Professional Context: This year I will be teaching life science to 7th graders at Dr. Jorge Prieto Math & Science Academy. Prieto Academy is located in the Belmont-Craigin neighborhood on the northwest side of Chicago. 95% of our families are considered low income and 96% are Hispanic. This year I will teach four classes of approximately 28-32 students. The classes will most likely be heterogeneously mixed with a small percentage of English language and diverse learners.
Big Idea: My ultimate goal during the school year of 2016-2017 will be to connect science to social justice issues relevant to my students’ lives. I hope to promote more student driven inquiry and action. Our school was named after Dr. Jorge Prieto who was an immigrant physician and best known for treating Chicago’s Mexican immigrants in the 1950’s when others wouldn’t, and for establishing neighborhood clinics in immigrant communities through his work with Cook County Hospital (Tribune, 8-23-01). Given that our school was named for a person who saw such great disparity in the deliverance of health care in our city, I hope to guide my students in making connections between our content and the needs of their families and their own community.
Content: The content we dive into during 7th grade life science range from studying scientific methodology, cell biology, genetics, and ecology to name a few. I am hoping to dig deeper this year rather than widely.
Performances of Understanding: Students will be using a variety of technological tools, art and literacy to share their ideas, questions, plans and products. I plan to incorporate creative methods students can use to demonstrate their knowledge rather than traditional assessments. A few of the methods range from blogging, powerpoint presentations, apps such as Explain Everything, Educreations, Powtoons, and more. Ultimately, I hope that they can create ways of sharing their knowledge from each unit with their school community and neighborhood.
Plan: I plan to launch the school year with an introduction to scientific methodology using an interactive model that will first gather information about my new students’ backgrounds, lifestyles, habits, family routines, and future goals and then second promote connecting themselves to others using the life of Dr. Prieto as an example. I will weave in technology along with investigating a testable question developed by my students and use this as a model to refer to throughout the year. One of the ideas that my students have struggled with over the years is understanding what makes a valid experiment and how to carry it out as well as why is that even important to science. Methodology, collaboration and communication are key skills needed not only in science but can be applied to daily life as well.
In addition I believe that working throughout the year to open my students to new ways of observation, seeing beyond, seeing what isn’t at the forefront will help foster their creativity and allow them to uncover both problems and solutions they can address within their community. I am thinking that presenting my students with injustices related to science throughout history, digging into the news, and reading various excerpts from texts will give them the launching pad they need. One of the first quotes I will probably use is the following: “I have a vested interested in the future, because I plan on living there.” - Neil Gershenfeld. I hope to transform Gershenfeld’s quote into a new I-Image to use within the first week of school and use it as well for launching the year.
Big Idea: My ultimate goal during the school year of 2016-2017 will be to connect science to social justice issues relevant to my students’ lives. I hope to promote more student driven inquiry and action. Our school was named after Dr. Jorge Prieto who was an immigrant physician and best known for treating Chicago’s Mexican immigrants in the 1950’s when others wouldn’t, and for establishing neighborhood clinics in immigrant communities through his work with Cook County Hospital (Tribune, 8-23-01). Given that our school was named for a person who saw such great disparity in the deliverance of health care in our city, I hope to guide my students in making connections between our content and the needs of their families and their own community.
Content: The content we dive into during 7th grade life science range from studying scientific methodology, cell biology, genetics, and ecology to name a few. I am hoping to dig deeper this year rather than widely.
Performances of Understanding: Students will be using a variety of technological tools, art and literacy to share their ideas, questions, plans and products. I plan to incorporate creative methods students can use to demonstrate their knowledge rather than traditional assessments. A few of the methods range from blogging, powerpoint presentations, apps such as Explain Everything, Educreations, Powtoons, and more. Ultimately, I hope that they can create ways of sharing their knowledge from each unit with their school community and neighborhood.
Plan: I plan to launch the school year with an introduction to scientific methodology using an interactive model that will first gather information about my new students’ backgrounds, lifestyles, habits, family routines, and future goals and then second promote connecting themselves to others using the life of Dr. Prieto as an example. I will weave in technology along with investigating a testable question developed by my students and use this as a model to refer to throughout the year. One of the ideas that my students have struggled with over the years is understanding what makes a valid experiment and how to carry it out as well as why is that even important to science. Methodology, collaboration and communication are key skills needed not only in science but can be applied to daily life as well.
In addition I believe that working throughout the year to open my students to new ways of observation, seeing beyond, seeing what isn’t at the forefront will help foster their creativity and allow them to uncover both problems and solutions they can address within their community. I am thinking that presenting my students with injustices related to science throughout history, digging into the news, and reading various excerpts from texts will give them the launching pad they need. One of the first quotes I will probably use is the following: “I have a vested interested in the future, because I plan on living there.” - Neil Gershenfeld. I hope to transform Gershenfeld’s quote into a new I-Image to use within the first week of school and use it as well for launching the year.