Coupla Things v10 (10/23/16)

Post date: Oct 23, 2016 4:17:7 PM

Happy Sunny Sunday Everyone,

Science: We've gone through the 'motion' chapter in the book, covering speed, velocity acceleration, friction, and gravity. They've read sections as homework, discussed it in class, responded to my quiz questions, watched some demonstrations, and done some experiments. This combination and routine will continue through most of year.

Their 'effect of ___ on ___' experiments are all in various stages of completion (using the word loosely; there are 2 or 3 who haven't even started their trials yet) and I think that many will be turned in this week. To help them write a good procedure, I brought out some old Science World magazines that had great articles on writing and then improving the procedure section of an experiment. During the upcoming week I will be asking students to present their findings to the class, partly because I need some scores to be entered into the 'presentations' section of what is to be our Fall progress report.

Social Studies: An interesting evolution of learning activities happened this week. Last weekend I had read a chapter in the more complicated of our two history textbooks and wanted the kids to hear, discuss, and understand the material without making them read it all. So, I read section 1 to them during class on Monday, and had one person at each table take unstructured notes as the other 3 supplemented with post-its. That didn't work very well -- too much material too fast and through only an auditory mode. On Tuesday, gave them an 11x17 sheet with the section headers provided and displayed the paragraph on the screen as it was read. We discussed what should be written and I showed my hand-written sample every few minutes. Wednesday, Stella Ziegler (sub), summarized the third section for them and simply discussed the content, reading only select portions from the book. On Thursday, I had each table choose a scenario to act out in a content-filled and creative semi-improvised scene about a different topic discussed during the week. Notes and scene-suggestions are here.

English: The kids experienced the vocabulary routine last week. They assembled a list of possible words, chose one, made a single slide with definition and uses, taught it to the class, practiced on a Quizlet set, and took a quiz. Last year, my students and I experimented with many different ways to learn a good variety of great words, and this method was the one that seemed to be most effective, so we will continue with it and improve/modify as needed during the next few months.

Book clubs seem to be progressing well. I wan't there on Wednesday (thanks, AnnaMaria for taking my group) and Stella said that she sat in on each group's discussions that seemed engaging.

Conferences: The Fall conferences of next week will be a great time for us to strengthen the parent-student-teacher triangle. There are two students without a spot, so I'll assume that is intentional. Kids, it is my experience that if you take the lead and choose the agenda items, you'll have a better conference than if you stay quiet, resigned, or ambiguous/ambivalent. To make the best use of our 25 minutes, please take a look at this list of possible topics to cover.

Zero-Scores: I still have some concerns about the number of missing assignments and shoddy work being done by some kids. I'm trying to stand my ground and hold kids accountable to high standards and age-appropriate levels of responsibility but it is a challenge to continually push kids to think more, work harder, and foster a demanding level of internal quality control. Others do it extremely well. Although DCS (and I) believe that individual needs and flexibility (rather than conformity) should drive policy, if the exception becomes the expectation, then a student's work habits will suffer and the transition to the relatively rigid demands of high school might be quite jarring. Comfort yes, complacency no. Lets keep our class moving forward together and at a ambitious pace -- please check the assignment sheet nightly with your kid (tinyurl.com/heumannhomework) and, if you like, check scores on PowerSchool once per week (link is in this page).

-October 24-28: Fall conferences -- early-release for students all week

-October 29 (Saturday): Fall Festival -- Sharina Shields to provide details

-November 1-4: Rm 29 in SF (changed intensive rotation)

-November 11 (Friday): Veteran's Day (no school)

-November 15 (Tuesday): Innovation Challenge at SJSU

November 17 & 18: Room 25 to Angel Island -- see message from Gina

November 21-25: Thanksgiving Break

December 3: Star Party

December 6: 8th Grade to The Exploratorium

December 16: Early dismissal & Christmas break starts