First Week of Classes

The first week and a bit is over. How has it gone? Not badly! Here are a few updates class-wise. First, Science 8 is going well. The class is great and very easy to work with. Coursework wise, I have changed a few things, but for the most part I am keeping the timing the same (it seems to work). However, I have made sure that I repeat a lot of the concepts every day; making sure that they understand the main ideas of the course. I am at this point doing it verbally, but I will also do some more worksheet and test questions in class. Tomorrow will be Microscope work and then (my favorite) CELL CITY on Friday (a cell representation on a plate made with candy!). They can eat only the part of the cell that they can name and explain its purpose. Last year, most got all of it - this year they are having to memorize the cell parts beforehand and then blindly create the cell (no textbook) on Friday - I will mark what they know. Should be fun! The question I have is how well the students will be able to do on the city (will this assignment and the short review we have done in class be enough to know the parts of the cell and what they do?). I already know that they did this in Grade 7, so I am hoping this is review-ish for them.

One thing I will take out next year is the ICKTHOSS assignment in the Science 8 textbook. I like the idea (gets students to think outside the box a bit and solve problems) but I don't think it fits with the plan (or the objectives), which tells me that, with respect to the UBD concept, it is not a needed assignment. This is a good thing because I have a lot to cover and taking out this assignment would be good. Here is my only concern: I use that assignment to teach about working in a group as well, so I will have to find another assignment that I can use to teach about how to work in a group.

I will post some pictures and a more complete lessons plan for that assignment next posting, for those interested.

Finally, on a curriculum note, I found a worksheet in the student workbook (of which I do not use on class in its entirety) that was very interesting - very basic, but interesting with respect to what it suggested was important. Here is the assignment: it was a basic drawing of a microscope with some blanks beside the parts. The assignment was to label the parts of the microscope. However, simply knowing the names of the parts of a microscope is somewhat useless. Instead, I would rather they didn't know the names of the parts, but what the parts did. Thus, I took the blank picture and changed the assignment: write down what it does and, if you remember, what it's called. To help them, I gave them a microscope to use to see what the parts did. This I think was a better assignment and fit more with what the students needed to know about the microscope.