Think like an "ologist" (GT technique)

Think like an "ologist" (GT technique)

by Colleen Guzman

          Aside from teaching Pre-AP science and general education science I have also been provided with 1 section of GT (gifted and talented) science. Many people, including many of the students, believe that GT students are just smarter Pre-AP students but that is not actually the case. GT students are capable of Pre-AP work but they are also so much more, especially when it comes to their thought processes. GT students have a different depth of thought and a broader scope of thought and as their teacher it is my responsibility to increase that scope and have them expand those GT

muscles. In order to expand those muscles the students have to use various tools to get there. One of the tools we've been provided with at my district is the tool of having the students think like an "ologist".This is a wonderful way to engage the students because they have to take the current topic and look at it from different perspectives. There are numerous ways to use this tool and we are not given a single way to do it so I came up with one possible way to do this.

         

The first step is to explain to the students what an "ology" is and provide them with a list of some known "ologies". We have a document that has a whole list of them so I took the time to look through them and locate the ones that I thought would fit the best with the topic we were studying, which happened to be cells. Sometimes if you give GT students too many options it overwhelms them and they spend so much time trying to make choices they don't manage their time well enough to make it through the actual assignment, so I limit their choices but I also do give them the choice to pick something not on my list should they want to go that route. Generally when we try a new technique the students will use what is on my list and as we practice they become more adventurous. Also as` I have the students practice this train of thought I will move away from "ologies" that go with the topic and I will have them stretch their minds to find difficult connections between the concept and the "ologist".

          Once the students have chosen the "ologist" and considered the cell from that perspective then I have them create a wanted poster or brochure where the "ologist" is asking for the cell to come help them with their branch of knowledge. We studied plant and animal cells so the students had to specify which cell the "ologist" wanted to come help them out. I also decided to let the students use the Chromebooks in order to research the "ologies" and to create their final product. I was impressed with some of the results because some of the students said they wanted both cell types. For example, one student wanted plant cells to study for herbology and animal cells so they could see how the herbs affected the animal cells. Overall I thought this was a great way to get the students to expand their thinking and I will be continuing to use this technique of thinking to expand the way students view things.

Doing What You Love

Doing What You Love

by Colleen Guzman

               It is no secret that humans are complex creatures, often filled with mystery and definitely multi-faceted. I am no exception to that rule. I am practically an onion considering all of my layers. I am a teacher, currently a college student, I create tabletop games with my spouse, I am on a weekly YouTube show with my spouse, I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, best friend, and so on and so on. One additional layer I have is my love for the sport of football. I love the strength, agility, athleticism, brute force, tackles and physicality of the sport. I have loved the sport of football since I was a young girl. In junior high I  tried to start a petition so I could play football for the team in the small Texas town where I attended junior high. I was denied and laughed at but I went and watched practices and helped clean up equipment and watched games on television and in person when I could. I lived football as much as I could. As I got older I began to give up my dreams of playing football and I simply enjoyed the sport. Fast forward through a lot of interesting life choices and now I am a 36 year old woman getting ready to be a teacher. I actually looked to see if a woman could be a boys football coach (it seems in theory you can but in all practicality not so much). So I went with science and I have been doing that ever since. Then six years into my career I get the most amazing experience of my life and it is all thanks to a coach who wants to build school community.

               When the email came in I had to read it numerous times just to make sure I had read it properly. The head football coach had sent an email letting teachers know that he was going to let us be guest coaches for one of the home games for either the 7th grade team or 8th grade team or for both teams. We would get to stand on the sidelines with the team, encourage them and talk to them and help the coaches, we could even come to practices if we wanted to learn about what they were doing. Was he kidding? Was this a dream? I just couldn't believe what I was reading but I was certainly glad to jump on board with this idea, so I signed up for an 8th grade game and a 7th grade game. 

                I had no idea what to expect from the experience. I was truly hoping to get to learn something about coaching and to increase my relationship with the students. I got so much more than I expected. The coaches were so welcoming to me, they included me in the practices and even let me work with small groups of boys, they saw my value and made me feel that value. It was so special to be a part of the team, to grow that relationship with my peers and my current and former students. None of them could know how much this meant to me because they never had to try to fight just to get to play a game. I grew up in an era where women were not allowed in football but these boys have had girls on their team and they've never lived in a time when girls were not allowed to play. They didn't see me as less of a valuable coach because I was a woman, they thought it was incredible that I knew so much and I could help them with their stance and I could root for them and encourage them and understand the plays. I was on cloud nine and enjoying every minute of it. The experience was topped off when the head coach let me speak to the boys at the end of the game. (There are tears in my eyes now just remembering the experience.) Me, little me, I am not a coach I have no official experience as a coach I am just an amateur football fan but the coach wanted me to talk to the boys after their game, give them the big inspirational speech that would carry them into their evenings and into their game the following week. I felt so privileged and I tried to ensure that I was tough on the boys the way a male coach would be but that I was also encouraging and told them how special and wonderful they were and how much the experience meant to me. The coaches patted me on the back and thanked me and the kids seemed thrilled so I think I did okay.

             The overall experience was wonderful and I would do it again and again and again if I could. The biggest lesson I learned from this is that it is never too late to do what you love and to spread the joy of that love to the people around you. I never would have had the opportunity if the coach had not taken the chance on having teachers helping on the sidelines. My students would never know that women used to be unable to play football if I hadn't shared my experience with them. I may never have made the connections to my peers that I made through this experience. There was just too many wonderful things that came from this experience for me to list them all, so just know that if you truly love something you should keep at it and you should share it with as many people as you can so they too can experience that joy and love.

Best Pencil Sharpener Ever

Best Pencil Sharpener Ever

by Colleen Guzman

          One of my friends told me that they had heard that Classroom Friendly Supplies was giving away sharpeners to bloggers to review, so I checked out the link, submitted a request and I was chosen to receive a free sharpener to use in my classroom and review. I even got to choose the color, so I chose the new purple sharpener because it looks really snazzy. Since I received the email indicating that I would receive a sharpener I have had nothing but an excellent experience,

          First of all I received the sharpener very quickly and without incident, and when I opened the box I was impressed to see that the sharpener was as amazing looking in person as it was on the internet. I had to try the sharpener as soon as I took it out of the box. In fact my husband tried it and my sons tried it and I sharpened another two pencils after they had their turn. We had so much fun and we were extremely impressed with the ease of use and sharpness of the pencil once it was complete. I thought it seemed great but I was skeptical about how it would survive use in my classroom. 

         

          I have had the sharpener in my classroom Since October and I am thrilled to say that the sharpener is still working wonderfully. My students love the sharpener and they ask for it every time they need to sharpener their pencil and in fact they prefer it to the electric sharpener. I thought it might lose it's luster and fun after a few weeks but it is still their favorite means of sharpening their pencils. In order to ensure that the sharpener lasts I do monitor the sharpener and keep it by my desk so I can make sure that the students are using it carefully so it will last. We did have one incident where we thought the sharpener was broken but when we looked it up on the website it indicated that there was probably lead stuck in the blades and it gave instructions on how to fix it, so we followed the directions and it was working again in no time. Since then it has been working fine and it is still providing us with extremely sharp pencils. 

           I do have a few issues with the sharpener that I haven't really looked into so the company may have resolutions for them that I am not aware of. I am still uncertain how to anchor the sharpener to the desk or too a table so it is not moving around when we are trying to use it. I also wish there was an arrow on the sharpener, near the handle to show the students which way to turn the handle because they always get confused about which way to turn the handle and then they think the sharpener is broken so I have to intervene. Aside from those two simple things, everything else has been great. I am very happy with my sharpener and I have recommended it to all of my teacher friends. With Christmas coming up these would make an excellent gift for any teacher you know and at $17.99 they are a great value. 

          

Silent Teacher Day

Silent Teacher Day

          There are times when I still have to give notes or go over vocabulary with my students, especially when the concept is very new to my students. When I have to give them facts to use I work diligently to capture their attention so they are really focusing on what they are doing and they aren't just going through the motions because I have asked them to. I have been wracking my brain lately trying to come up with something new and different, something I haven't done before and something that the students of today would understand. So I'm thinking and thinking and it dawns on me that the students of today have all seen those videos where the person sits in front of the camera and they simply flip the cards one by one while the audience reads them. I pondered and pondered wondering how I could use this same technique because I know my students are already familiar with it and trained to read and follow along. I came up with the following class exercise:

1) I print student copies of fill in the blank notes that students normally fill in as they follow along with me through a power point.

2) I print out the power point and tape the slides up around the room. I do not tape them up in order because that would be too easy. I do group a couple of slides that are relevant to one another, especially if they are in a paragraph together.

3) I write 12 questions about the notes that vary in DOK level. I tape the questions up around the room by the part of the notes that helps the students answer the questions.

4) I create some Google slides that will become my directions that the students will read as I silently flip through them. 

5) I write my objectives and "To Do" list on the white board.

When the students enter the room they already know that they are supposed to work on their warm-up so they work on it and we go over the answer together and then I stand in front of the room and I hold up my slides, flipping through them slowly as the class reads them, follows along and answer the questions asked on the slides. The students are shocked they cannot believe that I am not going to talk to them, that they are going to be responsible for their own learning and that they are going to get to work together to make it happen but once the initial shock wear off they are excited class has become like a game.

Here are the directions that I gave:

          When we had 10 minutes left of class I had everyone return to their seats and glue their notes into their science notebooks. We make a flap at the top and glue it so the notes can be flipped up to reveal with answers to the questions underneath. We then talk about how the activity went, the purpose of an activity like that and how they felt about doing the activity. Overall they all liked it, a few of them felt freaked out by the activity because they are no used to the teacher letting them be responsible for basically running the class together but they felt with some practice it would get better. We went over the notes and question answers the following day as well as questions that they had about word meanings or concepts.

          Overall I was very proud of this lesson. One of our administrators came in and observed, she really enjoyed it and said she thought one thing I could add next time was a slide asking if anyone had any questions. She liked the way I used facial expressions and allowed the students to help one another to answer the questions they asked without my prompting. She also liked the way I walked up to the students who did not appear to be paying attention and I held the papers out for them so they could read them and ensure they knew what was going on. 

I think I will definitely try "Silent Teacher Day" again. Let me know what you think in the comment section below.

Teacher Hoarding

Teacher Hoarding: You don't realize how much you have

by Colleen Guzman

          The school year had ended and it was time to come home for the summer. Most of my things I leave at school in my classroom but this year I changed rooms and I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with my new room and there are some things that I always bring home just because I don't want them to be broken or end up missing. I also have a whole room of school related items that I use throughout the year, or much of it I thinking I am going to use for one thing or another or I'm saving it for that one day when I switch from Middle School to Elementary school. The items I have at home are in shelves so those stay fairly organized but each summer I bring things home from my classroom I have to reorganize everything and make space for everything. This is not even counting what I will buy when back to school shopping begins.

          I'm not sure about you but once I am done with a school year I am exhausted, my brain, emotions and body are worn thin so adding more to my plate is the last thing I want to do. I can also admit though that every summer I know the cleaning and organizing are coming because to be completely honest, during the school year I only clean my house during Thanksgiving break, Christmas break, and Spring break so by summer there is major cleaning that needs to be done. Summer is when I move all the furniture and sweep and mop underneath them. I go through all of the closets and get rid of the old unused clothes. I venture into my son's rooms and do some massive cleaning in there. (Two of our three sons still live at home, they are currently 18 and 19 so their understanding of cleanliness is not the same as mine) So as you can see I have plenty of things to do over the summer so why am I dragging things home to add another chore for myself? I just have to have my classroom be organized because classroom chaos can lead to me being chaotic and I don't prefer that.

           I took pictures of the disaster that my house becomes when I drag all these things home and because I wanted to blog about this whole process and I'm not sure if it was the pictures, my fatigue, going back to college and having summer classes or what but this summer I was paralyzed by this disaster. You couldn't see my dining room table or my breakfast nook table or some of my counter space in the kitchen. Each time I walked past these disasters I felt a panic attack rising and so I began to turn a blind eye to all of it. Well since I was ignoring the disaster the men in my household decided that this was their cue to add to the insanity so my dining table became a dumping ground. Then I had to create a grass collection for my Master's program, add to my former tree collection and wildflower collection so there were grasses and foam boards and adhesive and tree leaves and wildlfowers all over the table along with the other mess. I had finally had enough so I began to clean and organize, starting with that that dining room table. Once the dining room table was clean I began to feel much better and I was able to move on to other rooms.

          I have found when organizing and working on my house that once I am moving along I am able to keep moving along but if I let the things pile up I feel more overwhelmed by them and then I drag my feet and struggle with getting going. Once I had the dining table cleaned I was able to work in the breakfast nook that my youngest son and I now call our office. Since everyone is older they no longer come eat breakfast in the morning before school and my husband and I use the dining room if we even eat at home so using the breakfast nook as an office seemed like a good idea. We left the table in there so we can work on it and then we added in shelving units, fabric drawers, plastic bins, etc. to keep things separated and organized. I am a huge reader on top of everything else so one full bookcase is mostly books. I have Ripley's Believe it of not books and cartoon books that I only bring to school during STAAR testing so the students have something new and interesting to read. The other books are more for use when I have an elementary class so they stay at home. I leave my science books and Middle School books like Goosebumps at school. I have another bookcase that I use for supplies like folders, colored paper, composition books, markers, classroom

decorations, etc. I have a box of classroom decorations that I leave at school too such as borders, pre-cut letters, small posters, basically things that I will use to make a bulletin board so for me it seemed smarter to keep those things at school. I also have a shelving unit where I keep my glue, paints, index cards, and crafting items. Plus my youngest son uses the space for his entomology so he is pinning bugs, researching bugs,making collections and planning things out. He has several large collections that he has taken to state but he likes to change the insects around in the collections. The collections stay on the table at all times, mainly because we don't have any more shelf space to use. I am thinking that this year I should take more things to school and use them all up before I buy new things, it is just so difficult to leave glue and markers and pencils behind when they are on sale or items that I think I may use some day. Since this blog post has gotten incredibly long I think those are things I am going to have to revisit once I go shopping for school supplies. I will keep everyone posted on how I do with my teacher hoarding.

 Hopefully for now this shows that I was able to bring in all the things I brought from my classroom and I was able to organize all of them into the space I already have. As you can see I have quite the teacher hoard going but I surely hope that It all ends up being things I truly use and that I can continue to keep it organized in the space I have. I never want to be in a place where I am getting a storage space for all of my things, and I never want to have so many things that I am not in a place where I can use them. Those are my goals, so let's see how I do with those.

Learning and Growing

Learning and Growing: How to face facts about yourself and set goals 

by Colleen Guzman

               So another year of teaching has come and gone and all that is left is an empty classroom. This has been my classroom for 3 years now and I have a fondness and even an attachment to it. I mean why wouldn't I, it is my room. So when we received the email with our content and classroom assignments I didn't even glance at it because I was confident that it was going to be BAU (business as usual). Not moments after the email was sent I receive a text message from a colleague shocked by the whole email, "Did you see where you will be next year?" In fact I hadn't because I figured I would be in good old K104 as usual so why check. I opened the email and sure enough I was being moved to an upstairs science room. You may be asking yourself, what's the difference.  Well all of the science rooms are fairly similar except mine. My science room is the smallest of all the rooms, it is the only one with no windows to the outside world and it is the only one that has doors on either side of the room so if child A is distracting you up front then child B can escape from your room from the back door. So now the paranoia sets in. "Why are they moving me?" "What have I done wrong?" I mean I can think of a million things I have done wrong because I am still human after all, this is only my 5th year teaching, I've never had a mentor teacher ever, etc. (see how I have all my excuses lined up) I spent the whole week moving my things to the new room trying to decide what I had done wrong to deserve this, and I even tried to convince the teacher I was swapping with that it was I who had done wrong and not her because I found out that she was feeling the same way. Every single doubt, fear, despair of not being good enough crept into my mind and took hold. By Wednesday afternoon I was having a panic attack in the prep closet in the back of my room, hyper-ventilating and weeping like a baby. I had to get a handle on this and get one quickly. 

      

                Friday was our work day and by noon the other teacher and I had exchanged keys and now it was time for us to organize things in our new rooms and get to know them better. I sat in my new room and I looked at the sun shining through the window in the room. The sun! It was beautiful and unbelievable and yet still felt like I had done something wrong. I sat for awhile and I thought about what all of this meant. I looked at each of the things I felt I had done wrong and the excuses for why those things had happened and I decided that instead of letting those things be these horrible clouds over me I was going to turn those things into goals that I set for myself. Now this is a hard transition for me because initially setting goals means that I am not good at what I am doing and therefore must be extremely horrible at it and I should just be removed immediately. It takes me some time to walk myself through those feelings and remind myself that every journey is about learning and growing and that setting goals can get you there. So I began to set goals. 

               I look at the first possibility. Perhaps I was moved upstairs because I am too friendly with the 8th grade students, I mother them entirely too much, I take them into my classroom when they have been kicked out of their classroom, etc. I have already talked to my principal about this recently and I know this is something that I need to work on. By moving me upstairs I am no longer near the 8th grade classrooms so it gives me a buffer so I can work on this goal. I think this is a good goal, it is nice for me to care about the students but I should not shield them from hardship because that does not prepare them for the real world. Okay, fine goal number one is set. Goal 1 is to show the children I care with a kind "Hello," "How are you," "How is your day going?" then I shall send them away promptly any time they try to enter my room.

           

   Now on to the next possibility. It is possible that they moved me from that room because students were leaving my classroom without permission on occasion. Sometimes I had a class of 30-34 students, I would be helping a group of students with something and 1 or 2 would slip away out of the door I was farthest from so I would have to call the office to get them rounded up. I really wanted to blame the students for this but I know that I play my own part in it. I am not stern enough, I give them too many chances to do the right thing before giving consequences, I trust too willingly, etc. In my new room the doors are both in the front of the classroom a mere 20ish feet apart and my desk and workstation are between them so this should no longer be a problem, however I felt I needed to set a personal goal to ensure that it does not. Goal 2 is to be stern, set consequences for every action and follow through with them even when you like the student or feel for them and want to go easy on them. Life is not going to go easy on these kids and neither should I, I am actually doing them a disservice rather than helping them out.

               Now that I have these goals in place I will add a third goal that is teaching centered. I am thinking goal number 3 is going to be to work on more inquiry based, student-centered activities but I am still working on that goal as I learn and research over the summer.

            

               Learning and growing is tough and often times it is painful to go through mentally, emotionally and even physically at times however without it you cannot move forward. I want to always move forward, to be the best teacher that I can be, to make the difference in lives that I know I can make. I may stumble and fall sometimes and I may even get things completely wrong but I know that I will get there, I will keep getting up, I will dust myself off and just like I want my students to do I will learn and grow. 

End of Year Project and Recycling

End of Year Project and Recycling

by Colleen Guzman

                So another year has come and almost gone (whew). This is my fifth year teaching, and possibly my toughest. It is my third year in a large public school after spending two years in a charter school. I hate to admit it but I am still adjusting to how different everything is from charter school to public school, but I am trucking along. To be clear I am not saying that one type of school is better than the other they are just very different, especially in size. One of the things that is very similar about them are the TEKS (Texas Standards). So after 5 years and no changes in the standards I have them down forward and backward. 

              One of the things I have noticed is that after five years I am still doing some of the same activities, although hopefully I am fixing these activities a little each year that I teach them. In a large school many of your activities are written by a curriculum writer, however you are allowed to personalize them so they work for you. At this time of year I personally like to have the students create an end of year project. This is not something that is called for in our curriculum but is something I feel is extremely important because it gives the students one final chance to think about the things they were supposed to have learned in seventh grade science. Also, in the state of Texas our 8th grade students have to take a state science test that has questions about concepts they learned in 6th, 7th and 8th grade so the end of year project is one way for the students to see the information and refresh it in their memories before they test the following year.

               For the end of year project I normally ask the students to create something non-electronic. One of the reasons I do this is because we have textbooks that are considered consumables. A consumable textbook is a heavy paper cover textbook with pages that are easy to tear out so the students can take portions home and work on those parts of the textbook, then at the end of the year we send them home with the students and normally they throw them away. In order to give the students one last chance to look through the textbook and practice using the index and the glossary I have them create a project using pictures and words from the textbook. The students are also allowed to use their science notebooks. I also like to have the students create a non-electronic project because I have read some articles about projects and muscle memory so I have them use muscles to cut, glue and write.

I begin the project by letting the students know what is expected. The students have to provide 2-3 pictures for each topic and they have to write 3-5 sentences about the topic. I have some topics together as a group because they lend themselves to one another such as cells and organelles. The students always ask me if they have to have the pictures and sentences for everything and I always tell them yes. I try to get them to work on the high end first and then if they struggle I let them come down a step or two from there but I never start anyone at a lower expectation whether they are Pre-AP, regular education or special education. I feel it is always easier to have them step down a little as needed rather than try to bring them higher once they think they have finished. 

            

              I write the expectations and the science topics on the board and I also provide the students with a typed page showing these parameters. I normally give them five class days to complete the project so everyone has plenty of time to get everything completed. I am there to help them, I know who needs extra chances to learn how to use the index, or who needs me to guide them a little bit towards the right pages, or who needs help organizing their project so they are not overwhelmed. I also created a project myself so some of my students are able to use it and follow along. I use this for some of my students who are emergent English language learners, for some of them that lack confidence as a starting point, or for some of my students who are special needs. I enjoyed this project this year, I got some really great projects and some students put in a lot of effort. I am already thinking of ways to tweak it for next year,so stay tuned. 

Here are some of the projects students were working on: