The Hits Just Keep on Coming, a Lesson Plan a Day, & The Last Round-up

The Hits Just Keep on Coming
Today over our weekend cup of tea in bed I was talking with my wife about the "audience" feature on blogger.com and how amazed I was at how this blog had been accessed by people from Russia (29), India (9), China (24), Sweden (9) , Poland (8), ... I thought about some of the blogs I have posted and occasionally I have mentioned those countries. I pondered if that was the reason. I had the idea of finding a list of all the countries in the world and just posting that in a blog and seeing if I got some kind of hit from every country. My wife thought that was a good idea. I said that was not the purpose of the blog. The purpose was to be a record of my last year teaching. She pointed out that the blog has become part of my last year teaching. I could do it as an experiment in blogging for the interest of my blog followers. Above I've listed the number of 'hits' I have had from some countries, so I can track if I get any more hits just because I mentioned the name of the country in this blog. I was about to just list a random country that I had never had a hit from and see if that caused some one to visit this site from that country and I saw I had my first 3 hits from the Phillipines today. Thanks for joinng. If you are reading this, do you mind commenting on why you visited this site? The country I am just going to mention though is ... Denmark.
A Lesson Plan a Day
My wife thought I should post a lesson plan a day. I didn't think people would be interested. I have them all saved on USB, so it is not what I need or want a record of . If anyone would like a lesson plan, post in comment some way to send them to you. Hopefully when I read through this in a few years time it will bring back some of the emotions of the year. If my mind has slipped away much more than it has already, maybe it will help me hold onto parts of what was my profession for 35 years.
The Last Round-Up
I seem to be writing about 2 blogs a week and I just counted 13 weeks (not counting spring break) until I hang-up my whiteboard eraser and head to the San Pedro airport for the last time. I suppose blogging has become a part of my last year. I'm kind of sadly looking at the last 26 blogs or so and wondering what is there I want to capture about the last few weeks of the last year of my teaching career. The blooging has taken on a life of its own and helped me take frustrations and frame them as something I want to remember. At the professional development conference this past week, the director of the school had a session entitled something like 'The 3Rs to the 4Cs'. He was looking at education for the 21st Century (which is now, but the idea is the future has arrived, I guess) and proposing that 'Reading, Riting, & Rithmetic' should be evolving into "Critical thinking, Creativity, Communication (evolving digital/global), & Collaboration'. I found out the next day that these 4Cs are related to the work of Cheryl Capozzoli  ( http://web20guru.wikispaces.com/ - a great site for future education connections). The director made the prediction in his presentation that writing would become obsolete and challenged anyone in his audience to debate the prediction. I wasn't sure if he was referring to handwriting skills or the skill of organzing neural firings in the brain and expressing them in some manner so that they can be interpreted by another. I should have clarified that point as I don't think the skill of communicating your thoughts in some organized manner will become obsolete. Even if you could have your thoughts instantly fed into some computer software which imposed  The Elements of Style , spell check,  and grammatical editing on them before popping them upon a computer monitor, I would think you would still need to  review adn make some revisions of your product before making it available for public consumption. Wow, that was a long sentence. Maybe the imposition of that software on my thinking would help as I head into my last 26 or so blogs.

Learning to Blog

I'm currently at a session at a professional development conference on blogging. I have to go save something to my new gmail - oops the computer I was on just crashed and I've changed to a new computer. I've lost what it was I was supposed to save. Now we're on to starting a blog  - on http://www.blogger.com/ and sign in with my new google account. I'll be back.
When I logged into that web address it took me right back to here.

Nice idea I just got to set up a separate blog for students that I tutor. I don't tutor anyone now - but a thought for something after retriement sets in and I long for the thrill of instructional moments and money.

Now what would I call that blog - I'm open to suggestions from any followers. Maybe something like - Dr.C's Tutoree's (Thanks for keeping me from bagging groceries at Publix!). Maybe that's a little long for a blog title.

Hopefully soon we are going to learn some bells and whistles. O.K. we're going to learn some uploading tricks.

I've uploaded the picture I am typing next to right now. The reason behind this picture is because the upcoming 7th grade project on the end of the earth!! It has been a little weird typing around the picture. I'll have more on this picture. Last year I read an article on a major danger to the Earth came from cosmic wind (I think it was ) when our solar system pops above the galactic central bulge. (FYI The picture is from the website emergentculture.com. Nice info on Mayan calendar.)

Now we are going through safety settings. I think mine is set so anybody can read it. Yes, it is. Wow, I just had a look at the "stats". I had no idea so many people had visited - 8 from Poland and 8 from Russia. Spaseeba! 
Now we are supposed to play with it. How about some background color?
We can go now.

Space,Time, & Other Dimensions

My daughter gave me the book Hiding in the Mirror for Christmas. I finished reading it this past week and passed it on to a student who likes to talk about white holes, traveling faster than the  speed of light, dark matter, ... stuff like that. I must admit I didn't understand a lot of the book, especially toward the end when Krauss gets into D-branes, M-theory, different types of string theory, stuff like that. At the end I sort of got the impression he was saying that there is no physical evidence that supports any of the many mathematical theoretical constructs that suggests there are other dimensions out there or all around us. Hopefully it is something 'afterlife' will clear-up.
Not much to do this Sunday as I am pretty well planned for the next couple of weeks and  am treading curricular water between the end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th bimesters. Admin moved bimester exams back a week. I missed the meeting that discussed the movement of bimester exams as I had duty and was told by the principal that if I couldn't find my own duty replacement I could get the info from someone else. I chose the latter option. My wife is in school today beavering away and I have spent the past hour checking out what jobs are out there. Not that I am seriously looking, but just for old times sake dreaming about where I might go next. I cruised TIEonline, SearchAssociates, and QSI websites and dreamed about being director of a small school in Kosovo. Maybe another lifetime.
Now for the philosophical question that will hopefully pull this Sunday morning ramble together.
Does destiny exist and if so is it evidence of another dimension?
I was reading an article not too long that said something to the effect that the temperature of the universe is decreasing which indicates a universe that is becoming more organized. Entropy (2nd law of thermodynamics concept) states that energy in a closed system (our universe) always increases. The temperature of our universe should be going up unless the universe is getting more organized. If the universe is becoming more organized what is it becoming organized to be like. Does the universe 'know' what it will be like and are all our actions part of what has to happen to make the universe that way?
In 1984 my 2nd wife, new son, and I were in Quito on a buying trip. We were going to go into the importing South American handicrafts business and leave education behind. We were a little nervous as the next paycheck was dependent on several boxes of sweaters, scarves, straw Christmas ornaments, primitive paintines, and more stuff like that reaching the USA and being desired by folks enough to pay us at least 3 times what we paid for it. We had just shipped off the last of the boxes and were wandering down Avenida (or is it Calle) Amazonas looking for a place for lunch. We had decided against going to La Fuente because we had lunch there almost everyday when we were in Quito. It was where I met artists I bought from. We started at one end of Amazonas and must have gone in 6 restaurants, but for different reasons (not open yet, bad smell, cleaning, available table not in good spot, stuff like that) we ended up at La Fuente. There we saw 2 friends who were teachers at Academia Cotopaxi. One was a high school science teacher who had just gotten his schedule for the coming year and was not happy. He asked me if I could teach high school Chemisty. I said, "Yes." He called the director and chauffered us immediately to meet the director who had jobs for us both. We looked at our baby, each other, and abandoned our handicraft business dream. Coincidence, Fate, Destiny, Dark Energy pulling us toward a dimension that exist which is the future universe where the energy of our current universe has achieved its highest level of organization before it starts to fall apart and heat up? Every person I  have interacted with since then owes our relationship to the sequence of events that pushed us to return to La Fuente. My daughter who gave me the book was born in Ecuador almost 2 years after the fateful lunch at La Fuente.
Oh well - time for lunch. Where shall I eat today?

Why teach science?

In the 1850's Herbert Spencer argued that the teaching of science should be a major priority in everyone's education. John Dewey at the turn of the century was pushing for education that involved kids in experiential exercises that improved their logic and problem solving abilities (scientific method). Today science falls somewhere around the importance of learning a foreign language in most schools. You need 3 credits to graduate.
My doctoral dissertaion was about attitudes of elementary teachers toward teaching science. The research I did back then (late 1980s) indicated that most elementary teachers were afraid of and avoided the subject. I would estimate that over the many years I  have taught middle school science I have had at most 20% of the students that are truly interested in science. Could this be a result of the fear or apathy towards science that most kids experience in elementary school or is it the nature of the subject?
I Googled "educational importance of science" and got some blogs reiterating Dewey's notion of the value is in the process of how to think and some articles on how science education has created the emerging economies of India and China, so countries need to get behind it or fall behind. Back in the 60s (when I was in elementary school and science was being shoved on to the plates of our little minds by very poorly prepared teachers because the Russians had a satellite flying overhead) the image of our competion was of the brightest young Russian scientific minds housed together in schools with the best resources. I'm not sure if that was the case. A brief search of the internet gave some indication that there was a lot of economic resources put into science education in Russia in the 60s, but I couldn't find how that impacted the average elementary school-aged Russian kid. My personal experience is that when kids who are interested in science are in classes together they feed off of each other. When they are spread among the general non-interested student population, they often tend to hide their interest - especially girls. By high school some streaming by ability happens and I have worked in middle schools which have advanced science classes for the interested, but the general rule is one size fits all - which obviously doesn't seem to fit with the U.S. education department's theme of "No Child Left Behind". Or maybe it does. No child gets left behind, but nothing is going to be done to assist the curious and talented in getting ahead. Of course there are loads of criticisms of this huge waste of taxpayer money, so I'll save that rant.
Next week I start my last 9 weeks teaching and deliver (possibly) my last professional development presentation. What will be the value in the science I wil try to teach? 8th grade starts debates on environmental issues and preparing a PowerPoint to support a  foundation they feel could make a positive difference in the world. Sixth grade plows ahead preparing for their science fair. (Dewey would be proud of the individual projects and efforts at making sense out of data collected under some attempt at controlled conditions.) The 7th grade begins exploration of our fragile planet and will begin to prepare PowerPoints on world shattering events that could (in most cases) destroy or irreparably change our lives forever. Generally subject area enthusiasm is high in 6th and 8th grade. Seventh grade I battle a peer culture of apathy for school in general and a group that is quick to laugh at effort. I wonder if ideas related to the possible impending doom of our planet will send them farther into their adolescent world encaged by their desire for peer approval.

Presentations - WILD to Cooperation

The soccer festival was partially rained out Saturday which left me motivated to complete the handout for the local educational conference next week. I worked up my handout on aspects of cooperative learning with an activity (Determining "what knowledge is of most worth" based on Spencer's 1859 view and the 2006 view of the European Union). Then I started reflecting back on what was my first professional development type presentation. Back in 1987 I was trained to be a Project WILD presentor and as part of getting trained you had to have a few presentations set-up to deliver. Those were my first - I believe. One of the hardest of those was one I delivered to a group of elementary teachers who were being paid to spend their summer studying how to teach chemistry to their kids. The grant recipients hired me to deliver a July 4th Project WILD  workshop to the group. Nobody really wanted to be there, but it went fairly well until it started to rain in the afternoon. A 1-2 hour activity of making lifesize drawing of whales in the sands of the Mississippi Gulf Coast turned in to a scramble to find activities to fill the time slot. The participants were kind though and evaluation turned out positive all things considered.

Below is the hand-out for my last professional development presentation.

Cooperative Learning – Theory to Practice
Johnson, Johnson and Holubec: "Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups through which students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning.”
Cooperative Learning in the Classroom, 1994

5 Aspects
1.Face-to-Face Promotive Interaction

Method: Encourage discussion of ideas and oral summarization.

Today’s Discussion: What knowledge is of most worth?

2. Positive Interdependence

Students must feel that they need each other in order to complete the group's task. They "sink or swim together."

Methods: jigsawing information, limiting materials, single team product, team roles (recorder, reporter), or by randomly selecting one student to answer for the team.

Today’s Roles: Chief Operating Officer, Language & Safety Monitor, Quality Control Manager, Equipment Engineer, External Affairs Representative

3. Individual Accountability/ Personal Responsibility

Students must feel that they are each accountable for helping to complete a task and for mastering material.

Today’s Method: Randomly select one person to answer.

4. Interpersonal and Collaborative Skills

Method: Actively teach social/collaborative skills like leadership, decision-making, trust-building, communication, conflict-management skills

Today’s Process: Include & encourage everyone in sharing, listening to, and valuing ideas.

5. Reflection/Group Processing of Interaction

Method: Give students the time and procedures to analyze how well their groups are functioning and how well they are using the necessary social/collaborative skills.

Today’s process:

As a team decide which answer best suits the way your team worked together and complete the remaining sentences.

1. Everyone shared ideas. YES NO

2. Everyone listened to each others ideas. YES NO

3. We did best at____________________________________________________________

4. Next time what could we improve at and how _____________________________________


Information for Activities

‘What Knowledge Is of Most Worth’

Recommendations of Herbert Spencer (in descending value):

(1) activities that relate directly to self-preservation,

(2) activities that indirectly minister to self-preservation,

(3) activities having to do with the rearing of offspring,

(4) activities that pertain to political and social relations,

(5) activities that relate to the leisure part of life and are devoted to the tastes and appetites.



Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of the European Union, 2006,
( in no particular order)

1. Communication in the mother tongue

2. Communication in foreign languages

3. Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology

4. Digital competence

5. Learning to learn

6. Social and civic competences

7. Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship

8. Cultural awareness and expression

In addition, "critical thinking, creativity, initiative, problem solving, risk assessment, decision taking, and constructive management of feelings” are considered important across all eight key competences.

Old Snail Crawling through Glue

Old age is definitely catching-up with me. I find every other night I'm waking sometime between 1:30 and 2:30 and after relieving some bladder pressure I can't get back to sleep. Only 11 or so weeks of this and then I can prowl the nights and take afternoon naps.
This week seems to have pulled itself forward like a snail through glue. It started it seems like months ago with the 8th graders completing their rocket car design experiment. This website has info on how to make rocket cars http://www.sciencefairadventure.com/ProjectDetail.aspx?ProjectID=137 .  Every student makes a rocket car and competes with their team to see whose is the best. Everyone then looks at the winning car from each team and has an opportunity to modify their team's best car so it will go the furthest on one balloon of air. All modifications need to be explained in relation to which one of Newton's Laws of Motion supports the logic behind the modification. I've done it for years and with various grade levels and kids always love it. The 7th grade is exploring acid-base reactions. They found the denisity of each of the Honduran coins on Wednesday and we then dropped the coins in acids of different strengths. Today during the double lab period they calculated how the density of the coins changed. The acids weren't too strong, so I don't think they will find much change (shucks!), but I suppose on the good side I don't have to worry about any sort of prosecution for detroying local currency. The 6th grade is collecting data for their science fair. Yesterday half the class did their experiments while the other half helped. One student was trying to test which dog food his dog preferred by holding a bowl of one brand under the dogs nose and shaking it for awhile and when he got tired of that he switched to the other brand of dog food. I had him weigh the food and then put it on 2 different plates and leave the dog alone. My most ambitious project was testing which type of dishwashing detergent is best for extracting DNA from lentil peas. The student forgot to bring the recipe for extracting DNA. After we found one on-line, she  just managed to get enough lentil peas blended to conduct the experiment before the blender burned up. But then she dumped one brand of dishwashing liquid into all the blended lentil pea mush she had. There was no lentil pea mush left to try the other 2 dishwashing liquids on, so we have to start over and now she has to blend up the lentil peas at home.
Now I have talked my way into teaching the whole pre-Algebra class basic skills once a week. They are about to arrive, so this snail needs to get the mini-whiteboards and markers set-up.

Penultimate Bimester Exam

I spent yesterday (Saturday) putting together my next bimester exams. I get a little jaded as I try to fill up 2 hours of time with the facts, concepts, and some skills (making data tables and graphs) from the past 9 weeks. I read someplace that it takes 20 minutes to properly teach a concept and 35 to teach a skill. Also, I've read that kids in best of situations retain somewhere between 10-15% of what they are taught. (I also read that over 90% of statistics are made up.) Teachers out there will have a feel that these numbers are close to accurate, though.
I have about 1800 minutes of teaching time in 9 weeks. I need to take out a week for the exams and half a week for review. That leaves about 1520 minutes per week. At 20 minutes per concept that would mean I should have 76 concepts to test. My test are about 120 questions long with a few skills and calculation type problems. Eighth grade are  velocity and acceleration and balacning chemical equations. Seventh grade are calculating density and molecular weight. Sixth grade are figuring out metric conversions and hours of daylight. If they remember 10%, then they should hang on to maybe 5 concepts and one skill. For how long will they hang on to that 10%? I'll need to do soem research on that.
Earlier in the school year I wrote a blog on SuperMemo which is this computer program that helps you learn stuff. My rudimentary understanding is that it helps you figure the optimal spacing for your review of material that you have prioritized to learn. In December I tried an experiment with some obscure (to me) Spanish verbs. I made 3 lists with 10 verbs on each list. I then studied one list every night, one list every other night, and the final list every third night for about 3 weeks until I knew all three lists perectly - 100% every night in a row for a week when my wife quizzed me. Since Christmas vacation I haven't looked at the lists. Last week I asked my wife to quiz me again. I got 8 out of 10 on every list.
I don't review facts every third day with students and certainly not 30 facts at differential intervals over and over for 3 weeks. If I did how would I choose those facts or concepts? I suppose it works out to about the same as the 76 concepts I figure I'm testing on the bimester exam. Maybe I should make the bimester exam in advance and give the kids 20 questions every day, 20 questions every other day, and 20 questions every third day for 3 weeks. Then move on to the next 60 bits of chosen information. Without review (if any are close to my pattern of recall) they would score around 80% with no studying. Of course what is the point?
Anyway onlh one more of these wretched series of bimester exams to prepare.

Kind of a "Cool" Week

Week 24 is almost over - only 12 weeks left!
Tomorrow (Friday) I just have a double lab period with one of the 7th grades and a 6th grade class. I had a section of 7th grade today, so the lab is all set up. Last week they had an activity during their double lab period to find a video of the "coolest chemical reaction" (none longer than 2 minutes) and email the link to me. Monday we watched the videos and each team gave a reason why theirs was the coolest. If I was going to be doing this again I would develop that idea more. Some kind of rating system for teams that recognize the scientific "coolness" of the reaction. For instance one team argued that theirs was the coolest video because of the "cool"song by Black Eyed Peas ( a cool group) that accompanied the cool explosion of a gummy bear in potassium chlorate. Another group stretched the bounds of imagination and gullibility by sayng theirs was the coolest because they could use the reaction of potassium iodide, dishwashing liquid, and hydrogen peroxide to make toothpaste for their elephant. (Google elephant toothpaste if you don't know this reaction.)
My blogging was just interrupted by a one hour visit from a student who is not doing well and her much older brother who came to help her. I tutored them on periodic table and density. It was kind of cute how he would jump in with the answers to the questions as we prepared her for her test tomorrow.
Today I got a thank you letter from the 7th grade for coming to their sleepover. It was kind of cool. Below is the text:
"Thank you for giving us a scary night. Thank you for giving us a great night of scary stories and a great experiment. We like your humor because you are super funny. You are our best teacher in school!!!!! Science class is the best!"
Wow - that is almost encouragement enough to make me rethink retiring. Watching the 2000 mile wide front of cold weather blasting across the US certainly makes the warm Honduran climate attractive this time of year.