LOTS114 - Course Recommendations & Tracking

Life of the School Podcast: The Podcast for Biology Teachers

We Introduced ourselves with the Goofy Question: If you could live somewhere else in the world for a year, where would it be? Tanea - Shenzhen! That’s where I’m moving, but I considered Vietnam, Spain, and Rwanda too. Lee: absent the cold, I’d love to live in New York City for a year. There is something so invigorating about being in the city that I can’t really explain, and that I’d love to spend a year taking in more of. Ryan: If cost of living weren’t a consideration, I’d love to spend time in the Monterrey California area. I love the climate, the views, and the number of things you can do there. Aaron: I’d also go city as well. Either London or Paris (possibly Madrid). How many different levels of science courses exist in your school? Are students tracked? How firm is that tracking? Lee: on-level, Pre-AP (to be called Advanced, I think next year), AP, IB, dual credit, Foundations (for SpEd students) Ryan: We just have “regular” and “honors.” AP and dual-credit fall under “honors.” Tanea: Reg, Honors, AP, Dual Enrollment Aaron: Fundamentals, College Prep 1, College Prep 2, Accellerated/Enriched, Honors, then AP as a second year course. How does your school go about recommending for courses the next year? Has the pandemic caused this to change? Ryan: Students fill out a Google Form and we have discussions with the students about what class they’d like to take. I’m in a unique situation being the only science teacher, because the classes I offer are somewhat dependent upon what the students want to take. For example, we don’t normally offer a second-level (like AP) chemistry course, but the students wanted to take one this year, so I agreed to teach it (even though I have no experience teaching it). We have a lot of flexibility in that regard. Of course, we have some classes that we always offer, such as AP Biology and Anatomy & Physiology, and we also have some required classes, such as Physical Science for freshmen and Biology I for sophomores. The pandemic hasn’t really changed our course offerings. Tanea: In science they have to submit an application to their current science teacher with thee current transcript, and that teacher makes the registration option open to them Lee: what science classes a kid takes is partially determined by their graduation plan. In TX we have a few different graduation plans kids can follow and each one has a different requirement in terms of number of science courses required. All students must take biology I as a graduation requirement regardless of plan. The pandemic hasn’t really affected what sciences are available for kids to take. Our district is expanding dual credit opportunities for kids but that was the plan all along. Aaron: Teachers go into our grading/attendance program and make recommendations based on the grades up to that point, plus prerequisits of the next year’s course. We are supposed to have conversations with students before those recommendations take place. If student’s families don’t agree with he recommendations, they can work through an override process. We would love feedback! DM or Tweet @lifeoftheschool and share your Thoughts? Credits: Please subscribe to Life Of The School on your podcast player of choice! Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LOTS Music by: https://exmagicians.bandcamp.com/ Show Notes at Lifeoftheschool.org You can follow on twitter @lifeoftheschool