Learning About Teaching With Case Studies

This is a short post to share a resource with you. If you aren't familiar with the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science you should check it out.



 This is primarily a high school and college resource, although it could perhaps be modified to lower age levels. When I taught AP Environmental Science, I used these case studies quite a bit.

I have had mixed results with middle school doing anything similar.  They need a lot of modification.  However, as I transition back to high school, I plan to try to use these more.  I think the roll-out of Common Core, and increased non-fiction reading is a perfect place and reason to use case studies.  It forces students to read and comprehend non-fiction, and could be a great jumping off point to build in more current events and news articles from around the world (which is one of my goals for next year).

There are a couple of cases designed for middle school, others for general/information education, and the cases are searchable in many ways.

Each year they have a fall conference to learn about teaching with case studies.  I have wanted to attend, but never have.  This year, there is a special piece of that conference for high school teachers, and a scholarship for high school teachers.

Wish me luck, and definitely check out the website for your own classroom use, or just for ideas.

A modification of a case, along with the supporting lesson plan materials that I created when I was student teaching are still posted here

I used this case as a jumping off point for sock mitosis (picture is students doing the same activity, but not my students, from http://www.rpi.edu/dept/eng/otherweb/GK12/indexca2b.html)

I have used this lesson since then with high school kids (good results) and middle school kids (pretty good results)...they didn't get all about mitosis, but they definitely got the larger picture and remember, still, that errors during the egg formation can cause Down's Syndrome.  Guess they learned something!

This is What Happens When You Make Student Progress Public

There has been a big push at our school, and at many places, to use data, and to share that data with students. The idea is that we are all "speaking a common language" of data. I understand the sentiment, but am not sure which data is meaningful to students, and how to present it in a way that is valuable, and confidential.

Personally, while I want them to know that they need to catch up, and develop some sense of urgency, I'm not sure Lexile levels and Aimsweb or NWEA scores will do that for them. Also, those scores don't tie directly to their grades, or anything else tangible and valuable to them.  In my classroom, I do two things to make some of their data visible to them.

1.  I post students current grade score sheets, by their ID number, every Monday. Kids get very quickly used to coming in on Monday morning, looking at their grade, and then trying to look across and see why their grade changed from last week (you know it's very mysterious!). 

That looks like this.

If they have been absent, they can match up the titles of the assignments to figure out what they are missing.  They can then go to a file crate with all the past work filed to find the assignments that they are missing.  I just keep the assignments in sequential order, and try to match up the titles.  I have seen another teacher who numbers them, which might be an idea to try for next year, particularly if you have a lot of attendance problems, and need students to be able to make up work easily.  

2. The second way, also updated weekly, is to post a graph in the hallway for a competition between classes. The two lines shown are class average and amount of homework turned in.  There is going to be a prize for the winning class. I also update this every week.  This allows them to see their part in the grades and progress of the whole class.

What do you do to share data with students?  Or do you?  How important do you think that is?  

Please share in the comments! 

How Do You Wrap Up Your School Year?

How do you wrap up the year? There are so many administrative things, and finals, paperwork, cleaning the classroom, but I think it is important to reflect, and to allow your students to reflect on the year and what they have learned as well. I did a project with my AP Environmental Science class a few years ago, and am going to try a variation of it this year with my 7th and 8th graders. Our calendar looks strange this year because we have so many end of the year events. Most of our teaching will be done, and then we have several school days after that. What to do with the students? One answer, of course, is to show movies and have the kids help pack up the classroom. That's fine. And there is some place for that, but I don't really think its the best answer, especially if they are doing that all day long. I think it gives students some good closure and reflection the year, and what they have learned as well. And gives me a new kind of insight into what they got out of the year.
 

Here is a link to the project, and a thumbnail image. I found it a very creative way to have students reflect, and show me, what they thought was important from this year. I hope it is useful and thought-provoking to you as well. In other end of the year news...I am giving a project based final and am thinking about making it like a science fair - design an experiment and write it up. Has anyone done this type of thing as a final project? What suggestions do you have? Am I crazy to even consider doing this at the end of the year?