In Service

I moved from research to science education and have loved the change. This past summer, I had to create a lesson on Data Collection and Sampling for the middle school teachers. It was fun and went over well with the teachers. About a month ago, I learned that one of the teachers liked it enough to do it with her kids this year! I was very honored. 150 students all did my very first lesson.

And apparently, it went over so well with her kids -- even her special ed kids and ones that can be a little harder to reach -- that she proposed it as a session for Portland Public Schools (PPS) Inservice Day -- a professional development day where teachers learn new tools, lessons, etc. to take back to their classrooms. Well, PPS said yes and the inservice day featuring my lesson is this friday morning! From what I've heard, any middle school science teacher in PPS can attend. I don't think the showing will be very big, but I am very excited and honored. I've been working on crisping up the lesson, honing the objectives and making the product as polished as I can get it. (hence being off the blog for a while).

Keep your fingers crossed for me on Friday morning. And in case you're curious, the lesson is all about how many samples are needed to feel confident in saying there is a difference (or not) between two groups. Students are each given a bag containing pieces of paper from either the left or right side (these are "blood tests" -- green is good, red is bad). They have to pull samples with their partner until they're sure their bags are the same or different. How many licks would it take you?