This summer I read the book, Visible Learning for Science: What Works Best to Optimize Student Learning by John Almarode, Nancy Frey, Douglas B. Fisher and John Hattie.  I was inspired by the taxonomies, pedagogies and teaching strategies presented throughout the work.  They exemplified the idea that science transcends academics, noting that "having some understanding of science is part of being an informed citizen" and so students must "think critically about claims that are made in the media and popular culture" long after they have left the schoolyard.   This philosophy is one which I had intended to realize long ago when I made the decision to embark upon a career in teaching.

 

As I reviewed my own live session recordings concurrent to studying this text, the areas in which I could improve seemed very apparent to me. Specifically, I thought I had been teaching with inquiry strategies, but I became aware that my classroom was very teacher-centered.  I provided information and visual resources; student engagement was limited to formative assessment through scaffolded questioning and it was always directed at the whole group.  Also, though I believed my planning and preparation to have always been thorough, I realized that my objectives should have been more clear and relatable.  Finally, aside from polling results I'd publish on the whiteboard, I rarely collected artifacts that demonstrated student learning.  These three areas span all three main aspects of teaching:  lesson planning, direct instruction and assessment.

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For the 2019-2020 academic year, I set out to do the following:

• prepare clear learning intentions and success criteria for each lesson

• incorporate discovery components into each lesson to ensure students are aware and active during class time

• employ a variety of strategies beyond scaffolded questioning to ensure each student was able to achieve mastery

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A comprehensive account of these efforts are described for first semester chemistry content in the flipbook, below.  Time did not allow me to similarly summarize second semester learning experiences.  In this library, each lesson activity ensures students are provided the ability to control dynamic visuals to describe phenomena we could never observe in the lab.  Guiding questions and graphic organizers foster individual student note-taking skills.  Literacy activities and a concerted focus on vocabulary strengthen critical reading and writing skills.  Reciprocal teaching was disguised as whole-group data analysis and small groups were employed wherever the investigative scope was too broad or time was limited. 

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The integration of prior knowledge became a necessary component of each lesson I delivered and always required a considerable amount of time at the start of each class period.  These "Review & Preview" activities are not described in the flipbook, below.  Only activities which directly support the learning intentions and success criteria for the day have been included.  Think of each of these items as the "main event" of my lessons, whereas "Review & Preview" activities, though similarly immersive, could be considered the "opening acts" and, in some ways, also the "curtain call".

 

It is important to note that the accessibility of the technologies chosen along with clear expectations for their use, allowed me to ensure that my asynchronous students participated in the same investigative experience as those who attended my live sessions regularly.  Using BookWidgets web-based software, I was able to create interactive web forms which allowed students to complete all the same activities, produce the same artifacts and satisfy the same learning intentions.  I have never before been so informed of my asynchronous students' academic behaviors, content understanding or skill level. 

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These lessons will prove even more versatile in the years to come as I to use them as a foundation from which to create lessons differentiated for content, process and product.

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Claiming an effect size of 1.13, I also adopted Alamarode's and Hattie's template for outlining learning intentions and success criteria.  They suggest these expectations invite students into learning when they are:

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• based on the standard, but chunked into learning bites.

• understood and accepted by the students.

• demonstrably connected to the criteria of success.

• long, specific and interesting.

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I integrated the "Today I am ..." (learning intention) paired with "so that I can ..." (success criteria) format, but I have yet to more completely understand the complete SOLO taxonomy upon which this template relies.  The learning intentions I've outlined for each lesson describe why the content is important and, potentially, how it will serve them beyond high school.  For lessons that belong to a series, the learning intentions were often repeated over several days because the "why" was connected to future lessons; often, the reason to learn one concept in chemistry is to gain the prior knowledge necessary to learn another.  Therefore, I used the success criteria to focus the students on the concepts and tasks they needed to master on each day.  At the end of each unit in preparation for a standardized, common assessment, I was able to easily compile a list of success criteria for students to use as they prepared.

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Use the controls beneath the image to adjust the zoom, expand the flipbook to full screen and advance the pages.  From fullscreen mode, clicking the "esc" button on the keyboard will bring you back to your browser window so that you may continue exploring this website.  Please note that none of the links in this flipbook are active.  To view the BookWidgets-based webforms completed by the asynchronous students or any other resource linked in this flipbook, you must download the .pdf version here.