After the disappointing results of the past biology test, I’m going to try some additional strategies on my part to help students succeed in biology at KFHS. 

There are some things:

1.  that I can do … e.g.  continue to put for the material in a variety of formats, continue to have a good, conducive environment in the classroom for learning, continue to encourage students in every way to value education and learning, continue to be fair in assessing their success, continue to expect a standard of learning that must be maintained in order to give students a fair shot at competing in the future job market, continue to value the 3R’s - even in biology,

2. that I can change (restrategize) about what I’m doing now …

       a.  I’m going to communicate more with parents on this blog.

       b.  Therefore I need to find a way to let parents know about checking this blog site versus my web site.  I can be more current and fluid on this blog then on the web site. 

        c.  I’m going to try and put together a group email list of parents who are on parent connect and communicate concerns and progress of individual classes. 

        d.  I am going to try and be more specific with parents and students about “what it means to STUDY!”  Asking students, “Have you studied?” seems to be a worthless question.  My guess is that less than 10% of students actually know what this means.   FIRST AND FOREMOST:  IT MEANS MEMORIZE!!!!    In biology, there is NO WAY AROUND THIS!  PERIOD.  If  one doesn’t know the vocabulary, one cannot/will not succeed.  Call me old fashion, but I just don’t see any way around this.

       e.  So, I’m suggesting that this become the crucial question asked, both from me and from parent(s)

                      ”HAVE YOU MEMORIZED ALL THE TERMS?” 

Well .. I think these new strategies will definitely keep me on ‘overtime’ pay!!  Happy Wishful Thinking, to me. :-)