Should Personal Wellness be included in Skills for Success?

     I remember the days of old when I was sitting in high school. On the black board was posted a sign that read, "An ounce of Prevention is worth a Pound of Cure." Almost 20 years later that phrase still sticks, especially as I think about the skills for success. Skills for success and 21st century skills are closely related. I think it is fantastic that local companies teamed up with our ISD to emphasize certain skills our graduates need for their future. Each skill addressed has merit and makes a lot of sense. However, I would like to make an argument that one very large skill was left out...Wellness...the ability to be physically, mentally, and emotionally well.
     In reading the book, The Coming Jobs War, a lot was mentioned about the facts of our health. The numbers are staggering in how much health care costs. In fact, the book goes as far as saying that in order for us to win the upcoming jobs war, we need to double the amount of fit people in our nation. Marvel at these stats from the author, Jim Clifton:

1. The US spent $2,500,000,000,000 on healthcare in 2009. Compared to the $200 Billion per year price tag of war. Compared to the entire economy of India, with a population of 1 billion people, is right under $1.5 Trillion. Compare to Russia's entire GDP of $1.5 Trillion. 
2. The Gallop corporation predicts that the US will need an additional $10 trillion in the next 10 years for health care alone. 
3. The CDC reports that 70% of the $2.5 trillion dollars America spends on healthcare goes towards preventable disease. A significant contributor to this number is the fact that 2/3 of Americans are considered to be overweight or obese. 

     Therefore, why have we not addressed this issue to the point of making it a 21st century skill? The data says this topic has the power to make or break this country. Are we afraid that this issue hits home with too many of us? We currently work on evaluating citizenship, dependability, and social skills...is wellness to personal? If we are serious about educating our youth in what our businesses really need, we need to consider upgrading the importance of personal wellbeing. If we are serious about educating our youth to keep America significant, we need to consider the importance of wellbeing. Maybe then the cost of cure will be easier to handle because the price paid for prevention was a wild success!

Another Way to Start the Inquiry Process

Bob and I seem to always search for ways to kick off our units. We began starting the unit with student questions to guide the learning process. However, we need to find more creative ways to spark the conversation. Therefore, we tried to use a imovie for this topic!

A Fresh Look at Learning Targets

     Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of good to learning targets. They provide structure and focus to the learning that takes place in the classroom. Additionally, learning targets help in the process of grading, especially for teachers implementing a true system of standards based grading. However, I would argue that there might be a better way!

The Process
     This year, 7th grade science has started to implement more challenged based learning into the classroom. With this implementation we discovered that students had a difficult time asking good questions to drive their research. Upon reflection, Bob and I made a decision that we needed to increase our focus on student inquiry. In addition, we took a look at learning targets and came to the conclusion that each learning target was teacher driven. Not a single learning target was derived from student inquiry! Therefore, we decided to pursue a method that would preserve the content the state was requiring of us all the while encouraging student inquiry. We came up with a plan to have student questions drive the formation of our newly found (thanks to Brad Fuzak and Nate Alkire) road map.



When you take a look at the road map, student questions were divided up and organized into appropriate categories. These categories were designed to match the state curriculum. We hypothesized that student questions would match the general curriculum. In fact they did with a little teacher influence on the organization.
     The next phase of this newly found "road map" is the formative structure that it provides. As students complete the "box categories" we enter into a discussion with each student. Using their questions as a guide we determine if they have a good understanding of the content in that category. If a students has completed all the tasks and can demonstrate content knowledge they receive a stamp on that box to verify. No student is allowed to take a summative assessment until they have all their stamps!

The Data
     The data supports the validity of the student inquiry driving the tasks and the formative assessment. After the first trial of summative assessment on rocks we came up with the following:

• 175 students (88%) scored above a B-, which we consider to be proficient. 
• 22 Students (12%) scored between a B- and D-.
• 1 student scored below a D-

Conclusion
     Without actual numbers from previous years, I am very confident that we have never achieved this kind of student performance on the first summative assessment for a concept of this magnitude. A concept as complicated as a dynamic rock cycle has proven to be difficult in years past for many students. Many times we have found ourselves finding ways to re-teach material and providing justification for using retakes. Witnessing 88% of our students demonstrating proficiency this early in the process is good, but having only 1 student receive an E the first time through is bigger. In my opinion, reflecting on our use of learning targets is a discussion worth having.

Mineral Inquiry

We are changing things up in our rocks and minerals unit this year. In years past the labs and activities were based upon our interpretation of the standards. This year, we are going to format the unit based upon student questions. Our hypothesis is that the student questions will match the content expectations of the state. From these questions, we will create a "road map" of activities and tutorials for students to use to answer their questions!

Facebook Page!

We decided to find another avenue to share the good things happening in our science classroom. Facebook! Here is a "like button" to click. I will be very interested to observe the data we are able to collect and watch it grow!

Piping Plover Mini Challenge

Here is a student sample of work they produced for our Piping Plover Mini Challenge. The challenge can be found by clicking here. Overall it was a good project and we are extremely thrilled with the students being able to create accounts on vimeo for them to publish to the world! Students then are in the process of embedding their videos on their newly created blog! I will post an example of a student blog soon.

Our Topics

Here is a video I put together showing some of the topics the student groups have picked to work on. We are in the research phase right now and are finding that this is a pretty big thing to take on. Students are excited though!!!!! I had some fun creating a background beat using garageband!