Teaching should not be stagnant. Nothing drives me more crazy than the teachers who go to their filing cabinet and pull out the same old outdated test they made copies of 20 years ago and then claim their assessments are in line with their instruction. While this type of thing drives me crazy, I drive my teammates crazy because I can't manage to leave things alone from one year to the next. Now I try not to go overboard and change every single thing every single year, but small tweaks and adjustments are necessary. If I'm not changing something, I'm not making adjustments to meet my learners where they are. That's how I see it.
Last year was challenging with maternity leave and a new baby, but it was even more challenging because I felt like I just couldn't reach my kids. I kept coming at them in different ways, and it's like they were expert boxers--bob and weave, bob and weave. No matter what I did I couldn't land a punch. My AP scores showed it. AP scores were down across the board, but I had the biggest dip in scores I have ever had in 8 years. I was devastated; I was determined.
This year, I have changed up some things to try and catch some "issues" earlier in the year and to try and incorporate more small group and one on one types of instruction. Some things have been fabulous and some things have sucked. But, I am still trying. My team is hating me, I'm sure.
Just last week I started conversations about next year and further scaffolding that needed to be done this year, that we didn't do well enough. I know, I know...I am that teacher. Then, Facebook inspiration hit me. We have been talking about ways to spice up the blogging requirement for our kiddos. I went home baffled. No idea what to do. Then, I logged on to Facebook. A friend had shared a blog article, which I read just because he has a wicked sense of humor and ALWAYS posts entertaining things. The blog is from a "Science Babe" which is a blog name, from what I gather, in a long line of "Babe" blogs. Well, Science Babe was tearing apart "Food Babe," another Babe who writes about investigating the toxins in food and food packaging, etc. Did everyone know this exists besides me? WOW!
I immediately shared the blog link with the A&P teacher here on campus, because I think there is a fabulous chemistry, food safety, physiological, scientific research type of thing going on here. She does a health and nutrition unit that I think this would fall right in line with. If it wasn't for the language factor, I could see using this in a high school science classroom.
Then, a few hours later, it hit me. Hard. This is the perfect opening for introducing argumentation. "Food Babe" makes a claim about not putting chemicals in your body because they are all toxic; "Science Babe" responds with a logical explanation (and a bit of sass) that the Food Babe Army doesn't actually understand science. I'm still thinking it over, but I think this is how I want to intro argumentation. Two bloggers going after one another. Point. Counterpoint. Fear mongering. Logic. Pseudoscience. Science.
After we look at a few models, I think I will ask the kids to find bloggers of their own to examine their forms of argumentation. They can have choice and voice in the types of blogs they choose AND we can have a more interesting look at the parts of an argument.
Now, I just need to find a clean, but interesting blog. More to come when I get it all figured out...
