Messick’s Class

After meeting with Pei, I was able to get a better time table of when I will spend some time in the lab performing the lab myself or with a partner.  That Chunjian would be spending the next day or two to figure out what was wrong with the prior labs and perfect the process inorder to teach both a undergrad student and I by the end of the week or early next week.  Following this, we would spend time perfecting the process ourselves and move on with some other samples. 

Following this I was able to also hear Pei explain his reseach to the NSF reperesentative which was great.  I started to finally understand the what he was saying because I have started to build a better vocabulary in his field.

I also spent sometime on iTunes U watching some Micro Biology Lectures from MIT, which also gave me a more indept understanding of the materials we are working with.

Today I spent some time with Pei, Madga, and Chunjian where they discussed the possible errors with their past PCRs.  They discussed several factors that may be affecting the sensitivity of their readings.  It was interesting the approach that they took during this meeting and how the discussed the problems.  Pei brought up one aspect that I through was interesting.  He made the students aware that eventhough they feel there may be many things wrong with their PCR orducts, that they should only focus on one change at a time.  This way they could see what factors are making the change.  And sometimes one simple change could be all that is needed.  This is something that is necessary in mathematics.  Students will sometime get a problem wrong and sometime start back from scratch when many times it works better if you just take a look at your process and make one small change.

Due to other circumstances the not much was able to be done in the lab up to this point.  So to prepare for the time I got in there I have spent my time reading up on the topic that would be covered during my research.  But after this I realized a little more as to why hands on learning is much more beneficial to students.

I was able to observe Madja and Chunjian, two grad students, go through the steps of measuring PhiX174 virus using PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction).  While doing this I was informed that they had just recently learned the steps and were in the process of becoming familiar with this in order to continue their research.  Following them understanding how this all works they are going to walk me through the steps so I may perform the lab myself and build some confidence with the process.  Although I have worked with some of these concepts before in Science classes when I was in high school, it was very beneficial that they explained each step they were performing.  Especially, since I had not been in a science lab for almost 10 years.  I am very grateful that they were able to explain these steps while trying to perfect them themselves.

Some interesting things that I noticed while observing the lab was how methodic and careful they were with each step.  They made sure to follow everything to exact time and also to make and adjustments necessary to avoid contamination between samples.

During the lab I was also able to have an interesting conversation with Pei about environmental engineering and the trends of education.   When I first arrived here I found it odd that many of the researchers were not American but rather from foreign countries.  And he explained to me that many students are now choosing to go right out in the working world after graduation.  Another trend that is happening with this is that many of the students who come over here for the research will be drawn to other countries who in high need of their assistance.  Because these other countries are offering better packages than companies in America the students are leaving to go there.

We also discussed how education in America had changed over the past ten plus years.  We both gave examples of how we have had to adapt our teaching styles and curriculum for the students today and that sometime we feel as though we don’t have the opportunity to push our upper students as much as we hope to.  We came to an understanding that this is a problem that starts from the lowest levels and trickles its way up.  I explained to him that in some classes I am only able to get through about half the material in a year because of students attitudes, abilities and prior knowledge. 

Some teachers will argue that teaching the higher levels or even the lower levels are the hardest.  But having taught an array of different classes I can state that teaching the middle level classes is the hardest.  I like to use my 11^th grade class this past year.   In this class I had students who were without a doubt going to college and looking into getting something above a state school, I have students who are planning on state school, students whose parents say they are going to college and they half way buy into their parents, students who just want to pass high school and start working, and finally students who are only in school so they don’t have to go to court for truancy.  As you can imagine setting up a lesson for this class can be very difficult and teaching it to meet all their needs even more so.

After explaining this to Pei I even offered that a common thought among some teachers it that we could provide better education if we moved to the educational philosophy of some of the other countries in the world.  I am teaching math to students who will never see math at this level again in their entire lives.  I feel that our system has become so watered down with a philosophy that college is for everyone that the prestige of a degree has lost its luster.  Instead we should put more restriction on even our high schools.  Why put someone in a college prep program that isn’t going to college.  Instead spend those years teaching them a trade.  If students had to test to get into different levels for instance one in 5^th grade to get to middle school and one in 8^th grade to get to high school.  Students and parents would be a little more motivated to learn the material in front of them and classes would be a little more manageable to help these students learn.

Now I know there are all kinds of problems with this philosophy especially the fact that our country is kind of formed on equal opportunities.  It would also possibly cut down on the amount of regular education teacher we would have.  But it is my feeling that something has to be done because we are bring the top students down which directly effects the way our country runs.

After mentioning this Philosophy to Pei he found it interesting because apparently there is starting to be a push in other countries to move to our philosophy.

Well I know I rambled a little bit but I haven’t really written in awhile and it is a blog.

During our meeting today it was interesting hearing what everyone had to say.  But the most productive part was being able to meet with other Mathematics teachers.  We were able to discuss how we could introduce inquiry and even engineering topics into math class.  We all agreed that this is a tough feat because of the restrictions on us by our schools and the state.  We recognize that the best think that can come out of our classes to prepare them for the future is by creating thinkers and problem solvers.  Hopefully, with more discussions we can start to put some things together to help us with this in the coming school year.

Why are math teachers having more trouble adapting this than science teacher?:

Although Math and Science are intertwined, when it comes to teaching it in the classroom they are completely different environments.  In mathematics, we are pushed to get through a certain amount of material in order to prepare our students for the next course.  Many times the amount of the material takes more time then is allotted as is.  Because of this, the amount of time that we are able to spend developing thinkers instead of focusing on set material is very limited. 

Although Science also has restriction it is naturally an inquiry based subject, it is founded on those approaches.   Science has always been based on the idea of making a hypothesis and testing it over and over again until you get the result you are looking for.  Science is the hands on part of math, it is students get to apply the abstract content they have learned in math classes.

Although I have not had any experiences in the Lab I have been able to learn a lot of the background of Pei’s research.  There are many different studies on what the Iron particles can do for the ground water.  Through reading Pei’s (along with some other contributors) article ”Removal and inactivation of waterborne Viruses Using Zerovalent Iron” I have obtained a general idea of what he is looking for.  Now it will be interesting to see some of the theories being tested.

Because I am a Math teacher and not as familiar with some of these topics I have also been taking it upon myself to learn more about Zerovalent Iron and the ways people around the country have been experimenting with it.  This will be an interested couple of weeks to see what kind of effects a lab in Delaware can have on the world.

With all of the new tools we have as educators I wanted to find away to help students be able to track their assignments and due date even better than our district websites.  So I started to put together an online syllabus using http://assignaday.4teachers.org/index.php  .  Hopefully this is something that the students will find useful and I can continue to use through out the year.  And with this when students are aware that they will not be in school for a few days they may go right to the website and obtain all of their assignments.

It was interesting taking our tour of University of Delaware today and seeing all of the different opportunities for incoming students.  Through this I have come up with some more reasons for my students as to why mathematics is important.  And that if they can become proficient with mathematics now they will have a step up on their competition.   I look forward to describing these educational possibilities to my students in the given years .

Over the Next 6 weeks I hope to find new ways to look at mathematics.  I want to find ways to excite my students about math and give them more meaning from the covered content. 

Hopefully, through this I can help increase the amount of content the students are able to retain in order to prepare them better for future years.

Outside of the classroom, I also hope to challenge myself and find some new ways to look at topics that I may not be completely proficient with.

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