I am always faced with a difficult challenge at the end of the year: What to do with my AP Gov students after they have finished the AP test? Because the Gov exam is always first, there are more than a few days of classes that need to be filled meaningfully.

To solve this problem, I have created a variety of post-AP projects. I decided this year that one of the options would include explicit use of AI, in order to give students the opportunity to play with, and reflect on, the capabilities of AI. 

The project required students to write a new constitution for their ideal form of government. The first step was simply to determine the structure of their government by answering a series of questions in a graphic organizer (Federal or unitary government? How many branches? Unicameral or bicameral legislature and length of terms?)

Once they knew what their government would look like, they were instructed to write prompts for Chat GPT, using the AI’s responses to piece together a constitution. They were required to save the prompts they used, so that after they assembled their new constitution they could highlight the document and explain what prompt they used to generate each section.

The final step asked them to reflect on the process of creating their constitution using Chat GPT. They were asked to describe any challenges or surprises when working with the AI.

Truth be told, I didn’t get great reflections from the seniors. They were reflecting in the final days of their high school career. BUT, I would like to play around with this type of assignment again. The value, I think, is in asking students to examine critically what AI is producing when given a particular prompt, so they can see both the value and pitfalls in using generative AI to produce text. Next time, I may model what this process would look like, so that they can understand what type of reflecting I want them to do.

In this post I will be exploring the benefits and disadvantages of online communication. I will look into these three ways of communicating: a threaded discussion, email discussion and online live chat.

Threaded discussion 

A threaded discussion is commonly used on social media apps, google chats, Schoology, etc. What I find beneficial to a threaded discussion is how you can organize a conversation. Each thread is about a certain topic so you can easily follow and contribute to those ideas. When using threaded discussions with students on Schoology this is a great way for them to engage with one another and share their thoughts on a topic together. This is a more meaningful way to have conversations and for students to validate one another. Another reason I would use a threaded discussion is for its accessibility and ability to provide a record of conversation. What I find challenging as a teacher with threaded discussions is that students may start multiple posts about similar ideas. This makes the volume of threads and replies a lot to follow leading to misunderstandings as you need to read across multiple threads making it difficult to follow.

Email Discussion

Email is a highly effective communication tool in the education setting to communicate with both students and parents. Email provides a convenient and accessible way to communicate important information to students and families. Messages can be sent a received at any time providing flexibility. Through email I can quickly send out updates or information to students and families. This ensures that everyone is kept informed in a timely matter and action is taken as needed. Some barriers to email communication are email overload. From the student view they receive a large volume of emails from various sources. Some students have a hard time managing this and can miss important emails. Another barrier is miscommunication. Email is prone to misinterpretation and misunderstanding since it does not include verbal cues and tone of voice. This can lead to confusion or conflict.

Online Live Chat

Live chat is effective in being able to offer real-time interaction with students and families. This can be useful for addressing urgent concerns or quick assistance that need more prompt feedback. I use this with zoom or phone calls when parents are unable to come in person and we want to be on the same page to support a student. This makes zoom convenient and flexible when trying to schedule a meeting. With online tools brings technical issues like internet connectivity and glitches. Technical issues can be disruptful to communication and the effectiveness of the call can be decreased. Using zoom can also but not as accessible if you are struggling to find areas with effective internet access and the right equipment. If you can implement best practices for live chat communication you can enhance student support and learning outcomes.

Overall all three types of online communication can be effective when communicating with students and families. I think you just have to find what works best for each situation.

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 “I’m not supposed to be here.” Someone spoke this phrase at the start of school retreat last school year. They stated all of the reasons why their life and career trajectory should’ve taken them to a different place, why Carondelet is an improbable destination. And yet, they’re here, and it’s where they’re supposed to be. 

I don’t believe everything happens for a reason. My skeptical, materialistic brain says that all of us are here because of past decisions, pragmatic or otherwise, with a sprinkling of chance thrown in. Yet, this statement resonated with me, because I had that exact thought when it really hit me that I was a teacher. Was it a confluence of random chance and some pragmatic decisions, or was there some underlying design behind it that my rational brain refuses to acknowledge. My rational brain says that I’m subconsciously recognizing things that I’m interested in and creating patterns out of nothing. And yet, when I notice synchronicity I pay attention to it. Carondelet kept popping onto my radar, from a variety of disparate sources, and for different reasons. I’d spent 15 years working in research labs, but I’d always joked about a second career as a crazy science teacher. So I took a look and liked what I saw. The school had an opening; I knew I could do a passable job. They needed a warm body; I wanted an in. It’s worked out better than I had hoped, and I hope to be here for a good, long while. I don’t believe everything happens for a reason, but sometimes I conduct my life as though things happen for a reason. 

One of the things I’ve done to intentionally participate in the Carondelet community is chaperone retreats. I’ve found them to be wonderful experiences where I can make meaningful connections, often with students I’ve never met. We greet each other in the halls now. 

The students love the retreats, too and they make connections, both with their classmates and with themselves, that are possible because they’re forced to relinquish their phones and still their minds enough to think, rather than just react. They have the time and space to see those in front of them.

It may seem to the students that the groups, small and large, are arbitrary. We who’ve seen behind the curtain know that a lot of thought goes into the formation of these groups. Many pragmatic decisions (can’t go during the sports season, want to go with friends) on the students’ parts, some random chance, and some deliberate design (absolutely do not put A and B together! C might pull D out of her shell), resulting in unexpected connections and moments of grace that cannot be foreseen. Hopefully, they see the value of connecting with those who cross their paths. 

This is what I try to do in the classroom. I can’t connect with everyone in the world; I can’t connect with everyone in the school, even. But I can connect with those who cross my path. It works to varying degrees with my students; I have a very good rapport with some, less so with others. But I think it matters, and I think it’s beneficial for both them and for me. I get good work and good effort from them, and their trust makes me want to try even harder to support them. Interacting with the students who end up assigned to my classroom involves interacting with those there as a result of a series of pragmatic (or otherwise) decisions, some random chance, and possibly some deliberate design. 

I’ve struggled with the idea of God for decades. I finally arrived at a concept of God as the set of all relationships, or maybe the basis of all relationships, of anything to anything else in the universe. Nothing exists except in relation to other things, thus consciously participating in building these relationships is work mirroring that of all that sustains the Universe. Some people are good at doing this in the abstract, satisfied by building conditions that help build relationships. That isn’t me. I need the satisfaction of seeing the relationships.

I’m not supposed to be here either. I’m supposed to be in a research lab, doing molecular bio work in support of ecological research related to carbon sequestration, or maybe at a computer terminal writing R scripts to analyze data. And yet, here I am. I interact with those who cross my path any given day, who are there because of pragmatic decisions, random chance, and maybe some deliberate design. Regardless, I will continue to hold those who appear before me.

At the beginning of the school year, I posted about trying to get my AP Bio students to read the Campbell textbook for information. I said it was a hill I was willing to die on, because I felt that it’s a skill they should have, especially for college, and that training oneself to do something boring that isn’t pleasurable, but might eventually be satisfying, is worthwhile. I gave a few strategies for how to interact with the text, and they said that it helped, and then I kind of dropped the ball in favor of pushing through a lot of content.

So it was a very pleasant surprise today when five of my students stopped by the AP Fair as student representatives for AP Bio. I’d put out a general call and nudged a few people individually, but I wasn’t expecting that many to show up. When asked about the homework load, it was listed as 4-6 hours per week, but I deferred to the students. I got a really mixed bag, ranging from maybe doing two a week to consistently putting in 6 hours. What surprised me, though, was that they said that most of the homework they do is reading. All of them said that they figured out that reading the chapter at least for partial understanding before coming into lecture made lecture make sense. They got some sense of what was going on through the reading, I highlight the most important points and hopefully help them piece together into a coherent narrative (yes, even in science we have narratives), and then the fill in gaps that they don’t understand. Even though I have provided them access to Albert.io, all of the college board stuff, they emphasized that reading the textbook very important for their learning. 

I was ecstatic for multiple reasons. First, the first student to mention that she digs into the reading to succeed was one who told me “I don’t learn best from reading a textbook” at the start of the school year. Second, one straight up said “I know I have to take ownership of my learning, and that I’m responsible for that material.” Third, they, and I’m using this as a collective they encompassing most of the class, have seemed to cracked the nut of how to learn this material. I noticed at a certain point a few weeks after the first reading blog post that their comfort with the material, and therefore their grades, started bobbing up. Another student, who didn’t attend the open house, said, when I mentioned that she had gotten much stronger, “yeah, I figured out that I need to read the book and kind of pre-teach myself the material so I understand what you’re talking about in lecture.” 

I’m incredibly proud of this group of students, and I’m so happy that they have this skill that will serve them well in their future science classes. I know it’s a small group of very capable students who, by and large, have good executive functioning skills already, but given the amount of kvetching I got in the first month or so, I am absolutely taking this W and doing a victory lap. 

Expectations from myself: I rarely feel like I’ve done enough or done things well enough. This is a personality flaw, and I’m sure some professionals with graduate credentials would have some stuff to say about it. It’s an interesting combination of imposter syndrome, guilt, and not understanding what “adequate” is. I didn’t prepare enough for a lesson; I could’ve used a better lesson format; I forgot to mention that one thing. I didn’t spend enough time on topic 4.6. I emphasized topic 4.2 too much.

Expectations from other adults: that I posted the schoology agendae, that I checked on understanding frequently enough, that I had them engage in the right amount of reflection on the right prompt, that they’re engaging in the material in meaningful ways, that I have a “do now” or an “exit ticket,” that I printed out that latest MUT form, that I have my keys, that I filled out my time off request properly, that I left the supplies in the correct classroom, that I remember to check my calendar, that I make it to yard supervision, that am strict enough in adhering to our policies, that I am lenient enough when the situation calls for leniency, that I took attendance, that I have my sub hours covered, that I reserved the room for the club I moderate, that I remember to go to said club meeting, sign off on the volunteer hours, that I log that email home about that one student, that I make it to the department meeting, that I make it to the other department meeting, that I filled out the survey, that I …

Expectations from my students: This one is, in many ways, the most intimidating and challenging. I realized fairly early on this year that almost universally, I think I have my students’ trust. I had many of them last year or the year before, so I have that history and rapport on which to build. I don’t fully understand why they give me their trust, though. I don’t feel like I earned it, I’m not sure I’m worthy of it, and it’s a heavy responsibility to carry. These are the expectations I most fear that I will fail in; they trust that I am guiding them through these classes as though I know what I’m doing and that it’ll all pay off. I feel this most acutely in AP Bio. Yes, I have what passes for subject-matter expertise in my subject (even if I did just teach myself signal transduction and the exact steps in oxidative phosphorylation this past fall), but they trust in my intelligence and that I will prepare them well for AP bio in a way that scares me. I want so desperately not to let them down.

It’s that responsibility of their trust that pushes me hardest. I want to do right by them, and I wonder if this results in some positive feedback cycle (Topic 4.6, AP Bio). In some ways, I feel like both sides in this relationship want to please the other side. They’re working incredibly hard; I’m putting everything I have into making this year go smoothly for them. I’ve adjusted my instructional and assessment styles every unit because of their feedback, explicit or otherwise. They’ve by and large gotten over the kvetching about reading the textbook and are now pushing themselves harder on that and vocabulary. I do more direct instruction, but they ask more questions during that, and it often leads to productive discussions (and the occasional tangent, but I can almost always bring the tangent back to the topic and make it work for my point).

I don’t know if it’s all from the purest of motivations; fear of failure is fine, but wanting to please is better. It’s a good mix of both for me; I’m not sure what it is on their end. I guess I just have to trust that all will be well.

This all made sense to me and as a proponent of SEL, I intentionally do what I can in my class not to put students on the spot, call them out in front of their peers, hand back work in full view of everyone; I want them to feel seen, known, cared for, etc. It is now a scientifically-based goal of mine to avoid the amygdala response in my classroom so that students are able to stay focused and benefit from the class.

I am participating as a learner  in a training at the Berkeley World Language Project this year. It takes place over five Saturdays throughout the school year. A couple of weeks ago, we had our second session. The training is about how to create a thematic lesson in language classes, using authentic resources. An authentic resource in the Modern Language classroom is anything that was created for speakers of the target language – an article, a children’s book, a novel, an infographic, TV show, etc. In the class at Berkeley we are reading a novel and watching the corresponding film, and then discussing ways one might use these types of resources in our own classrooms. 

The excerpt of the film that we watched during our last session was quite violent and very disturbing – at least in my opinion. I tend to be sensitive to violent images which is why I listen to the news rather than watch it, and avoid action movies, etc. I found myself quite upset while watching, a feeling which culminated in an amygdala response. 

About 18 minutes in to my brain’s protective reaction, I realized what was happening, and was able to observe myself and my reactions. It was really interesting. It played out just as Katie had described! One thing that wasn’t expected, however, was the feeling I had toward the workshop presenter. For the rest of the day, I found I could not and did not want to make eye contact with him, and I don’t think I learned very much from him for the rest of the day. 

Obviously, we want to avoid provoking an amygdala response in our students in order to not lose those valuable 20 minutes in the short term, but what I learned from observing my own experience was the effect on the student-teacher relationship in the long term. The presenter apologized, but it didn’t help me feel better. I was too far into my brain’s reaction to change course by that point. I may not have learned much that day in that PD, but the experience reinforced what I am learning in my crew, and turned out to be great training.

 WARNING: This post includes much tooting of my colleagues’ horns. 

One of the goals for us Carondelet teachers, as I understand it, is to maintain a reflective teaching practice (a very worthy pursuit). I have found this year that I am most reflective when planning curriculum for US History. 

US History is taught by Phil Miller, Lauren Konopka, and myself. Between us we have nearly 40 years of combined teaching experience. We have each taught US History multiple times prior to this year and prior to knowing each other. One might expect that planning our curriculum would be a breeze: We march out old lesson plans one by one and select what we want to do in class. This could not be further from reality. 

Because Phil, Lauren, and I have all taught US History before, we each have our own specific interests and perspectives on the subject. We’ve developed lessons and projects, and we have a good idea of what’s worked well and what hasn’t. When it comes time to plan for this year, we invariably start by sharing out what we’ve done in the past. Then comes the discussion, followed by bargaining, begging, pleading, and arguing (respectfully) over what we should teach, how we should teach it, and how best to assess it. 

Planning together is incredibly slow, sometimes to the point of frustration. I have no doubt that individually each of us could plan the curriculum much faster. BUT, working together has forced each of us to reflect much more about what we are teaching and how. We are always challenging each other, encouraging each other to try new things, and listening as we kvetch about what worked well and what didn’t. It is slow and rewarding. 

It’s easy to find oneself in a silo as a teacher. As much as possible, I encourage this type of collaboration – even for those (like myself) who often prefer to work alone. Working with Lauren and Phil is so important for my growth as a teacher.

I’m on the Reading Crew this year, and we’ve been discussing how to improve our students’ relationship with the written word. We have a nice cross section of departments represented, which has highlighted the diverse ways in which we interact with text. 

1. Reading dense text for information is difficult, but it’s a skill that can be developed. I view one of my jobs in AP Bio to be training them to do this.
2. College science courses will assume students have the ability to extract information from textbooks. Not all topics have a youtube video you can watch to explain it to you. Office hours are for clarification, not wholesale reteaching of something that is assumed to have been covered.
3. Being bored and powering through it is an important life skill.