Today I implemented a WISE (Web-based Inquiry Science Environment) project through the TELS (Technology-Enhanced Learning in Science) Center at UC Berkeley. (I know…acronyms can be a mouthful!)

I love using these projects with my biology class for the following reasons:

1. It provides me an alternative way of conveying information other than lecturing.
2. When labs are unavailable for a certain unit, these projects still get students thinking critically through investigative activities.
3. I LOVE how I can migrate amongst student groups and talk with individual students download free ringtones sprint motorola v3 ringtones download free sprint ringtones verizon wireless ringtones motorola ringtones download free ringtones virgin mobile free motorola tracfone ringtones free motorola ringtones dash mobile ringtones t free download mobile ringtones download free mobile ringtones virgin free ringtones for nokia phone free get ringtones mp3 ringtones converter download new ringtones free free tracfone ringtones boost free ringtones cell phone ringtones and wallpaper 24 ringtones free cingular download free ringtones about what they are learning. This not only helps me to check for their understanding, but this also allows me to maintain the student-teacher relationship.

My Thoughts on the “Mitosis & Cell Processes” Project:

The Mitosis project de comenzar. I ran today is appropriate for both the middle and high school level. My 9th and 10th grade students were able to finish select activities within a 2 hour block period. I noticed student interest in how the project relates poker portal internetjuego de poker online gratisjugar poker en internetpoker portal webdescargar gratis juego de pokerseven card studdescarga juego pokerpai gow poker portal internettop poker en lineajuegos poker sharepoker de 5 cartasjuegos de cartas pokerjuego poker pcpoker en linea librejuego poker omaha gratisjuego de poker online gratis,descargar juego poker gratis,juego poker gratiseuropean pokerstreap pokeronline pokerpoker poquercasinos internacionales portal webcasino internacional portalesjugar trgamonedas onlineinternet casinoscasinos descargas portal web,casino descargas,casinos descargas pagina internetjuegos portalestrampas casinosjuegos seguros paginas websistema ganar ruletaslots en lineajuegos instantaneos portal internetruleta online gratisganar dinero en el casinoapostar jugar portal webjuegos ruleta gratisjuego casino pagina internetno deposit bonus casinojugar al instante portales webjuego seguro portaljuegos gratis ruletajuegos seguros portal webcasino baccaratapostar portal webtrucos ganar ruleta,ganar ruleta,ganar a la ruletatragaperra portales webganancia casino pagina webjugar apostar webcasino virtual webcasino internacional onlinetragaperra paginas web mitosis to cancer. After manipulating various animations that demonstrate the fluidity of and major structures within the mitotic phases, students were asked to evaluate 3 medicinal plants as possible inhibitors of cancer cell division.

Definitely check out these online curricular units for your students! (REGISTRATION IS FREE.) Projects range from various topics within both the life and physical sciences. I especially recommend these projects for teachers who need to motivate their students or parents who want to supplement their child’s learning.

Feel free to comment with any questions.

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There is so much to respond to in the Contra Costa Times article Science, Math Deficit Holds Back State. I personally know the teacher, Ellen Fasman, who was featured in this article. We work in the same school district, we have attended several professional development workshops together, and we have discussed the trials and tribulations of teaching over good wine. I am sure that both of us would agree that tackling the issue of California’s youth falling behind in science and math is going to take more than one blog entry!

How can we expect our students to succeed in math and science (let alone any subject) when we block them from learning subjects in depth? California state standards for subject teaching require that we cover breadth over depth. In other words, teachers can only touch upon a single topic, before we must move on to the next in order to finish teaching all required subjects before state-wide testing in May. This prevents teachers from conveying the relevance behind science and math in terms of its political, social, environmental, economical, and historical implications. Students cannot be expected to have motivation to succeed in a subject that they feel has no personal relevance to them. They do not know that learning and succeeding in science will help them to find a job in the booming industries of biotechnology and health care. They do not know that the politics that shape their lives are often driven by scientific data (or a disregard of data in the case of some government administrations…) They do not know that understanding the basics of how the natural world functions will enable them to make rational decisions that will affect their surroundings.

What about the rest of us? Did WE ever learn the implications of science? The Tuskegee and Quaker Oats Radiatio experiments - scientific scandals that demonstrate how prejudice can adulterate bio-ethical practices. Genetically Modified Foods - why is it that citizens in every other country are fighting to keep GMF’s out, while our own citizens are generally unaware of their existence? The effects of global warming on economic policy - why did the Bush administration forbid American scientists from commenting on valid data that illustrates the effects of CO2 emissions on climate change?

As a biology teacher, I want to teach relevance, as well as rigor, to my students. Unfortunately, I feel that I am required by the state and my school to teach so many topics within biology, that it is often difficult to immerse students into meaningful investigation into any one topic. I see so many teachers who teach “to the standards” on such an extreme basis, that I wonder if these practices ultimately prevents our students from developing the skills necessary for thinking critically about the world around them.

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I am so excited that my presentation was accepted at this year’s NSTA (National Science Teacher’s Association) conference in St. Louis, MO. My colleagues and I will be sharing data and experiences with using science technology modules at the middle and high school levels. If you will be attending this year’s conference, stop by and learn how you can use technology to help students visualize scientific phenomena. The specific technology module that we will discuss is based on research from UC Berkeley’s TELS (Technology-Enhanced Learning in Science) Center.

This is my first attendance at the NSTA conference. If anyone has been to an NSTA conference, any tips, advice, or thoughts on the conference?

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If you are a teacher, student, or parent, you have probably visited RateMyTeacher.com. Haven’t heard of it? Click on the link I provided, look up your school and READ ALL ABOUT IT! As a teacher, I find it fascinating to read anonymous evaluations of myself and my colleagues. Both students and parents can post evaluations. I was pleasantly surprised that when I looked up my name, three students had posted comments. 2 out of the 3 were positive, the the last one negative. Although it was annoying to read a negative comment about your instructional strategies, the comment actually made me reflect on my practice and take the comment as constructive criticism.

Teacher relfection should be a major component of our profession. We are working closely with others everyday, continously under the spotlight where any little mistake could be scrutinized and any little success could be praised. In addition to teachers engaging in self-reflection, it is useful to ask your students to evaluate your work. I just asked my students to fill out an evaluation where they get to rate several aspects of my teaching. (I have attached the evaluation document below. Feel free to download and modify it to your liking!) I was excited to read their comments, which identified strengths and weaknesses of the class from the STUDENT PERSPECTIVE. It was refreshing to hear that individuals that you work with everyday value your work and want to give you suggestions. Some of the suggestions/criticisms were valid and reasonable to implement. Positive and negative quotes from some of my high school students included:

“Use more games for review sessions.”
“I follow the rules and raise my hand when I want to speak, but sometimes students still yell out the answer.”
“I love labs, but sometimes I don’t get the point of them.”
“I really like how you do lecture on Power Point. It is more like a class discussion, and I understand it more when we talk about it together.”
“The labs we do are fun, and helps me to understand that what we learn is relevant.”

My favorite quote: “We are teenagers, and you should just give up on making us listen and be quiet. I know you probably don’t remember being a teenager, but we like to talk and you should just deal with it!”

I really recommend that you ask students to provide feedback. Students and parents will feel valued, and administrators will be ecstatic to know that you are incorporating student input into your teaching. In fact, I used some student quotes when writing a technology grant, which we were just awarded! These quotes acted as great qualitative evidence for how they viewed successful technology-enhanced learning.

Any comments? Any evaluation questions you would like to add to the uploaded document?

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I incorporate instruction in Biochemistry with nutrition because I find that students better learn this complicated topic when presented within a personally relevant context. I ask students to analyze food labels and analyze organic/inorganic components in a McDonald’s happy meal. Both of these activities are hugely popular with the students!

I’ll link the handouts soon within this post. Feel free to try them out and comment about your thoughts.

I also plan to show the documentary, Super Size Me. Does anyone have movie questions/student handouts that you could recommend or share with me? Any shared materials would be much appreciated!

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When I come home from teaching class all day, and I am EXHAUSTED! People get on my case with comments ranging from, ” Why are you so tired? You get out at 3pm!” to “Teaching is such a cushy job. You’re so lucky!” What non-teachers don’t realize is that we are on stage all the time. It is a performance that we must rehearse days, months, and even years before we can successfully get a standing ovation - which in the case of teaching would be appreciative emails from parents and administrators.

It may be that I am still a new teacher, but when I get home, I don’t even want to think about work. In fact, I try by best to lull myself into a vegetative state on the couch, watching trashy reality shows. My top pick…*drumroll*…Project Runway! As a wannabe-but-can’t-cuz-got-no-money fashion diva, I am fascinated by the originality and creativity that some of these designers bring to the table. But have you ever noticed that the least original designers always make it to the top 3? Booo!!!! Do you think they rig the contest just so that mainstream stores (Macy’s and Banana Republic…BOO!!!) can keep their labor costs for designers down ?

My #2 pick for reality shows…*drumroll*…Flavor of Love!! What is it about watching tramps cat-fighting over a tacky ex-rapper who sells his own voice as cell phone ringtones? (I’m sorry Vh1, but stick to music ringtones rather than Flav’s screeches of “Yeahhhhh, Boooiiiii!!”) I guess I am attracted to the deceipt, manipulations, and and competitiveness that the actors employ. Whenever I watch one girl screw another one over, I think to myself, “Isn’t there a better avenue for directing your skill set? Why use these skills to get Flav, of all people?!?!”

My # 3 pick…please, don’t roll your eyes…Food Network’s Iron Chef! Many years ago, I fell in love with the original Japanese version. (I speak Japanese, so the language barrier wasn’t a problem.) The challenges amazed me. Chefs that can construct swan-like candy sculptures from reduced crab brains definitely deserves high TV ratings. While the American version doesn’t live up to its predecesor, I guess I will can deal with its corny lines in order to hear Alton Brown’s educational comments on the origins of porchini vinegar.

While I continue wasting the years in front of these corrupting TV shows, I hope that other teachers are utilizing their evenings more wisely - go to the gym, take a class, cook dinner from scratch, whatever helps you to wind down after a long day.

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So this is my second year teaching biology, and it has been going MUCH smoother than last year! It is amazing how much the work load decreases the second time around. No more being the last teacher to leave campus, no more early-morning trips to the copy room to make class sets of handouts I made only the night before, and no more frantic searches for lab materials within dusty cabinets and drawers! Aside from the logistics, I also feel established as a faculty member. It is refreshing to walk down the hallways and greet my students from last year, and even more so to have them come by my classroom to chat.

In terms of curriculum, I think I will keep to my plan for the first semester. I start out covering the nature of science and scientific method, delve into the history if earth and life, and then jump into evolution. This curricular layout succeeded in providing students with a big picture of biology. In other words, we answered the foundational questions: “What is life? When did life emerge and diversify? How did life diversify?” In addition, discussing these topics and doing accompanying activities effectively engaged student interest. I strongly feel that if you start the beginning of the year teaching students about biochemistry, you will lose them by the second week.

Any thoughts on this? I am wondering how many other teachers plan biology curriculum as I do, and what they have experienced. For any students (or ex-students) reading this blog, what did you think of your biology class? What kinds of topics would have increased your interest?

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The IISME program is geared towards giving teachers experiences in industry and research, and providing professional development opportunities throughout the summer and the school year. The website below provides basic information on the program if you are interested in learning more. If you have participated in this program, please feel free to comment on and share your first-hand experiences and thoughts on this excellent opportunity!

Website: www.iisme.org

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The epidemic is running rampant through the country… Quick! Hide your children! Lock them in your closets! Most of all, keep them home from school! Yes, it seems that the school is the new, hotspot for kids to be sexually taken advantage of. And by none other than the teacher. The reality is that not all teachers are little silver-haired grannies looking to solicit apples from their students. Instead, we are seeing on the news hot, blonde, bombshells who are being accused of soliciting sex from their students. I guess there are juicier morsels out there than apples these days…

(Before I move on, let me say that I am not focusing on female teachers who abuse their position of power. Male teachers are definitely guilty of this, too. However, I will save my rant about the sexism behind incessant media coverage on female teachers for later.) For now, let me take a step back from the corporate media headlines and look into one specific aspect that is common to all teachers: The Classroom Environment

I am curious about the level of teacher training that these accused hotties have received before entering the classroom. Have they ever taken a course on “Teaching Methodologies” that reviews ethics, creating positive classroom communities, and how to maintain productive student-teacher relationships? Teacher training is highly undervalued in America. No matter how much people deny it, the general underlying belief is “Those who can do, those who can’t teach.â€Â� What they don’t realize is teaching itself is a professional practice. Think back to your college days. You may have had a professor who knew everything about his/her field, yet didn’t know how to teach this content to the students. Teaching is a profession that is highly interactive, social, and complex. Not only must you know the content you are teaching, you must be able to create an environment of 30+ students that lends itself to successful learning. A learning environment is thus one where students and teachers have established a relationship where students can trust that their teacher will do their job to the best of his/her ability. I wonder if these teachers who are having affairs with students are focused on fostering a learning environment, or if they even know HOW to do this? Otherwise, I would think that they would be much too busy working on this to even think about soliciting affairs with students. While these teachers are certainly at fault for crossing boundaries, who is at fault for not making baseline requirements for teacher training?

Unfortunately, schools are so desperate for teachers that they will practically accept anyone who knocks on their door. Many states anticipate a huge shortage of teachers, especially in the areas of math and science, due to older teachers retiring and a lack of young teachers entering the field. I don’t blame mentally and intellectually qualified people from entering the profession – lack of pay, lack of benefits, lack of respect, lack of support, lack of optimism – the list goes on and on. A good teacher has skills that are transferable to a workplace that would reward these skills better than the teaching profession can. The result is that many schools are left with the “bottom of the barrel� teachers who don’t have the necessary qualifications – and I’m not talking about the bullshit No Child Left Behind qualifications, which don’t reflect anything about one’s teaching capabilities.
I am sure that these teachers have their excuses…uhem…�insanity� reasons for doing what they did. I just think that this problem is a reflection of underlying problems that American education is facing.

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Too many high school teachers become hermits and hoarders within their classrooms. I am not quite sure why they do this: To escape socializing with other teachers? To get a moment of peace before the next round of students come in?

Teachers who make a habit out of retreating to their classroom are missing the types of interactions that are essential in the real-world. I recently bumped into a fellow teacher, who mentioned that she doesn’t like to attend faculty events because she felt they didn’t have much in common. This attitude parallels that of students who find it difficult to socialize with their peers.

A teacher’s job is not only to teach content, but also to impart knowledge of how to socialize and work with others within the workplace. How can teachers who incessantly remain behind closed classroom walls effectivley respond to the common quote of a high school student, “I didn’t finish my project because I don’t get along with my group members,”?

Students will enter the real-world and realize that in order to succeed, you have to deal with people who may not fit one’s ideal mold of a “friend.” In fact, they may even be total bastards. They need to learn how to meet these social challenges, and teachers could better provide strategies for addressing these challenges by taking the initiative to socialize, collaborate, and support their fellow educators.

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