Student Engagement

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve observed an effective technique of engagement.  I teach a cooking class that meets once a week.  This class, and about 9 other extracurricular classes, need to present a project for a project fair in a month or so.  They are in the process of planning, and they actually presented what they had planned so far last week to another extracurricular class project group.  During the presentation, one of the students started out with a story of how we were in the kitchen cooking fried rice when a teacher walked in and told us we need to start planning for the project fair.  Starting out the presentation like this kept me engaged; I really wanted to know what he was going to say next in his story. 

Then, last Friday we had a teacher meeting.  During this meeting, a few videos of our teachers giving ‘hooks’ was played.  As I was watching these clips, I saw that these teachers were starting their lesson with some type of engaging story, just as my cooking class student had.  Starting out with a story is a very simple, yet very engaging technique to begin a lesson.

This coming week, I have created a few stories to keep students engaged.  For example, on Tuesday, I am teaching students how chromosomes, genes, DNA, nucleotides, and the nucleus are all connected.  I am going to start this lesson by talking about The Human Genome Project.  I am going to explain the purpose of this project, a little background of how long it took and how much money it cost, and hopefully by the end of this explanation, students will have an idea of how these terms connect together. 

My lessons should go beyond rote memorization of facts because 1^st, rote memorization is not very effective in actually understanding how something works, and 2^nd, rote memorization may just cause students to dread science rather than seeing how fun and interesting it can truly be.  I have been trying to keep students engaged by having them teach the class because they seem to really love this activity.  For example, I had a worksheet that had a certain number of questions on it.  I divided the students into groups and told them to focus on specific questions that they were then going to explain to the class.  Usually, when students need to answer questions on worksheets, they don’t look very enthused.  However, when I set students up to work as a group and teach the class, I can see students get into groups and lively discuss what the correct answer is and how they should explain it.  For the sake of student’s interest and motivation, class should be engaging and reflective rather than just focused on memorization of facts.

Teaching: A Learning Experience

Over the last few weeks, the new quarter has started.  So far, the students have finished learning about  cellular respiration and photosynthesis.  The school I work for supplies the lessons that I have to teach the students, and sometimes I see students check out when I'm teaching.  For example, this past week I taught the students about the light reactions of photosynthesis using a PowerPoint on Tuesday and then on Wednesday, students were expected to answer a whole packet of questions based on their notes from Tuesday.  The students were thoroughly confused about the questions; they had just learned the topic the day before and they didn't have an opportunity to reinforce that knowledge in their brain yet.  On Thursday, I was supposed to give them even more questions about a whole new topic.  I didn't want them to move on before actually understanding the light reactions; so I printed out a summary of the light reactions that I had been working on for a few days and I spent the first 15 minutes or so reading the summary as a class.  I then asked the class some questions:

• Which method works better for you: learning from a PowerPoint or from summaries?  (There was a pretty even split from two of my classes between the two methods).
• Since it seems there's an even split for the preferences, we could just do both.  Would you want the PowerPoint first or the summary?  (Students stated that they wanted to learn from the PowerPoint first to get the general gist of the topic and then learn from the reading a few days later). 

From this experience, I learned that I should trust my gut.  Rather than following the plans that are given to me verbatum, I should make the necessary adjustments based on what works best for my students. 

Although I gave students an opportunity to give feedback on what type of activity helped facilitate their understanding, I havn't had an opportunity to really let students explore their own interests.  This is a problem because often I'm as bored with the lesson plan as the students are.  I think the packets of questions are getting really dry, and I have been brainstorming some ideas for a project.  I have assigned an extra credit assignment that allows students to create a drawing or song based on the topic of their choice, and I saw that students really enjoyed it.  Next, I want students to create a lab report or research paper on a topic that they like.  I want to give students an opportunity to explore the areas of science that they really enjoy. 

Reaching a Diversity of Learners

About a week and a half ago, students had midterms. Midterms and finals are big in my school: there is a teacher proctoring every classroom, but not their own. The students sit in silent rows, can't use their own writing utensil, and can't get up or look around for hours on end. On a fancy website called Illuminate, the scores that students get are averaged together and data is analyzed with a click of a button. Teachers can see what each one of their classes got wrong, what all of their classes averaged together scored, and what their scores look like compared to other teachers scored. The biology department had an average of about 50%.

When I looked through the questions the students got wrong, I could see that the questions that were straightforward had higher scores than questions that were worded confusingly. So, I decided to give students a lesson with really confusing questions to develop their skills in deciphering the meaning in questions (AKA critical thinking of question mastery). It sounded like a good idea, and it still does, but it didn't pan as well as it sounds. Students were frustrated to the point they shut down. 

I want to try to find a way to reach the different levels of learners in my class. The students in my classes truly range from high, medium, and low learners. When I explain things at an average rate, there are about five students that are frustrated that I'm teaching too fast and about five students that are frustrated that I'm teaching too slowly. The flaw in my confusing questions lesson is that while my top learners were thoroughly engaged and enjoying the challenge, my average learners and lower learners were confused to the point of giving up. 

Over the next couple of weeks, I have one mission: find a way to reach out to all levels of learners. One method that I found engaging for all of my students is having them present something to the class. I think I will have the students have some sort of teaching method where they have to become experts in one topic (glycolysis, photosynthesis, Krebs cycle, etc.) and then teach the class that topic in 1-2 minutes. I will also put a variety of question levels on the worksheets so that each student has some questions that are accessable to their learning level. 

Aspects of STEM Education

The aspects of STEM that my cohort studied this week were assessment, integrative STEM, increasing community involvement, policy and funding in STEM education, society and STEM learning, students’ thinking and misconceptions, STEM workforce, literacy, and STEAM.  The only one of these topics that I can relate to the school that I work at is assessment, integrative STEM, students’ thinking and misconceptions, and literacy.

• I have definitely seen assessments in my job setting daily. Students complete an exit ticket on most days, take a quiz every Friday, and have a test every few weeks. The assessments focus on whether or not students understand the material.
• Integrative STEM ties STEM into other subjects including English, Spanish, art, etc.  The most I saw of this was students reading a few informational pages every week that summarizes what we learned in the previous week. I think it definitely helps reinforce their learning of the material and helps develop their biology literacy.
• When grading the quizzes from last Friday, I realized that students didn’t know what a mole is. I had just assumed that this was something they learned in middle school, and I failed to pre-assess students’ thinking and misconceptions about the topic. Or in this case, I failed to assess their actual knowledge of that topic. As a result, many students got stumbled on that mysterious word and it prevented them to focus on the actual purpose of the question.

I have also noticed some STEM activities. Last week, students completed an egg lab to learn tonicity. Boiled eggs were placed in corn syrup (hypertonic to the egg), distilled water (hypotonic to the egg), and vinegar (isotonic to the egg). Students then observed the changes of the mass and circumference of the egg and explained why this happens using scientific terms in a discussion. There has also been a few other labs that students completed in the previous weeks. STEM activities, such as labs and writing lab reports, help students solidify their understanding of the topic and see how the concepts learned in class relate to real life.

Visualization of what happens to an egg when it is placed in various solutions. Image retrieved from http://mccleskeyms.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83452555669e201bb07bd73c5970d-pi

On average, there has been the same level of understanding of STEM for all four of my classes. There aren’t subpopulations at the school I teach at; all students are of the same demographics and economic status. Although all my classes on average have the same level of understanding, I think there can be some improvement with how they are performing. The public high school I work predominantly teaches the students using worksheets. I think this can be complicated and confusing, especially if students lose one of their worksheet packets. I think the students would benefit better from taking notes in one designated notebook. Also, the school predominantly uses questions on the worksheets to get the students to think of the answers. I know that problem-based learning and inquiry-based learning can be helpful to student engagement and understanding, but I think it should be used in balance. I think there’s a time and a place for students to try to figure out how a scientific concept works using their common sense and educational guesses, but there should also be time for teachers to just lecture certain topics so students fully understand them.

STEM Education

Why STEM?

STEM education includes Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, as is in the name. It is very straightforward; there is often only one correct answer, which I enjoy. There is no opinions nor bias when grading these kinds of assignments. However, there is a right and wrong way to defend one's answer. In general, STEM covers all those topics that we classified as 'science' and 'brainy' in grade school.

STEM education is important because it is a way of interpreting life and a way of improving future life. For example, biology can help students understand why they feel stronger after they eat protein after a work out or why birds leave white poop on their windows (and why that poop is white!) Engineering can help create energy efficient, welcoming buildings that people sleep in. Technology can help people live more time efficient lives by creating crafty tools. And math-- it pulls everything together! Math can be used in science, technology, and engineering.

It's important to incorporate and enhance STEM in public education because it's so essential to living. When a student goes to a restaurant with their friend, they will feel confident if they can actually calculate the tip on their receipt without the help of peers. When a person has a pet, they would want to know how the physiology of their body differs from their guinea pig's anatomy and why it's so important to never feed their guinea pig grapes! (This is simply an example. I have not heard of a physiology class that focuses on guinea pigs.)

The bigger picture of why we should enhance STEM in education is the future of our students. We are raising the future. If we spark an interest in a student to pursue engineering as a major, they may create the next big thing that cleans the ocean or prevents pollution. If we instill a love for biology in our student, they may choose biology as a career path and discover the next cure to cancer! We have the potential to influence the future of our students' lives and all of the lives that our students may touch with their knowledge.

After exploring the resources on LiveBinder, I continue to believe in the importance of STEM education, but for different reasons. LiveBinder is a website that organizes a variety of resources, depending on who sets it up. I first skimmed through a few of the articles, which didn't stand out to me deeply: they were about how little women are part of STEM and how technology is important to incorporate into the classroom for STEM. These are things I've read about over the last year and a half. One of the articles in particular really stood out to me. Deangelis (N.D.) states that learning STEM topics helps students develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. These skills can then be applicable to other subjects as well, including reading and writing (Deangelis, N.D.) I completely agree. The scientific way of thinking (make an observation, create a hypothesis, test it, etc.) can be applied to all aspects of life, even art.

Resources

Deangelis, S.F. (N.D.) Why STEM? Success starts with critical thinking, problem-solving skills. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/insights/2014/06/stem-success-starts-critical-thinking-problem-solving-skills/

Somebody Else's Kids

Somebody Else's Kids: 

Creating Accommodations for Tomaso

"Somebody Else's Kids" (Hayden, 1981) is a fictional story of how a resource teacher copes with special needs kids in her classroom. The main character, Torey, cares for an interesting mix of students: a second grader that was abused as a child and cannot read, an autistic boy that cannot seem to connect with reality, a shy 12-year-old that was removed from her previous school because she was pregnant, and a young boy who has intense bouts of anger.

What really stood out to me when I read this book was how Torey, the resource teacher, interacted with these children. She cared for them as if they were her own and she had hope and patience for them even when they were written off by everyone else. For example, Lori (the girl who cannot read) was humiliated in front of her class for her learning disability by her impatient general teacher, but Torey made her feel right at home in the resource room and tried to find a way to help her learn.

Another thing that stood out to me when I read this book was the character Tomaso. Everyone seemed to have a well defined problem (Lori cannot read, Boo is autistic, and Claudia is pregnant) except for Tomaso. Tomaso could be really sweet at times, but he would have random bouts of rage during which he would curse at his peers and teachers, and he even threatened Torey with a scissor at one point in the story. He constantly brags about his amazing father who is from Spain is going to come rescue him from the foster care system, even though Tomaso witnessed his father getting murdered when he was a child. 

With my intrigue and curiosity of Tomaso, I decided to create an educational plan for Tomaso.

In the book, the special needs students attended normal classes for the first half of the day and then attended Torey's resource class for the remainder of each school day. Therefore, I created an educational plan for Tomaso in the viewpoint of a general biology teacher with the assumption that Torey remains his special needs resource teacher. To develop this plan, I identified Tomaso's problem, determined whether he needed an IEP or a 504 Plan, and then brainstormed possible accommodations that would fit his needs.

Step 1: Define the Problem

The first step of helping a student that has trouble learning is defining the problem. For the past few years, Tomaso has gone from foster family to foster family because he was hard to deal with. The constant transition between schools and family life has been hard of him, causing him to fall a few grade levels behind. He also has anger issues and is destructive. At first I wasn't sure what to characterize this behavior, but as I watched a documentary of ADHD I learned about Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) (George, 2005). ODD is characterized as using fowl language, having frequent bursts of anger, and actively trying to argue with and challenge authority (Bhandari, 2016). Tomaso has demonstrated all of these behavior problems throughout the novel. ODD can be caused by environmental influences, including a dysfunctional family (Bhandari, 2016). Tomaso likely developed his ODD when living with his father and stepmother, whom fought all the time, and the condition progressed as he made his grand tour of foster homes.

Luckily, just as ODD can be developed through negative influences, it can also be alleviated through positive ones. Children with symptoms of ODD develop improved behavior when they are in a nurturing, stable environment that has consistent rules (Bhandari, 2016). This further makes me think that Tomaso has ODD: through the comfort of Torey's resource classroom, Tomaso's behavior remarkably improved throughout the story.

Step 2: IEP or 504 Plan?
 

The next step of helping a child with additional needs is determining whether they qualify for an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) or a 504 Plan. To qualify for an IEP, children must have one of thirteen defined disabilities, such as autism, blindness, or deafness. 504 Plans serve a more general list of disabilities, including diabetes, ADHD, and anxiety. Students that have a disability do not always require a 504 Plan or an IEP. For example, if a student had ADHD that did not severely affect their learning, they would not require an educational plan. Students only need an IEP or 504 Plan if their condition greatly impacts their ability to learn.

One could argue that Tomaso fits the "emotional disturbance" requirement, which is one of the thirteen disabilities listed for an IEP, because Tomaso clearly has trouble coping with his father's death. However, I think a 504 Plan is more appropriate for Tomaso because his way of grieving does not make a deep impact on his ability to learn. Tomaso's ODD condition would be classified as a behavioral problem, which falls under the jurisdiction of Section 504 of the American Disabilities Act (Wright & Wright, 1998-2017). Tomaso needs a 504 Plan.

The 504 Plan for Tomaso will be created by a committee of the principal, his foster parents, the resource teacher (Torey), and the general teachers (including myself). The 504 Plan will include a guideline of how Tomaso should be educated, including any necessary accommodations.

Step 3: Accommodations

Tomaso needs a stable, nurturing environment for his ODD behavioral problem (Bhandari, 2016). For the latter half of each day, Torey's resource room provides an ideal setting for Tomaso's condition. General teachers should also provide this kind of comforting setting for Tomaso. Teachers should be patient and kind to Tomaso and enforce consistent rules (Bhandari, 2016). When placing Tomaso in group activities, he should be grouped with students he gets along with so he feels a stable connection to the group.

To address Tomaso's struggle of being a few grade-levels behind, general teachers should give Tomaso pre-reading activities to help him develop content-specific vocabulary. When needed, they should create alternative exercises that are worded in less complex ways while addressing the same level of content. It's important to be patient with Tomaso. He has had a rough childhood and he still has trouble facing the reality of his father's death. Luckily, Torey is very patient with Tomaso, but other teachers and students may not always be so. Tomaso will struggle will frustration of being behind his grade-level, but he is catching up quickly so this will not be a problem for long. He will also be frustrated as other children tease him about how he speaks about his father. The other students don't understand Tomaso's past, so they may not know the effect of their words. Teachers should monitor the interactions between Tomaso and the other students to make sure it doesn't become toxic.

Personal Struggles

Personally, one thing that I will struggle with when teaching Tomaso is his outbursts of anger. During the part of the book when Tomaso threatened Torey with scissors, I was astounded with how patient she was throughout all of this. Tomaso poses a huge danger to teachers and other students in the classroom. With the levels of anger that Tomaso has, he may really hurt someone when he is in one of his moods. To help me deal with this challenge, I will try to calm myself down before addressing him and try to be understanding of his condition.



References

George, B. (2005). BBC - Horizon - 2005 - Living with ADHD [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x22698p

Hayden, T. (1981). Somebody Else's Kids. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.

Bhandari, S. (Reviewer). (2016, May 18). Oppositional Defiant Disorder. WebMD. Retrieved from http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/oppositional-defiant-disorder#1

Wright, P.W.D., & Wright, P.D. (1998-2017). Wrightslaw. Retrieved from http://www.wrightslaw.com/

Pictures:
Somebody Else's Kids Book Cover: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51NtZr1npWL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
Oppositional Defiant Disorder: https://hrexach.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/od7.png

Understanding IEPs and 504 Plans

A comparison between 504 Plans and IEPs

               The main goal of both the 504 plan and the Individualized Educational Program (IEP) is to help students participate in the general education curriculum. While the 504 plan stems from Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, IEPs are guided by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IEPs are created for students that have one of thirteen disabilities, including blindness, deafness, and autism. IEPs are very detailed and have measurable goals and may recommend students to either be in a normal classroom, a special ed classroom, special school, home, hospital, institution, or another setting. 504 Plans, on the other hand, cover a more broad variety of physical and mental disabilities, as long as the disability significantly impairs the student's ability to learn or concentrate. Also, 504 plans layout a general outline as guidelines for teachers to follow rather than a step by step process with goals, as is seen with IEPs. Regardless of their differences, IEPs and 504 plans are designed to help students make the most of their education. To learn more about these educational plans, access the links found in the reference section.

References

A Guide to the Individualized Education Program. U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/parents/needs/speced/iepguide/index.html

Stanberry, K. (N.D.). Understanding 504 Plans. Understood. Retrieved from https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/special-services/504-plan/understanding-504-plans

University of Washington. (2017, June 28). What is the difference between an IEP and a 504 Plan? Retrieved from http://www.washington.edu/doit/what-difference-between-iep-and-504-plan#header