I look back at my first post to now and I see progression.  I had heard of blogs but really did not know what they were and I had never written one.  As time went on I can see that I became more confident in what I was doing.  My postings were either longer with each post or added more pictures.  This was a milestone with me because I saw I was learning how to navigate and manipulate my blog in ways that were appropriate with what I was trying to articulate. I am an old dog when it comes to technology who has learned a new trick!

First off, I would like to say that it is hard to believe that myself and my fellow Kenans are in the last leg of an incredible journey.

The “Pouring over my Poor Mites” project has been a game changer in the classroom in the fact that my students have gotten a chance to play an intimate role in a major scientific study. Kayla, Maribeth and I were able to take the science we experienced and tailor it to our grade level curriculums. We were also able to input information into our curriculum based on our insights of the classrooms we teach in and restrictions we calculated that we would confront during the year.

For me, I was able to introduce a Paidiea piece by way of a Socratic Seminar.  I introduced my students to this study in this manner for them to be able to ask questions, come up the answers and set a strong foundation in understanding the other parts that would come later.  Some of those parts being, understanding what the scientists know, how is the research process conducted, being able to take samples for the study and how the information from those samples is gathered. Having time to present and learn it seemed to be a constant. To help this I made sure that I was able to insert Mites in the units where I covered multicellular organisms, cells and DNA.

This curriculum and the activities that go with it can easily engaged teachers and students alike. There is information, the “Eww” factor, and sampling.

There so much information that Dr. Fergus and the other researchers are getting and can get from this study. Classrooms locally and abroad can increase samples groups by collecting Mite samples and sending them in to be analyzed.  The more information they are able to gathered the more questions they will be able to answer about this mite that lives in our pores.

The “Eww” factor….hey, they are Mites that live on our face! Intro to interest does not get any than that.

And students and teachers can get their fellow classmates and colleagues on board in giving samples to the research. They become active participants in any on going study that they can follow the actual results of.

With my Lenovo, I have been able to modify a Powerpoint  produced by Dr. Dan Fergus to meet the needs of the presentation I did with parents and faculty on the Mite Study.  I have also taken many pictures and apparently improved my “selfie” game which previously been nonexistent.  The break away tablet has allowed me to be versatile with usage in being able to show students and colleagues information up close and personal.  I have been able have others record for me or take pictures of tasks with me in them.

This day I introduced sampling. Above are pictures of me teaching the students how to collect mite samples off their face.  The goal was to not only show them proper technique but also make them expert samplers so they could share in the collection duties of each other and possible parents and teachers.

PD in Kenan talk is professional advancement. The word change significant. The mindset of the program to give us tools and expose us to realities that cause to actively push the world of education forward.  The workshops, meetings and talks are geared to have us create a better learning environment for our students. The sessions have showed also that we have a voice and that voice can speak more than the students we teach. Sessions have showed us that we can and need to voice our concerns and needs to administrators, politicians and the like. We have learned how to approach and educational conversation in such a way that it will either be productive or get heard. We have also been exposed to technical resources, people and methods are grooming us to become more than just a teacher, an educator that feels comfortable in leading the classroom, leading conversations and effecting policies.

Hello all,

Classroom wise, I started teaching Wednesday, August 20. It has been a little hectic in the planning and the setting up for this new year but I have excitement. I am adding the Mite Project to the beginning of my school year. I am going to introduce my students to the research tomorrow by way of a Paidiea seminar, or a Socratic seminar.  Kestrel Heights is a paidiea school so I thought it would be cool to begin with a seminar.

The experience this summer allowed me to realize that students often don’t get to see the discovery of science.  As teachers, we teach the concepts and recreate labs to show science and scientists operate. And at times, we may do a lab where we don’t know what the outcome will be. But this is an opportunity for the students to engage almost with the scientists in finding out what the relationship is between humans and mites. The students will be able to see that scientists working on this project use the scientific method to make these discoveries and also practice lab safety. So as the scientists make discoveries on these mites, the students will be able to learn that the scientist follow the same steps and record and explain the results of their data.

My experience this summer was pleasantly unexpected adventure.  I had no idea what the Kenan Fellowship was or what to expect from the program. A colleague forwarded the information to me and told me this would be good to consider.  I have not experienced a program that has served both as an inspiration and motivation simultaneously since becoming an educator.

I found out that in the Kenan Fellows Program there were specific programs within the group. I was with Students Discover, a group of 12 teachers participating in research amongst 4 programs.  All of us were assigned to work in the labs in the Museum of Life Sciences in Raleigh. How cool is that!?

Team Mites is the group I was a part of and Dr. Dan Fergus was our post doc.  My fellow Teacher-Scientists were Maribeth Evans and Kayla Norville. We got to experience real science in the laboratory and write curriculum for our subject areas to apply what we did to the classrooms we teach in.  The two things that really stood out for me being in our program was realizing that we were part of a research study that had not really been investigated to this degree and we were looked at as professionals.

In my opinion, I think it is rare for science teachers to have the opportunity to show the students they teach true Scientific Inquiry.  Usually we recreate labs that have been done in the past to support the concepts we teach.  There is a beginning and a defined outcome that should happen at the end of the lab.  We teach students that inquiry allows scientists to ask a question, make a hypothesis and then set out to prove or disprove what they think will happen. In this experience, our students will be able to experience the unknown with us. See how scientists react to the scientific process in real time and it benefits the scientific community and how we see and understand the world around us.

The other significant event came in the form of a question. How do we teach this in the classroom?  These scientists were looking to us to help them translate this research to the classroom. This has never happen to me before in this way.  The profession that I am part of was being looked legitimately.  The Kenan Fellows Program has created way to bridge the research experience to the classroom through us.  So now I can inspire my students not just with words but a tangible research experience that they can interact with.

The experience I had this summer has changed my perspective for the better of how I see science and education. I am very grateful to have had this experience, grateful for the relationships I have made, and grateful to be a Kenan Fellow.  Mites for life!….on everybody…for real;)

GO TEAM MITES!!!

The big Aha moment for me came when we were figuring out curriculum. With me being at a school with a Paidea focus I thought how cool would it be to have this information be introduced to my classes as a Seminar. I began to write down questions and ideas for it can got in contact with the school’s Paidea specialist. I was able to write up the framework and introduce the idea to her. As of today, the seminar created is pretty much complete and I will be able to incorporate it into the curriculum we have created.

Being able to write curriculum period is exciting. The challenge has been where to place the science we have been doing this summer into the 7th and 8th grade curriculum.  What we came up with was that the Mite Science would fit well in covering Scientific Inquiry. Our students will be able to see that the same Scientific Method taught in the classroom is the same process we used this summer working with Dr. Fergus. Kayla and I will also be able to link our Genetics unit to the DNA sequencing we did in the lab. One thing we realized is that the science we are doing is “first time” science.  With that said, we will be able to expose our students to results that have not been presented.  Normally in science class we recreate labs that have been done before. The results are known.  This experience will allow our students to see what happens when scientists ask a question, run experiments and prove a hypothesis that has yet to be tested. Many times we do not get the opportunity to show kids this side of science.

So to begin, I would like to acknowledge that I totally jacked up the spelling of phylogeny on the PDF link below. A phylogeny is an evolutionary tree. The following is a result of mites collected from various people groups.

BrevisCO3-Tree_071314