Kid: Hey, are you the science lady ( Read more... )

"If Canada is above us, how come we don't see it when we look up?"

Whoa.

Kid: I'm done with my scientific explanation ( Read more... )

I have just completed the first week of the research project for which I will be spending several weeks in classrooms. I am currently Somewhere In California, where I visited five schools and interviewed teachers and students. I'll write more about the whole experience in depth later, but for now you get two awesome things kids said ( Read more... )

It looks like I will be spending a large chunk of my fall in classrooms. I'm very excited about this. (It's doing research, not teaching. And I'm kind of freaked out by the fact that I'll be observing teachers teaching a unit I wrote, but I am sure it will be a positive learning experience rather than completely traumatic. Yeah. Science ( Read more... )

For the past few days, my colleagues and I have been attempting to encapsulate and quantify the characteristics of decent fourth grade writing into one neat 4x5 grid that fits on one sheet of paper. Needless to say, this has been an exceptionally difficult and probably ultimately futile task. However, eager undergraduates are awaiting the thrilling ( Read more... )

Still going through teacher feedback. Almost done (and I sincerely hope it wasn't as tedious to teach the unit it has been to put together the feedback). But, I just came across a truly mystifying comment:

Question: Please comment on your students' response to this session.
Answer: I have a Christmas tree in my room.UM. WHAT ( Read more... )

One of the wonderful things (yes, there are some) about my place of employment is that we are known for actually testing our curricula in actual classrooms with actual teachers and actual students. (Seriously, it's kind of horrifying to think of the number of programs on which school districts spend millions of dollars that do not do this.) After ( Read more... )

Because I am a glutton for punishment, I volunteered to come back to Georgia. Once again, I am torturing classes of fourth graders by giving them a 90 minute test. What makes it worse than last time is the fact that it's a pretest, which means that -- ideally for our research purposes -- they are not supposed to do very well. Imagine being nine or ( Read more... )

This week, I am administering assessments to fourth graders in rural Georgia. Here are some things I have discovered ( Read more... )