The difference Between Mixtures and Compounds
This is all I’ve got, year 8 lesson, one hour, the difference between mixtures and compounds. This will be the first time I’ve taught an interview lesson so I don’t really know what to expect. I hate teaching when I don’t know the students at all, so should I try to figure them out at the start of the lesson? A colleague of mine told me this tip, and I’ve used it in nearly all my classes, is to give them a post-it, get them to write their name on the top and draw a picture of themselves that tells me something about them. It’s useful for learning names fast, and getting to know the students quickly as well. It usually stays on the bench in front of them for the first lesson, then I keep them for reference afterwards. I could stick them to a seating plan (but I don’t use them) or get the students to reflect on themselves later in the year, or at the end of their course… but, should I bother for this class I’m teaching for an interview lesson?
I’m leaning towards yes anyway here to be honest. It’s awkward not knowing them, and this is a five minute trick that could be very useful, but will the observers think I’m wasting time?
A very wise lady once told me not to fuss too much about what the school expects from a lesson, and go with what I expect from a lesson. If the school doesn’t like it, would I want to work in a school where they’d expect me to do other than that which I think is best? I guess not! I’ll go with the post-it notes. Maybe.
It’s been a while since I’ve had to teach KS3, and I don’t know if it has changed much, so I went to the standards site, looked at the units again, ran 8F Compounds and Mixtures through wordle and came up with the above. I like using wordle for this, it helps me focus and draws out some things I might have missed.
This wasn’t my original topic for interview lesson, but the #uksnow scuppered the respiration, gas exchange and composition of the air lesson. So I think I can almost safely assume they’ve done that now and composition of the air is something that could be brought up maybe.
I’m finding this hard to plan because I don’t know where they are, if this is new information, revision, mid-topic.. Should I plan a lesson for all eventualities? Am I thinking too hard about this?
Aaaargh! This is difficult!
To play with fire, or not to play with fire….
The job I’m applying for is an aspiring AST position. It’s quite bold, I’ve not been teaching that long really but I’ve worked really hard and taken on every chance to try something new I can, so I don’t feel completely out of line with this. Plus, thanks to amazing ofsted feedback, I’m a bit braver and ready to take it on.
Because it’s this sort of a position, I really feel the need to prove myself for this interview lesson, I’m a science teacher, I want there to be a practical element to the lesson. There’s the classic mixtures and compounds practical:
Not super interesting maybe but it makes the point. There’s also:
To consider, a bit flashier maybe, but both potentially risky with a class I don’t know. The magnesium ribbon I could demo, but teacher demo’s are so dull. Sigh.
I could maybe have some non too drastic illustrations of mixtures of compounds, do some modelling with marbles and jars or something. It hasn’t clicked into place yet, and knowing my luck it’ll click the night before the interview when I’m too tired to prepare resources.
I think it’ll be OK, not knowing what to expect is hard, not knowing the students is hard, not knowing where they are in the course is hard, but then I like this teaching gig, so once the lesson starts, it’ll all be fine I’m sure.
Eep!
Uncategorized | Comment (0)where am I at?
Long post – stay with me – or not I don’t mind.
Blogging
I haven’t done it for a while, I haven’t read many for a while. I’ve a bit fallen out of love with edublogs I have to be honest and am thinking of moving elsewhere. Sorry edublogs. I like your layout and format, I like that most schools don’t block you, but this move to supporters vs. non supporters is not something I do like. I’m fairly reluctant to part with my money, for a few reasons really. I spend a lot of my wages on teaching. I buy plants for the pond, silly toys and things for examples in teaching, I’ve bought pens and crayons, fancy poster board, I’ve forked out to get my voicethread account verified. I’ve paid for things for experiments, I’ve bought seeds and tools and I’ve not got a penny of it back. I won’t get a penny back if I pay for edublogs either and I’m pretty sure my school will not pay for it, and even if they did, I’m not convinced it’s worth it. The adverts are very intrusive and I have a lot more than 30 students who I’d like to use the blogs. I can have whizzy plug-ins but not my students? I’m trying to get them web savvy, why would I stunt their growth here? I a bit miss blogging, I like getting my thoughts down, If I pay up to be an edublogs supporter, it’ll be for me, but when I can use other services for nothing without the same limits, I might defect.
TTP
I had such hopes and despite valiant efforts not to, I feel a little let down by the whole thing. I’ve got pretty much no idea what happened to it after the summer, what the focus was or was supposed to be. I know there were forces beyond the control of many, but a little more communication would have made me happy. Ever since submitting my action research I’ve heard nothing, not even a note to say that it arrived, and I know I’m not the only one. I’m very grateful for the course, I’ve learned some things and changed a lot more, I love the tools I have to use at the moment and feel very blessed for it. In terms of a course though, I feel like a forgotten student, left to wonder if the work was OK or not, or even if we’re expected to do anything else. I don’t mean to criticise anyone here, nor the course, just a little blip if you like.
Wiki
I’ve been spending a lot of time recently re-vamping the science students wiki. They didn’t like the layout so I’m making it as easy as I can, but it’s some serious work, and a slow process, I’m quite relieved we’re at a break in the teaching material as it gives me a chance to re-jig before we get going again. There was some positive feedback from the students though so I’m happy with it. They’re still reluctant to edit it without prompts (not ideal) and strongly suspect it’s to do with ICT confidence. So have gained permission to run a student ICT enrichment. Not convinced I’m going to get many takers to be honest, but that’s a long and whiny story.
Ridiculously addictive, stupid twitter, and horribly useful. I’m following a billion teachers and science types and have learned a lot more in this last week than on a great many CPD’s. Which is lovely. Irritatingly twitter is blocked at the college (something to work on while I’m still there) but I can get it on my mac. It’s nice that I can get it, but I want my students to have it too! My del.icio.us has been getting some serious action this last few weeks but more on that later. Twitter makes me feel very behind the times when I look at all the other teachers, so much more aware of everything than I am, fingers right on the pulse of what’s new and good. I’m thankful for the chance to learn, and to learn fast as well. Twitter for educators is an invaluable resource. There’s a few ways to find other teachers. There’s good old delicious or twitter4teacher wiki or for science types, try sciencebase’s list of scientwists! I’m stopping talking about twitter here for now or I never will.
Del.icio.us
I don’t think I’m using this as well as I could, so am determined this half term to organise my bookmarks properly and set up bookmarks for each of the courses that I’m teaching. I don’t know the best way to do it yet, bundles? or links like this? http://delicious.com/tregreer/teaching? The students like to use del.icio.us to do their searches now, they find the idea of social bookmarking more useful than google, so there’s hope!
Spreading the word
I’m supposed to be starting a ICT working group over the next half term. This is a little daunting as any CPD I’ve been involved in has been terrifying and not always well recieved. I remember trying to show blogging to a room full of post-16 science teachers and the link not working, trying to show them some of the resources available through second life and getting blank faces, that one active learning thing where a teacher decided to argue about suitability (or lack) of a task for her particular group. I really think teachers hate being taught, which is fine by me anyway, I hope they’re willing to learn. I’m going to start with a very small group and make it personal. For a while now I’ve been trying to submit website-of-the-week to the staff bulletin. Every now and then I get some feedback for it.
I’ve been on this course (jury is still out) which encourages using action planning on small and whole school scale to improve the use of ICT. I’ve not gotten my head around it yet, but will update when I have. I’m a little nervous, but very much up for it.
If anyone has any ideas or pointers (am thankful for the flashmeeting on Sunday, gave me some ideas) please let me know.
I think that’s all for now. I’ve got plenty to do and a job interview to prep for, I honestly don’t know where half term is going! To bed! Good night!
Uncategorized | Comment (0)wiki(d)
Last year I had a go at developing a department wiki site (invite key is snab) with mixed results. Only one other teacher got on board with the idea and used it and it was all a little bit stop start. I’m not discouraged though, in fact I’ve given over a bit of time to the pbwiki summer school these last few weeks. Benefits of completion include a free top grade wiki, rather than the usually free basic (but perfectly functional) wiki site.
It’s been an interesting course. Week one homework was to “wikify” a lesson plan. Task two was to create a video or podcast and embed it into a page. The course has gone through a lot of online media resources as well as practical ways of using the wiki.
So I’ve been spending some time getting the new (2.0) wiki ready for September. It’s called Stand back! I’m going to try science! after the very brilliant xkcd web comic. Some lessons I’ve learned from last year
1. While collaboration across courses isn’t a bad idea, the students are more comfortable when they have their own area – keeps it less confusing – cross course collaborative work can be in a “sand box” which is just a space to try it out. Collaboration within courses is way easier.
2. Structure is a good thing – modeling pages and having a universal layout makes it easier to navigate
3. The more work the students do – the better for them and for me so I’m adding the structure and the templates but not all of it. Enough to show how it should look and where they can start.
4. It’s an excellent space to add tutorials and how to pages for all sorts of things – from using things online to practical techniques
5. It has to be integral not incidental - students need to get used to using it from the start otherwise they don’t engage
6. It’s an excellent opportunity for student ownership of a page or subject – for them to become specialists over the course of the year and thus be really great for peer revision later in the year
7. Collaboration and long term projects are a great idea.
I’m guessing because students have such a strong pull towards wikipedia, that their own wiki site will be a much more valuable resource. As it’s them adding the important information there should be tremendous sense of ownership with this.
Here’s hoping so anyway!
Uncategorized | Comment (0)class tools
Just working my way through the top 100 tools for teaching list. Came across http://classtools.net and am having a play with it. Don’t mind me….
I think this could be useful, it’s not the prettiest thing in the world but it’s easy to use for quicky homework/revision tasks. There’s a big list of different types of activities on there, from organisational to prioritisation tasks. Some I like more than others (I haven’t quite got my head around the fish diagram yet) but for a basic no whistles and bells task, this is quite effective. It’s tempting sometimes to always strive for the flashy time consuming tasks, they have their place and I think classtools has its place too.
Uncategorized | Comment (0)silent movie
One of the most boring things I had to deal with last year was teaching carbohydrate structure. I could barely keep my eyes open for it so I pity the poor students with this one. I tried my best, but resigned myself to the fact that it’s boring. I don’t have to do it this year with the new A-level students, but I will have to cover carbohydrates with the BTEC National year two students.
I’ve been reading around the Geoff Petty website in preparation for this thing I’m going to on Tuesday with the post-16 science network and to help me with my scheme of work writing. It’s not something I’ve had a lot of practice with (I sort of did it last year, but not very effectively). That and assignment writing for the BTEC students. Teaching post-16 in a new build as a secondary qualified NQT was a strange career choice all things considered. Ah well, steep learning curve or something….
Anyway, carbohydrates. I had access to an interactive web tutorial and awful looking PDF worksheet (I hate workheets as a general rule – I try to make sure the only ones I usually give out are practical instructions) and we sort of trudged through it and it was OK. Just, boring.
This year I’m abandoning the tutorial and worksheet altogether, I’m going to have some model making, games with molymods and a bit of a mission and medal activity using a silent video.
I’ve made the silent video based around the tutorial I had already, because I didn’t want to over complicate it. For the plenary session of the carbohydrates lesson (I think – that may change). I’m going to get students to plan and record a voice-over that explains the carbohydrate detail in the video. For those who progress very quickly I’m going to get them to design or decide on an opening and closing image as well. I’m probably going to get them to record in class either on their mobiles and bluetooth it to me, or on one of the couple of microphones I’ve got.
The video is made in pulp motion so will be really very quick to add the sound to and time the video to the voice over. If students decide they want music as well then they’ll have to sort out a track and come back to me with it.
Then for the starter of the next lesson, we’ll watch and evaluate each of the videos that they have made. I think it has the potential to be a bit more interesting than a worksheet!
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