Lesson Planning

With lots of thoughts from STEAM in the Park swirling in my mind about field trip upon field trip, I'm trying to get some actual lesson plans outlined. Here are my current thoughts (with a Twitter thread posted below), and I'll flesh out how they fit into instruction in the coming days.

1. Pollinator Lawns and Gardens

2. Soil Compaction Effects on Plants (Cherry Blossoms)

3. Water Quality/Stream Study (Tidal Basin, Constitution Gardens, C&O Canal)

4. Forensics of Lincoln and Garfield Assassinations

Some thoughts I am having after #STEAMinthePark @NationalMallNPS - Cherry blossoms. Ranger Jen mentioned soil compaction as a problem caused by the volume of people visiting and walking on the grass/soil around the trees. pic.twitter.com/yYGbJPdHFS

— Ms. Kraus (@MsKrausWheaton) July 1, 2022

Learning in My Own Backyard

I just spent a few days learning more about the National Mall (including Ford's Theater) and how I could use the various aspects of that particular National Park Service site in my classroom. This was all part of Expeditions in Education and their STEAM in the Park program; I applied to be a participant back in January, and learned I was accepted to the National Mall program in March.

I never noticed this small stone monument in the shadow of the Washington Monument before.

I'll post more later, but I had a lot of fun and learned a lot more about sites I already thought I knew about. I also got to go up the Washington Monument for the first time ever, plus got to visit the Department of the Interior building. I also got to network with a great group of teachers and rangers, as well as program directors with the National Park Foundation and the Department of the Interior. 

There are a lot of Native American inspired motifs in the Interior Department building

I came home with a ton of ideas, and I hope that at least some of them can come to fruition in this coming school year. 

Pollinator gardens and lawns are just one of the ideas I came home thinking about

COVID : Distance Teaching is The Suck

We're four weeks into the new school year, and I am drained. 

To many, teachers have it "easy" right now, what with few class meetings per week and being able to work from home. But to think that makes our jobs "easy" right now shows how little you know about teaching as a profession. 

Let me preface this by saying that I speak for myself, and I'm sure there are some teachers out there who are playing the system and actually are working "less." But for those like me, who are veteran teachers with integrity and a strong desire to help students learn, the switch to distance learning has been a nightmare exercise. 

First off, good teachers never just throw lessons at our students without reviewing them and carefully considering how to best reach a particular group of students. Even if I've taught something a dozen times before, each group of students necessitates tweaks and adjustments to the lesson. I may kid around about "winging it" for a lesson plan, but the truth is that I know my material and just need to make adjustments to how I've presented it in the past so that my current students can access the information. 

But with distance learning, that "making adjustments" is a lot of work. Presentations need to be re-saved from Microsoft PowerPoint to Google Slides. Animations and slide layouts have to be checked to make sure they survived the transition. Information needs to be updated, reorganized, refreshed. What worked previously? What might need to be added, changed, deleted to reach this year's students? Maybe the Google Slides presentation needs to be imported into Nearpod, and warmups and checkpoints that were previously done as class discussions and "dip-sticking" are now "collaboration boards" and "polls" so that students are still interacting, even as they refused to turn on their cameras or speak out loud in the virtual classroom Zoom session. 

And how about that Zoom session? In my county, teachers and students were issued Chromebooks, and we were told that the only approved virtual classroom is Zoom. We can use Google Meets or other virtual meeting programs for department meetings or meetings with people who don't have county-issued credentials (like parents for a parent-teacher conference), but the virtual classroom must be Zoom. That's all well and good, until you realize that Zoom was never designed to work on a Chromebook. Chromebooks were never designed for the load we are putting on them. They just don't have the processing power to have open Zoom, our learning management system, our student information system (if we are trying to record attendance in live time), and any other browser tabs that might need to be open. A Chromebook was designed as a minimalist workstation, not a virtual office. So, Zoom functionality on a Chromebook is limited, and I juggle sharing my screen with the multitude of students who "join" the class 5, 7, 10 minutes late on a daily basis. And when I share my screen on the Chromebook, I can't see the chat, and students are posting questions, or, in some cases, going off topic if I haven't restricted the chat to just with me. 

And that doesn't even start addressing how demoralizing and soul crushing it is to "teach" to black squares on my screen. I can picture maybe two of my ~150 students in my head right now, because they are the only two who regularly turn on their video. They also happen to be two who regularly contribute to class discussion, so I recognize their voices as well. Look, I get it. I understand that they might be in a circumstance that they don't want to share with the world. I don't blame them, and I wish I had the same luxury. My friends and family will tell you how much I absolutely detest photos and video of myself. I don't get that luxury of leaving my video off, and I have to see myself and stare at myself in that video all the time. If I'm not sharing my screen, I have to see myself all the time. It is absolutely anxiety inducing, and any day I don't have to do video for 3-4 hours, I am better off mentally at the end of it. 

The Chromebook issue is also part of the video issue. As backwards as it may be, it's actually a good thing that most students aren't sharing their video if they are all on Chromebooks. My experience using a Chromebook is that the more videos that are going (such as in a department meeting), the more likely there will be a "CPU usage" warning that affects the video and audio transmission and reception. 

So, just the actual teaching is stressful because of the incompatibility of the Chromebooks and Zoom. You might ask, "Why not just buy a laptop? Or use your desktop?" Well, my county seems to want full access to any device that I use for work. Even if I want to check my work email, or log into the learning management system on my phone, in order to have access, I have to download an app that allows access to anything on my phone. Ignoring the huge privacy issues that opens up, I shouldn't have to purchase a new laptop or a new desktop just because my old laptop died and my current desktop doesn't have a webcam. Even in 1988, when my dad needed to have a computer at home and a modem to deal with work issues that may come up when he wasn't in the physical building, they provided him with a full workstation, including a state-of-the-art (for the time) 2400 baud modem. We already had an IBM PC and a 1200 baud modem, so we weren't hurting for a computer.

(as an aside, I loved using that HP Vectra workstation, and having access to a 2400 baud modem made me the envy of my friends who suffered with 1200 baud, and in one case, 300 baud!!)

I swear, if my dad worked for the county I do, they would have provided him with an Apple II/GS and a 300 baud modem and had the audacity to tell him, "You'll figure out a way to make it work." 

I wish I was kidding, because that comment was made by someone on the Board of Education for my county. 

Anyway, besides the mental exhaustion, and the time needed to work on the lessons and get the materials for the lessons uploaded, there is also the issue of grading. 

Teachers have always taken work home (well, good teachers -- we're ignoring those who only ask student to regurgitate information and don't actually assess learning), and pretty much always worked outside of contract hours to grade papers. That's nothing new. 

What's new is that we have to have Internet access and a computer in order to do our grading. 

That's huge. I can't tell you how many times I've graded things away from Internet access or a computer. I know people grade things while curled up on the sofa. During time on a weekend getaway. Outside by a fire pit. 

But now, without a computer and an Internet connection, there is no grading. Which means more screen time, more sitting time, 

I know that going back into the buildings is not safe yet. Part of that is because too many people can't understand proper mask wearing and hand washing, and part of it is ignorance of symptoms. Three weeks of quarantine in March and April could have slowed this virus to a trickle, but too many ignoramuses decided it was a hoax, and here we are in September, almost October. I still see the ignorance every time I need to run to the grocery store, with people who refuse to wear their masks properly. But I digress. 

Stop saying teachers are having it "easy" right now. We are all reduced to first year teachers with no veterans to lean on with regard to lesson plans and delivery. We are rewriting curriculum, revising things to meet the virtual learning needs of our students, and we are glued to our screens because we have no choice. Some of us are at our wit's end mentally, and we can't even figure out a way to take a day off, because the substitute system is a mess.

Everyone keeps saying to keep our students' social-emotional needs in mind. Who is keeping the teachers in mind?  

Educational Summer

There's astronomical summer (June 21) that corresponds with the summer solstice. There's meteorological summer (June 1) that corresponds with the temperature cycle.

Then there's educational summer, which for Montgomery County, started approximately June 16th this year. That's the day both students and teachers start their summer breaks. Unless you're a resource teacher, that is, or some other specialty teacher that has to come in during the "summer break."

As a resource teacher, I'm part of the school's instructional leadership team, and we meet during the summer. For some reason though, the administration decided we were going to meet during the last official day for teachers, which made things a bit interesting in terms of getting staff "cleared" and out of the building. I needed to clear everyone before 10AM, so that I had time to find my way over to the Discovery Channel building in downtown Silver Spring, which is where our "retreat" was going to be held this time around.

I made sure to follow someone else, since I'm not exactly proficient with the area. I found a parking garage, and after I parked, I saw one of the special education resource teachers standing nearby. That was comforting, as I knew I wouldn't be the last one to the "party," so to speak. We met up with our school's dean of students, and headed over to the Discovery Channel building.

What an interesting place! We had to wait in the lobby for a while, since the principal was a bit late in getting there, but there were some really cool things to see.

Rawr!

Bimboraptor, recreated with feathers

Bimboraptor without feathers

There was also a neat Rube Goldberg machine that both me and the math resource teacher thought would be awesome if we could get an engineering academy student to do something like that as a capstone project.

Once Mildred arrived, we were led back to our conference room (who would have thought that the Discovery Channel building would have government-like security?!), where a Qdoba-catered lunch was waiting, and we could begin our discussion about the school focus for next year. Amazing how we'd barely closed out the FY15 year, and we were already talking about FY16.

I chose to remain with the discourse committee, since I like the idea of student collaboration, and trying to entice more of it. With the advent of flipped classrooms and the blended learning cycle, I believe student discourse is a piece of the 21st century classroom of teacher-facilitated learning, as opposed to teacher-directed learning. Plus, science classes seem to lend themselves to student discourse naturally just via most the NGSS practices.

So, today and tomorrow will be spent hashing out what "discourse part deux" will entail. This is amidst the cleaning and refurbishment that the building service staff is trying to do, plus me trying to change classrooms. It turns out that the room I'm moving into has a lot less storage space than I thought, plus the AP Biology teacher has a lot more stuff to store than I anticipated. I'll make it work, but it wasn't as easy as I believed it would be.

And the view from the new classroom sucks. The room I've been in for the past two years overlooks Northwood's courtyard, which just became a sculpture garden for a capstone project (or two). My new room overlooks.... nothing. Just a roof. I'll have to compensate with more posters or something.

My old view during a mini-snowstorm in March

Do I miss truly having a few uninterrupted weeks off during the summer? Hell, yes. I did end up bored most of the time though, so having something productive to do is good. I've plotted out a few weeks off so that I can go hit up rollercoasters, plus mom and I can do our western road trip, but I really do work more of the summer than I have "off." Oh, the myths of the teaching profession.

But, no matter what, being sans students and staff is essentially a vacation, so I'll take it. :)

Another Day, Another...

...fill-in your own blank. It's the new year, calendar-wise, but it's still the same old year, school-wise. We're heading into the end of the second quarter, which means two things :

1) students whining about "how can I bring my grade up?"

b) final exams are starting at the end of the week.

The final exam thing is sort of nice. It means a bit of a break for me, as they are all mostly multiple-choi... I mean, "selected response," and so they are easy to grade. Since we don't hand them back to the students (can't, in the case of the county exams), I don't even have to really write intelligible feedback on them either.

#1 is a bit more bothersome though, especially with our administrative push to get rid of a student's "zeros" at virtually any cost. My snap answer is, "invent a time machine, go back nine weeks and kick your past self into doing the work and studying for tests to begin with." Needless to say, they generally don't like that answer ("they" being both students and administration). My alternative answer is, "don't screw up next time you take the class." This one goes over even more like the proverbial lead balloon.

I don't understand the idea that a student who waits until the last week of the quarter should have the opportunity to make things up, when they've had x weeks to do so already. It's not fair to the students who do what they are supposed to do (ie, turn completed work in on time, or ask for things the day they come back from an excused absence), and it teaches nothing about responsibility to let a student make up things whenever. Talk about setting a kid up for failure...

The grading policies and my school's implementation of them are disgusting. I can understand the need for consistency from teacher-to-teacher, when dealing with the same subject. However, the requirement to allow for retaking of quizzes or redoing labs, and the "minimum 50%" rule that are mandated by the county do nothing but allow students to acquire underdeveloped study skills and allow students who really haven't mastered material to get credit for a class. When I have a "top science student" in my anatomy class who routinely scores an uncorrected 30-40% on quizzes, and retakes every one of them to boost his score up to an 80-90%, but then bombs the chapter test with the usual, uncorrected 30-40%, this tells me that the policy is not beneficial.

This sad state of affairs is only compounded by the complete lack of motivation on the part of most of the non-honors students. Attain a 30% on that last quiz? Obviously, that's something to brag and laugh about with your friends! At least most of my honors-level students have the decency to be ashamed of their poor grades. Unfortunately, though, too many of them simply accept the grade and move on, without ever asking themselves "why?" and more importantly, "how can I do better next time?"

These students are the future, and already they are caught in a vicious cycle of repeating their own history, over and over again. Worse still, the obvious is pointed out -- behaviors have to change -- and yet, nothing is done. I can't force them to self-reflect, and I do my best to open their eyes, too often for naught.

Enough venting for now though. I have papers to grade, and a hockey game to watch tonight. Maybe that will elevate my mood.