| Classroom
Policies How will I help your child to succeed? I firmly believe that school work should be challenging. I also firmly believe that having fun makes hard work go better. I use science topics to teach students about science and also about how to ask questions, how to evaluate information, and to develop a healthy skepticism about information. In fact, the most important part of learning to think like a scientist is learning how to think! We learn best by doing. This means we observe, try out things, question, explain our thinking (usually using drawings), and support our answers and opinions with evidence and facts. Memorization is not helpful to what we do. Students learn to identify and explain using their own terminology. As concepts are mastered, students usually begin to naturally use scientific terminology accurately. Properly designed assignments are key to building student knowledge and skills. I design aspects of assignments based on district-provided curriculum materials. These materials are national (independent of local standards) so I modify them to better meet requirements of the Massachusetts Science Frameworks set as standards (which are broadly defined, divided into two spans: Grades K through 2 and Grades 3 through 5. The BPS Science Department has made grade level decisions about curriculum. They cover most of the state standards, but not all. We follow this mandated curriculum and I supplement it with other quality material to fill in gaps to better meet the overall needs of the child, including preparing for the MCAS (science MCAS tests are given in grades 5, 8, and 10). Because active learning is key to success in science, making up missed work successfully is very, very hard for your child. Fifteen minutes (or even 45 minutes) of reading doesn’t begin to compare to the value of 45 minutes of experiences and discussions. Also, I don’t really follow any standard Scientific Method. In fact, we don’t routinely make predictions nor do we write hypotheses. (While there is some disagreement about the nature of a quality science education program, there is large support for the approach I use; follow this link for some a bit of background.) What routines have I set up in my classroom? We use Science Notebooks regularly. Students create a record of his or her work in them. They also write summarizing notes, including concept maps, occasionally. Communication through notebooks is vitally important for most kinds of scientists and my students gain stronger skills from grade to grade. As a teacher, I provide lots of feedback to students about how they are doing through my grading scheme (please see the section below on grading). To share resonsibility for the smooth running of the class, I've developed "jobs". There's a set of jobs for each group of students (assigned to particular tables) and a set for the entire class of students. (There are lots of things to manage during science instruction and learning to take care of it all is a good skill for children to learn.) What is my grading policy? I use a holistic scoring rubric in assessing all aspects of student work. A Level3 means “you did what I expected”. A Level2 means “you did some of what I expected”. A Level1 means “you did very little of what I expected, or nothing”. A Level4 means “you gave me more than I expected and you made some interesting connections with this work and other experiences or ideas of yours”. I do not consider spelling or grammar (which is also true of the MCAS). However, once I teach about organizing work on the page and cover ways of improving appearance (and readability), I often consider page-layout when grading (taking the individual capabilities of each child into consideration on this item). This grading scheme is basically the same as what is used by the state in scoring the MCAS. To re-cap: Level 4 (L4) = Exceeds the standard Level 3 (L3) = Meets the standard Level 2 (L2) = Partial progress toward the standard Level 1 (L1) = Little accomplished Level 0 (L0) = No work attempted How can you help your child succeed? 1. Know what's going on in my classroom! Visit this web site regularly for the updates. 2. Make certain they don’t miss any science classes with me. 3. Stress effort over ability 4. Establish homework routines at home. (HW is usually only given to fifth grade) 5. Make science important by visiting science museums, zoos, and nature parks throughout the year. How can you help me? 1. Give me feedback! Notes work better than phone calls, and email is best – you can also use the contact form on this web site – you don’t have to bother using your own email. (I use email for feedback and sharing information – it just doesn’t work well at all for explaining or for giving advice, etc. We’ll have to set up a face-to-face meeting for that.) 2. Make certain your child doesn’t miss any science classes (this is so important it is worth repeating) 3. Donate rolls of white paper towels every so often. (Bounty is my long-time favorite!) 4. Bring in live crickets (for food), from pet shops 5. Bring in live land snails (found in various neighborhoods around Boston) Do you want to volunteer? I haven’t had lots of experience (yet) with volunteers from families. I have now decided on a policy, which is you can volunteer, but not in a class with your child in it! Why (well, we’ll just to talk about it.) Information about MCAS (from the Masschusetts Department of Education): How are student responses scored? – look closely at Part 3 |