Biology Teacher: Ronnie Carter
This weekend I interviewed my awesome Fiancé, Ronnie Carter who teaches Freshman Biology at a High School. He also coaches track and is the head Freshman Football Coach. I wanted to ask him about his classroom but also check in with how he is doing with all of the uncertainty going on with changes to how we teach due to COVID-19.
1. What do you teach and why did you choose to teach that subject?
I teach Freshman Biology and I chose to teach it because I enjoy the biological sciences. It explains a lot of how things work and interact with each other. It is something that we can see and contextualize. You can also get students really interested in it by showing them how it applies to their everyday lives. That is why I became interested in it from the start.
2. What is your favorite experiment to do and why?
I don’t really have a favorite experiment. Each one has their own value in regards to the topic. Students like any time we have a lab where they are actually doing something where they can see a physical change. This year was the first year I did bacteria growth plates for the hand washing lab and I think that applies a lot right now with what is going on with the Carona Virus. The students were able to see just how much bacteria is still on their hands comparing: non washed hands, rinsing hands with water, washing them for 20 seconds with soap, and washing them for 1 minute with soap. They found that using soap is definitely necessary to remove most of the pathogens on your hands and the longer you washed them, the more that was removed.
3. What is your go-to tool to help accommodate your students?
I really like using YouTube for supplemental information to give the students visuals of what I am teaching them. I will also connect information in my lectures to every day things that they know about and have experienced to help them better understand the information.
4. How often do you use this tool?
It depends on the content on how often I will use YouTube videos. If the information is really dense I will embed more YouTube videos to help them understand the material.
5. Any advice for a new High School Teacher?
Be flexible with what you use and be willing to adapt and change how you present material to meet the needs of your students. Whatever you are teaching them, relate it as best you can to their everyday lives. The more the students can connect with it, the more likely they will retain the information and be able to use it.
6. How are you doing with the change in learning due to COVID-19?
It has been hard to narrow down what topics and standards are most important. We are expected to push out 12 lessons for the rest of the year and designing assignments and lessons that will help them meet those standards has been challenging.
7. Do you think how we teach is going to change after this pandemic?
I think it will change to a degree. I feel like teachers are being forced to adapt and try new things that they never would have tried before. A lot of teachers have been resistant to integrating technology into their way of teaching and now most teachers have to teach through technology. I think we are going to see a lot more online video lessons and teachers comfortable with using the technology in their classrooms.