Teaching a group of diverse and high-needs learners chemistry in San Diego near the U.S. border with Mexico, I encountered a vexing problem: students loved to do lab and hated to write lab reports. In fact, most never turned them in. I couldn’t ignore it because lab reports give students an important opportunity to develop critical thinking and communication skills. So I generated an innovative solution that increases the turn-in rate while also supporting students with learning challenges, including students with disabilities and those who speak English as a second language. Find out more in the April 1, 2018, issue of The Science Teacher.
Teaching
Enhanced Exit Tickets: Design, Examples and Analysis
Thank you for participating in my session. You can find more examples and details about enhanced exit tickets on my presentation.
Feel free to reuse and share this material, and if so, please cite the Creative Commons license.
Citation: “Presentation: Enhanced Exit Tickets” by Genevive Bjorn is licensed under CC BY 3.0
Enhanced Exit Tickets Increase Student Accountability
The conference room was packed at 5pm on a Saturday afternoon as I prepared to give a public talk and workshop at the 2016 NSTA conference in Nashville, TN, on how I use enhanced exit tickets in my science classroom to increase student accountability. What surprised me most was how awake and engaged the participants were after a long week of conferencing. We reviewed what an effective exit ticket looks like, and we explored the kind of evidence it generates and how to use that information to be more responsive to student needs. Participants also created their own enhanced exit tickets to take back to their classrooms. I left energized and ready to share this amazing evidence-based teaching strategy with others.
Accessible Academic Writing
Academic writing is usually a mess of jargon that confuses and excludes readers. As I progress through my Master of Science Education program at UC San Diego, I attempt to write my academic papers with the same clarity as my freelance magazine articles.
Do I pull it off?
You be the judge. Here is the link to the paper:
Adolescence 2.0: Cross-Cultural Look at Youth Through An Artist’s Eyes
How to make social media work for you
I believe in helping scientists, engineers and other professionals authentically promote their core personal projects (e.g., the things we lose track of time while doing, would do for free, or experience with passion).
Traditionally, researchers and scientists make their work known to the world through publications in peer-reviewed journals and indirectly through writers (like me!) and magazines. However, in today’s work world technology has become an integral part of everyday life. It is possible to spread information quickly and directly with social media, which can potentially reach millions of people through direct engagement and community creation. Now researchers and scientists may connect their core personal projects directly with the public.
I lead an engaging workshop that helps professionals uncover and connect with their core projects, and then promote them authentically in the digital space in a way that is not exhausting and boosts career success. I give this workshop as a community service, and would love to talk about how I might help your group. If you like, ping me on Twitter @genevivebjorn to start a convo or click here to learn more about me.
