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Pattern Identification and Use for Educators
A recurring sequence which happens consistently. Patterns can be seen in data, events, and behaviors. Basically, a pattern is something that repeats often enough to be predictable. Patterns can change. This might indicate a trend. Also, it is helpful to know that a data point that doesn’t fit a particular pattern is called an outlier.…
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What Data Is and How Education Can Use It
Data is information collected together, usually by observation. Data can be numerical (quantitative) or descriptive (qualitative). The type of data should fit what you are trying to study. Quantitative data Examples of quantitative data in schools include assessment results scores (classroom, district, and state), attendance, graduation rates, GPAs, some discipline records, class sizes, and survey…
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Education Needs Science
It was a decade into my career as an educator when I realized something was missing. The career path I first started down was not originally teaching. Fresh out of college with a degree in zoology, I started doing chemistry work in the corporate world. The job was interesting and wonderfully scientific, but in the…
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Breaking Silence
Today in school, I was silent. For the second year in a row, I participated in GLSEN’s Day of Silence. The Day of Silence is a student-led event that happens in schools across the country, bringing awareness to the silencing effects of anti-LGBTQ+ name-calling, bullying, and harassment. Students (and teachers) from middle school to college…
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Move to the Middle
Recently, I wrote a little about a concept I’m playing around with called Highly Responsive Teaching. Basically, it is centered around the idea that the teacher “moves to the middle”. I first heard of this phrase in Hacking Leadership by Joe Sanfelippo and Tony Sinanis, where they talk about being the link that connects people…
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The Plan is Not to Plan
The school year is off and running, and I couldn’t be happier with my new batch of scientists. They are an eager bunch with a lot of great skills, and I cannot wait to see where they go. One of the things I find most fun about being a teacher is having to adapt to…
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Creating a Culture
I often catch myself looking around my room and thinking, “This is awesome. This is exactly what it should be.” Granted, I don’t feel this way every day. There are definitely some rough patches and some whirlwind hours. The wonderful adolescents that I work with are bound to have a few not-so-wonderful days (both individually…
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The Struggle is Real
The students are starting a project this week that I am incredibly excited about. It’s a physics project where they identify a real-world problem and design a solution to it. I’ve done this project several times before, and it is so unbelievably cool, and I cannot wait for them to get started. Knowing this project…
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All In How You Frame It
In a recent conversation in my room, we talked about the connections between the students’ language arts class and science class. We were on the cusp of a major project that has communication as its main objective (a skill that is very important to acquire for scientists of all ages). We started with the why…
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Get Out of the Way
Today, I took a moment out of each of my classes to stop and look around the room. Everywhere, there was activity and discussion, invention and debate, as well as reflection and perseverance happening in droves. Heads were focused on their work, hands were pointing or gesturing in explanation, and exclamations of excitement were happening…
Katie Budrow
Educator. Author. Speaker. Scientist.
Katie Budrow 