28 November 2012, PLC team worked on our presentation today.
Students in class are working on WW2 and the U.S. entry into the war after Pearl Harbor

Today we worked on our presentation for the PLC showcase.

All the teachers brought in examples of work and photos of their students working on the projects we want to showcase.

We worked on our iMovie and discussed how we are going to set up our booth.

We have students lined up for demos on the showcase day.

Ross 11/28

My biggest inquiry class hasn't done much inquiry recently, due to some intense work on chemistry background.  We're working our way up to an inquiry about heat transfer, which should be fun.  We've just done an example lab, and will be starting background research this week. 

My other physical science class is finishing up an inquiry about simple machines.  I tried to focus the background research by providing specific questions to answer, but that seemed to backfire, as students were missing the big picture in an attempt to answer specific questions.  Attendance also became a problem, with students who missed class holding on to their group's materials.  I did get each group to reflect after a first round of data, and modify or troubleshoot their apparatus for a second round of experimentation, which was a step forward.  With this group in particular, I feel I may need to limit inquiry groups to two individuals, since there were a few students who let their group members handle the entire project.

My chemistry students will be trying something slightly different this week, with a problem-based lab that requires stoichiometric calculations in order to solve.

Jasmyn 11-28

In our PLC today, we worked on writing up quick lesson outlines and objectives to go along with our pictures.  Ms. Troyer will combine our pictures and write ups to make our video presentation. 

PLC 11-28

Worked on PLC Showcase. 

No supplies needed???

I do not see that you have indicated any supplies needed for the Showcase.  If you are needing something, please see Dr. Cheryl Wright by Nov 30th, so we can try to accommodate you.

Nov 7

Jasmyn:  Conducting experiments with Duckweed.  Changing different variables to see how it affects the growth of the Duckweed.
Patrick:  Completing presentations in Home Health.  Biology we have been covering evolution and talking about Darwin's discoveries.
Kelly: Evolution online simulation project.
Rebecca:  Plaster of hands
Peter:  Experiment over measuring forces in physical science.  Polarity experiment in Chemistry.
Steve:  Creating a television news story on Totalitarianism.

We completed the World War 1 Unit and are now moving into Totalitarianism which has spiked some interest among the students as we are talking about Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. We have done a Hitler KWL and are now working on taking notes for newspaper articles about each dictator. This includes prompts from the New York Times, KC Star and the Houston Chronicle. It was exciting learning that many of my students have quite a bit of prior knowledge about Hitler and Stalin, not so much on Mussolini. Thinking about the Performance Assessment and possibly having students write a newspaper article or give a television news story, filming themselves and presenting it to class on the dictators. Wow.

Kluthe - 11/7

Students have completed a research project over a genetic disease of their choice. They made an infographic, powerpoint or newsletter.

Today in class, we looked at natural selection using an online simulation. The students manipulated variables, recorded the outcomes and made predictions. The students were able to relate what they saw to animals in real life.

Jasmyn 11-7

Our group organized what we are going to do for our presentation.  Each person is going to get a camera and take pictures of their students performing their inquiries.  We will give all our pictures to Ms. Troyer and she will make a video.  Here is an outline of what some of us are going to do.
Ms. Troyer- plaster of paris cast
Mr. DiObilda- posters on WWI
Mr. Ross- still working on a chemistry idea
Ms. Kluthe - still working on idea for biology class
Mr. Kobylinski -  student presentations over elderly ailments

For my environmental science class, they are designing experiments using duckweed.  They will be doing research, outlining the procedures, collecting data, analyzing, collaborating with the Mary Ann and her colleagues at the environmental library, and "publishing" their information. 

We briefly started the duckweed project yesterday, so I will have more details soon.

Ross 11/7

My physical science students have finished their recent project on chemical changes, in which we spent more time than usual on background research and procedure writing.   I feel that most of the goals for this assignment were met:  the students seemed to think more deeply about what was going on in their projects, tried harder to make an experiment that may not have been done before, and wrote extremely good procedures (though it took quite a bit longer to do).  The procedures were an amazing improvement over past work, so I plan on dealing with this issue earlier in the semester in the future.  The experiment itself was somewhat disorganized in spite of this- I had two groups who planned on bringing their own supplies, and had three days over which to bring them, but still managed to forget important pieces of their experiment and had to change experiments at last minute.  I'm not quite sure what to  do about this issue.

My other physical science class finished an inquiry about forces, and I'm still seeing improvement in their work.  A major focus for this class will be displaying data in a way that makes it clear to readers what was being measured.

My goal for the next set of inquiries is to keep up the strong background research, and also to budget time for revising and re-experimenting in light of new data.  Too many of my students feel that as soon as data is taken that the experiment is over and can be forgotten.

Today we discussed our presentation.  We are going to create an iMovie.