Approaches to Learning: Helping Students Give Kind and Useful Critical Feedback
One of the tools of student-centered teaching is the peer review process. In this technique, students gather in small groups and present their work to one another. The audience of peers is asked to use their knowledge and experience to give critical feedback to the presenter so they can improve their work before it is […]
Using DataClassroom to Improve IB Scores on the IA
6-7pm ET, Thursday, June 17, 2021 In this free 1-hour workshop, Kristen Dotti from Catalyst Learning Curricula will show teachers easy ways to integrate graphing and data analysis skills into their lesson plans with the user-friendly features of DataClassroom.
Standards-based Grading Series: Writing Easy-to-Use Rubrics
In this 1.5 hr. workshop, participants will practice writing rubrics with the intent of assessing the attainment of specific content and skills standards. We will explore how rubrics can be designed for ease of use and consistent interpretation. I will challenge the participants to make rubrics that are flexible enough to allow accurate assessment of […]
Statistics for Teaching Science: Part 1 Measuring and Reporting Uncertainty
All measurements include some degree of uncertainty or error, but how it is reported is decided by the person collecting the data. Because analysis is dependent on the data collected, the method used to report error can substantially impact the strength of the claims made and conclusions drawn. In this workshop, we will explore five […]
Standards-based Grading Series: Using Process Portfolios to Document Thinking and Learning
This 1.5 hr. workshop is dedicated to making thinking “visible” by documenting what influences a student’s thought process and by keeping track of the changes that occur when additional information is acquired. Process portfolios can be used in any subject area where a student’s ideas are evolving: a piece of writing, an experiment, a model, […]
Approaches to Learning: Incorporating Critical Thinking and Differentiation into Project-based Learning Outcomes
Participants in this 1.5 hr. workshop, will compare project-based learning outcomes and use their analysis to backward map the lesson such that it hits the skills and thinking objectives desired. Teachers will be introduced to several free online programs that allow students to create diverse projects and stimulate the novel application of learned content. Teachers […]
Statistics for Teaching Science: Part 2 The Problem with Describing Data Using the Mean
Often by middle school and certainly by high school, students default to the mean as the best way to describe data without much consideration for how they might defend that choice. So, you might think, what’s the harm in that? Everyone knows what is meant by this descriptor, it is familiar and understandable, easy to […]
Student-designed Experiments: Part 1 Building Curiosity
In this workshop, we will practice a repeatable structure for introducing a topic that will be studied through scientific exploration using a remote teaching and learning platform. We will help our students conduct a preliminary investigation at home developing interest in a particular phenomenon by generating data and making observations and hypotheses. We will then […]
Statistics for Teaching Science: Part 3 Getting Comfortable with Variance, Standard Deviation, Standard Error of the Mean, and the 95% Confidence Interval
The variance, standard deviation, and standard error of the mean are excellent methods for describing data because they convey the variability of the observed data around the mean. Anyone teaching AP, IB, Pre-AP, Pre-IB, or college-bound science students will likely want to know how to calculate these values, what they indicate, and how to contextualize […]
Student-designed Experiments: Part 2 Helping Students Write an Experimental Procedure
In this workshop, we will pick up where Part 1 of this series left off. We begin with a list of variables our students have identified as potentially impacting a particular phenomenon they have explored. Using a think-pair-share process, we will give students the structure needed to write steps for a scientific investigation using the […]