Teaching, the significant endeavor, nowadays corresponds to transmitting knowledge to the next generations , where they, on the other hand, play the role of “passive receiver” who records teachers’ information, memorizes facts, and follow teachers’ direction. In order for a teacher to be a significant role model for his/ her students, he/she should have the potential to tailor and influence the students’ future through good and effective teaching practices. In order to effectively shape our next generation, we should prompt our students to self-explore, encourage the level of student involvement, and guide them to assume the role of scientist. For this reason, my overriding principal is to endorse a caring and secure classroom atmosphere in which students develop and mature academically, emotionally, and socially. My principal will be accomplished by fostering the “Learning by Doing” style, which is at the heart of the inquiry- based learning approach, a constructivism model, in order to indulge in greater students’ involvement and achievement (Hofstein et al, 2005). My classroom instructional strategies will foster the active role of the learner and promote the facilitative and the guide characteristic of the teacher where the students' construct their own knowledge and try to explore answers to their questions.

 The collaborative learning strategy will be the ultimate intent in my classroom. I believe that each student is a “unique” individual. In my classroom, students with various ability levels will work together in groups to perform hands-on activities based on inquiry based learning approach. These activities will be at the heart of our everyday classroom routines.  Providing  students the opportunity to perform  relevant hands- on activities will assist them to meet their ultimate potential  by  constructing  their own  knowledge, practice  many social skills, sharpen critical-thinking skills, optimize learning and understanding of concepts  being studied ( Piaget, 1967).

 

"Rolling Ions" Group Work

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Electrons Energy"  Inquiry Group work 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

             

EFFECTIVE REFLECTIVE  URBAN EDUCATOR :

The mission of articulating what type of students I have in my classroom or the types of teachers I am helps me strengthen my awareness of many of my blind spots. These blind spots can be eliminated through reflecting on my teaching style and keeping journals for future reference.  Taking a step back and observing one’s own instruction style from a distance results in a more objective judgment and self-evaluation. These reflections will also develop better understandings of my strengths as well as shed light on the areas that requires improvement toward continual learning and growth.

 

My areas of strengths would be the following:

. Employing of inquiry- based activities

. well- skilled and equipped in the  subject areas and concepts being learned

. Incorporating  technology in every aspects in my teaching approach (Classroom website, Interactive online scientific games, smart board, etc.,..)

 

 

The areas that I can spot for improvement: 

I am a type of teachers that is eager to learn, work hard at their skills, and intend to improve. We as persons all have areas that are strong and areas in which they are slightly weak. Teachers who set the tone to a very high expectation from the beginning of the school year would increase students’ achievement and attitudes toward the subject learned. Giving the students room and autonomy to construct their own knowledge would be a very essential strategy that each teacher should employ in the classrooms. Checking the students’ Understanding with many tools  and strategies like ” formative assessment”  (assessing them while working),” exit slip techniques”(questions, phrases, illustrations, short essay) ,” think, pair, chair”, “ticket out the door”, “ puzzles”, would all  be  great ideas  about  the subject matter. When a teacher check for students’ understanding for the lesson of the day, he/ she  would have a great insight about what are the students’ strength  as well as the  side spots that needs improvements. If some disparities were revealed during the lesson, differentiated instructions should be employed at this stage.

Another critical point in any improvement plan is attending all the professional development sessions offered by the district as well the schools. These training sessions will provide efficient teaching strategies that can be very beneficial when devoted in the classroom.

 

I attended many professional and workshops either in college or in schools:

The DACTM-MDSTA conference is  a great opportunity for every current and future teacher to learn innovative strategies and implement them in his/her classroom,  share his/her knowledge, ideas, experiences, expertise and enthusiasm with pre-service, current teachers, university and college professors  in a professional learning community and  participate in different valuable sessions and workshops. This math/science conference brings together the resources and interests of pre-K to higher education educators interested in science and math. I attended many sessions to benefit the most from this conference.

 

Strategies Learned in the DACTM & MDSTA Fall Conference:

.  Using Argumentative Writing in the Chemistry Classroom for NGSS practices: This session was really beneficial, fun, and related to real- life application. In this session, we explored the integration of argumentative writing and the scientific practices of the NGSS in a chemistry class. The speaker, Ms. Labette prepared a hands- on activity already employed in her classroom to allow students to learn about molarity by using real life everyday consumed materials. Students are to calculate the sucrose and caffeine concentration for popular energy drinks(e.g.: Mountain Dew, Red Bull, Pepsi Cola, Monster Energy, Vitamin Water Attention, Starbucks Frappuccino) using the molarity Concept. Students at the end of this session should write an argumentative writing or conclusion that discusses their prediction and results using the Claim- Evidence-Reasoning Structure. The claim should answer the question asked or their prediction of the problem posed.

 

• IPads? 

This workshop taught me how to use the iPad-especially movie trailer- to create a project related to any topic in science, math and other subject, it was very beneficial and a new and creative way to assess students.)

 

• Design Voltaic Cell w NGSS workshop

This session was interesting and had a lot of information. The presenter has a lot of creative and fun way to translating knowledge. The NGSS PowerPoint that we got was very beneficial. The speaker showed us different online resources (e.g.www.Xprize.org) that we can use for science and at the same time align with the Next Generation Science Standards. He also explains explained why NGSS is a great reform in science education as well as in other education areas. The two questions that guided us, as science educators, were being addressed in this workshop:How might we modify our current ideas to bring in” modeling” and “engineering   design” in our science teaching?What might a classroom look like that integrates the (NGSS) practices of modeling and engineering design into our science laboratories?

 

• Go Nuclear with TI-Inspire. SC/ workshop ( The TI-Nspire is a great, engaging, innovative tool to use in my future classroom because all students feel a community in the learning process, each one becomes involved in the  analyzing the questions been posed, collecting data, inferring, come up with conclusions, and creating graphs)

 

 

Evidence  that reflects my  process for analyzing and reflecting on my  teaching:

 

Reflect in writing after each lesson plan

 

Analyze Students misconceptions 

 

Pre-Student Teaching Reflective Journals

 

Student Teaching Reflective Journals

 

 

 

Something that didn't go as I planned, what I did about that,  AND how I would  do the next time?

One of many efficient strategies implemented in the school improvement plan for the DCMST high school is “Flipped classrooms“ which give the students the authority of their learning by finding the concept that we will learn that day  . To employ this strategy in my chemistry classroom, the students has to read the chemistry chapters at home, come up with some questions and be ready to answer the teacher questions on the concept being learned. This strategy did not work as well as I wished to go due to the lengthy sections of the chemistry textbook. In the future, I am planning to incorporate “Inquiry Reading & Questions” or article related to the concepts being learned that the students should complete at home the day before we start to learn new concepts and come ready to discover the new theme.Because of the lengthy sections of the textbook, the students were bored, not interested in the subject being learned. For example, I already implemented this strategy on various parts of chemistry concepts and it works well:   

• The “Fireworks” Article was a great tool in order to make the students more familiar with the “Electrons Energy” instead of the lengthy sections pertaining to this concept in the textbook).

•  “Ionic Compounds that Contains Polyatomic Ions” Inquiry Reading & Questions. 

 

   The " FIREWORK " Lesson Plan

 

  " Ionic Compounds that Contain Polyatomic Ions" Inquiry Reading & Questions