Free Teacher Resources

I returned from the NSTA conference in Boston. From Wednesday through Saturday, I attended sessions run by teachers, science education specialists, and university educators. The 2 themes most evident to me were the instructional technology integration thread, and the performance-based assessment. I was happy to see that our department's focus aligned with the work of many other science teachers.

But I was constantly adding up the ideas for technology integration:

Teacher Tube: provides an alternative to the popular "YouTube"

kidsvid.altec.org
www.imagebucket.net - free registration required
www.podsafeaudio.com
www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com



Google Reader: RSS feeder tool for collecting ANY type of news or educational feed, including videos

List of mentioned sites at the conference:

Favorites Google Bookmarks
Delicious Digg
MySpace Facebook
Furl Yahoo MyWeb
StumbleUpon Reddit
Newsvine Live
Technorati




www.livejournal.com
www.sosblog.com
wordpress.com
www.facebook.com
sampa.com
sites.google.com

Additionally, I have been using Google Page Creator to create a website for each class. Currently, it just exists as a collecting spot for class assignments, but the next step is to collect news, photos, video, and student work for the assessments.

What else is going on in science ed besides IT?

Performance-based assessment and HOW TO ASSESS it. Many teachers were describing rubrics and exemplars for inquiry based on a numerical scale of some kind (1-5, 1-7) which seemed to simplify the construction of elaborate inquiry rubrics.

Community-based service learning projects had a very strong foothold, especially in the areas of water-quality monitoring, natural disaster risk evaluation, microbial menaces, and nanotechnology.

Engineering standards (which to me are more performance-oriented than biology science standards) were finding their way into science curriculum. The Museum of Science in Boston has a European (well, Greek) director who wants to see Americans have a better understanding of the everyday - cars, houses, etc.

The IB school is modifying their curriculum topics with a completion goal of 08-09. They currently have about 7 topic strands for biology which you can find on the "Click4biology" website by John Burrell. They have actually posted most of their curriculum on wikibook and wikispace sites, but they are only accessible to IB members. They use 3 different textbooks. Most of their assessments include the following directives:

Compare (which has an extremely specific requirement for full credit)
Discuss (also requires certain elements)
Evaluate
Explain (requires logic process to be described by student)

Exams are given once for practice in January (mock exams) before the final exam in spring. They are scored on a scale of 1-7, with 4 being the lowest passing score.
They are re-organizing and elaborating into about 14 strands which are arranged in 3 tiers (I, II, and III). I am still trying to get in touch with a teacher who can elaborate on the concepts in each strand. They mentioned sciencevideos.wordpress.com as another resource.

Finally, there were 2 other highlights I took home. I went to see Jim McDonald discuss Backwards by Design for assessment ideas. He broke down the process into what I saw as a concept or two selected by the following filters:

1. To what extent does the idea have enduring value beyond the classroom?

2. Does the idea reside at the heart of the discipline?

3. Does the idea require "uncoverage" (things the student doesn't know)?

4. Will the idea incorporate knowledge and skill that the student can demonstrate?

After the content has been selected, similar to the DESL workshop on "Identifying Important Content", the teacher determines acceptable evidence of content/skill mastery.

1. What evidence would prove students have mastered content?

2. What should students do to give evidence of mastery?

Jim said that there should be a rubric, but it is a working rubric that the teacher and student both agree upon and discuss leading up to its final use. He identified 3 phases in the performance-based assessment of science topics

I. Planning and Design
II. Construction and Test
III. Test and Reflect

A Brazilian middle/junior high school has "concept kits" for students to take home and utilize. Each kit addressed a different concept. For example, in physics there were problems with

"vectors in three-dimensions,""projectile motion," and "diffraction of light"

A kit for 3D measurements of household objects, a air pump projectile machine, and a light and lasers with prisms was demonstrated. And I won the chemistry kit on batteries and stopclock.

I would like to create a list of problem concepts that would be addressed with kits that are simple to put together. Like a bread-baking kit that was also demonstrated, and the students had an experience to use when they answered online some sense-making questions. . .

Longest post to date.

Rebecca