Welcome Back from Thanksgiving! I hope you all had your fill of turkey. It's been a busy week in Science. Benchmarks and performance tasks are well under way. We are in the final 2 weeks of these tests. YAY! On Wednesday, I assisted Hollencrest Middle School with a guest speaker for their 7th grade students. Dr. Nancy Shinno, a retired geneticist, spoke to the students about genetic mutations and deformities that occur in the craniofacial area. This was a great connection to STEM careers.
On Thursday, I facilitated our first Science professional development at the district. In order to prepare for the transition to NGSS, it is important to revisit our instructional strategies and update them for 21st century learners. This professional development focused on inquiry-based labs. We discussed the BSCS 5E instructional model and used it to revamp a lab that will be taught in January. It was a wonderful day full of collaboration and innovation. I will meet with the same group of teachers in February to discuss how the inquiry lab worked out with the students and to continue redesigning future labs. I will continue offering training sessions of this nature in the future if you would like to participate in the next round. We will cover different instructional strategies each time we meet. Hopefully, these small changes in instruction will help prepare our students and fellow teachers for full implementation of NGSS in 2018. Thank you to my pilot group of teachers for actively participating and providing positive feedback for future sessions.