Building a Better Science Teacher

http://www.flickr.com/photos/crucially/412106816/

This academic year marks my 5th year in the teaching profession. I am thinking more about what I want students to know and do as a result of my teaching. While I am guided by state and national standards, I also have ideas about what skills I want students to develop in my courses:

- technical writing


- making and interpreting tables and graphs


- presenting lab data and science content in multiple formats


- thinking/inquiry skills


- reading and vocabulary proficiency


- content knowledge

This semester I will design activities to balance content and skills development. This is consistent with efforts to flip my classroom and incorporate standards-based grading practices. While my students do hands-on activities and experiments on a regular basis, I want to be more deliberate about what I want my students to learn from these activities.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Science_lab_in_Fisher_Hall.jpg

One way I can more deliberately incorporate process skills is having all of my students compete in the Google Science Fair. My intent is to break down their projects into small assignments they can complete before the submission deadline, April 1st.

First, I want them to develop their own research questions. I want them to understand that they can apply the scientific method to many subject areas.

I am hoping that participating in the Google Science Fair will get my students excited about science and help improve their Science understanding and skill set.

Standards-Based Grading and the Flipped Classroom

This week I am attempting to incorporate aspects of Standards-Based Grading into my Biology class.  Here are some of the details:

1. I am introducing a standards-based rubric. 
2. I am providing the students with a learning plan of activities for them to complete throughout the week.  Activities include performing inquiry projects, finishing vocabulary activities, watching relevant videos, and completing online activities.  Students will have to demonstrate mastery by writing open-ended responses to questions about the content as well as take quizzes and a unit test.
3. Students will have the opportunity to retake an assignment to demonstrate increased levels of mastery.
4. I will also create an online standards-based gradebook on Google Docs.

I believe standards-based grading is consistent with the flipped classroom movement because:

1. Allowing students to watch videos outside of class gives them more time to develop and demonstrate mastery in class
2. The additional activity time gained by flipping a classroom should provide additional time for teachers to help students attain mastery.
3. Flipped classrooms should be classrooms with evidence of student work linked to content and process standards.

I will write about how this process worked in this unit during future posts!