Getting Students Psyched For Soil
In my first blog post I was interested in building personal authenticity for my students this semester and question how I can help students build deeper connections between themselves and their work within their communities. Specifically, I wanted students to research...
Meaningful Microbes 2
In my first blog post, I wrote about how students design and carry out controlled experiments during the second unit of my microbiology class. As my problem of practice, I wanted my students to design experiments that they felt personally invested in. I asked- how...
Without Proofs, Life is FALSE
Background: I have been teaching Geometry for a few years now and LOVE teaching proofs. Students are asked to identify appropriate evidence that supports a claim, use logic and deductive reasoning, construct accurate mathematical representations, use...
Protected: On meaning and magic tricks
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It’s Personal
The idea of student engagement is one that has always challenged me. On one hand, I know exactly what it means because I've spent more time in my life as a student than as anything else, it seems. I've experienced the excitement of sitting in classrooms and arguing a...
How to continue to connect literature to students’ lives???
I have being trying to help students connect the literature to their personal lives all semester. I just think this is more fun! My hope was to help them see that understanding other peoples' journeys can help us understand our own experiences. In my last blog post, I...
Personal Connections in Con Law
One of my goals is to make sure students can personally connect to the work in Constitutional Law class. Fortunately, this is not difficult considering the Con Law is, in one sense, an ethics class and students are asked to judge (in the style of a SCOTUS justice) all...
Providing a 360 degree literary analysis opportunity
I was excited! I had been searching for a text that authentically engaged students about issues of immigration (with a particular focus on immigrants from Latinx communities). These students filled my classroom, but rarely saw themselves reflected in the literature....
Bridging the Gap
The inevitable question that boldly emerges in some form or another at the conclusion of a lesson well-taught, from the teacher's perspective at least, or that whispers in the ear of the student as they work to make meaning of a number of competing feelings after an...
Psyched for Soil!
This is my second semester teaching Sucio, an earth science course based on soil. This class is mainly about experimental design with a focus on the complexities of soil. Throughout the semester students work in groups to design, setup, and collect data about their...