Student Background
This is my eleventh year as a high school science teacher. I received an undergraduate degree in Biology and worked in food laboratories in quality control and research and development for about 10 years; then I went back to school, earning a master's degree in education and became a science teacher. I have taught at my current assignment for 8 years. My school has a population of about 1,800 students, approximately 54% on free and reduced lunch. The student population is 25% Caucasian, 49% African American, 5% Asian, 16% Hispanic, 1% American Indian, and 4% Multiracial students. We have a large population of EC (exceptional child) students, an IB (International Baccalaureate) program, and offer Honor's and AP (Advanced Placement) programs. We are a diverse school population, which I think makes our school a good atmosphere for preparing them for real world experiences.
One of my most rewarding teaching experiences has been working with my ESL (English as a Second Language) students in the Sheltered Instructional Observation Protocol (SIOP) Program. This program is designed for students that have limited English language proficiency and have recently come to the United States from their native country or are living in households where their primary language is not English. One of the main focuses of SIOP is to provide the ESL students with a "sheltered" environment as they transition into American culture from their native country. I try to achieve an atmosphere of safety and inclusion by establishing early on that each member of the classroom has the right to learn and express his or her own opinions and we must be respectful of each others pacing and style of learning. SIOP stresses the effectiveness of differential instruction, cooperative learning, and the use of multiple intelligences. These students are creative and have rich experiences to contribute to the class, but they tend to be shy when reading aloud or speaking in front of their classmates. I feel that the first section of my unit, which emphasizes mathematics and the metric system, will work well because they tend to do well with these subjects. The second part of my unit will also be good for these students because they will be able to research and present their work while expressing their own unique creativity by generating fictitious monsters.
Another important group of students is my Honor's Biology Class. This class consists of 28-30 students ranging in grades from 9-12 and age's 14-17. These students are ethnically diverse: Multi-racial, White, Black, Asian, and Hispanic. Most of the students are selected for this class based on previous math and other test scores as well as teacher recommendations based on their status as AG (academically gifted) and/or participation of the IB (International Baccalaureate) Program. This class is vocal and social, so they enjoy having discussions and sharing their opinions. These students benefit from any additional rigor and challenge incorporated into the standard curriculum, which will provoke them to think, reason, and make connections with what they are going to be learning. The curriculum in this unit will be beneficial for this group because it will encourage them to use inquiry by requiring them to not only generate their monsters or creatures base on the rules of scaling and physics, but it will allow them to critique each other, which will open up room for continued higher level thinking. The next component which will benefit my honor's students will be the introduction of technology, which is something that out school district is strongly advocating for the next school year.
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