Meeting 24 - May '14

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Science Department Meeting
Tuesday, May 29, 2014 (7:30 – 8:00am)
H103 – BioHazard Meeting Room

  1. Looking Ahead – Important Dates to Note
    1. Wednesday, June 4 – Happy Birthday Paul
    2. Wednesday, June 4 – Senior Science Final
    3. Friday, June 6 – Baccalaureate Liturgy (7:30pm) - line up by Xavier
    4. Saturday, June 7 – Commencement (9:00am)
    5. Thursday, June 12 – Underclassmen Science Final
    6. Thursday, June 12 – Department Luncheon (1:00pm) - Yard House at LA Live
    7. Thursday, June 12 – End-of-the-Year Faculty Party (6:00pm)
    8. Tuesday, June 17 – Final Grades Due
    9. Monday, June 23 – Summer School Begins
Remind Seniors to see Rosie in regards to conflict finals
  1. Reflections of a First Year Science Teacher at Loyola
    1. Kimberly, Eddie, Lee & Charlie
Reflections: Eddie is in Boston - for class reunion/family issues
Charlie: full orientation, and prior teaching experience would have helped, felt like treading water/hitting the ground running, what was available and lab equipment, etc. SciDept made him really feel welcome, etc. Lab/classroom inventory list
Kim - Access to CubView earlier, setting up courses, etc., fantastic environment, LHS family, continual support from the science dept. always more you can do to prep labs, alter activities, etc.
Lee - support of department is awesome, being involved in a truly collaborative environment, master teacher, mentor/teacher relationship
  1. Ideas to Address before Academic Year 2014-15
    1. Common Safety Contract - over summer think about a common safety contract to build within all syllabi for each course - if have something that you already use, send to Robb. Review it over the summer and approve it and use the same common safety contract.
    2. Ensuring Shared Experiences across Courses - being sure to collaborate over summer to ensure a common shared experience for the students - common syllabi with all the courses - common grading scale across courses
i. Common Syllabi & Grading Scale
ii. 50-80% Common Exams - good portion of the exam from the core content area common
  1. Bridge Building Between Courses (even for one day – 90 minute intro?)
i. Phy – Chem - Life - Everything!
- put aside time during the 90 minute block at end of year next year - have the Chem team develop a 90 minute lesson for physics team, have bio team develop it for the chem team, to give an intro into what the students will do next year.
  1. Horizontally Aligning Math Skills - speaking with the math counterparts to match up with the science curriculum. Possibly 1 science dept member as a liaison with the math dept.
  2. Balance between Engagement/Interest (projects) & Rigor - rigor vs projects - want to make sure students are having an enjoyable and worthwhile experience
  3. Don’t Dismiss the Importance of Reflection (area of focus for 2014-15) - active curriculum is great with the "active" portion - incorporate reflection into the content, need to reflect on the science that we do.
  4. NSTA Long Beach 2014 - weekend before open house Dec 6th?
  5. ACTIVE – ACTIVE – ACTIVE – ACTIVE – ACTIVE - ensure that the students are up and in the lab
i. Summer Homework – modify, create or steal FIVE new activities - to implement into curriculum over the summer - be prepared to share when we come back from summer - activities that deal with active learning.

  1. Physics-9 Reflections & Modifications
    1. 2013-14 Survey & Diagnostic Results - overall students enjoy and would recommend physics to incoming 9th graders
      - CST exam for all chemistry students, New York Regents exam for all physics students, Bio Diagnostic Exam as well
    2. Curricular Changes for 2014-15 - taking up geometric optics and adding electrostatics
    3. Continued Effort to Align with New Hybrid Math Course(s)- we can align our curriculum with the math department, not a priority for the math dept to align with our curriculum, current outline does not really line up with what we teach. Students should see a connection between science and math - have someone from the science dept in the loop. Details of the math committee are still being figured out - Mike Lew will give the math dept. the alignment list and what we cover by week - have a math dept member watch how we immerse math into our classes. Good idea to have a member of the science dept on the committee.

  1. Technology Google Doc (Due Thursday, June 5)
    1. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1APVL7qJ8D215IG__1b7Ypcz1hnctQw8cs8xXGKn54Dw/edit?usp=sharing
Google doc sent out yesterday, list of requests - add all tech requests from budget to this list as well - CAPSTONE will be added to the student computers
  1. Department Discussion: AP Biology Placement (Discussion Leader – Paul) – 10 min
    1. How can we provide students with the life science concept and skill foundation needed for success in AP Biology (a course equivalent to 2 semester of college life science) when many (juniors) take AP Bio as a first high school life science class?
Incorporate AP Bio placement in the Vertical Alignment discussion - Paul handouts and introduction - AP Bio majority of students are juniors, not previous life science background - students do not consistently get to working at a college level in this course - extra sessions, extra time to work and discuss - more instructional time to build those concepts. Recommendation - enhance the prerequisite for the course beyond the year of chemistry to also a year of life science. Pre-AP Bio course - few take it, not all students have access to the time and money to take the course. Gina - if a student wanted to take an AP Bio - could mandatory summer prep course fee be rolled in? Pre-AP Bio summer course - not content driven, more lab based. Robb - factors: senior only course in our current curriculum, would have to choose and would be severely limiting. We have juniors that are capable of doing this, very strong students. Paul - placement exam? Survey of students with prior experiences, etc. Paul sees when they struggle, etc. - cannot make it to that point of college level learning. Robb - frustration of capable juniors that would not be allowed to take this course - how to identify the juniors that are ready for the course. Craig - need counselors in on this discussion - do not think AP is college level anymore - advanced work in a high school setting, we have to produce and prepare kids for an exam. Paul - college board has rewritten course at a college level
  1. Department Discussion: Vertical Alignment (Discussion Leader – Craig) – 10 min
    1. How do we make sure each physics student is ready for chem and each chem student is ready for life science? How do we ensure that each graduate of LHS leaves our campus with the minimal understanding, skills, and appreciation of science (as outlined in the NGSS)? And how do we build the "practices" (inquiry) throughout the program? -How can the AP Bio teachers hit the ground running since so much content - Craig: become familiar with the 8 practices (7 college board) - pipeline for science and engineering grads etc. has not been our focus. Our goal was to ensure that all students understand scientific practices. At each level how much evaluation of data analysis, by senior year how much science should each student know. We might want to use different standards other than the CST for next year. With the 8 practices and setting aside dept time for next year - ensuring that students meet these 8 practices - HOW can we do this - brainstorm about over the summer. Identify where we are meeting the practices already with current curriculum and structure - argumentation from evidence - argue better data sets and why and modeling - create physical, mental and mathematical models, nature of science is in the next generation science standards. Argumentation from evidence and modeling are probably the 2 that we struggle with - together think of ways to address these. Of the 8 practices, identify which ones are more appropriate for which grades and courses. Experimental design and guided inquiry - as a senior open ended investigation. How to build this across grade levels. AP Bio Exam - Paul - do not test that on the AP Exam to come up with a data set, etc. APES - Many of the questions have a graph or data, etc, not as fact based, graph analysis, etc.