In my humble opinion:
Students should not be taken out of class to practice for any extra curricular activity. It is my opinion that this issue is initiated by the staff not the students. For example: our football coach knows that class is more important than practice. It is not his opinion that we do these activities during the day so his players can make it to practice. It is my guess that if asked he would agree that his players should stay in class. So, who is to blame? Is it that our advisers do not want to work after school with students? Are they afraid to ask coaches to contribute players during practice hours? What possible excuse could we have to go against all principle and excuse students from class (as well as employees, but that is another issue?)
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
In my humble opinion...
What will Lincoln High science classrooms be like in the year 2019? How will we help all students to acquire skills, reasoning abilities, knowledge and attitudes that help them function in the “real world?” State and National efforts to reform the science curriculum provide guidelines that call for; integration of science with mathematics and other disciplines, more time devoted to inquiry and long-term projects, more group work and cooperative learning, effective application of existing technical tools such as graphing calculators and computer-based laboratories, and realistic assessment tied to nonacademic outcomes.
Teachers will need help as we work more outside the textbook in an ever changing curriculum. This will mean networking through the Internet and local reeducation through inservice workshops. Colleges and local education agencies will play a more active role in teacher support, finding ways to encourage more active student participation in learning. Perhaps even “real time” communication with other classrooms around the world.
Science classrooms of the next decade will no longer separate subject matter by grade level. They will not dictate that all 10 th graders must take biology to the exclusion of the physical sciences. Mathematics will become a central component of all science classes. Other school subjects will also find their place in science classes.
Furthermore, science is to be part of a larger image of all school subjects, especially mathematics, language arts, and social studies. This implies a need for students to think horizontally and to apply knowledge and skills in science that they have learned in other subjects. This also points to a need for teachers to work together in teams to plan and teach a curriculum based on common themes, communication, social needs, and mathematical tools. Examples include exploration of energy conversions, and what fossil fuel combustion means to our culture. Students would write about this, interview authorities, learn to read electric meters and calculate electric bills, examine rate structures and interview utility company employees, and study the laws of thermodynamics. A wide variety of subject matter would be explored during several days or even weeks of study. Students will use the Internet to discover resources and others' ideas in reaction to their own.
The Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy and our state science frameworks call for integration of mathematics and science, beginning in the earliest grades. The NSTA Scope and Sequence program calls for the introduction of physics to sixth grade students, and expansion of each concept in subsequent grades. Concrete laboratory materials that exercise students' thinking in force and motion will be a prelude to later, more abstract study of friction, vectors, and Newton's laws. Seniors will be better prepared for calculus-based physics if they have been guided in exploring physics concepts in earlier grades.
A good example of an integrated science curriculum is the program developed at the University of Alabama by Star Bloom and Larry Rainey for use throughout the state of Alabama. This middle school curriculum consists of; weekly telecasts featuring scientists, students, and teachers engaging in activities that focus on the topic of the week; classroom cooperative group activities emphasizing hands-on encounters with real world problems; and student handbooks with additional background material that relates science to everyday events in student environments.
In the past, science classes in most schools were interrupted by scheduled bells at 85 minute intervals. Teachers are one of the only professionals who perform their job within such structured time blocks. Despite our need to set up, conduct and clear away laboratories and demonstrations, science teachers are allocated the same time as social studies, gym, or algebra teachers. Schools in 2019 will have alternatives that offer extended time for science learning. In place of the series of four 85-minute classes, future schools will offer modular schedules, with a full year of credit offered for a semester of these double-long class periods that don’t conclude but may continue on through the next semester focusing on other topics. Such schedules will provide science teachers with opportunities to extend project work, field trips, and inquiry learning. There will be a distinction between allocated time and actual academic learning time. Disruptions of academic time will be reduced to maximize time on task. Schedules for science classes will be adjusted if other activities rob us of learing time. Exploring fewer topics in greater depth and for longer daily class periods will be the norm of future science classrooms.
Technology will offer exciting new options for science teachers and their students. Links to computers will open a wide variety of channels to meet almost every learning style. Virtual reality is already being used in school science classrooms. Three-dimensional projections of simulated reality will become more common as tools to help students "experience" space, time and motion in controlled states. Thus, a student can simulate weightlessness, or friction-free motion, or an Earth-centered universe very easily. Trying out these environments in virtual reality will help learning and make group and class discussions more interesting. Students will use personal “devices” to do calculations, obtain tutoring help, and keep up with schedules.
Graphical display panels will be built into classroom walls, and used to show high-resolution color video or “real time” sequences that are keyed to textbooks and curricular guides. Classroom computers will be connected to projectors to make a focus for the classroom. Three-dimensional displays will allow discussions of Atomic structure, collisions in space, and molecular geometry. These displays will make it possible for science classes to take field trips to any location on the planet and examine plants and animals there.
The microcomputer-based laboratory will be expanded from its current state of monitoring temperature, light intensity, pH, and motion. To these will be added new variables, such as population of humans on Earth, metabolic rate of selected students, location and direction of hurricanes, historical frequency and location of earthquakes, somatic cellular activity, solar flux onto our school, and many others. Current events will be exhibited in new ways that facilitate better understanding and learning.
The science textbook will change. If textbooks are not completely made obsolete by technology, universal codes on each page will allow students and teachers to access computer sequences that make each page come alive. Textbook publishers will provide computer programs to accompany each major topic. Multimedia materials will make true self-paced learning possible for all students. Self-help features will mean that students can receive assistance without depending as much on the teacher. Each chapter will have imbedded assessment activities for individual students, small groups, and whole class testing. Computer hotlines will allow teachers to request customized tests over any topic from large banks of questions, many of which embody higher levels of thinking.
We believe that a generation of our science students are losing the ability to solve open-ended problems by inventing solutions. This points to a need to change the way we teach and learn science. Because the way we assess outcomes in science class tends to drive the way we teach it, the classroom of the future will evaluate realistic situations that require application of science concepts, principles and theories. Assessment of student outcomes in science will be imbedded in a realistic framework so that students are not merely provided prompts and expected to pick the "best" answer from a set of multiple-choice options, or to choose the "best match" from a set of related terms, or to indicate whether a statement is true or false.
A look into a science classroom of the year 2019 will show instead of seats arranged in rows and columns, you will find students sitting in groups as they discuss whole class or small group topics. Computers will be available, equipped with links to the Internet and interfacing units to measure many different forms of data. Video equipment will be used for viewing and analyzing data. Technology, models, simulations, and collections of student work will be a part of the scenery. An open-door policy will invite visitors to join for observation or participation. Use of outside resources will enrich the curriculum. The day will begin with teachers meeting together for team planning on how groups of students will move through the day. There will be less dependence on bells to dictate the daily schedule. Textbooks will be used as reference sources for information, but will not be the sole or even primary source. Access to electronically stored information will be easy. Remote databases available on the Internet will offer students and teachers current data on global and local systems. Assessment will be ongoing, and built into small-group discussions. For a period of weeks, the whole class will deal with themes like matter and energy, force and motion, patterns and change. More emphasis will be placed on current events, with television broadcasts used to augment class discussions.
Students will end the school day at different times than in the past. Project work, team cooperation, higher levels of inquiry, and the stimulation of interactive technology will raise the motivation of students to apply science in their own world.
What will Lincoln High science classrooms be like in the year 2019? How will we help all students to acquire skills, reasoning abilities, knowledge and attitudes that help them function in the “real world?” State and National efforts to reform the science curriculum provide guidelines that call for; integration of science with mathematics and other disciplines, more time devoted to inquiry and long-term projects, more group work and cooperative learning, effective application of existing technical tools such as graphing calculators and computer-based laboratories, and realistic assessment tied to nonacademic outcomes.
Teachers will need help as we work more outside the textbook in an ever changing curriculum. This will mean networking through the Internet and local reeducation through inservice workshops. Colleges and local education agencies will play a more active role in teacher support, finding ways to encourage more active student participation in learning. Perhaps even “real time” communication with other classrooms around the world.
Science classrooms of the next decade will no longer separate subject matter by grade level. They will not dictate that all 10 th graders must take biology to the exclusion of the physical sciences. Mathematics will become a central component of all science classes. Other school subjects will also find their place in science classes.
Furthermore, science is to be part of a larger image of all school subjects, especially mathematics, language arts, and social studies. This implies a need for students to think horizontally and to apply knowledge and skills in science that they have learned in other subjects. This also points to a need for teachers to work together in teams to plan and teach a curriculum based on common themes, communication, social needs, and mathematical tools. Examples include exploration of energy conversions, and what fossil fuel combustion means to our culture. Students would write about this, interview authorities, learn to read electric meters and calculate electric bills, examine rate structures and interview utility company employees, and study the laws of thermodynamics. A wide variety of subject matter would be explored during several days or even weeks of study. Students will use the Internet to discover resources and others' ideas in reaction to their own.
The Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy and our state science frameworks call for integration of mathematics and science, beginning in the earliest grades. The NSTA Scope and Sequence program calls for the introduction of physics to sixth grade students, and expansion of each concept in subsequent grades. Concrete laboratory materials that exercise students' thinking in force and motion will be a prelude to later, more abstract study of friction, vectors, and Newton's laws. Seniors will be better prepared for calculus-based physics if they have been guided in exploring physics concepts in earlier grades.
A good example of an integrated science curriculum is the program developed at the University of Alabama by Star Bloom and Larry Rainey for use throughout the state of Alabama. This middle school curriculum consists of; weekly telecasts featuring scientists, students, and teachers engaging in activities that focus on the topic of the week; classroom cooperative group activities emphasizing hands-on encounters with real world problems; and student handbooks with additional background material that relates science to everyday events in student environments.
In the past, science classes in most schools were interrupted by scheduled bells at 85 minute intervals. Teachers are one of the only professionals who perform their job within such structured time blocks. Despite our need to set up, conduct and clear away laboratories and demonstrations, science teachers are allocated the same time as social studies, gym, or algebra teachers. Schools in 2019 will have alternatives that offer extended time for science learning. In place of the series of four 85-minute classes, future schools will offer modular schedules, with a full year of credit offered for a semester of these double-long class periods that don’t conclude but may continue on through the next semester focusing on other topics. Such schedules will provide science teachers with opportunities to extend project work, field trips, and inquiry learning. There will be a distinction between allocated time and actual academic learning time. Disruptions of academic time will be reduced to maximize time on task. Schedules for science classes will be adjusted if other activities rob us of learing time. Exploring fewer topics in greater depth and for longer daily class periods will be the norm of future science classrooms.
Technology will offer exciting new options for science teachers and their students. Links to computers will open a wide variety of channels to meet almost every learning style. Virtual reality is already being used in school science classrooms. Three-dimensional projections of simulated reality will become more common as tools to help students "experience" space, time and motion in controlled states. Thus, a student can simulate weightlessness, or friction-free motion, or an Earth-centered universe very easily. Trying out these environments in virtual reality will help learning and make group and class discussions more interesting. Students will use personal “devices” to do calculations, obtain tutoring help, and keep up with schedules.
Graphical display panels will be built into classroom walls, and used to show high-resolution color video or “real time” sequences that are keyed to textbooks and curricular guides. Classroom computers will be connected to projectors to make a focus for the classroom. Three-dimensional displays will allow discussions of Atomic structure, collisions in space, and molecular geometry. These displays will make it possible for science classes to take field trips to any location on the planet and examine plants and animals there.
The microcomputer-based laboratory will be expanded from its current state of monitoring temperature, light intensity, pH, and motion. To these will be added new variables, such as population of humans on Earth, metabolic rate of selected students, location and direction of hurricanes, historical frequency and location of earthquakes, somatic cellular activity, solar flux onto our school, and many others. Current events will be exhibited in new ways that facilitate better understanding and learning.
The science textbook will change. If textbooks are not completely made obsolete by technology, universal codes on each page will allow students and teachers to access computer sequences that make each page come alive. Textbook publishers will provide computer programs to accompany each major topic. Multimedia materials will make true self-paced learning possible for all students. Self-help features will mean that students can receive assistance without depending as much on the teacher. Each chapter will have imbedded assessment activities for individual students, small groups, and whole class testing. Computer hotlines will allow teachers to request customized tests over any topic from large banks of questions, many of which embody higher levels of thinking.
We believe that a generation of our science students are losing the ability to solve open-ended problems by inventing solutions. This points to a need to change the way we teach and learn science. Because the way we assess outcomes in science class tends to drive the way we teach it, the classroom of the future will evaluate realistic situations that require application of science concepts, principles and theories. Assessment of student outcomes in science will be imbedded in a realistic framework so that students are not merely provided prompts and expected to pick the "best" answer from a set of multiple-choice options, or to choose the "best match" from a set of related terms, or to indicate whether a statement is true or false.
A look into a science classroom of the year 2019 will show instead of seats arranged in rows and columns, you will find students sitting in groups as they discuss whole class or small group topics. Computers will be available, equipped with links to the Internet and interfacing units to measure many different forms of data. Video equipment will be used for viewing and analyzing data. Technology, models, simulations, and collections of student work will be a part of the scenery. An open-door policy will invite visitors to join for observation or participation. Use of outside resources will enrich the curriculum. The day will begin with teachers meeting together for team planning on how groups of students will move through the day. There will be less dependence on bells to dictate the daily schedule. Textbooks will be used as reference sources for information, but will not be the sole or even primary source. Access to electronically stored information will be easy. Remote databases available on the Internet will offer students and teachers current data on global and local systems. Assessment will be ongoing, and built into small-group discussions. For a period of weeks, the whole class will deal with themes like matter and energy, force and motion, patterns and change. More emphasis will be placed on current events, with television broadcasts used to augment class discussions.
Students will end the school day at different times than in the past. Project work, team cooperation, higher levels of inquiry, and the stimulation of interactive technology will raise the motivation of students to apply science in their own world.
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