What's UR Rxn? A chemistry class blog, part 2

My organic chemistry students were given the “What’s UR Rxn?” blog project rubric shortly after my last blog post. We spent the latter part of one of our one-hour blocks to discuss ideas for their blogs. I had a stack of C&E News from the American Chemical Society for them to peruse. It was fun to watch them try out ideas on me and on each other. Their topics all were supposed to be different from one another, and I was very surprised when the first student to “shotty” an idea, said loudly, “I get chemical weapons in Syria!” 

The students were given seven days to write the rough draft.  I think one of the hardest parts for some of them was to change their writing style to fit the project and to fit themselves.  I told them that I did not want, “blah, blah, blah, citation, paraphrase, paraphrase, citation.”  Not that the teachers in other classes encourage this kind of writing, but I think the possibility of being caught plagiarizing looms large and it tends to make their writing choppy and unnatural. 

Prior to the peer-edit day, I set up a folder on my Microsoft SkyDrive for the project and created a folder for each student, accessible to all for viewing and editing.  (Full disclosure—I did my best to embrace Google Drive and Google Docs over the summer in my online class and even dabbled with Evernote and Dropbox.  I never felt comfortable until I got the new version of Office on my laptop in August with Skydrive, Word, OneNote, and Outlook all integrated together. Sounds odd, but it was like coming home! And no, I’m not paid by Microsoft, but our school has some very high connections with Microsoft, so we have always been a Microsoft school.)

At first I was not exactly sure how to assign peer-editors for each post, but as a class we decided to use a random-number generator.  I assigned each student a number and we called out numbers until everyone was matched. After the first edit, they could invite others or choose their next edit. All the folders were open to everyone, so they opened the rough draft, saved as name_edit, and used the markup tools in Word, and away they went. It was completely silent!  (At least block 1 was, block 7 can never be truly silent…) Students gave each other great, constructive criticism, (edits in red):

[This paragraph is definitely more complicated and confusing than the previous paragraph. I would suggest simplifying the process more so normal people who don’t have too thorough of an understanding of chemistry can follow along.]  (I like the fact that ‘normal’ people don’t have an understanding of chemistry!)

Or “seemingly invulnerability” yielded, [You are using an adverb on a noun.]

The students were then given another seven day period to make changes and post their final draft in the folder. They were not allowed to email them to me.  A few tried, but I told them to go back to the SkyDrive link and make it work.

Another fun piece of the assignment was that they had to pick an image/avatar for themselves for the end of the blog and add a 140 character description so the blog readers would know something about them. Here is Abdullah’s picture—I love that he included his mom.

Or Helena’s description:  “I’m Lena, currently a high school senior. I’m not sure what I want to do in the future, but I know what I’m passionate about. If you like art, 90’s bands, or Woody Allen films, we’ll get along just fine. And if you don’t, we’ll still get along fine.”

Pure Helena.  (Though maybe a few characters too long.)

What’s UR Rxn?

What's UR Rxn? A chemistry class blog, part 1

I emailed my students the rubric for the class blog project today.

Ever since starting THIS blog last April, I have been ambivalent about the whole endeavor. I tend to be much too particular to be able to write quickly or easily. The act of posting my writing to the “world” reminds me a bit of piano recitals, which were not my favorite evening growing up.

Maybe I wanted my chemistry students to experience some of this angst.  (OK, that sounds mean, but I am a chemistry teacher AND an organic chemistry teacher, I know how to cause angst.)

I introduced the assignment to my AP classes back in September. We used a block of time to brainstorm ideas for the requirements of the project. It was not a tightly structured block, so a few students rose through as leaders. These students volunteered to be editors for the project. I gathered the ideas into the start of a rubric and then let the project sit for three months.  (I’m a cross country coach—there were other things on my mind.) Just recently I discussed the project with my organic chemistry students and, similarly, I now have editors and ideas for the assignment from those two classes. I sent the rubric outline out for the editor's review.  Here are a few of their responses.

About a minimum word limit: 

“I'm not sure if any of the grading categories account for writing quality. Some pieces of writing feel as if they have "filler" information with redundant or irrelevant sentences intended to get the article over the word minimum. This sentence that you're currently reading, which is not really necessary and a bit of a run-on, restates exactly what I just said about adding a sentence to increase the length of one's writing through superfluous words, when actually it doesn't serve a useful purpose, since I just mentioned that and you don't really need an example, but I have read a lot of papers that are written this way, even if they do have interesting content. :)”

About the lack of structure:

“Anyway, while nothing within the rubric is wrong, that in itself is the problem. The rubric you created, no offense, offers mostly generalities, lacks explicit goals and instructions, and desperately needs more criteria that can be effectively evaluated and graded.”

About the distribution of points:

“I agree; the point distribution for the final draft should be altered a bit; fewer points should be awarded for "interesting/entertaining" (probably 5, at most 10) and there should be more focus on clarity and cogency of the writing itself.”

From these ideas, I have constructed the assignment. 

• 30 points for a rough draft (on time, has a copyright-free image, current source, written in colloquial voice.)
• 20 points for 2 different peer-edits (check grammar, sentence structure, sources, and give ideas for improvement)
• 50 points for the final copy (creative title, thoughtful and organized, correct voice, image supplements writing, general creativity, and meets all requirements)
• 20 points extra point assignment, if the post is published:

“The publication standard will be met only by posts that are current, thoughtful, creative, entertaining, well-written, and worthy of a blog post representing our school. The publisher will discuss selections for publication with the editors, but the ultimate decision is made by the publisher.” (I am the publisher.)

I decided to go with a looser writing rubric, contrary to one of my editor's request. If I want my students to “find their own voice” when writing this piece, I did not want them to be hamstrung with a rubric that details what I think good writing looks like. I like the bonus points for “above and beyond” needed to be met for publication. 

This assignment is a work in progress. The goal is to have my students write about science with a personal voice, but also to be involved in creating the assignment and learn leadership and communication skills as they produce the blog with the rest of the class.

I’d love to know UR Rxn!

Smells of Summer

There is this earthy, sweet, musky smell of ferns that I associate with our wonderful vacation home in northern Michigan. If I smell it, I am completely moved to Beulah, no matter where I am.

Or the smell of an outboard motor and lake, I am back at my parents' Minnesota cabin, re-living the summers turtle hunting and swimming. (We always practiced “catch and release” with the turtles.)

So with summer ending and these marvelous transporting odors being put away for the season, I decided to investigate the world of olfactory recognition. (That's a normal thing to do, correct?) Amazingly, the biochemistry of smell is still rather poorly understood, even though the 2004 Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded because of research into smell receptors.

My inspiration was not just the ferns, but a recent article in the Washington Post detailing two studies published in the journal Current Biology by researchers from New Zealand, listed here and here. The biologists were trying to find genetic links for the smell recognition of specific molecules. What I found truly fascinating was that the scientists used emotional response to measure the ability to detect a smell. Subjects described feelings and events when exposed to different concentrations of a molecule. In a scientific chart are phrases like "eat lots of chocolate" and "Grandmother's gift." So my pleasant thoughts from summer smells could be used to identify odor receptors. I can see a graph with "walks in the wood" or "canoe trip" as descriptors for my response to these odors.

My husband insists that my 'fern' smell is actually that of the nearby pine trees, and he may be correct, but the combination of fern and pine results in that marvelous Beulah bouquet. Aromas are not just from a single molecule, but from a sets of molecules and each person perceives odors differently, hence the necessity to “measure” smell with emotion. Though humans have a few hundred odor receptors, we can discern the difference between thousands of different smells. I am reminded of the eighty-eight keys on the piano and how many different combinations can be played, smelling is like that. Some of us play chopsticks and others play Chopin.

The New Zealand biologists’ work suggests humans around the world experience similar differences with respect to smell: it looks like nature seems to beat nurture in this realm. So go out and smell the world and appreciate your own unique aroma experience. I will head to the upper lower peninsula of Michigan and enjoy the smells of fall.

Note:

After first drafting this piece, I took a walk with Belle, our Jack Russell Terrier, on our dirt road in Beulah. She decided suddenly to take me on a detour off the road into the ferns and pines. No, it was not the romantic sense of fern-smell she was chasing, but the reminiscence of one of the most exciting days of her life. (See photo: there are also hundreds of quills INSIDE her mouth.) In no more than a minute we were face-to-face with a porcupine. Thank goodness for strong leashes! 

Lessons from Finland

I spent a year in Lukio (the Finnish equivalent of the German Gymnasium) as a Rotary Exchange student as an 18-year-old in 1979. I have kept in touch with my three host families from Ilmajoki throughout the years and went back to visit in 2005. There are some interesting and constructive ideas that come from the Finnish education system, but to say that the Finnish system produces “innovation-ready” students without any background of how this is accomplished is rather misleading.

• Finland is a land of 5.3 million people in an area of 130,000 square miles (bigger than New Mexico, smaller than Montana.) It has an incredibly homogeneous population.
 
• The Finnish education system tracks students after middle school. The academic track goes to Lukio and the vocational track goes to either some kind of ammattikoulu or goes to work. Typically less than 50% of the students move on to Lukio and application to some Lukios is competitive; this is especially true in the city centers of Helsinki, Turku, and Tampere.
 
•   In Lukio, the entire goal is to prepare for the national matriculation exams. (Here is the great Finnish word for these exams: Ylioppilastutkintotodistus.) I knew many students who would opt to repeat 11^th grade to be ready for these exams. To secure a spot in the university, a student would have to earn high scores on these exams.
 
• Teaching programs are especially competitive: only 10% of applicants are accepted to some elementary programs.
 
• Teaching programs are designed around content, as opposed to pedagogy. Teachers, being masters of their subjects, are given a great deal of autonomy in the classroom. 

So are the students “innovation-ready” because they are the best students in this small country and have had to jump over many hurdles in pursuit of a coveted spot in the universities? Are they “innovation-ready” because they have had teachers all along the way who are experts in their subject area and who have also had to jump over the same hurdles?

I am not sure where Thomas Friedman and Tony Wagner get the idea that students in Finland “learn concepts and creativity more than facts,” and with “almost no testing.” This may be true in the lower grades but the academic/Lukio track in secondary school is fact and content-driven and grounded in competition between students with very high stakes culminating examinations. I contend that it is this competition that inspires the innovation and drives the educational success of the Suomi people. That, and a healthy dose of Finnish Sisu thrown in!

(This post was originally written as a response to a Thomas Friedman NY Times op-ed that was shared with our faculty by our school’s professional development director.) 

With my second Finnish Father/Isä,

Yrjö Hirsimäki, in front of Ilmajoen Lukio in 2005.

(Isä Hirsimäki died within a year of this picture being taken.)

Bricks/Mortar to Clicks/Cloud

I believe in the power of a classroom. I have started many 'philosophy of education' pieces with that phrase. Until the summer of 2013, that classroom would be the traditional space with a white board, demo table, student desks, and lab stations. Now, my new classroom will include a flipped approach with multiple sets of podcast lessons and video conferencing with a screen share of my writing tablet and uploading student structures via iPads and drawing apps.

It has been a very steep, intense learning curve for me to get to this point. I have been told that snowboarding has a much steeper learning curve than skiing, so I like to think of all the detours and struggles I have encountered in the last four months much like the time a novice snowboarder spends sitting on the slopes.

This OChemPrep endeavor started in the spring with a visit to my accountant. I told her that I wanted to start a company to help students get ready for organic chemistry in college. She said she could file the incorporation papers, and she also wrote down the name of a client who might be able to help me with website development.  It was not more than one minute later when that client, my ‘producer,' walked into her office. I gave him my OChemPrep ‘elevator pitch,’ he took the hook, and I was the owner of an edtech start-up!

I have learned so much in such a short amount of time that I sometimes feel like a first-year teacher again. Maybe with a bit more control over my life, but like then I am awestruck by those who seem to know so much more than I do. 

What have I learned?

·        Podcasting—Wow, it takes FAR longer than I ever expected to produce good educational videos.  From planning to recording (and re-recording) to editing and rendering and then compiling a list of all the links in a cloud-shared document, this process required many days, and some nights.

·        Marketing--the most time-consuming, frustrating, but ultimately rewarding part of the project. I have a healthy respect for anyone starting a new business. The effort paid off and I cheered with each and every ding from the Gmail app as a student registered for a summer 'boot camp' class.

·        Tweeting--Oh, the world of educational twitter!! The #satchat and #tlap chats with tweets flying past faster than one could read. (It took me weeks of lurking before I knew what #tlap stood for--you teaching pirates out there know who you are!!) This was the most amazing (and fun) professional development tool ever.
 

So now, having worked all summer to build a website, a blog, a forum with a set of interactive games, a video textbook for organic chemistry prep and a PLN on twitter, I am ready to take the step out of my bricks-and-mortar classroom into my cloud-based one.  I just read a post by Jake Clapp of Global Online Academy, and I will quote:  “Teaching and learning in the online environment demands creative approaches to instruction, assessment, community building, and formative feedback.”  So maybe there is a reason why I have felt like a first-year teacher again.

So into the virtual classroom I go, hoping it’s a steep curve up, but a great ride down.

The GLR: The Gypsy Caravan of Michigan Runners

I struggled with finding the correct metaphor for the Great Lakes Relay (the GLR).  There are a few other possibilities of itinerant events: 

• a wagon train (we do carry our own food and some carry shelter, but we don't circle the wagons in the evening for protection)
• a traveling circus (yes, there are performances, and a three-ring atmosphere at times, but there are few, if any, spectators.)

I settled on the Gypsy Caravan, especially after reading some of the descriptions of the Romani/Roma people (the politically correct name for “Gypsies”).   From a website devoted to understanding the Roma: “In travelling communities extended families travel together and share resting sites. Regardless of type of dwelling, the extended family is the unit within which resources are shared, work is organized, and food is prepared and shared.”  And from a Romani Proverb:  “You cannot walk straight when the road bends.” 

So with that preamble I hope to illustrate why so many of Michigan runners spend the third weekend of July, year after year, running and racing in heat, bugs, and storms on questionable trails and dirt roads with just a sheet of paper full of directions in our hands to tag the next runner on our team. 



The Gingerbread Girls, end of day 2, Grayling, MI, 2013

  

For the all but one of the last ten years, I have participated in the Great Lakes Relay. I try to describe the event to people, especially non-runners, with very mixed results. 

• We run from one end of Michigan to the other with 9 other people and 3 cars in 3 days to cover over 275 miles of roads and trails
• We get up at 4 am every day to make it to the start at 6 am
• We don’t have organized places for bodily functions to occur
• We compete with other teams, but at the same time cheer them on as they finish, especially after the tough legs
• We sometimes get lost in the woods (but hopefully not for long, but sometimes for a LONG time)
• We are sore and tired and pushed to the limit of endurance
• We do this every year and vow at the end of the event to come back next year and run better

In my long running career (almost 40 years at this point), there are few experiences that come close to the GLR in terms of reward.  Yes, I remember my first marathon in 1982, and my marathon PR at age 44, and running on my cross country teams in high school and college, and coaching a few special cross country teams, but there is nothing that compares to the feeling of community that surrounds the GLR.  Each year’s team has a different chemistry (some better than others—2013 was one of the best), and the Gypsy Caravan of the GLR has the feeling of a small town on wheels. 

There are co-mayors (Bob and Nick) and sheriffs (Punch, Sue, Jackie and the rest of the race officials) and other characters that give rise to legends, stories, and myths associated with the GLR.  (Each group has its own ‘characters,’ and many of these tales start to overlap as the web of teammates grows from year-to-year.)

There is a set of rules and customs associated “The Relay.” Some of these rules are written down:

“RUNNER NOTE: DO NOT GO TO THE BATHROOM IN THE WOODS ON THE LEFT SIDE OF HILL – THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY. EITHER GO ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD OR PLAN AHEAD AND STOP BEFORE OR AFTER THE EXCHANGE.”

Other rules are not written down:  Faster teams should not run concurrent, but should cheer on those concurrent runners as they fly past on the later legs of relay.  (‘Concurrent’ is a method for teams to finish before nightfall, by breaking the relay chain, and running the legs at the same time as their teammates, and adding the splits together to find a finish time.)

Another feature of the GLR is the lack of service on our phones.  It is a wonderful thing to be disconnected from the “real” world as our little town with its 700 participants, and 200 vehicles, moves through the north woods of Michigan.  It is a culture shock to wake up on Monday morning after the GLR and realize that the weekend is over and we have bathrooms, clean beds, and an alarm that rings at a reasonable time.

So why is this event so special? 

• The amazing sights:  the woods and fog in the morning, a view from the top of a hill on a nasty trail, the Empire beach.
• The unique experiences:  having a tank flying past you as you run through the sand of Camp Grayling on the “Graveyard,” a run through a lightning storm on the top of a sandy hill, the final sprint to the end of the last miles of the weekend on those oh-so-tired legs.
• The wonderful people:  teammates who inspire you to run better than you think possible, folks who understand that running is not an odd obsession, and dedicated athletes of all shapes and sizes, young and old.

These are all pieces that make the event extraordinary.

It will be 360 days until the next GLR. 

I am not sure what will happen to “The Gingerbread Girls” in those days, but I hope we can stay together in some form. 

I DO know that I have seen many a straight road, and many a bent road over this past weekend, and I intend to come back next year to follow them yet again.




Relay hand-off, 2007

A Teacher's View from the Fourth of July

It may not exactly be mid-summer (and in Scandinavia that was actually June 21), but July Fourth seems to be the day that I finally say good-bye to last year's classes and start looking forward to next year's.

Saying good-bye. This is sometimes the hardest part of teaching. The beauty of small (<20) and sometimes very small (<10!) class sizes is that each class becomes a small community of its own. In fact, many of my classes have referred to themselves as a family, like the 'Block 4 Families' that have coalesced these past two years. Teaching and learning in such a tight group is an amazing experience for all of us. This year on the last day of class, the last block of the day, my very small block 4 did not want to disband. We knew that the moment the first student left the class, the magic would be gone. We stood in a circle and waited...

Yes, someone finally had to leave, but no one wanted to be the first. Block 4 was a blessing.

(As with so many other Block X Families over the years, but this year even more so.)

Looking forward. The summer emails just went out to my future students. The teaching wheel starts rolling. Sometimes I look at those people who do not have school-related jobs and wonder what it would be like to have their year-round schedule. They can take vacations in September (!) and they can even have free weekends in the fall (I'm a cross country coach), but will they ever experience that excited, first-day-of-school (or practice) feeling that comes with teaching and coaching?

Other post-7/4 questions start to rattle around in my brain. Will my next year's classes/team learn to work together and with me? Will I find new ways to present chemistry to make the classroom better for my students and to keep teaching interesting? Which of my students/athletes will attain the badge of legend? ("Legends" are those characters who for better or worse, usually worse, become part of my many stories of teaching.) Which block, if any, will transform into a Block 4?

So tonight we watch the fireworks over a lake in northern Michigan. As far away from my classroom in time and spirit as I will be this summer. But tomorrow starts the slide toward the new school year. The cycle begins again.