This is it, we are the home stretch to the Christmas break and wow so much has happened. I presented at CAST in Dallas to a packed room (who knew gamification would be so popular!). I have been modifying and changing the game model I am using. We have done a project that I hope has helped the students learn kinematics more efficiently. I have been nominated for the PAEMST award. And I am applying for PhD school for next year. Man, I am tired just typing it all out!

First, my presentation…I presented at CAST (Conference for the Advancement of Science Teaching). I basically just put together an account of how I am using gamification in my classroom. (Though I am a bit behind in promoting it in my actual class as of right now. Hope to fix that soon.) STAT had to move me to a bigger room because so many people showed for my first session and left me in the bigger venue for the second. I have gotten great feedback and there are a lot of people who want to try this in their classroom. I even had a suggestion to start a group for teachers who want to try it out in their room so we can support each other. (I am in the process of figuring out the best way to do this.)

Second, I have done the usual egg drop project that I do every year, but I have revamped it a bit with the help of my new PrinTech teacher partner. I think it is more rigorous and challenging. And it follows the scientific method a bit better now. After the first drop we analyze everything and then we are rebuilding the carrier and doing a second drop this week. The second build doesn’t have as much time as the first, but I think they are getting the concept a bit better by having two drops to analyze.

The game has fallen by the wayside a bit. I haven’t been pushing it as much as I should have. But I am going to be assigning backpoints for the last six weeks in the form of the project’s objectives. Next semester I think it will be better since I have already gone through the game once before with the second semester. But I am in definite need of a boost to my enthusiasm for the game and a way to boost my students’ interest and enthusiasm also.

Finally, my nomination…There is some serious work involved in getting the application done. But I have the support of my school and principals so I am going for it. My AV class is going to help out in the filming of my exemplar lesson. But right now I don’t know what it will be. I have to find one that I teach as much as I guide. I want to show the interactive-ness of my class.

Our theme at my district this year is BIG. B is Believe in Our Vision, I is Infuse Rigor and Excellence, and G is Give Your Best.

I am excited for this year. I am full of ideas to share with my students. My room is ready. My teaching partner is amazing and willing to try new things. My principal is supportive and is helping me achieve my goals to develop my professional development teaching. My assistant principals are ROCKIN’ and proved it Friday.

I feel supported and blessed to be a part of this team. I am ready for a BIG year.

I spent the last three days this summer at the US Naval Academy for STEM Educator Training (SET) and wow…where do I start?

So much learning was packed into those three days that I really have had to unpack what I learned. It got me interested in engineering (the part I was missing in my attempt at STEM). I saw how engineering design can improve the scientific method, particularly for my students since my class is supposed to be more hands-on and technology-based. I really got some excellent ideas from my time here and got inspired to further my own knowledge in my chosen field of physics (which I know I am already doing by working on my second masters in physics…but this really made me excited for more knowledge).

Almost every activity I could relate to my students in some way. I think there may have been one activity I can’t use (it was pure biology and health). Everything else I can use in some way…which as you know in most PD that is not the case. You are usually lucky to find ONE idea that you can use…I got 30 or 40. Which causes a problem in itself…how do you catalog that much great information? Granted I am attempting that here in a way…Evernote is useful. (The one thing I didn’t like is they didn’t have E-copies of the “stuff” so now I have to transfer everything to my own files, I live and die by Google Drive and so now I have to get all this stuff there.) But back to the activities…

As a physics teacher, I am always trying to impress upon my students that physics is in EVERYTHING, but sometimes I struggle with real world examples that show this. But now I have some ammo. Like Bernoulli’s principle, planes is the easy one, but sailing and tennis/paddleball spin and those giant granite spin-y balls at the mall waterfall…my students have seen those, played those!!

They gave us multiple design challenges that I will be able to use with my students this year. And the best part of them are they are with cheap materials! Paper plates, balloons, straws, lifesavers, balsa wood, and the list goes on, but they are easy to find and common, which means I can get more of them done.

I have spent my time between class and the start of school (which will be Monday) thinking about how to incorporate all this great material. In planning my first few days I have already found a place for a couple. I am really excited to see how my students handle all this new hands on activity. This is going to be a great year!

This summer I was asked to help out in our summer acceleration program…I assumed I would be doing science or technology. Wrong! I was paired with a wonderful English teacher to co-teach English 2. What I was skeptical about in the start turned out to be a wonderful experience. It not only taught me how adaptable I can be, but it also taught me about my own writing skills and how I should expect my students to perform when I ask them to write.

As to my own writing, it made me think about my process. I just sit and write. Wait a bit, come back to it to edit, and if it’s a blog like here I post it. For my “more important” papers ( I think blogging is just as important as my technical writing but you know…society) I will send it to my favorite editor, Mom! Then make more edits based on her comments, she usually proofs for grammar which I’m not so good at but better now that I spent two weeks helping to edit English 2 papers. Then I submit…usually to a professor, but I have high hopes of submitting to a journal soon. But that is beside the point…my point is I had to think about my process and how it works…FOR ME! Others don’t have the same process as me, they have their own, but how did they develop it, how did I develop mine? Well, from exposure to other’s processes. Sure I was taught a process in elementary, middle and high school. Then I had to find my own voice for college. But I had role models.

Which brings me to how I should expect my students to perform in writing tasks, I can’t expect them to write the same way I do or have the same process. I have to help them develop their own process and now after teaching a process (as formulaic as it might seem to me) for two weeks, I have an idea of how to do that. And that is show them how and let them practice. Simple I know, but it is an approach that in today’s high stakes testing and common core standards (or in my case TEKS, my Texas state standards) that I feel gets lost sometimes. We don’t let them process and practice. It is always on to the next standard, the next task, the next experiment, forget processing and internalizing the concepts. It’s drill and kill, without the drill.

I have a professor this semester who has taught me the value of time in learning. She has no idea that she has taught me that. In fact she is a physics professor teaching a roomful of high school and middle level teachers electromagnetism, surely she couldn’t teach us about teaching! She’s the PHYSICS expert! But she has, possibly and probably, unintentionally. (Of course seeker that I am I am always finding lessons in the everyday.) She gives us examples, she gives us homework, she takes it up and then gives us the solutions. All standard fare in the classroom…but then she gives us TIME to process the problems and their solutions. She doesn’t try to cram everything she is currently teaching on a test that is given two days after the concepts are taught. See the thing is it could have been like that, she could have completely justified doing this. It’s a five week (four days a week, 2 hours a day) course on ELECTROMAGNETISM…not easy, very broad and HEAVY on the math. But rather than rushing though she gave us what we needed to comprehend a complex subject. Now did we learn everything on the planet about Electromagnetism, no. But do we understand and can actually calculate the things we did learn, yes.

So what have I learned from my two weeks as an English teacher? Slow down, tell them exactly what you want, and give them the time to do it. So I encourage you to spend some time learning something new and analyzing your process, it’s amazing what you can learn.

How do you motivate your students? I am finding that most of my students are motivated by The Game, but a couple of my classes don’t seem to be motivated by it. And I am struggling on what to do about it. I am hoping that a solution will show itself as I write. I have tried positive reinforcement, I have tried showing them other classes progress to show it can be done, I have tried sending them to tutoring. What have I not tried?

I still have the same problem I had before…zeros. I don’t know how to handle them. If they don’t know the material, then I am okay with them. But what do I do if they are just not working? Giving them a zero tanks their grade and doesn’t motivate them AT ALL. It seems that it only furthers their slacking attitude. Giving them a zero lets them off the hook…how do I keep them on the hook? How do I keep them on track? Grrrrrrr…this is so frustrating.

My personal motivation comes from deadlines and the fact that others are depending on me to get something done. But deadlines come and go and a few of my students still don’t do anything. Maybe if I offered a way to test out of topics, but then what do they do in class? How do I reach those few?

Suggestions, anyone?