The Grand Finale

“I ended up with the greatest classroom in the world. And this, my friends, will be our last class for this stage.” —Oprah Winfrey

Just over a week ago, I spent my final day at Central Middle. It was their science fair project grand finale, and I helped ‘judge’ them, mostly by offering encouragement and applauding their accomplishments. I was truly impressed with a subset, others gave a so-so performance, and of course, a few from each class appeared to have accomplished nothing at all. Part of me is disappointed–why did some of the students still fail? Is there something more than I could have done? Part of me is thrilled–and wants to take credit for the growth of some of the best students, but I recognize they may not have needed my assistance at all. 

One of the topics we spoke about this year as fellows was how to assess student learning and instructor performance. How do we gauge if our teaching is truly effective? I hope I made a difference in my classroom, perhaps time will tell. I know my students made a huge impact on me!

I truly enjoyed being a fellow this year and want to thank all people who contributed to my growth, both as a student and an instructor. Special thanks to Jodi Reno, my mentor-teacher, and Steve Case, my mentor-boss-committee-member extraordinaire! 

The three photos below are of the three classes (3rd, 7th, and 9th) that I was privileged to assist this year. 

Cheers–and to next year’s fellows, enjoy!

~Sarah

Science Fair – Part 2

Yesterday my students were in the process of actually doing their experiments! I have to admit, I thoroughly enjoyed watching them make giant messes and have fun, but it was quite hard to keep track of everyone at once. Each class had at least 5 different groups doing experiments, most of which invariably included throwing things, water, food coloring, baking soda/vinegar explosions, etc. Unfortunately, there weren’t any major eureka moments to report, but I’m hoping that the students will be able to pull together their background research and experimental data for some top-notch presentations next week. Fingers crossed!

Science Fair–Part 1

Wow – It surprises me each and every year how hectic the end of the KU semester is; everyone is sleep-deprived and a bit punchy, including me! I have a couple of posts to catch up on.

Last Thursday, my students continued doing background research for their science fair projects. Mrs. Reno has figured out a nice way of getting each student to contribute to the group of four that tackle experiments together. Each student writes down 24 relevant facts that pertain to their research question. The way that “relevant” research is enforced is to require them to each make a hypothesis about what they think will happen when they do the experiment. The hypothesis layout is If….Then….and Because. For example, “If I attach three paper clips to my paper airplane, then it will fly faster because the additional mass requires the plane to fly at a higher velocity to create enough lift to stay in the air.” The “Because” part of the hypothesis is supposed to come directly from their research. This method, although conceptually rigorous, is variably successful with the research teams. Many still do not do relevant research, and as a consequence, have rambling, circular hypotheses. The most difficult task I had last week was to try to get them to understand what makes a good hypothesis without accidentally giving them the answer to their problem!

Aside from the research, one brief conversation I had with a student impressed me more than any other yet this year. I was chatting to a new student in the class who I noticed had amazing calligraphy on his binder. I told him that he was good enough to work in professional design. He said that he wanted to go to college to be a tattoo artist. I asked where he would like to open a business, thinking that he would certainly choose somewhere far away from the depressed neighborhood around the school. To my surprise, he said that he wanted “to stay in the hood, and try to make a difference for the people that lived there”. What wonderful, grand hope from a 7th grader. I wish we all could think a little more like him.

Scales of the Universe

A colleague of mine, Jude Kastens at the Kansas Biological Survey, forwarded this link to me:

Scales of the Universe – http://htwins.net/scale2/scale2.swf?bordercolor=white&fb_source=message

This site is WAY COOL!  How big is a string?  How big is a nebula? How big is a beach ball?  You can zoom your way from from 10^-35 meters to 10^27 meters in a Limitless meets Contact sort of google earthy experience.

I wish I had seen this earlier in the year!

Will you marry me?

This is the question that every girl awaits for someday, right?  Ok, maybe not every girl, but I’m digressing.  Never in a million years would I have expected to hear this question in a middle school, let alone be the person in the school the question was addressed to.

This was my last day at the middle school and Ms. Scali announced to the students that it was my last day.  Now my memory of what happened is a bit hazy, probably because my brain went into “oh crap, think” mode, which will make more sense in a minute, but I think the students were giving me a round of applause as a way to send me off.  That’s when one student got up, came over to me, got down on one knee holding up a ring (well, actually it was a bracelet with a heart on it), and you guessed it, asked “will you marry me?”  This caught me completely off guard and I was speechless!  Now I’ve been asked this question once before and was speechless, but for obviously way different reasons.  Anyways, I’m trying to decide whether he’s joking or serious and I decide he’s likely joking with me so I try to revert the situation by giving a small laugh and telling him the bracelet is cute.  “But…will you marry me?”  Crap, maybe he’s more serious than I thought, or he’s really enjoying the joke.  After all, he has the ENTIRE class’ attention.  It’s time to end this…nicely.  “That’s sweet, but I’m actually already married,” as I show him the ring nestled on my finger.  Naturally, the whole class starts laughing him as he makes his way back to his seat.  Don’t worry, I think he’ll survive. :)  I think I even overheard one of the classmates tell him to get used to it.

This little experience got me thinking though.  When I think back to all of the people (e.g. teachers, advisors) that have/had major influences on my life, I recall having some sort of emotional tie to them.  I’m not saying I wanted to marry every influential person that crossed my path, but I did honestly have a good relationship with them.  Some of them I looked up to, some of them I admired, some were just super hilarious and could somehow entertain and help me learn, some were really passionate about their work, and some I knew were just really good people.  Some were even strict and had teaching practices that I didn’t always agree with, but I still liked them as a person.  Do we learn better with an emotional tie to our educator?  Has anyone ever had an instructor that they couldn’t stand, but they still learned a lot?

As a current and potential future educator, I’m quite certain I will continue to strive to establish this emotional tie, although I’ll try to keep future proposals at bay

“Disciplining” troubled/highly stressed adolescents

I came across this article today, and thought back to many of our GK-12 discussions.

WA high school tries new approach to student discipline — expulsions drop 85%. By Jane Stevens

It’s impossible to address learning in students who are extremely stressed by their home lives, and are more concerned with life and death matters than their school work, etc.  And the way these students are normally disciplined when they act out or explode has obviously not been effective (except at feeding the problems and making them worse!).

Thought I’d pass this on in case you hadn’t seen it.  Hope the semester is going well for everyone still in the classroom.  It’s certainly been a change to be back teaching undergraduate and graduate students this semester instead of 6th graders!

My students think I’m a sexologist…

SO… today was a really exciting day (but yes, the title is correct!!). I decided to have all of my students be geophysicists today by bringing in all our seismic equipment and doing a demonstration outside with them, with the help of one of our former GK-12 Fellows, Brian Miller.

I started with a small powerpoint again, just introducing basic concepts of seismic and the equipment that we would be using. To explain the title, I asked the kids “Okay, what do I do again?!” It took all the classes a few guesses but they were usually able to get to geologist… except in one class where I had a student go “I know! You look at bodies! Your a sexologist!” I laughed out loud at this one, I couldn’t help it. I then explained to him that no, I use geophysical equipment to search for archeological sites, sometimes at a site there could be burials with yes, bodies. But I am NOT a sexologist… Oh well, at least he kinda sorta remembered something from the beginning of the year?? Anyways… I had some demonstrations in class to show them, and then we went outside, set up our own survey, and the students got to swing the sledgehammer and do their own noise tests. It went really well! The kids were attentive, engaged, and really enjoyed getting out of the classroom. This was by far the best day I have had in the classroom with all of the students.

One particularly good take away from today was one interaction I had with a student. This student has transformed a lot this year… when I first met him he was smart, doing his work, didn’t get in to too much trouble… but as the year’s gone on he’s gotten pretty involved in gang related activities from what I’ve seen and been told. His appearance changed a lot, he has become a huge troublemaker, in ISS all the time, talking out, not doing his work… and it’s been so heartbreaking because he is a really smart kid with potential! But for this seismic activity, he got really into it. After the demo, we went upstairs and were discussing what we did and he was actually raising his hand interested and asking me questions about geology and the earth, I was so excited. It doesn’t mean he’s not doing what he’s doing still… but at least for that 40 minutes I got him excited about learning again.