This summer I had the opportunity to attend the NABT/BSCS Biology Teacher Academy in Connecticut. It was a week long professional development tailored to Biology teachers.
At the end of the week, we stood in a circle and shared a "golden nugget" that we gleaned from the week of training. (And also took a golden nugget of chocolate. =) I shared the first thing that came to my mind, which was the most recent "ah-ha" moment for me. We spent a good portion of our time talking about and practicing formative assessment techniques and their purpose. I always thought of formative assessment as a way for me to see how my students' understanding was forming. It allowed me to see where they were and where they needed to go. I could then chose activities in class to address those issues. The epiphany for me was that the whole purpose of formative assessment is to know how to form my teaching to student understandings. I kind of did that already without realizing it, but now I can be deliberate about it and I have that focus in mind from the outset.
Afterward, I looked through my participant binder and was reminded of several other "golden nuggets" from the week.
One of the first labs we worked through (always to teach us methodologies to use with students), was the algae bead lab. I had heard about it and was excited to see it in action. I love it. I still have a micro-centrifuge tube with three beads and indicator in it and am tickled to see the liquid cycle between yellow and purple. One of the things I love about this lab is that it allows students to see that these organisms don't just go through photosynthesis, but also cellular respiration. After our experimenting, we practiced using the explanation tool to help prepare students to complete a CER (claim, evidence, and reasoning). I tried to implement this in AP Bio last year a little, but was glad to see it in action.
Another idea that jumped out at me was this statement when we were looking at how students learn, "Abandon the model of the learner as an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge..." It was a great reminder that our students come to us with heads full of ideas and we need to shape, add to, correct those ideas for them to really understand the concepts.
We looked at the I-squared strategy for helping students analyze graphs. I can't wait to use this in class--and then I'll have to blog about it.
Another golden nugget was connections made with fabulous facilitators as well as with the other attendees of the academy.