Can you try new things when prepping for AP tests?

As an AP Chemistry and AP Environmental Science teacher you can't help but "teach for the test". The reality is that is what most students are signed up for and it's your obligation to help them get ready for the test.

That being said, I can't just do straight up lecture, drill and kill. So I try different things, some work and some don't. In AP Enviro there is a lot more to experiment and try new things because the curriculum is problem based and fits well with a problem based learning approach (PBL).

On Twitter a while back I saw a post (maybe Alice Keeler?) about having students write an email. Other posts commented on how difficult it was for students to communicate in written form beyond a "text" lingo. At the time I thought it sounded like a good way to have students create an authentic writing that would actually be helpful in the real world. The thought went away until last week.

Dave Burgess mentions in his book "Teach like a pirate" that creativity is not something you have or you don't, you need to cultivate it. And by being open to new ideas you might find a new idea pop into your head. (totally my paraphrase on the subject)

A few weeks ago my husband and I bought a new camper trailer and were being given the walk through with the service technician inspiration struck, sort of. The tech was showing how to pull the plug on the hot water tank and showed us the metal core that keeps minerals from clogging up your tank by attracting them to this core. As he continued I thought "that's electrochemistry! Just what we are studying in AP chem!" I didn't get a chance to think much past this until a couple weeks later.

Confession: I'm a crappy lesson planner. I don't like to plan each step of each lesson. I know the big picture, I know the pathway but I resist planning each detail. One day during lunch I was thinking of the electrochemistry problems I should assign my AP chem students and thinking of alternatives. Then I remembered the water heater discussion! I wrote an email from a concerned customer who was having problems with her hot water heater. Here is the letter.

I instructed my students to read the email and reply in a thoughtful manner, reminding them that the customer was a biologist who wanted to know how her hot water works. This was met with some resistance and whining. Students complained they had no idea how a hot water heater works, or what could be wrong with one. I pointed to their chrome books and said research it.

What happened was interesting. First they started to research reluctantly then they started to talk about what could be happening with the hot water heater. They asked for my help in clarifying things and I asked them to think back to solubility and why some elements would precipitate out and build up in a hot water heater. Then I saw back and listened to these bright students pull the things we had been learning all year long into an explanation. Some letters were better than others and some really went into detail like this one.

The results of my experiment:

• instead of just doing more calculations students were actively engaged in talking about chemistry
• they were retrieving information we had learned last trimester and applying it in a new way
• they were writing about chemistry and reinforcing what they had learned

Overall, positive results. As a teacher, hearing my students talk on their own about chemistry and figuring it out this was one of the best lessons I had witnessed. It was also a lesson that I gave them very little information and direction. 

Going Student Centered- My own version of blended learning

I have been experimenting with my classes. I admit I can't keep doing the same thing constantly because I get bored, my students get bored. My district really likes and encourages "blended learning" and I have toyed with the idea for some time. After following Alice Keeler's tweets and blog I found this article on student centered classroom and this presentation by Caitlyn Tucker

What has held me back is my two years teaching for an online charter school that was part of a for-profit company. This was such an unsatisfying way to teach, I have never felt less like a teacher than when I did this. But, my first master's thesis was on designing online learning for student engagement. I spent hundreds of hours reading all the research available about online learning and developed some solid ideas. So with the support of a principal who really does mean it when he says "try new things, I revisited my thesis and started.

Now which class? I teach three upper division science classes, two that are AP. I decided to really try this with my AP Environmental Science Class (APES), this is a small class of pretty motivated students who would be tolerant of my experiment not going perfectly.

The unit was "Land Use", a straight forward topic that allowed for a lot of discussion and debate. Here are the directions I gave for the entire unit. Essentially, there were two modules (from the text book) each with a couple of big ideas.  I was not content to just "flip" or "blend" my classroom-- oh no! I wanted more something I always do! I wanted this to be student led.

Here's the basics of my experiment:

1. Students pick a module, decide which module to start with, let me know via google form and they decide how to learn it.
2. Students find resources, or create their own and post to the class website here. I set up the basic format, made them all editors, spent about 5 minutes showing them and turned them lose. 
3. I gave deadlines for assessments for each module. Students could show me they learned it any way they wanted. I had no idea how I was going grade but I figured I'd cross that bridge later. Procrastination is not just for students.
4. Final assessment was answering a couple of "AP" style free response questions.
5. During the unit I gave them topics we would discuss in class. The idea was they would research the topic, pick a side or point of view and later in class they would discuss.
6. I also gave them two days a week they didn't have to be in class but they had to check in on google classroom. I had a number of students in my room on those days working on their own or just talking to me about what they were doing.

Btw, I let students know at the start that this would be an experiment, and results were not set in stone. I asked for patience and feedback to help me adjust as we went along.

Results:

• First thing that became apparent was that I started off way to vague and should probably have started with more concrete instructions. But, I didn't want it to be MY product, I wanted THEIR product. So this may have been the best way to reach that goal. Students are used to being told what, how, and when to learn. Giving them free rein was uncomfortable for all of us.
• Students did stuff! They found cool resources to add to our class website. I found myself excited to see what new things had been added each day! 
• The creativity was awesome. Some students created slides and docs. Others created quizlets, kahoot quiz,  and infographics. I was introduced to Canva.com. Which is about the coolest thing I've seen in a while.
• Students enjoyed this unit, they learned a lot. They learned to build a google site, work collaborative, and they learned stuff about land use. 
• Our in class discussions were great! Instead of me talking and trying to engage students, they were talking to each other. I interjected a few questions to keep it going, but they STUDENTS were talking  to each other!
• Some students did better at this than others and put in more effort. But even my less engaged students did more than normal.
• I got so much more from the students in terms of quality of work. It was really gratifying to grade-- when was the last time you felt that about grading? Been a while for me.
• We communicated more than when they sat in class each day being spoon fed. Between comments on assignments, emails, and my abuse of the bitmoji app there was a lot going on.

Future Ideas:

1. Better organization of google classroom. I've found some good ideas that I'm going to try.
2. Create a chart or checklist of activities and deadlines to help with no. 1
3. Take this class with Alice Keeler.
4. Share what I've tried and learned.
5. Keep trying new things!