you are trying to tell me. We teach you vocabulary for a reason - it’s not just to take up valuable space in your brain.  

Bonus advice: Take a hint.

If your teacher provides a list of vocabulary words to use when crafting a written response, use at least some of those words in your response. For example, if I asked you to describe the process of convection and suggested you use the words density, particles, condense

and expand, you might well assume I expect to see some, if not all, of those words in your description of convection. If you have written an answer that includes none of those words, you have probably written an incorrect or incomplete response.

I’m certain that putting these simple bits of advice into practice will yield better grades - not only in science, but in your other classes as well.  

How’s that? Free advice to help you earn better grades. It doesn’t get any better than that, does it?

My First Calculator

The tiny hand-held calculator is ubiquitous. They’re small, cheap and utterly reliable. You can pick one up at Staples or Walmart for five bucks. A calculator makes simple computing easy and sweat-free. No more long division scribbled in the corner of your paper. No more

memorizing times tables (but you really should memorize them anyway). And now, you don’t even need a separate device, the calculator is built into your phones.

When they first arrived in schools, it was like a miracle - but the electronic calculator wasn’t the first, it just replaced one that we were already using.

I am old enough to remember a time before hand-held calculators. When I was in high school, one of the items on our school supply list was another kind of calculator. It was called a slide rule.

You don’t realize it, but you just saw people using a slide rule. There is a scene in Apollo 13, were the mission control engineers need to do some quick calculations and they whip out a slide rule to do so. The technical accuracy of this scene in the movie can be debated. 

It might have just been a way for the director to show off some obsolete technology in the film, but it is true that each Apollo astronaut few with a slide rule - they just don’t show it in the movie. 

My graduating class was the last group of students who learned how to use, and actually used slide rules in science class. 

A few years ago I bought a slide rule on eBay. I have a collection of obsolete objects and a slide rule was one thing I needed to have in my collection.

I do not recall how to use a slide rule anymore, but, back in the day, I was pretty good. I was quick and accurate.