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Since science is about asking questions, and conducting experiments to answer those questions, a science class should function as such. It doesn't make any sense for a science class to consist of a teacher standing in front of a classroom filling the student's heads with facts and equations with no hands on exploration. Furthermore, in a class like this, an experiment might be conducted, but it is usually used to confirm what the teacher has already said, and not to investigate anything new. I conduct my class in the opposite direction. Before teaching a major concept of physics, the students are engaged in the scientific method. I ask the students what they think, have them develop a hypothesis, and conduct an experiment. After the experiment, they analyze the data and formulate their own conclusions on the concept. From there, I will teach them any additional equations, concepts, and information that will help to enhance their understanding of the underlying physical concept they just investigated. If available, the students will also conduct experiments that are mainly used for them to practice the equations, and help to show them how they apply to a real physical situation. In addition, these experiments include questions throughout the procedure to help give students better insight to the concepts being applied. Each major concept is introduced to the students in this manner. The list of experiments can be found in the curriculum section. When it comes time to lecture, I utilize questioning and critical thinking as much as possible. I implement the same strategy I described above with the exception of the experiment. During the lecture, I ask the students what they think before I teach a certain concept, and often times have them write down their ideas and discuss them before I teach the correct answer. For my Master's Degree, I developed what I called an interactive lecture method that helped to facilitated the aformentioned aspects of teaching. This method was based on my research of the studies conducted that investigated which type of teaching techniques and methods helped optimize student learning. To read the rationale behind my method of teaching click here. In order to help achieve an interactive learning environment, I have created lecture sheets to accompany every lecture given in class. These sheets include a basic outline of Bloom's Taxonomy. the material, diagrams, pictures, and questions. They help save time, keep the student's notes organized, and allows more time of instruction and explaining. One of the main purposes of this sheet is to elicit higher level thinking. The goal is to get students out of the first two levels of thinking, and into the subsequent levels, as illustrated by Bloom's Taxonomy:
The lecture sheets contain questions that are designated for a special activity. A more in depth explanation of these sheets can be found in the Stategies section of the Portfolio.
Discipline A plan for self-improvement The Declaration: It is easy for high school students to fall into the trap of shifting blame and responsibility from themselves to somebody else. After all, if you can get away with it, why not try? However, those who continue to do so after high school quickly find out that the world does not reward those behaviors, and you are left behind with only one choice: wake up every day and go to a job you despise and live a life of regret with little chance of ever fulfilling the dreams you once had. It all comes down to choices. Many people hate their job, but they have no other choice now because of the bad choices they made early in life. Making bad decisions now leaves you with very little choices later in life. These choices range from what kind of job you have, where you live, and the things you like to do. Most importantly, is waking up to a job that you love. The average person spends about 40% of his or her waking hours at work. If you are miserable all day at work, how will that affect the other 60%? You cannot put a price on being happy at work. You cannot be happy at work unless you are doing something you love, which means you will need either a college degree or the necessary training. You cannot have that until you make the choice to develop self-discipline, responsibility, perseverance, and the determination to succeed in all that you do. In today's day and age, having a college degree means so much. It means when you open the newspaper to the classified section, you are no longer limited to just the general section on the first page. Again, it is all about choices. Without a college diploma, your choices are limited. The degree opens the rest of the pages, which includes the professional, technical, IT, and medical fields. In fact, a lot of employers offering the good jobs don't even care what degree you have. They only care that you have one, because it proves you have all of the traits mentioned above, and that they can count on you. So how does high school and in particular this class fit into the picture? After all, how can not completing and turning in an assignment keep you from succeeding when it "really" matters after high school? That type of thinking is what gets so many people in trouble because they fail to see past the weekend let alone the future after high school. You must realize the opportunity you have now and see that it "really" matters now. The reason: being lazy and not completing an assignment can become habit, habit becomes part of your character, which defines who you are as a person, and that dictates the level of success you will achieve in life. Fortunately, these character flaws can be undone, but just as it takes time for the habit to infiltrate your character, it takes time to undo the damage and establish a good habit in its place. The longer you wait in life to do this, the harder it becomes. So, it is better to either undo it now or keep it from happening if it has not already taken over. Making excuses and blaming others for your character flaws always leads you back to where you started, because after the complaining and finger pointing is over and nobody is left, you are left with both the source and solution to the problem: you. Therefore, I am calling you to accept responsibility for your future and make the choice to make a difference this year and improve yourself as a person. The Charge: Popular responses I have heard over the years are as follows: These excuses will not work in this class. We are going to focus on three areas: The following is a description of these areas. Afterward, you will fill out a goal sheet to determine the exact areas you need to develop. Self-discipline: The first issue under self-discipline is behavior in class. The biggest stress-inducing behavior to me is talking to a neighbor or someone across the room while I or another student is talking. It is rude, annoying, and distracting. The other behaviors are covered in the goal sheet. The other issue under self-discipline includes things such as completing assignments, allotting enough time to study for tests and quizzes, and maintaining attention during class. Intervention: You will be given a calendar of days for the current month and it is to be placed as the first page in your notebook. You will use this calendar to record every assignment and due date given. Every Thursday and Friday at the beginning of class, you will show me the progress on your homework and record that in the calendar. Your goal will be to have most of the homework done before the weekend, which will leave you time Sunday evening to study for the quiz. You will record the amount of time you spent studying for the quiz on the calendar as well. Responsibility: The issues under responsibility include actually turning in the assignments on time, following up on missed work and notes, and bringing materials to class. It is your job to get what you missed in class, because I do not have the time to keep track of who needs what and when. If you miss an assignment that is due next week, and you never find about it and never turn it in, you will not have a chance to make it up. If you miss a quiz and never come talk to me about making it up, you will get a zero. If you do not bring the necessary materials to class, I will loan you paper or a calculator once, but after that you are on your own. Intervention: The calendar mentioned before will help with a lot of these issues. If you see on the calendar that a day is blank, and you know you missed that day, that should remind you to follow up with me or someone in the class to see what you missed. Making sure you record your progress on the homework, and checking the due dates regularly will remind you when certain assignments are due. Independence in Learning: Teacher dependence occurs when you rely on the teacher for everything. It is so easy to fall into this trap, because if you have the choice of either looking up a piece of information or asking the teacher for it, you will naturally take advantage of the teacher. Another issue is with class examples. I can spend 20 minutes on an example and assign a similar problem, and I will still have students asking me how to do it without even trying to look at the example again. Also, students would rather ask the teacher for directions than read them. Intervention: First, I will not give you an answer that you can easily look up in the back of your book, or notes. Second, before you come and ask me help on a problem, you have to show me two things: If you cannot do those two things, I will not help you. (Those two things do not require you to understand the problem. You can complete the first three steps without having a clue of what to do in the problem itself.) Third, it is very important that you learn how to read directions on your own, and follow a step-by-step procedure as outlined by the directions, because we do so many labs in this class. If you are not sure about something, instead of asking me what to do, you need to tell me what you think the directions are asking to make sure you are correct. I will not explain how to do something when it is already written down and all you have to do is read, because I will not have time to do that for everyone. Concluding Remarks: Hopefully, these few interventions will help you to develop the desired character traits. Remember, you choose how you will end up in life, and it is not a one-time decision either. It is easy to decide today to make the right choices, and be very sincere and excited. But, as time goes by, the excitement fades and you start to make the wrong choices more and more each day until before you know it, you are back where you started, or sometimes even worse. This is illustrated in the parable of the sower: "As he was scattering the seed...Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root." Mark 4: 4-7 This describes so many people. In fact, it applies very well to many students over the course of a school year. You come to the first day of school excited and ready to learn and you tell yourself this year will be different. You even buy a planner for homework. That is like the plant that sprang up quickly. However, what happens as the school year progresses? You lose the enthusiasm, you get tired of learning, and you forget where you put your planner. Just like that you are back to your old ways. You withered like the plant because like the plant, you failed to secure your decisions with a solid foundation. The foundation needs to start first with your relationship with Jesus Christ. Second, you need to have support from family, friends, and teachers. Third, you need to always be reminded why you are doing this. Fourth, you need to remember that each day is new, which means just because you decided to study yesterday, it doesn't mean you will do it today. You have to make the decision all over again. You have to make it everyday. Unfortunately, there is not an easy way around this. If it were easy, everyone would do it. You just can't wait until you wake up one day ready to learn and be disciplined. That day will never come. The only way to develop the desire to learn and build character is to do it. You start each day with the commitment to learn and make the right decisions, and as time goes by, you will begin to like learning, and like the changes in your character. This fact is illustrated in Romans 5: 3-4: "...we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope." The sufferings can include the trials of character refinement we go through each day as we make the right decisions that we really don't "feel" like doing. As you do this, you develop perseverance, which in turn helps to develop our character, which gives us hope. It is the hope of having a successful and happy life. You could complete the physics course this year and not remember one thing pertaining to physics, but the real tragedy would be if you did it and failed to improve yourself as a person. The choice is yours: you can slide by and be the same person in the end still circling the same answers above, or you can accept the fact that you are here and work hard to bring yourself closer to your dreams. After reading the paper, each student is handed a goal sheet, which is given below: They will begin the year focusing on three areas to improve. Every two to three weeks, I will meet with them individually to discuss their progress. If their intervention didn't work for a particular goal, we will come up with a new one. If they have improved on a goal, they will choose a new area to improve so that they always have three goals at one time. If I feel the need to meet with a student sooner than two to three weeks, or a student is having behavior problems in class, I will give him/her a conference slip. I choose to call it a conference rather than a detention, because again I am working with them rather than against them. During the conference, we will discuss the problem and come up with an alternative behavior that can replace the undesired behavior, or come up with a new intervention to help improve a goal. Answer the following questions by circling yes or no. Be brutally honest! Self-discipline Do you wait until the last day to start your homework? yes no Do you wait until the day homework is due to ask questions? yes no Do you fail to assign time to study for quizzes the night before? yes no Do you wait until the last day to cram for tests? yes no Do you talk while the teacher or another student is talking? yes no Do you have problems paying attention in class? yes no Do you find yourself doing just enough to get by? yes no Do you make being late to class a habit? yes no Responsibility Do you routinely forget about assignments and not turn them in? yes no Do you forget to follow up on any missed material after an absence? yes no Do you routinely forget to bring the proper materials to class? yes no Do you make excuses for mistakes instead of admitting them? yes no Independence in Learning Do you give up easily when faced with a challenging homework problem? yes no Do you ask the teacher for help right after you read a challenging problem? yes no Do you rely more on the teacher as opposed to written instructions? yes no Do you prefer to ask the teacher questions that you could look up yourself? yes no Your goal this year will be to improve every question that you answered yes. You must include a way in which you plan to improve a certain area. For instance, if you said yes to routinely forgetting about assignments and not turning them in, your goal could be to utilize the homework journal in your notebook, and check it every day after school to remind you what is due and when. In other words, you cannot simply write, "I will not forget assignments." You must include an intervention! Choose the three most important areas you need to improve. In other words, don't choose bringing materials to class instead of turning in your assignments. Write the three goals on the back of this sheet, share them with your parents. Have them sign and date the back with you.
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