principal observation
My principal came in and gave me a surprise observation. I think, by the books (legal mumbo jumbo), he's supposed to **schedule** a rough day/time (doesn't have to give exact time, but he should say something to the effect of "I am planning to observe you in the next few days, is that OK?"), but he showed up unexpectedly during last period and it confused me. He walked in the back of the room with his laptop and looked at the back bench and said "what's in all these boxes?!" so I gave him a tour of the back of my messy room-- here are my gloves, and the dissecting tools, and some textbooks, over here we keep extra paper and color pencils, and over here... Hmm, I'm not quite sure, let me check..." Yes, completely clueless that what he meant was: "I am here to observe you and need some space to sit down." Oh, hahaha.
I was starting a new chapter on the never-controversial "primate and human evolution" chapter, so the good news is that there was a lot of back-and-forth discussion between me and the students. My principal wrote in my observation: "Teacher keeps the students engaged in the topic and is knowledgeable about the subject material." Which is code for me fielding questions like: "So does that mean we are all monkeys?", "Why do monkeys exist today if we came from monkeys?" and "Will monkeys some day take over the world?! OMG Planet of the Apes! Did you see that movie because it was totally awesome!"
I went over the primer/introduction material, like characteristics of primates (opposable thumb, larger brain, complex social behaviors, etc.) and the four major primate groups and characteristics of each, which was about 20 minutes of PowerPoint lecture (they take notes on a fill-in-the-blank handout), interspersed with 20 minutes of discussion ("why is an opposable thumb important?" and "how did complex social behaviors lead to our success on this planet?"). I know that's one thing I do differently from the other biology teacher: my class is 10X louder than hers and a lot of what appears to be off-topic discussion (the Planet of the Apes references, for example), but I get at least half my class to participate with me. With her time, she goes over 30 minutes of lecture and then they sit and read the textbook (in absolute silence) for 10 minutes in preparation for tomorrow's lecture. She says this cuts down on the number of questions they have during her lecture because they "prepare" in advance by reading. We just have different teaching styles.
The remaining 40 minutes of time (I have 80 minute periods with the students, every day), I split them up into pairs and they worked around my classroom at various lab stations. Each of the 20 stations had a task to complete and they had to time how long it took them to do it "with thumbs" and then "without thumbs"-- tasks included: "Turn to page 20 of a textbook", "Braid a strand of yarn at least 10 inches", "Cut a circle out of this piece of paper", "Tie your shoelaces", or "Put this jacket on and zip it all the way up". Remember, they have to do each task once with full use of their hands, and then a second time without use of their thumbs. My classroom turned into the gameshow "Minute to Win It" as students yelled and screamed and cheered and groaned and fell on the floor with laughter; in other words, utter social chaos!?! My principal wrote in my observation: "Teacher provided students with a paired learning task that involved various stations around the room that encouraged independent student-driven learning. Students were loud but engaged in the activity, and teacher circulated the room to provide constructive feedback and keep students on task." Which is code for me going around the room saying "shhh! Not so loud!! John, don't eat the play-doh! Susy, pay attention! Andrew, get off the floor and get back to work!" and hoping nobody cut their fingers off with a scissors when they were laughing so hard they couldn't see.
The bell rang, and they took their lab assignments home, and were asked to reflect on the importance of having an opposable first digit (a thumb), how that increased our manual dexterity, the implications for tool and weapon use among primates, and more. And the next day, how happy I was when students came in gushing: "I told my mom about how important our thumbs are and made her try to eat her dinner without using her thumbs and it was funny!!!!!" because that's what they are supposed to feel like when they learn about science.
I was starting a new chapter on the never-controversial "primate and human evolution" chapter, so the good news is that there was a lot of back-and-forth discussion between me and the students. My principal wrote in my observation: "Teacher keeps the students engaged in the topic and is knowledgeable about the subject material." Which is code for me fielding questions like: "So does that mean we are all monkeys?", "Why do monkeys exist today if we came from monkeys?" and "Will monkeys some day take over the world?! OMG Planet of the Apes! Did you see that movie because it was totally awesome!"
I went over the primer/introduction material, like characteristics of primates (opposable thumb, larger brain, complex social behaviors, etc.) and the four major primate groups and characteristics of each, which was about 20 minutes of PowerPoint lecture (they take notes on a fill-in-the-blank handout), interspersed with 20 minutes of discussion ("why is an opposable thumb important?" and "how did complex social behaviors lead to our success on this planet?"). I know that's one thing I do differently from the other biology teacher: my class is 10X louder than hers and a lot of what appears to be off-topic discussion (the Planet of the Apes references, for example), but I get at least half my class to participate with me. With her time, she goes over 30 minutes of lecture and then they sit and read the textbook (in absolute silence) for 10 minutes in preparation for tomorrow's lecture. She says this cuts down on the number of questions they have during her lecture because they "prepare" in advance by reading. We just have different teaching styles.
The remaining 40 minutes of time (I have 80 minute periods with the students, every day), I split them up into pairs and they worked around my classroom at various lab stations. Each of the 20 stations had a task to complete and they had to time how long it took them to do it "with thumbs" and then "without thumbs"-- tasks included: "Turn to page 20 of a textbook", "Braid a strand of yarn at least 10 inches", "Cut a circle out of this piece of paper", "Tie your shoelaces", or "Put this jacket on and zip it all the way up". Remember, they have to do each task once with full use of their hands, and then a second time without use of their thumbs. My classroom turned into the gameshow "Minute to Win It" as students yelled and screamed and cheered and groaned and fell on the floor with laughter; in other words, utter social chaos!?! My principal wrote in my observation: "Teacher provided students with a paired learning task that involved various stations around the room that encouraged independent student-driven learning. Students were loud but engaged in the activity, and teacher circulated the room to provide constructive feedback and keep students on task." Which is code for me going around the room saying "shhh! Not so loud!! John, don't eat the play-doh! Susy, pay attention! Andrew, get off the floor and get back to work!" and hoping nobody cut their fingers off with a scissors when they were laughing so hard they couldn't see.
The bell rang, and they took their lab assignments home, and were asked to reflect on the importance of having an opposable first digit (a thumb), how that increased our manual dexterity, the implications for tool and weapon use among primates, and more. And the next day, how happy I was when students came in gushing: "I told my mom about how important our thumbs are and made her try to eat her dinner without using her thumbs and it was funny!!!!!" because that's what they are supposed to feel like when they learn about science.