Snowday #10. Last night I lay awake watching the most recent snow event, hoping to have school. Any other year I would never have even considered these thoughts, but this year is one for the records! It has been since before Thanksgiving that we have had a 5 day week of instruction. That coupled with the fact that we have had 10 legitimate snow days means that I am a few weeks behind where I normally am in the content.
I thought that perhaps the powers that be would possibly understand this and push back the OGT. They have decided to extend the time for the OAA's, OAA Extension but not the OGT. So unless some sort of act of enlightenment happens at the state level, it looks like March madness is about to come a few weeks early! Let me make this my official plea to any of our elected officials, please consider backing up the OGT by 1 week, possibly 2.
Strategy time: How does one cover 8 crucial chapters in just three weeks? I wish I had the cure all for any one of us in this situation. But here are some important items to focus on. We can deconstruct the new standards all we want, but the truth of the matter is this year's OGT is based off of both the old standards and the new standards. Although, ironically, when I went to the link that was supposed to share more about this, the ODE web link was no longer valid.
If you don't know, I am high school science teacher. My course load includes physics, physical science and biology. Biology is the class I have to deeply focus on to ensure they have everything they need to pass this year's OGT.
How am I going to try to get this done? I have revamped my lesson plans about 4 times now, removing activities and labs that I usually include to help deepen students understanding. I still need to cover Human Genetics, Natural Selection, Evolution, The history of the earth, Genetic drift, population ecology, population growth, Hardy-Weinberg (this could be on there this year), ecology, food webs, biomass/energy pyramids and succession. Yikes!
Through out lectures + Through out lengthy labs and lab reports+ student buy in= customized curriculum to the extremes.
I have taken the standards that I have not covered, and created an activity where the students are going to need to tell me their comfort level. If they know it and they have it, then we are not going to be spending time on it. They are first going to share with me how comfortable they are with those indicators, and then complete a couple of questions and mini exploration activity with it. If they "ace" it, they can move on. This could be a complete chaotic mess, but I have to try something to get them where they need to be. If you have ANY tricks up your sleeves that might be able to help me pull of this Herculean effort, I would be happy to listen!
I will link the set up later once I get it completed if you are interested! Here are some other helpful links for OGT
OGT Science Workbook
Food Webs / Food Pyramids
The 10th grade science standards
Evolution concept map
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