I teach 5th and 6th grade STEM in the lovely Pacific Northwest in a small, rural town called Chimacum. My goal is to help students discover that all learning is life-long and that 21st century tools can be used for work as well as fun.
Nov 28
This post was originally written on the CORELaborate blog here. Last week my 6th graders used Inquiry Boards to design and conduct experiments flipping water bottles. I took photos of a few of their lab write-ups and graphs to show the great work they did. Using Inquiry Boards makes the lab write-up process much easier …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/11/28/inquiry-boards-bottle-flipping-lab-write-up/
Nov 27
This post was originally published at the CORELaborate Blog here! Isn’t it fun to find out your plan didn’t work AFTER students start turning in work? I see my error NOW and I even have an idea for how to fix it but I won’t know how well the fix works until next time students …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/11/27/hindsight-is-easy-i-need-foresight/
Nov 22
This post was originally published on the CORELaborate WA blog here. NGSS says start with a phenomenon to hook kids, get them interested and get them thinking and asking questions. After having to ask kids every day to stop flipping their bottles in class so we wouldn’t have to hear that obnoxious bottle falling sound, …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/11/22/bottle-flipping-lab/
Nov 21
This post was originally published on the CORELaborate WA blog here. Is the Scientific Method dead? Does the NGSS have guidelines for students as experimental designers? Before NGSS, WA State’s revised 2009 Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALR) number 2 was the Inquiry standard for questioning and investigating. That provide a framework for how Science teachers …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/11/21/ngss-the-scientific-method/
Nov 14
Just out on Larry Ferlazzo’s EdWeek Blog, Classroom Q&A with Larry Ferlazzo, is the response to the question about the biggest challenge facing Science Teachers. Last week I shared a link to Larry’s BAM Radio show where I got to share my thoughts on the topic and here’s a link to the follow-up EdWeek blog …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/11/14/response-to-the-biggest-challenge-science-teachers-face/
Nov 04
I was so happy and honored to be asked by Larry Ferlazzo (check out Larry’s blog if you don’t read it already) to be a panelist on his BAM! Radio Network show, Classroom Q&A! We tackled the topic of solutions to the biggest challenges facing Science Teachers. It was so cool! I’ve embedded it above …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/11/04/biggest-challenges-facing-science-teachers/
Oct 20
I’ve watched these two powerful videos, which seem to be meant to go together or at least were inspired by the same problem. The problem? Modern day schooling, which hasn’t changed enough to do right by our modern day students. It’s no secret that education, as a system, is slow to change. That even with …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/10/20/how-much-change-is-enough/
Oct 18
STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. This has worried teachers of the arts and the humanities because at face value it seems to exclude those disciplines. I don’t know it was meant to at first since the STEM fields were competing against the others at a time when our country wanted …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/10/18/what-is-stem-2/
Oct 17
Originally posted on CORElaborate here (re-posted here in its entirety with the author’s – me – permission). I don’t use rubrics very often and when it comes time to have students self-assess I prefer proficiency scales. When I last wrote about using CER, Claims – Evidence – Reasoning, for having students write experiment conclusions, I …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/10/17/cer-rubric/
Oct 14
Originally posted on CORElaborate here (re-posted here in its entirety with the author’s – me – permission). Time for NGSS Shifts! I wrote a series of posts on the shifts in teaching called for in the Common Core English Language Arts (ELA) standards. Now it’s time to look at the shifts called for by the …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/10/14/ngss-science-shifting/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023 and 2024!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
