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Homework and help

Yesterday afternoon, I got an email from a student asking for help. I get emails from students all the time. Unfortunately, I didn’t check my email until this morning when I read it.
Here is the email:

Mr. Watkins, I don’t have a ruler at home to work on the worksheet about measurement. What should I do?

The email was sent at 4:48 PM and it is clear that the student had gotten home and was starting their science homework and discovered they didn’t have a ruler. And they realized they couldn’t finish the homework and were worried about it, so they sent me an email.

In science homework isn’t graded. The expectation is that it is practice, and I want them to finish it at home so we can have a conversation about the topic or concept in class the following day. I do try to provide time to get started on work in class, but sometimes students don’t finish and need to complete the assignment at home.

When I assign homework, I try to balance how long it will take along with the assignment’s value to learning in class. Homework should take no more than 15 to 20 minutes. I also assume that students will have the tools needed to complete the assignment. That’s where the breakdown occurred, the student didn’t have a ruler – I didn’t anticipate that. Continue reading “Homework and help”

Periodic Table Day – 2024

February 7th is an important day in chemistry and science – it marks the publication of the first attempt at organizing the known elements. Two weeks ago our young scientists celebrated the day in science classes with activities related to the periodic table of elements. It was a fabulous day of learning.

On that February day in 1864, British chemist John Newlands published the first periodic table with elements organized by their increasing masses, five years later Russian chemist Dimitri Mendeleev created the framework which became the periodic table of elements which is familiar to many of us.

I remember high school and college chemistry and I wish I knew then what I know now about the periodic table of elements. Continue reading “Periodic Table Day – 2024”

History Newsletter – September ’17

Happy Friday,

It was ‘hat day’ at Scullen today. Actually, it was hat day at Scullen if you made a dollar (or more) donation to help assist victims of Hurricane Harvey. It was a lot of fun.

In addition to teaching science, I teach social studies and though the four of us have different social studies classes we are all working to develop our students to be #FutureReady204 and prepared for life in the 21st Century.

The social studies curriculum in 8th grade is U. S. History from the early colonies to present. It’s a lot of information to cover in a year, but many nations have histories much longer than the United States. Regardless, we are a product of our past. Abraham Lincoln wrote,

“The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future.”

Currently, we covering the learning about the formation of the colonies along the Atlantic coast in the early seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Continue reading “History Newsletter – September ’17”