Tester

I remember well my first days of teaching, and the trepidation about walking into a class of students and wondering how I was going to manage. One of the first places I taught was a rural school in Ireland and the kids there were a real challenge. There was no animosity or badness to them, but they just could not understand why they had to be in school when most of them just wanted to be working on the farm. They were charismatic and smart, but a real challenge due to their motivation being elsewhere. I suppose there are parallels to what I am seeing today too. I have just finished grading 68 freshman bio semester exams, and the polite way of putting it is they were excrement! I have spent time this year more than others on study skills and mindset. An early Sept exercise we did was for the kids to get into groups and speak about their hopes for the year and to discuss what would be a “win” for them. They also discussed how they would go about it! The sheets are still taped to t...

ED 640 Reflection Blog 4 This week I gave the students a homework where they chose an organelle and had to find 5 facts about it. I have to say that the standard of work was noticeably higher than usual! I also continued the exercise by having students take precut bits of paper and wander the room to look at other students creations and give feedback. They had three bits of paper and had to say something they liked, something they thought could be improved and ask a question on each sheet and leave it with the homework they were commenting on. The whole thing was great! They were positive and constructive in their feedback, we had a class discussion that continued in the same vein, with many students saying that the feedback was spot on, and even in transition to the next portion of the lesson there were students continuing conversations on the exercise. It bodes well for my intention to increase project work, and with it, the discussion within groups that are required for such w...

ED 640 Teaching Reflection – Liam Breathnach It is a strange year in terms of how much is going on with Grad School, little Tommy and keeping going teaching the students, but I am really reflecting on how I can change the normal set up of my teaching to put more onus on the students. I think if I can focus on the skills such as research and note taking then they will be more able to learn the content themselves. With time constraints I am not really implementing new ideas too much but I have a word document set up for recording any ideas for future plans or ideas. This week we had a half day PD day on Thursday and our classes were all shortened. I had not thought about that when planning, so I made a last minute decision to group the students and have them find websites to research organelle functions rather than going through the powerpoint. I was pleasantly surprised how it went! Students were in groups of three with 2 researchers and 1 note taker. I switched the note taking r...

ED 640 Mod 4 DB Liam Breathnach I have a student this year who is on the spectrum. While there are students in the school with more severe symptoms, he is the first student I have had in class who exhibited what I understand as autistic behavior. I have been trying to watch him during calls and see what he requires from the environment that others may not. I also have been trying to watch my own actions in dealing with him to try and see how I must appear to him and see which of my mannerisms and traits are helpful or understanding and supportive of whatever I felt was required. He was appreciative when I mentioned any concern I had was social, and that I had felt the need to try and alter his behavior with other students a couple of times.   Starting the student had a tendency to call out more than I find acceptable, and has had to work hard when in a group as he found the experience difficult, but maybe not as difficult as the other students! I have been trying harde...

I am trying to more pastoral this year. I have always had a short fuse for some behavior, or at least, “I do not suffer fools gladly” as a good friend told me once. Maybe not the best character trait in this profession, but I am working on it. One other thing that may make me less empathetic than is required, is that I think people need to learn many things for themselves, often through mistakes. I tend to let students make their own decisions and see if they do learn, but the Consequences Reflection is for another day. I have a student who raised his hand the first day when I asked – half in jest – who was going to cause me trouble over the course of the year. He proudly announced there would be times when his fidgeting got him in trouble. His charming admission had an effect on me, but now we are getting serious. His grades are poor and I have had to speak to him many times, not about disruption but a lack of focus and resulting poor grades. I returned a test today which was a...

Think about the inventions and products which have made over lives easier over the years. Look at how our lives have changed and lengthened. How we are closer together with people from all over the world, how we have made the earth smaller, more accessible and more collaborative. Think back! What are the most wide reaching changes Humans have overseen? Fire? Agriculture? Metal working? The Printing Press? Antibiotics? Electricity? All of these discoveries, inventions, whatever you want to call them came from people wondering why and going and trying to figure something out. I believe that everyone is born to do that! Watch your child and tell me they are not doing that ALL THE TIME! Tell me they are not driven by wonder! I wonder what....? What if....? We need our education to get back to that. We may need advancement and invention and thought and design more now that ever1 And who's gonna do it? We need to have our kids think big, aim high, and design, experiment, build, fail, ...

ED 690 Mod 4 DB – Liam Breathnach Experience with STEM I am currently teaching in a private Catholic boys High school in Baltimore, and there what I would consider, quite a range of classes available in the science Department. Just in the last couple of years we have brought in a Forensics course and are using Project Lead The Way (PLTW) to teach Engineering. The forensics has proven to be wildly popular. The teacher has done a great job and has been very successful in having lots of hands on learning throughout the year. There are regular crime scenes created, fingerprinting labs and study of how glass breaks. I feel this has been the root of its success. The students get to play with bullet casings, experiment with how glass break and learn how blood droplets and smears can help give evidence. Also the teacher has had some guest speakers come and talk to the class about their various fields of expertise in Forensics. The engineering and PLTW has also been eagerly greeted...