Dear Members: Please forgive this post, I know it does not belong here but I have posted in the High School forum and got no replies. This is my first year of teaching high school Coordinated Science AKA Integrated science. The class is 10-12 graders and we have 80 minute periods. I would like to know the teaching structure or daily teaching plan that would cover the 80 minutes of class time (I am used to 50 minute periods) Would like to hear fron other science teachers too. Open to all ideas. Thank you in advance.
The Single Subject Tests subforum is unlikely to net you more responses; I'm going to move this to General Education. Your post reads a bit as though you're expecting forum members to tell you what to do with 80-minute periods. You might get farther posing a possible daily plan and asking for reactions to it.
If my period were that long, I'd start with bellwork, do a review of the previous concepts, teach a new concept, check understanding, and if time permits, start a reinforcement activity.
I'm a new high school physics teacher with periods of about 90 minutes (block scheduling). I am a big advocate of inquiry-based science. So, if possible, have some kind of experiment set up for the kids to do for the first 30 minutes or so. I use "experiment" lightly, I've had them make posters, build something, predict certain scenarios, etc. After that, bring the class together and talk about what they did: go over results (were they consistent), ask groups to present their data, relate it to past class material, etc. All of that adds up to (at least for me) about 45 minutes of time (give or take 10 minutes). I can then move into my instruction phase and if there is extra time they can start on homework or do other practice problems.
I teach middle school science, biology, and physics. I use my long classes for either lecture + math workshop or for lab time. It works out very well. The "boring" stuff is divided up so that they only spend half of the class on it and the labs are just fun!
I usually try to do 4 things a day. 15 minutes- bell ringer (I almost always do a 5 question mini quiz on the information from the day before) 20/30 minutes- new topic, could be reading in book, taking notes, filling out a chart, etc 20/30 minutes- manipulatives, kids basically re-write their notes in a new way that they can use to study later 15/20 minutes- wrap up activity, usually vocabulary practices
