Week 4: Letting Go

As an educator responsible for helping IB students master a very large quantity of complex material, I find myself having difficulty letting go of control in the classroom. There are some valid reasons for this:

1) I will not teach them a misconception. When I let them take over, they sometimes think they understand and end up reinforcing the misconceptions they came in with.

2) It's fast. Not a great argument when I know they won't retain the information as well over the two years before they take the IB exam, but I have a responsibility to see that they're exposed to all the material.

3) I know a few tricks. Well, I certainly hope that my degrees and years of experience help me consider some ways of presenting, some examples to pull out, some attention grabbing demos, etc. that will help my students succeed.

But I have to be honest: I hold onto the reins too tightly and I know it. (This is much more the case for me in IB as opposed to a course without a high stakes exam.) I know that my IB students are not getting enough joy of exploration, fascinating tangents, or student-driven work. For every lesson I create two complementary parts. One is the powerpoint with all the information and visuals that explains as clearly as possible the syllabus material - these contain reflection questions every few minutes and practice problems, etc but are substantially direct teacher instruction. The other is a varied collection of open-ended lab demos, current research and headlines, neat but tangential topics, ethical questions, and jumping-off points for further learning.

In IB, the ppts always get first priority. The rest is squeezed in where possible and as often as not, completely dropped. In Bio 10, my lessons move more slowly and there is lots of variety in activities. In Bio 10, I actively experiment with new technologies and new directions for old material. Interestingly, I surveyed my students in both courses, and found that a solid majority of IB students (about 80%) want to spend the same amount of time or more on ppt lessons, but a smaller percent agree that the learning is consistently engaging. In Bio 10, the students find the class more engaging.

I recently allowed a biochemistry discussion in Bio 10 to take it's own course - the students looked up the chemical composition of foods of interest. That led into health, food labeling, marketing and advertising, diet programs, artificial sweeteners, and more. I led the students with ideas to explore based on their own findings and interests. It was a rich experience with many connections being made across disciplines and to their daily experience. They now know a good deal about organic macromolecules and their roles in diet and I believe they'll retain it quite well.

I would love for the IB students to have the same kinds of experiences but the only way I can see to do it is to cut ppts or increase the pace of the course. My responsibility to prepare them for the exam conflicts with my responsibility to help them learn biology! Still, I am trying little activities here and there - testing them out in Bio 10 - and hopefully, with time, the IB Bio students will get a balanced experience that prepares them for the exam and gives them opportunities to explore.

Week 3: Project Sketch

I have been working on the twin aspects of genetics teaching: one, it has some highly technical, theoretical aspects, but it also has a very human side as we see the challenges that some people are born with and how they can be faced and managed.

My project will address both of these aspects of genetics teaching and will incorporate a wide range of technologies.

Teaching genetics vocabulary:

Enhanced by interactive PPT with understanding checks embedded every few terms so that students can apply the terms and get immediate feedback

Karyotyping and common genetic disorders:

Students will benefit from selected visuals shared on the smartboard that are associated with chromosomal appearance and arrangement (drag-and-drop being especially relevant), Punnett grid set-up, and also with visuals and videos that make the symptoms and appearance of different mammalian and human genetic disorders more relatable.

Humanization of rare genetic disorders (the heart of the project):

By accessing support groups for rare genetic conditions students will be able to read first-hand accounts of what it is like for parents, families, and those diagnosed with different genetic conditions. They may encounter anguish, humor, anger, kindness and more as they read these stories. Hopefully it will build their empathy and help them see both the fundamental human commonalities as well as the unique challenges faced by families coping with Tay-Sachs, Huntington's, sickle-cell anemia, or any of the hundreds of other conditions they may explore.

It is even possible, though it will not be required, that they may contact one of these support groups if it seems appropriate and not intrusive.

Presentations:

Students will have free choice of format when making their presentation about the genetic disorder they've explored. This will allow them to show their creativity and use a type of organization and presentation method that is helpful to them.

Peer support:

Students will be using forums on panthernet to ask questions, respond to others' work, and help each other with the varied aspects the genetics unit.

By using these technologies in a variety of ways, I hope that the genetics unit will hold the attention of the students by showing them amazing facets of humanity, engaging them in active learning, empowering them as explorers, and drawing out their sense of empathy in a way that will make them more caring and sensitive global citizens. This may be too lofty a goal, but it is one worth striving for.

Week 2: The Dangers of Public Commiseration

When reading many of the articles that were shared with this course, I was also struck by and deeply interested in the comments sections. The effect of new technologies on community and empathy has been on my mind much of the time during the CoETaIL courses.

In the past I've focused on malicious and cruel comments in the general online community.

Now I've noticed something more subtle but potentially problematic in some posts and the comments sections of blogs about technology in education. (I'm sure the problem is everywhere, but those are the blogs that I've been reading.) The problem is taking the human need to "vent" and doing it in a public forum, especially one that is likely to be visited by the people you're venting about.

Venting may even be too strong a word; commiserate might be better. It is natural that experts in, for example, educational technology will sometimes be frustrated that not all teachers share their passion for the topic, or agree on its importance, or their competence in working with hardware / software. In the same way, teachers can be frustrated when their students don't admit to forgetting to do an assignment, or make learning a lower priority than the teachers would like, etc.

Still, whatever the challenges of getting some teachers to embrace technology, and whatever backwards examples of its application have been observed, it is counterproductive to post about it in public. Some of the comments speak negatively of teachers in a particular district or school, others lambast "teachers" in general for a variety of failings.

Many of us say things less diplomatically than we normally would when we know (or think) our audience agrees with us. However, when we skip qualifiers like "in my experience" or "some teachers" reinforces the tendency to be dismissive of the group as a whole, to pre-judge individuals we are interacting with for the first time, and to allow similar

Educators have a complex relationship as it is with those that would give them advice. I'm playing on stereotypes here, but we can be a notoriously difficult crowd when taking the student's role.

Yet teachers would be the first to say that learning is a lifelong process. We are passionate about learning, for our students and ourselves. Every teacher knows that she has lessons that could use improvement. We all have things to learn and most of us love learning. So why are we sometime such difficult students.

One reason is the importance of teams.

trust - advice

credentials / experts

shared vocabulary

common goals

tone of comments

generalizations

practicalities of classroom

presumption of good intent

Week 1: What I hope to get from this course

Having completed three of the CoETaIL courses with the first cohort, I've really had to think about what I hope to get from this first course.

Primarily, as with all the my professional courses, I hope to improve my teaching. More specifically, though, I hope to really reflect on how to make the best use of new resources. CoETaIL courses provide exposure to many interesting applications, ways of using resources that I haven't tried before, and much more. As much as I've learned in the courses I've taken so far, my way of thinking about each new idea has been limited, leading to similarly limited uses in the classroom. I'm hoping that since I will be more familiar with the software and technology on offer after the previous three courses, I will have the time to reflect more deeply on their potential roles in my courses.

Time to reflect is sometimes sacrificed when one is introduced to a world of new information - especially when other responsibilities remain undiminished. The end result may be proficiency but is unlikely to lead to innovation. With my personal and professional responsibilities already filling my days (filling them well and wonderfully, but still - filling them), I can't add much "work" time without unacceptable costs to my family. I hope to explore changes that will yield a rich reward for the time I invest - working smarter rather than harder, as they say.

My goal then, for this course, is to set aside the time to truly rethink some "standard operating procedures" in my classroom in order to develop a more integrated role for technology in instruction and learning. The resulting changes may not be flashy but if all goes well, they will be meaningful and will benefit my students.