Six weeks have come and quickly done at Manor New Tech. Final grades are due tomorrow for our first six weeks. During this past week, I substituted in and observed Mrs. Schimel’s Physics class and planned and co-facilitated Professional Development on IAKTs (Individual Assessments of Knowledge & Thinking) for all the staff. I also met with my ELL Book Club and discussed strategies for scaffolding literacy (specifically reading) for ELL students. I also got to participate in a small, but lively Critical Friends session. We provided feedback on Mr. Adeboyejo/Mr. Ray’s project on the cell cycle and on Ms. Blanco/ Mr. Beckette’s direct/indirect variation project involving material stresses and Hooke’s Law.
While substituting for Mrs. Schimel, I evaluated several presentations about the design and analysis of solar cars. I really loved the presentation shown below.
They were very clear. I also liked that they made a poster instead of a Google Presentation. MNTH students conduct so many presentations that many can create electronic slide shows in their sleep. It was nice to see students take the time to deliberately and carefully place all their design and analysis highlights unto poster board.
While co-facilitating the IAKT Prof. Dev. session, Mrs. Ehler and I got to remind our staff about the the great IAKT resources in the ECHO resource library. We linked the Guide to IAKTs and the IAKT Checklist into our PD collections because both these documents contained great information and links about how to design, scaffold, evaluate and revise IAKTs.
Mr. Foster launched a project on heat transfer and thermodynamics in the 9th grade Physics class. The students will create consumer reports that use the laws of thermodynamics and heat transfer mechanisms to explain how heating and cooling devices work. His entry doc was pretty sweet! It looked like a consumer reports magazine cover.
In Mr. Adeboyejo’s and Mr. Ray’s Bio/BioTech class, students are in the middle of a project on cell functions and organelles. By the project end, they will create books for middle school students on cell functions and organelles. As part of a scaffolding assignment, students went on a scavenger hunt to take pics of things that reminded them of cell organelles. Here’s an amusing and pretty insightful example of their work:
