Kluthe - 1/23

In my environmental science class, we've been discussing the problem of human population growth. Students have been using the obituary section of the KC Star to collect longevity data on people in our area. They have been calculating average lifespans of people born in different decades and graphing survivorship curves of men and women. They've been asked to apply what they know of the time periods to try to figure out why the numbers came out like they did.

Ross 1/23

I plan on building on last semester's work with inquiry projects in the new year.  I have a perfect chance to revisit last year's project organization and address the problems that came up before they reoccur. 

My first two projects:
Chemistry is going to work as a group to present an informational graphic or video about scales in the universe.   Last year I got some high quality work, but many groups had trouble narrowing down the options on topics.  This year I'm going to increase guided brainstorming time, so that each group ends up with a little more detail before working independently.  I also have past examples to show my students now, which should help.  The students will also have more background in "Fermi problems," which we've been working on more strenuously, which will help to incorporate the project more firmly into the rest of our class content.

Physical Science gets to work together to examine various types of writing on science, analyze the reasoning behind them, and come to conclusion as to reliability.  My main issue last semester was reading level- it was difficult to find writing samples that were not overly involved.  I've found a few more since then, and I plan to do a little more guided reading in preparation for independent work.

Overall, the first revision I'm making to a lot of my student-led investigations is to provide a little more background and guidance before students start to work on their own.

Jasmyn 1-23-13

In Biology, I have been working with my students on the characteristics of life and the scientific method.  After introducing the 8 characteristics, I gave the students a list of 18 "things". I also passed around a few of the items.  They had to decide if they were living or not living.  Then I had the class discuss each "thing".  I did not tell them whether they were right or not. I just let them talk about them.  Then after they went through all of the "things", I let them know the correct answers. It was interesting to get their ideas and have them debate a little bit. 

We haven't done anything exciting in Environmental Science yet.   Soon we will be heading to the more exciting chapters and I am looking forward to some new activities. 

Steve Di Obilda, 23 January 13. This semester the classes started out learning to take more effective written notes on classroom instruction, later to be used for essay writing and study for quiz and test's. Efforts are made to direct students on what is important to include in note taking and what to leave out. Students are engaged in writing and often ask the significance and importance of a historical topic.

In my Graphic Photography class my advanced students are using tutorials that they find or sometimes that I assign to create works of art.  The students are using the internet to enter some of the pictures in contests and for scholarships.

My drawing classes are utilizing the internet for source material.

My media class are creating blogs about digital citizenship using Glogster.

Higher Level thinking - Student Led Investigations

1.
We really enjoyed the Language Acquisition PLC. It was nice to see how they were using videos and captions to familiarize the students with language.  Making movies with captions is something we could try incorporating. 

The other higher level thinking group gave us some great ideas. Using a rubric for the students to self evaluate themselves would be one tool.

There were several PLCs that talked about being cross curricular.  Incorporating more math, social studies, and English into the lessons is something we would like to strive for in our classes. 

2.
We learned about Blogging, iMovies, flipped classrooms, classroom design, science, and collaboration. Working in our PLCs gave us a chance to work with people we do not always get to see and to share our different teaching styles and ideas . Working in a group allows us to try different things and come back and share what we learned. 

Jasmyn 12-5

Today we finalized our PLC showcase video.  Next we talked about what artifacts we will bring for our display board. Finally, we decided on our two groups.

Group A- Kluthe, Kobylinski, DiObilda, Johnson

Group B- Ostmeyer, Ross, Troyer