Etch 'n Sketch Reflections

Not a bad week, but it just felt really long...one of those weeks where you can't remember what happened at the beginning of the week unless you really think hard. All in all, it was a good week (except for yesterday--yesterday sucked), but a rather busy week both in and out of school. Things have become pretty routine-oriented for school now. Monday is spent in staff and team meetings in the morning, and a homeroom video chat with the students tossed in before lunch. The afternoon is then spent emailing students with missing work updates and feedback from assignments turned in over the weekend along with prepping for Tuesday's science lesson and assignment. This particular Monday also brought a little excitement out of school hours; my daughter and I finished building a desk for her room. She wants to redecorate her room with some homemade furniture, and a desk was the first thing on the list. She designed it, I cut the wood, she stained it, and we worked together building it...

Well, the news of not physically going back to school has sunk in, and this week was better. The assignments this week also allowed the students to be a little more active in science class. Our current unit deals with matter, specifically the fact that matter is made up of particles that are too small to be seen. Up until now, we have been working on learning a lot of the conceptual knowledge that will help the students meet the standard. This week, however, it was time to put that knowledge to work. We started with a bit of an inquiry-based activity. I created a demonstration for the students in which I poured two cups of water into a bottle. I marked the level of the water and then poured it out. After that, I poured in one cup of water and one cup of rubbing alcohol. In this case, the two liquids did not reach the two cup line marked off from the two cups of water. The students had to try to explain why based off of what they had learned about particles in liquids. I had some hint...

There. I said it. That's how I'm feeling right now. I just found out that we will not be physically back at school this year. And that sucks. I want to see my kids. Not just digitally see them on Google Meet. I want to give them high fives and hugs. I want to be able to tell them, "Good job, you made it through virtual learning. Now we've got some time together to finish out the year all together in one place." But we won't. And that sucks. Don't get me wrong--I think I've been doing a pretty good job teaching digitally, all things considered. But it's just not the same...and that sucks.

So, to be perfectly honest, my lesson for the end of last week didn't go as planned. We were wrapping up our unit about space, and the standard the students were working to meet was supporting an argument that the reason the sun seems so much brighter than the other stars is that it is closer to earth than all the others. Along with this standard, I am working on teaching the students how to use evidence and explain it in a way that can support a claim. We have spent the last few weeks learning about stars: what makes them up, why they shine and how brightly, how big they are, and (importantly) how far away they are. Pretty straight forward. To help the students develop their arguments, we are using a method called the CER model (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning). We've used it in science class before, and the students are actually using it in writing right now to support them with opinion writing. Putting all of this together, I guessed that the students would be able to support th...

Well, after a much needed week of rest, it was back to work, but definitely not back to normal. It looks like we are going to be having a new normal for a while, and it is going to take some adjusting to get used to it. Spring break was good--very relaxing. I would like to say that my time was spent evenly distributed between getting things marked off of the to-do list, exercising, reading, and relaxing. But it was definitely more in the relaxing column, spent playing a game on my phone or watching Netflix. In my defense, though, I do watch Netflix while on the treadmill, so that has to count for something. I also got on my bike and rode around St. Cloud several days, so that was good too. As for "back to school" on Monday, the new normal finds my days spent in front of the computer. Having this experience of teaching from home has taught me that I am glad I didn't go into a profession where I would need just be sitting at a computer all day. I miss being able to walk a...