Gearing up for a vacation...

Why do I always feel like I'm forgetting something? My husband and I take off for Miami tomorrow, making a stop in Boston to visit a friend and commandeer a parking space for the week. I'm preeeeeetty excited. I've gotten just about everything done for grad classes, and I'm finishing up some grading for the kiddie tonight. I'm not even bringing my laptop with me... I don't think. We'll see I guess. I don't know if I can go a whole week without being directly connected to the thing!

We're staying at my sister's new South Beach apartment... 20th floor, jacuzzi, nearly 360 degree view of Miami, the beach, the bridge and the islands. *sigh* Delightful. We'll also be doing a day trip to the Everglades, and probably spending a day or two in Key West (probably one of the neatest places I've visited!).

I hope everyone else has a lovely vacation relaxing and and rejuvenating and at least TRYING to get out of the house! I know I ws about to go crazy with all the snow in Houlton!!! I'll take lots of pictures, and maybe I'll bring back some cool stuff for my classroom!

Have a delightful break! See you in March!

"New technologies result in ubiquitous connectivity and the pervasive proximity of unstructured relationships."

This is a quote from Curriculum 21, in which the author talks about "5 socio-technology trends" that are changing everything about how we learn and about how we teach.  I really enjoyed the ridiculous use of thesaurus in that particular sentence quoted in my title, but on top of that, the message is very real to me, and it should be to you students.  What she is saying is that all of this new technology (iPads, iPods, laptops, smart phones, etc.) gives us a stream of data and information that we are almost incapable of escaping.  Have you ever tried to go a day without your phone?  Or even a couple hours without your laptop open streaming a Netflix video?  It's frightening to think that we are crippled without the technology, and, in a way, crippled by the technology.  What I am trying to reference is the "unstructured relationships" that are becoming universal in their accessibility.  When I think about life before I had a cell phone, it reminds me of a time when I would have to memorize my friends phone numbers and I would call them to have them come over.

When I think about life before a cell phone with unlimited texting, I remember calling my friends just to say hi and to chat about nothing... I remember the sound of a human voice, too.  I am exaggerating to a point here, because we still have real human interactions every day.  But when you receive/send more than 1,000 text messages in a day, maybe it's time to take a step back and think about what you're missing.  Skype, iChat, AIM and other instant-messaging services have altered our interactions that much further.  It is useless for teachers and parents and others of the "landline generation" to resist this change.  But it is wholly possible for us to do something positive for the generation that must navigate, sometimes blindly.

I think that the one thing I'd like to talk about more specifically is the social network.  No, not the movie.  Social networks such as Myspace and Glogster are very new on the timeline of technology and human evolution.  The "iGeneration" has not lived in a time when Facebook and Twitter were not around.  It is very easy for the landline generation to put down these social networks, and to block them in schools across the country.  And yet, Facebook has some 200 million users across the world.  YouTube, another form of social networking, is blocked and banned in many schools too.  Why?

These social networks have so much potential in the community of learners, it is merely our responsibility as teachers to grasp it, understand it and use it to benefit our learners.  The possibilities are endless, and the amount of knowledge you can choose to share or not share is unlimited.  Facebook has over 24 million photos uploaded every day.  Who's to say that 30 of those photos couldn't be from a really great lab that we did about bacterial transformation?  Or that 10 of those photos are from a student who was assigned to take photos of science creeping into their every day life?

Status updates have evolved since 2003 when Facebook launched, but the idea is still the same: what's on your mind?  Is there any reason a child shouldn't be allowed to update their status to say "wow, just discovered that I have a Hitchhiker's thumb and can taste PTC paper.  What about you?"  Is there any reason that a teacher can't post the homework as a status update? "Biology, don't forget to do Chapter 6 vocabulary and study for the quiz on meiosis."  What about posting a status update for students to reply to with thoughtful conversation and insight?  "Class, please read the article linked here.  Respond to the article with your thoughts and additional research below.  Keep your response concise while bringing in new information for the group."

The possibilities are there.  We just need to open our minds to the idea that we can trust students with this responsibility.  We must allow them to work in the medium that they will have to use the rest of their lives.  Who better to guide them than a teacher?

Share your thoughts in the comment section below, I'd love to hear your opinion.

If you had the choice, what would you learn about?

Thinking about curriculum is beginning to upset me.  I'm having these horrible thoughts like "am I really teaching the students?" or "am I really teaching what matters?" or, worse, "will they be able to perform well on the SAT because of what I taught?"

Ugh.  Surely some things are working, right?  I think my learning goals and objectives are well-aligned with "state benchmarks" and the school's mission.  Perhaps some of you don't even realize that when you're working through a lab or experiment, you are improving your problem-solving skills!  The science fair has started, and you are, in groups or solo, working through obstacles in your thought processes and adjusting your procedures to work perfectly.  My sneaky hope is that you'll become better scientists and more "tuned in" and interested in science!  

Another last thing that works, at least in my science classroom, is the wide variety of assessments and computer activities.  Be honest, how many days of class have you had with me where we didn't use the MLTI laptops?  Even some of our assessments (quizzes, exams, lab reports, etc.) are online!  I have to tell you, I really wanted to use NoteShare for lab reports, but I just couldn't get it up and running in time... maybe next year!  Even so, I'm pretty excited about how labs are going in class.  I'm wicked excited to start doing some fruit fly work (see attached video) as we start rolling into genetics and natural selection!

One last thing I want to talk about is what I know: personalized learning in the science classroom.  I think you kids can comment on this more than I can, so feel free to post below!  I hope that I am doing my best for all of you, and, despite the numerous things that don't work in a given school system, that I am giving you the very best of scientific information.  You may not know all of the things I do in a daily class/lesson, but I work very hard to customize the learning.  I know that not everyone wants to learn about the cell cycle, and I know that not everyone wants to learn about the intricate and specific mechanisms behind cell signaling.  But for those that do want to know these things, I try to keep it interesting and varied.  I also try to keep things riveting for the kids that aren't exactly fascinated by this stuff.  Because, who knows?  You may learn something new that you never thought you would find so cool!

So I come back to the question in this title:  if you had the choice, what would you learn about?  Teachers are faced with fulfilling a curriculum based on many different things.  Sometimes it seems as though it is not really about your needs, wants and desires.  This is an open-ended question, and one that I want you to answer honestly.  I'm not going to give you any suggestions on how to answer, I just want you to think about the question.  Another way: if money were not an option, and you could learn at your own pace, what would you go to high school to learn about? (Or middle school.)  And, if you care to elaborate... what would your schedule be like?

Click here to answer anonymously!

Global Learning & Curriculum, a short commentary.

I'm at the end of a discussion with a couple classmates (via Skype!) from EDC, and I'm thinking, "Wow.  There are some serious problems with the general [lack of] curriculum development in the States."  Not many "non-teachers" would have this thought, I understand, so I will break it down as I see it.

Many schools are focused on dropping languages from their curricula, citing underfunding as a strong reason for cutting the programs.  But "the economies of China, India, and Japan, which represent 18 percent of the world's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2004, are expected to represent 50 percent of the world's GDP within 30 years (Jacobs, 98)."  As of 2008, China, India and Japan held 24 percent of the world's GDP (Univ. of Groningen)!  With that said, shouldn't we be adding languages to our curriculum, in order to better prepare our students for a global economy?  Many people think that, to be competitive in the global marketplace, students will need at least a basic knowledge of world cultures and foreign languages. 

Another fascinating fact: "if there were just 100 people in the world, only 5 would be American (Jacobs, 99)."  Kind of makes you think, doesn't it?  We concentrate on ourselves (the U.S.) and the things we think of as important so much, that we don't even think about what a small part of the world we really are.  This factoid didn't matter much back before the internet.  Now we are all connected, and have no excuse to remain ignorant of other cultures.

Vive l'unité!

Briefly, a definition.

When thinking about what "curriculum" is, I had to go to friends and colleagues to ask them.  It's an interesting habit of mine, going to others for an opinion or thought before forming my own.  But I digress.  I want to get back to that sometime, though. 

One of my colleagues (who follows this blog I think), when I confronted her about curriculum, said she could spare a minute.  I asked, "what is curriculum?"  She politely declined to answer my question, stating, "Puhhhhhhh.  Another time, another time."  I probably don't remember it word for word, but suffice it to say that, even after begging for just a one sentence answer, she couldn't do it.  She huff-puffed away down the hall, as I stared after her confused and flustered.

Of course, I can start with a dictionary definition of "curriculum," which states it as a noun: "the subjects comprising a course of study in a school or college."  I'm always interested in the Latin root of words, as my kids would probably groan about when I ask them about the meaning of a "prokaryote" or "eukaryote" in Latin.  Curriculum is derived from "curricle," which is an open, two-wheeled buggy pulled by two horses.  I love horses, and I love Latin.  How did I not know what a "curricle" was before this moment?

Anyway, curricle then comes from "currere," or "to run," in Latin.  So a curriculum is a race.  A race where the winner is your brain.  You take courses in school to build your skills and knowledge.  But for what purpose?  What curriculum are you "running" when you are on a college prep trajectory?  What curriculum are you "running" when you are getting your GED?  Does each "race" prepare you for a later race (curriculum) that you will be running?

Curriculum 21 by Heidi Hayes Jacobs suggests that we, the teachers "negotiate the path [or race], but ultimately it is the student who determine how they will, or if they can, take steps on the path."  So, as we are developing a definition of curriculum individually, locally or nationally, we must work to deliver a trail or path that is both challenging and engaging, but not impossible to traverse.  Of course, this path must be meaningful to the generation who is on it.  We have to think about the skills they will need to navigate the high school path and future paths on their life journey.  In building our curriculum in any sense of the word, we must "translate [these skills] into highly discrete classroom applications connected to assessment types" (Jacobs, 28).  In other words, we need doable activities and work that easily show student knowledge and insight.



I hope to change an revise this beginner definition of curriculum soon.  Stay tuned for more on the science fair, and possible extra credit opportunities!

Gearing up for Midterms...

Did you study my little kidlets?  I spent my weekend working on making the midterms, so hopefully you spent yours study for your biology or anatomy midterm exam!

If you review material we have covered, I think you will do just fine.

P.S. I'm going to Miami!

Struggling to Stay Relevant

Or, as I like to call it... curriculum development.

I had an interesting discussion with my carpool buddy today, and the subject hovered around the struggle to keep our jobs, mostly metaphorical and relative to the world as a whole.  We, as teachers, face a rapidly differentiating majority: students who have literally grown up with technology and entertainment and pop culture, and parents/educators/generally old "farts" who have grown up with landline phones and books and celebrities that mattered.

How do we narrow the gap between "digital natives"and "digital immigrants?"  I say, it must be curriculum development!  Now, I have little to no experience in this area, but I have always been keen on the subject.  I had a little introduction to it while getting my initial teacher certification, but I really have not seen it or experienced firsthand until my school began working on Maine Course Pathways.  We've been developing syllabi for about a year and a half, but I'm not sure how integrated these syllabi are with our curriculum.  Nor do I know how integrated/aligned each syllabus is with a coworker's syllabus (same or different discipline).

And so, with the start of my second grad semester at UMaine, I hope to keep my science classes (and myself) relevant and tangible to the students that must suffer through them.