E1.1 & College Readiness

Over the last 2-weeks, students have been working on the E1.1 Scientific Inquiry standards, which we will cover throughout the entire year.  Currently, students have been learning about "How To Write A Lab Report" and "How To Create A Graph."  While covering these topics, students have had a chance to "practice" their understanding through the following labs:

-  Soda vs Candy Lab

-  Inquiry Lab: Which Object Has The Largest Volume

The above labs were Formative in nature (practice) and today was the first opportunity for students to show Mr. Fuzak and Mr. Alkire what they know about the E1.1 Scientific Inquiry standards, based on the Michigan Department of Education's High School Content Expectations for Earth Science (see the standards below):

What is new this year is the connections teachers are making with the College Readiness Standards.  These standards are used to help measure a the abilities a student has when taking the EXPLORE, the PLAN, and the ACT.  Each of these documents contain A LOT of information, but it is important that parents, students, and teachers are aware of the test results to formulate a plan to meet the individual needs of the individual student.

Students at Hamilton Middle School will take the EXPLORE test twice this year and the data collected during the first test will be used to create a plan for each student throughout the rest of the year.  Students will then be assessed again in the spring of 2013 to see if there has been any student growth over the College Readiness Standards.

The Ice Lab is the current summative assessment students are taking to demonstrate their understanding and abilities based on the E1.1 Standards (above), along with the following College Readiness Standards:

• create basic graphs from sets of scientific data
• describe trends and relationships in data displayed in simple graphs
• determine an appropriate method for performing a simple experiment perform simple laboratory  activities designed to teach familiarity with a number of commonly used tools  (e.g., thermometers, balances, glassware)
• perform experiments that require more than one step
• formulate hypotheses, predictions, or conclusions based on the results of an experiment
• perform several repetitions of an experiment to determine the reliability of results
• evaluate whether the data produced by an experiment adequately support a given conclusion
• determine the hypothesis behind an experiment that requires more than one step

Both Mr. Fuzak and Mr. Alkire witnessed many great things taking place today with our students and are looking forward to a great year!!!

Brain and Body Boost Program

We have made a commitment to overall health here at HMS.  Our P.E. instructors, Steve Sikma and Dan VanHekken, have designed a program at our school that allows teachers to commit a short period of time once a week (i.e. when all teachers do this, a students participates in this every day) to get our students moving!  It was fun to see how excited and involved all of the students were during this time.

Check out their blog at:       http://hamiltonbbb.blogspot.com/

Collaboration on a Diet Coke and Mentos Lab

We saw some pretty incredible ideas and work as we completed our last practice lab before a lab practical assessment on "How to write a lab report".

Reflecting on Student Engagement

This is a recent post from a co-worker here at HMS.  He offers up some very thought-provoking ideas which apply well in the flipped model.  The casual observer in my classroom may not be able to truly grasp the level of student engagement through visual examination alone.

Ted Malefyt's Teaching Portfolio

SBG - (Standards-Based Grading)

This document is on our class website also, and is provided mainly for parents who want to learn more about what we do, how we do it, and why we do it.

Modeling Note-Taking from Videos in the flipped model

Spent a portion of class modeling how to be actively engaged in note-taking from our videos.  We will continue to do this periodically to remind students what it takes to be engaged and successful in the flipped classroom.

Quick video clip to over-emphasize traditional instruction

Showed this clip to the students to show the difference between traditional and flipped classrooms.  We know it's over-the-top, but makes our point well.  (It's amazing how few of our students are familiar with this film.)  We spent the first five days of the school year providing our students with PD (Professional Development) that they will need in order to successfully function in our flipped-mastery classroom.