Check-in and to-do!

Treading water here! Irons in the fire are taking all my attention and I'm not getting new irons in the fire (or old irons out).

This week and next I need to:

1. send revised images in to Effective Practices book (2 - 3 hours of work?)
2. finish review for PRST PER (easy peasy. it's a great manuscript.) (2 hours of work)
3. attend the GPER Grand Challenges meeting and then touch base with PERLOC re: GC (2 - 3 hours)
4. send response to reviewers' comments to the editor at TEACHERS COLLEGE PRESS!! My fingers are crossed.  (full day +)
5. to-do's for the CPD summer institute (1 hour)

... that's 15 hours of stuff to do and I think I have about 10 hours of time to work this week. So this will get me through most of next week, too.


And here is Kate eating a lemon.

Check-in and to-do list

Next week's to do list (not too ambitious - Kate's not in daycare b/c of Spring Break):

• Make TE data easily-shared (qualitative and quantitative -- I think the quantitative is done)
• schedule PERC meetings
• finalize CS Whiteboards chapter: add in NGSS/CC components
• finish transcribing CS Masterclass 

other notes, below...


Rachel & Brian visited, so now I'm re-energized around the TE work, which has not had any attention for a while.

Upcoming to-do's for TE:

• a reading group at FFPER on Activity Theory
• A poster at FFPER on what TE looks like
• A poster at PERC on what TE looks like
• Make data easily-shared (qualitative and quantitative)
• Begin drafting the PERC paper (more on that in a later post).
• create (populate) TE website

Also to do:

• PERLOC and PERC Task Force need to meet soon, along with PERC paper award and I need to find someone to lead PERC 2016.  I'm in charge of those things. I'm dragging my feet on these meetings and not sure why.candidate on-campus interviews start up in a week (!!)

to do this past week:

• schedule meetings for PERLOC and PERC
• conversations about PERC 2016 in Sacramento (who wants to co-organize??)
• conversations about sessions at PERC 2015 in College Park? (Does anyone do anything around writing in science?)
• time sheets to Diane
• image for RT Chapter 1 to Amy
• prep for Rachel & Brian’s visit
• reimburse trip to San Antonio (ask BP about trip to San Diego)
• progress on CS book

On the radar:

CS Book:

• finalize Whiteboards chapter: add in NGSS/CC components
• finish transcribing Masterclass 
• agreement with NWP and TCP?
• (then: Journals chapter)
• (and: lesson plan on writing)

Moore:

• I’m going to continue my analysis - they’ve suggested I can stop now. but I have all this transcribed good stuff!

engineering & energy & ngss

I'm dying to use these animations in my PSET class -- ditch some topics (but which ones??) and get into how engines work.

http://www.animatedengines.com/

I'm also eager to energy-theater some of these.

And these: http://507movements.com/mm_018.html

Hands-on-Lab idea

We're going to have discussions around our current "capstone" course - a teaching practicum that is very expensive to run and doesn't mesh well with pedagogy in other courses. But coordinating with teachers/classrooms/field trips/undergrads is a big effort and hard to make it work on the cheap.

I saw this today, advertising an "intern" program that the art-ed group runs - kids can just sign up to come. I wonder if we could do something similar in science at the science museum:
http://www.janetturner.org/_pdf/kids_at_the_turner/workshop-2014-fall-flyer.pdf

I want to talk with them about it. Don't forget...

Weekly check in.

done this past week:

• chapter edits and formatting for RT book
• CPD meeting all day Monday (they loved Sharon F’s videos with Isaac and we’re going to use them in our PD!)
• all-day writing retreat for CS book
• edits to Routledge editor for CS book
• 4 hours of phone interviews (candidates are incredible!!)
• trip to Texas, talk at APS (it has been a long time since I was among 10,000 physicists. Bob Jacobsen and Albert Martinez spoke in my session and they were extraordinary - just seemed like humble and inspiring people and educators.)
• NEW DAYCARE. So happy.

to do this this week:

• schedule meetings for PERLOC and PERC
• conversations about PERC 2016 in Sacramento (who wants to co-organize??)
• conversations about sessions at PERC 2015 in College Park? (Does anyone do anything around writing in science?)
• time sheets to Diane
• image for RT Chapter 1 to Amy
• prep for Rachel & Brian’s visit
• reimburse trip to San Antonio (ask BP about trip to San Diego)
• progress on CS book

On the radar:

CS Book:

• finalize Whiteboards chapter: add in NGSS/CC components
• finish transcribing Masterclass 
• agreement with NWP and TCP?
• (then: Journals article)
• (and: lesson plan on writing)

Moore:
I’m going to continue my analysis - they’ve suggested I can stop now. but I have all this transcribed good stuff!

scaffolding

A research question...

it's possible to look in on my inquiry class and not think that I'm "scaffolding" students' success with, say, understanding how lenses work.

I can imagine an article that examines the kinds of 'scaffolds' that exist in my inquiry class, why they might be considered scaffolding, and how they differ from the kinds of scaffolds in more typical reform-based courses (or even traditional courses).

(one example might be what happens in my class to support students in constructing precise definitions, v. what PBI does in that vein, v. other courses.)

this would require reading up on vygotsky, zpd and scaffolding.

(also: is a 'rehearsal' a scaffold? I think rehearsals happen in scaffolded places?)