Week 2

Week 2 in Review

This was the final week in our Chemical Interactions Unit. Therefore, though our test was on Friday we had a quiz at the beginning of the week over our third and final learning goal, and I'm glad we did! This was the first quiz of the year that quite a few students found difficult.  The team averages on the previous two quizzes had been remarkably high - 90% on Quiz 2.1 and 85% on Quiz 2.2; however, on this quiz, Quiz 2.3, the team average was 77%.

(Quick aside on nomenclature. I title my quizzes based on the unit and learning goal. The first number corresponds to the unit and the number after the decimal corresponds to the learning goal. Quiz 2.1 is over unit 2, learning goal 1; Quiz 2.2 over unit 2, learning goal 2; etc....)

When I passed back Quiz 2.3 on I stressed the end of first quarter is October 11th and the test on Friday is weighted so that it affects there grade more than all of the quizzes from the unit. Whether it was my speech or the fear of parents seeing a report card, I had more students voluntarily choosing to reassess Quiz 2.3 the day before the test then any other quiz I've given before and many of them turned a D or F into an A.  More importantly, they discovered their misconceptions, addressed them, which prepared them to show off their knowledge on test day.  Team average on Chemical Interactions Test: 84%.  Not too shabby.

Monday 

Students began a Google Doc assignment called Everyday Compounds.  Its an assignment I scraped later in the week so students could focus on reassessing and finishing a study guide; however, I'd like to make room for it next year. In it students pick out a compound from their everyday life, research its elemental components, and marvel at how random elements come together to make something totally different. You can check out there work - Period 2, Period 3, Period, 6, Period 7, Period 8.  (If things look a bit unfinished it's because we ended up dropping the assignment to focus on reassessing Quiz 2.3 and Friday's test. However there are some entries that are complete and look great.)

One thing I really liked about the assignment is I made kids link their content to the web source they obtained it from. Then, at the begining and end of each period I scrolled through the class's Google Doc on the screen in front of the room and clicked on students' work and we had discussions about reputable and unreputable sources. Kids were into it and I could see the light bulb going off that Answer.com shouldn't be a go-to location for information.

Tuesday 

Students took a paper-and-pencil quiz on Learning Goal 3 - Period Table Organization. Then they continued working on the Everyday Compound assignment. I enjoyed watching them struggle with finding a website that broke down the chemical formula of their item. Many students discovered they had to first find the components, then search for chemical formulas. For instance, some girls chose a volleyball and discovered they had to research independently the bladder, then the lacing, then the leather making up the ball.

Wednesday

Students received their quizzes back and received my pep talk. Every began working on a study guide for Friday's test. Majority of them finished it for homework.

Thursday

Students had a checklist of options that looked like this:

• Show Mr. Mabrey your completed study guide
• Check study guide with a key
• Reassess quiz (if you want to)
• Pair up and review / make notecards
• Play Zondle review game.

This was a great day of self-directed learning. If you walked in my room it looked a bit like a zoo, but it was well-orchestrated chaos (at least from my perspective). Kids were strewn around the room working on study guides, checking study guides, quizzing wherever they found a quiet location, or playing review games on Zondle. Speaking of Zondle, I love that program. Completely free. Kids can sign up for an account (I have them use their Student ID and Lunch code as passwords), and teachers can make question banks that students can play review games from.

What was especially cool with today's lesson was I had the highest performing kids in my second period login with my credentials and they created the question bank the rest of the kids used that day.  In other words, they did the work for me!  Not only that, but I let them add goofy questions in addition to the content questions and they thought that was a riot.  Will definitely continue using Zondle in subsequent units.

Friday

Test day. Students took their Unit 2 tests then completed a short 5 question post-survey on the unit. The 5 question post-survey is the same 5 questions they took after the Unit 1 test. I use these questions to help determine my teaching effectiveness for the unit and try to limit the questions to 4-5 so as not to overwhelm the students with filling in bubbles. We had a shortened schedule due to an author assembly in the afternoon so all the students didn't complete the post-survey. Looking forward to sharing the results when I get them.

Lessons Learned

1. I have a cool group of mentors for being a FLiP teacher. I met Lee and Jill this week and they helped me troubleshoot some parts of Desire 2 Learn (D2L), our district's new LMS.  My goal is too start shifting my online platform from my google.site to D2L this unit and to start using the quiz and test features of D2L.
2. The cow is working!  I started putting this cow magnet on the board as an indicator to students when we're using laptops.  When students come into the room they now know they should grab the laptops out of the C.O.W. (computers on wheels) if the magnet is on the board and immediately begin logging in. No cow, no laptops today.  This routine is a huge timesaver.