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Let Flexibility Lead To Alignment

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  In my previous school district, I was the only teacher teaching a physics course with set, district-wide learning outcomes. These same outcomes were also taught in physics classrooms at the other high school in our district. But at our school, I was one of the 2 physics teachers. The other teacher taught the AP-level physics courses. So, in many ways, I had opportunities to incorporate strategies I believed were best for learners and that I found worked best for them without being seen as out of alignment with anyone in our building. My amazing friend and one of my teaching philosophy goddesses, Katie Novak, stated the following misconception about alignment: All teachers must deliver instruction in the exact same way. True alignment, she says, is about shared goals, rigor, and outcomes. Thank you, Katie! Katie has taught me to truly believe that learner variability is the rule, not the exception. I encourage you to take 10 minutes to listen to Katie Novak explain it in the ...
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Reflections

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As a part of my Edutopia reading practice, I came upon the following post:

Mid-Year Reflection: Setting PD Goals by Monica Burns


In the post, she recommends a process of 
  1. Looking back on the year so far and acknowledge all you have done 
  2. Determining areas your like to grow
  3. Draft a plan to accomplish those goals
  4. Hold yourself accountable to these goals
So, I'm taking some time today to look at steps 1 and 2 as I reflect on the first half of this school year.


Changes in Learning and Assessment

  • Started the year with new collaborative seating arrangement.
  • Students completed a Personal Learning Preference sheet on the first day of class and revisited it during the course
  • Unlike last year, I began AP Physics by giving students options for demonstrating mastery from unit 1.
  • As the year went on I transformed the student portfolio into a vehicle to submit course artifacts for grading rather than simply a place for reflection.
  • I set up my online gradebook to be categorized by objectives.  Each objective was a grading category and the final category was Success Skills.  These included content objectives and science skills.  I graded all of these objectives on a rubric 0 - 4 scale.
  • I switched over to an integer grading scale 0 - 4 in my grade book, rather than points.
  • This year we implemented our first large scale Project Based Learning assignment.  I brought outside speakers into class first time as a part of this project.
  • As a part of our summative assessment in AP Physics for our sound unit, Students ventured out to teach 4th graders the science of sound with demonstrations and interactive lectures.


Technology

  • Peer reviews in Canvas
  • Used pear deck as new tech tool
  • Learned more about explain everything
  • Students generated their own progress reports which were sent home to parents
  • Gave students options for practice work



What am I struggling to accomplish?
It's tough making sure that students are being asked to take their learning beyond the simple understandings. I really want to push them to deeper application. And, hold them more accountable for it.

Where do I continue to need help?

Making sure the narrative of the learning is clear for students.  I don't want the learning in my class to be a series of unconnected events.


Action Plan

As I begin to plan for term 3, I am going to work on revisiting my objective rubrics.  I plan to rewrite them specifically with Costa's Levels of Questioning as my guide.  I am positive this will be a future blog post.





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