Science, Technology and the Human Body

-
For the past month my STEM partner Tom and I have been assigned to work in the "SWAS" room (a 'school within a school') with a group of 7th and 8th grade students.  For science we started with a unit on the human body, exploring the various body systems.  I found some fantastic content PowerPoints (with note templates) from another teacher's science blog.  Once again, I can't say enough about the power of a Personal Learning Network- this teacher made their materials available on the Internet for others to explore and they definitely helped us (see his blog here).

As a culminating activity we had the students trace themselves and work together to label a body system.  Groups were given websites that had facts about the human body.  They used these sites to develop QR code questions.  The final products were displayed in the SWAS classroom and on our STEM bulletin board in the main hall.  See the pictures below.



  



      



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Water the Flowers, Not the Rocks: Tips from 10 Years of Instructional Coaching

-
This June I wrapped up ten years of instructional technology coaching. Soon (tomorrow, in fact) I will begin a new journey in my career where I will still utilize my coaching skills but in a different capacity. This new opportunity has caused me to reflect on lessons learned throughout my time as a school-based coach. If you are a coach or aspire to be one following are ten tips I've learned during my ten years in the role. Be a model . Practice what you preach! If you want your teachers to join Twitter make sure you are already there. If they would like to try a new tool or lesson familiarize yourself with it first in order to lend additional support. Be honest . If you don't know something, say so. As a coach, your faculty will look to you as an expert. There have been several times throughout my career that I've said, "I don't know that tool/concept/strategy but let me see what I can find out about it." If you are a former classroom teacher, remind peo
Read more

Understanding Plagiarism

-
Image
Our middle school is 1:1 with Chromebooks so students spend a fair amount of time researching topics online.  A teacher noticed there is a lot of copying and pasting of information by students and asked me to come in and have a conversation about plagiarism.  I developed a Prezi with an accompanying notes guide for the students to complete as I presented the content to them.  The Prezi and notes guide are below.  As we wrapped up the students were able to use their Chromebooks for a bit of fun (with a topic that isn't so fun).  We played a Kahoot game where they reviewed concepts about plagiarism from their guide.  They loved it!  What I loved is that Kahoot also provides a summary of student responses to the game- I can see which students missed specific questions which allows me to follow up if needed. Resources used in the presentation (good for teachers and students): http://www.plagiarism.org http://en.writecheck.com (this has a plagiarism checker available) https://o
Read more

ChatGPT for Educators

-
 In February 2023 I authored a blog post for ISTE . Below is the piece.  In my three decades in education, I’ve come to learn many things. One is that change moves at a snail’s pace until something steps in to challenge the status quo.  Enter ChatGPT.  As you’ve no doubt heard, since this artificial intelligence program became freely available to the public, ChatGPT has made educators nervous, excited and curious about the impact it will have on our field.  Once resources became available, I curated a list of the pieces I felt educators should engage with to gain an understanding of ChatGPT. I shared this list with a small professional learning network I belong to. One of the members of the PLN took the resources and created an  easy-to-read detailed slide deck , which was then publicly shared throughout our networks, including the ISTE community forum  ISTE Connect . While I encourage you to look through our guide in its entirety, here are five recommendations that are a great place t
Read more