Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Preach On Sister Cornelius!

Ms. Cornelius has hit the nail on the head over at A Shrewdness of Apes. Check out her response to a student's asking how he/she could improve their grade. I can't link to the individual post, so look for "How to Improve Your Grade" posted on November 14. I couldn't have said it better myself. The only thing I would add is my own personal irritation when a parent asks this question. Often there is an unsaid implication that I am somehow responsible for getting their kids grade up. Most parents understand that it is the student's responsibility and we can have a productive conversation. However, sometimes a parent's attitude is simply that the you the teacher are clueless and your class is too hard! Knowing what will be expected of the student in the future, I can safely say that my class is not too hard! If anything, it's too lax! If the student doubts this, have them talk with the exchange students who take the class in a foreign language.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

. . . and the roll comes up hard eight! A winner!

Yesterday's 'reveal' of the pineapple was a big success. You can just see the astonishment written across normally stoic faces. They have that wide-eyed sense of wonder like when they were younger. They briefly forget to be 'cool' teenagers and simply start thinking. When that third test tube is upturned and the 'gelatin' is revealed to be simply liquid, my fun really begins. Out come the questions! Out come possible explanations (hypothesizing). Now my opportunity to really teach. I get to point students in the direction of various evidences that clearly refute their initial explanations.

"What does the canned pineapple list as ingredients?"
"If your idea is right, then explain why the control tube is not liquid."
"Did we treat the two pineapple samples differently?"
"What is citric acid and what fruit do you think naturally contains it?"
"What source are you using to support that explanation?"

Students are forced to go deeper, think harder, and search for support instead of simply stating their opinion as a fact. Some days, I really love my job!

As fun as yesterday was, today was a pretty good ride, too. However instead of a well planned demonstration, I had to teach impromptu. This article from the Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences, begged for my attention. I read it during my prep and realized it would work well in my anatomy class. My students have been working on their individualized research projects. The current assignment is to find a primary source article about their specific chosen tetrapod. Over the next two weeks, we're going to spend some time in class and at home working through the papers, learning how to read real science. I slapped the Homo sapiens / archaic Homo hanky-panky genetic evidence up on the smartboard and bam! Instant attention.

My whole prepared introduction to the digestive system was tossed and we delved headlong into genetics, populations, microcephaly, biological species concept, evolution, natural selection and finally ring species. Follow that up with the remaining 30 minutes of one of the best Life of Mammals episodes and you have one great day. I show so many David Attenborough documentaries and my kids love them so much that I think they would be willing to form their own chapter of his fan club! Of course to them, David is simply "that funny sounding old guy" but hey, I thought similiar of Jacques Cousteau at one time.

On the downside, I still have a mountain of grading to slog through. Teacher-nirvana is wonderful; however, it remains fleeting.

Friday, November 03, 2006

On a roll . . .

I love days that go like today went. Sometimes everything falls into place. Teacher preparation, student attention, curriculum content and the stars align to make a great day. Teaching basic biochemistry to sophomores, we started with a short news article about the oceanic wandering of white sharks. I save and print interesting news articles that are used as short reading and writing exercises everyday. The article even ended up tying back into today's lecture.

My presentation of notes was great (even if I do say so myself). My timing was on. The students were attentive and contributed. There were all kinds of cross links with previous knowledge, both pointed out by me and discovered by the students themselves. The use of the Atlas of Macromolecules was a great attention focuser and interest grabber. I only found the resource a few days ago and it is really changing many of my future lesson plans and presentations. We covered (introduced) nucleic acids and proteins. I got to spend time discussing collagen. The kids recognized as the stuff Angelie Jolie injects into her lips. We discussed how prevalent collagen is in all animals, including humans. Then I started down the path of what we do with the collagen of animals we slaughter for food. This led to the fact that Jell-O is rendered and dehydrated animal skins, bones, and gristle. You should have heard the ooooohs and yucks. This gave me an opportunity to emphasize the importance of avoiding cultural bias when discussing other peoples. They can't make fun of or make faces about other people's food if they don't even know what their own food is made of!

The last third of class was the first part of a class demonstration/experiment involving what else? Jell-O. It's the classic pineapple experiment. Students were totally into it. Reasoning out the need for a control and proper clean up procedures. They kind of suspect something weird is going to happen. Why else would a high school teacher care so much about pineapple in Jell0?

I can't wait for the reveal moment next week. It is always one of my favorite days of the year (right up there with Schroedinger's Cat day in Chemistry).

I was so pumped with the day's progress that I stuck around after school and demolished a huge chunk of the grading mountain. The volleyball tournaments had knocked me behind the curve. Now I get to sit back and watch Battlestar Galactica. It's been a good day.