Often in a high school classroom students are sitting. Six and a half hours of sitting with small 5 minute bursts of exercise to get from class to class. I don't know about you but it makes my rear end hurt just thinking about it. So whatever I can do to get my students up and walking around I do it. It keeps the kinesthetic learners more engaged and the students love interacting with one another. I'm fortunate to teach biology which lends itself to laboratory activities and hands on activities that really get all students engaged. One such lab is The Tree Maze (from the Arbor Day Foundation). Here is a link to the lab: http://www.arborday.org/kids/TreemazeFINAL.pdf In the lab it gives you a "walking dichotomous key" which are full sheets of paper that you tape up around the room. You could bring in tree branches for the students to use but I instead printed and laminated cards with pictures of the leaves, bark, seeds, etc of various trees for...

     I'm a celebrity. Yeah, well, not really but now you can learn more about me and what I do in the classroom. Andrew Wheelock was kind enough to interview me for his new iTunes series called " Coffee with a Geek ." Check it out here and subscribe: Coffee with a Geek You can watch the episodes on an iPod an iPad an iPhone or your computer Originally posted on ballinwithballing.blogspot.com

     The class I teach is a New York State Biology course called "The Living Environment." At the end of the year all students need to pass the New York State exam known as the "Regents Exam". In order to get my students ready for the exam it is imperitive that they become accustomed to the types of questions that they will see on that exam. Often the Regents Exam questions are at a higher level in Bloom's Taxonomy than just simple knowledge. Often the students will be expected to apply their knowledge to articles, experiments, diagrams, etc.      I find that if I do too many practice questions with them they don't try very hard and it takes a large chunk of time. So I've started creating what I call "Fast Fives." At least once a week my students will see a Fast Five on the table when they come into class. They will start working on the questions immediately. The students who get to class earlier have a little more time for the fast ...

     Like any other teacher I am constantly revising my curriculum based on student likes/dislikes, new motivation strategies, incorporating new labs, review games, etc. It is very overwhelming to keep it organized so here is the method I have devised.      I have a folder where I keep all ideas for future units. In that folder there is a separate sheet of paper for each unit. a separate sheet for each unit Any random ideas I generate throughout the year that would apply to that unit are jotted down on a post-it note and stuck onto the sheet of paper. post-it notes with ideas post-it notes with ideas      What did we ever do before paperclips and Post-it Notes? Any labs that I want to rewrite or handouts I have found are paper clipped to that sheet of paper. This way I am more likely to revise the units as I go through the year. labs, handouts for rewrites and modifications paper clipped to it.  This i...

Do you ever wonder what other teachers in your discipline are talking about? Do you ever wonder what is happening in their districts? How they are conducting their pre-assessments, APPR's, SLO's? Join a list serve and find out.  I have been a member of the BioForum Listserve hosted out of the State of New York College at Oneonta and I have found it very valuable for acquiring new ideas and new perspectives on teaching Biology. Warning...once you join you will receive a LOT more email but soon you will learn to filter out what is useful to you and what is not.  Click here to sign up to join a science listserve           “I'm a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in     terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they're interested in.” Bill Gates [Founder of Microsoft Co.] This post originally featu...

https://workflowy.com I don't know about you, but I am a list-maker. I have so many lists and posit notes that I have lists of my lists. A tool I've started using recently is Workflowy.com. It allows you to make lists with sub-lists and cross them off but it stores them in case you ever need to refer back to that list in the future. I have made workflow.com my home page so anytime I turn on my computer my to do list is right there in front of me. This is a screen shot of Workflowy in action: This post originally featured on ballinwithballing.blogspot.com