Serving ELLs With AI and MORE With Guest Alyse of Keystone Science [Episode 157]

Rebecca 0:00
Y’all, let me tell you something. You are in for a treat with today’s episode. It is so jam packed with practical information. I cannot wait for you to hear it. I have had so many amazing guests on this podcast and just wonderful conversations. And Elise of Keystone science, who I interview today, is no exception. She has a decade of experience as a high school biology teacher specializing in making science accessible and engaging for all students. She has worked extensively with English language learners, or ELLs, as we will refer to them in this conversation, using innovative strategies to differentiate instruction and support language development. Elise also incorporates AI tools in the classroom to enhance learning and personalized instruction, ensuring every student can succeed in science. She also took a break from education for a little bit before returning to the classroom, which I find, I always find so interesting. And during that time, she had eight years of experience in the cancer research field, and she uses that industry experience to bring authentic experiences and applications to her students. Y’all, she was so kind to give me an hour of her time after we both got all of our kids down for bedtime, and we talk all about how she serves her ELL students and her science classes. She knows so much about so many things that I do not know a lot about, and it was just a treat for me to be able to pick her brain. And you’re gonna see in this conversation, it kind of honestly goes all over the place because of me, like it’s my fault. I just couldn’t stop asking her questions and taking her on tangents, you know, with me. So it starts with, I just wanted to get her take right off the bat on AI and how she uses it for her students, kind of what she does in terms of dealing with cheating in AI. And then it switches to hearing about how she has used the flipped classroom model successfully in her honors bio sections, and why she doesn’t do it in her non honors sections, and then we pivot all together to back to the original point of the podcast, which was to hear about how she serves her ELL students, and she shares so many specific tips for how to use AI to better reach them. She has so many ideas that she even has a free ebook that she shares so that these students can better be served in all science classrooms, and I cannot wait to get all of this into your hands and into your ears. So without further ado, here’s my interview with high school science teacher Elise from Keystone science. This is secondary science simplify a podcast for secondary science teachers who want to engage their students and simplify their lives. I’m Rebecca Joyner from it’s not rocket science. As a high school science teacher turned curriculum writer, I am passionate about helping other science teachers love their jobs, serve their students and do it all in only 40 hours a week. Are you ready to rock the time you spend in your classroom and actually have a life outside of it. You are in the right place, teacher friend, let’s get to today’s episode.

Rebecca 3:14
Hi, Elise, how are you?

Alyse 3:15
I’m well, how are you? Rebecca,

Rebecca 3:18
I’m so excited because I feel like we have talked about doing a podcast, and like, now is the time the star isn’t aligned.

Alyse 3:26
I think so

Rebecca 3:27
I’m so excited, because I feel like you have such a wide variety of expertise, and I’m just really excited for listeners to learn from you. So I just want to dive right in and for a heads up for everyone listening, we’re gonna be talking about AI, we’ll be talking about serving our ELL students and all the things. So first what would be, I think a lot of teachers want to use AI, but they don’t even know where to begin. So like, if you were going to tell a teacher your favorite thing and how they could use it AI related, what would be your go to, or first recommendation?

Speaker 1 3:59
Oh my gosh. I think my my go to is still just the og chatgpt, because I started using it as soon as it came out. I think we’re going on almost what two years ago, I think. And it’s just so easy. I like just type stuff in and just see what it gives you, because you don’t know what it can do until you actually start prompting it or just talking to it. And I think my best advice is be, if you don’t know how to interact with it, just think about like something that you want it to do, and then type that in to chat GBT, and be like, ask me questions. So you can do this thing for me, and it will ask you what it needs to give you what you’re asking for. Okay, so give us an example. Okay, so for an example, I use it all the time, like, sometimes, just to see what it’ll do, I’ll type in and be like, Look, I have these lab supplies. They’re like, leftover. Is there like a fun activity lab I could do with my students and ask me any questions that you need to know? So when you’re writing this lab, and it’ll respond, and it’ll give me, like, a list of ideas, and then it’ll be like, Okay, well, what grade level are you working with? How many students are in your class? Like, it’s asking, like, those basic questions. And then you can just, it’s like a chat. You just respond to it and say, Okay, I hear the responses to my questions, and it’ll rewrite what it gave you. So I’ve, I’ve done it to write lab procedures before, because that has got to be the bane of my existence. Is just typing out step by step, what they need to be doing. And so I can, I can get a basic procedure from AI, and then I can go in and add the details. But, yeah, I do not want to go in and write those individual steps so that I still really chat GPT is my go to default. I have the app on my phone. I will just do stuff with it on my phone. Sometimes with like, I get an idea spur the moment, I’ll just type it in and get the response. The other thing I really like about chat GPT is that you can share the conversation that you’ve had with it with other people, so it’ll be like a shared link, and then they can see the conversation you’ve had. Also makes it super easy to just copy and paste the text that it gave you into say a word document. It was a kind of it was kind of funky at the beginning, but it’s definitely fixed. As far as the formatting. It used to be like terrible formatting when you would copy and paste it out of chatgpt, but now it’s completely flawless. It works so well. Why even ask I just thought of another example, like, if you need a PowerPoint or notes of some sort for a topic, you’re like, hey, I need to make a PowerPoint. Can you give me an outline of a slide deck about this topic, and it’ll just outline it for you. It’s great. I’m like, could

Rebecca 6:47
you even just submit your standards and say, Hey, these are my standards on evolution. Make me Yeah. Notes about this, yeah. That’s insane.

Unknown Speaker 6:56
That is like,

Rebecca 6:58
first of all, well, I still have a job. Second, that is crazy, yeah, I

Speaker 1 7:04
think that’s um, that’s the fear, right? Everyone should be like, well, no one’s going to need teachers anymore, because, you know, anyone could do this. And that’s not true at all, because I have never used something straight out of AI, right? In my classroom. It needs more.

Rebecca 7:21
It needs the human touch. Yes, it needs the

Speaker 1 7:23
human touch. It needs to know, you know that, that you know that extra. What’s the saying? There’s like, some saying about, like, let ai do like, 80% of the work, but you got to do the last 20% to make it more personalized and make it relevant for your students, because only you know the students that are sitting in front of you in your classroom,

Rebecca 7:42
that’s such a great advice. And I just think that I think it’s so helpful to have an example like that, because I think can feel really overwhelming if you’re like, Where do I even begin?

Unknown Speaker 7:51
Oh my gosh, it’s so overwhelming.

Rebecca 7:53
And I’m glad you’ve, you’ve, like, been doing it for so long, so you’ve really learned about it. Okay? I also want to know before we talk ell, because I’m so excited to dive into that with you. What is your take on students cheating with AI? I feel like this is going to be one of those questions now I ask every teacher I talk to, because I just think it’s something that everyone’s going to struggle with. And I don’t know if there’s one, like, right takes. That’s why I like to hear everybody’s opinion. Just everyone’s like, cell phone policy. You know, what are you doing? Yeah, well, I

Speaker 1 8:21
don’t know if my what I’m doing is, like, popular, or if it’s going against the grain, or anything. This is just like I have personally been embracing the AI, and I actually do like, an intro to AI for my students. I teach 10th grade, so a lot of them, up until that point, have just been told by their teachers, AI is bad and you shouldn’t use AI and it’s cheating, and you could get a zero. Like, there. This is all fear mongering, right? So I approach it from a totally different perspective, where I’m like, Okay, this technology exists. Like, this is the internet being invented. This is calculators being invented. So this is the huge seismic shift that we are experiencing in this generation, and it’s not going away. And I think when the internet came out, they had the same kind of thought about teachers. Well, if all the information is on the internet, we don’t need teachers anymore. Well, we know that’s not true, so I’ve embraced it. I teach my students about it, and you know what it can do, what it can’t do, because we know it’s very glitchy still, that still hallucinates and makes things up. So you all, I always tell my students, look, use it, but you gotta check it like don’t ask it to teach you something you’re not familiar with, because you don’t have that familiarity to know if it’s, it’s lying to you. So true. So it’s a very it’s a very fine line. And every time I do that lesson with my students, just telling them about teaching them about it, they are so appreciative. Because I, this year I teach honors students, and you know how they are with their grades. They’re they’re very conscious. Financials, of their grades, they don’t want to do anything wrong, and just having that background and being able to know more about the tools so that they can use it to their advantage, where it’s not considered cheating, and they’re not going to be quote, unquote, caught using it, and then they’ll get in trouble. I give them actual concrete examples of how they can use AI to help them study because, like you said previously, they I can give them the essential question or the standard that they’re going to be assessed on, and I’ll say, look, ask chat GPT to quiz you, or do like a question answer, or like vocab review, and it’s actually really good at those things, not so great at explaining things, but it can. It can ask you, like, Okay, what vocab term describes the movement of water across the semi permeable membrane? And the student will type in osmosis, and it will know that’s that’s true. So it’s very good with with reviewing that. I’ve also asked or told my students, they can ask it for multiple choice questions. Again, it’s a little iffy. I don’t have a ton of success with chat GPT, with multiple choice questions, but there are other tools available to teachers, and I think very soon students, specifically through magic school, that is a lot better.

Rebecca 11:16
I just heard about that from the last person I was talking to a few weeks ago, and I thought that sounded awesome. I noticed the same thing I tried when I was writing my chemistry curriculum. It was right when it had kind of came out. And I was like, my least, Sara, thing to do is write multiple choice. I was like, I’ll see if it can help me. And it’s multiple choice for so bad. I was like, I would never use this, like, on a maybe, like one in every 50 questions. Was, like, something I could use and still tweak. I was like, these are terrible, because it just isn’t, it doesn’t have that, like, higher level thinking. But I did love it for like, Hey, I already have 10 questions, balancing and classifying chemical reactions. Can you give me 10 more like this? I love doing that, like inputting data. Be like, Give me 10 things like this, yeah, it needs those examples, but yeah,

Speaker 1 12:03
it needs, it needs very like, it’s very literal. I kind of compare it to Excel. I use Excel with my students too, and putting in formulas and numbers, and I was like, Look, Excel is very literal. Like, you put in what you want, and Excel will give it to you, but if you don’t put it in right? You’re going to get an error. You’re going to get a divide by zero. Thing like, it is, it is very much like Excel. It’s, it’s literal. It doesn’t have that human reasoning and thought processing yet, although I know that they’re working on it. Yeah, that’s just a little scary.

Rebecca 12:35
Okay, well, that’s a great analogy. So what do you so what would you let your students, like, Are you like, hey, feel free to use it to write a lab report, or, like, what’s kind of your thought about that? Or, like, completing a project? Yeah,

Speaker 1 12:46
so I, I don’t think I would openly say to them, use AI to help write your the introduction or the materials and procedures for your lab report, but because I use it to give them what they need. So I’m kind of using it, I’m vetting it, and then pushing it out to my students as an outline or as a template that they can use with maybe sentence starters or sentence frames to help guide what they’re putting in there. That being said, you asked about how I’m like doing things differently, and the big thing, especially with my honors, is I don’t give them any work to do outside of my classroom that I don’t care about assessing them on it, because who knows. Even before AI honor students, they’re passing stuff around. They’re taking pictures of it on Snapchat and sending it to each other. I’ve

Rebecca 13:40
been saying this yes for five years. I Yeah. I couldn’t agree more,

Speaker 1 13:44
yep. And our district has been pushing us to do more things on laptops, because we’re one to one and we’re a Microsoft school. I’m like, Well, if I do anything on line that they’re gonna do and it’s a really big assessment, or just something really big for our class. I’m like, I can’t let them do it online, because they will share it with one another. I’m not naive enough to think that there isn’t even, like, students passing around, like old bio binders from my class or something like that, but you just kind of deal with what you can deal with and control, which isn’t what they’re doing outside the classroom. So I have now one of the main reasons I flipped my classroom was because if you’re just taking notes and getting content, I don’t care if you use chat GPT to do that, right? You don’t know what the difference is between a hypertonic or a hypotonic solution. Use chat G, P, T to look it up if my notes aren’t clear enough, I don’t care. But when you’re in class, you’re doing my work. And I seldom use computers anymore in my classroom for assignments, because it was that during the pandemic when I was teaching online, they were just Googling everything, copying and pasting it, and I’m just like, again, I have no control. Virtual. We’re virtual again, not sitting next to them, but now that we’re back. And I really feel like every year it’s getting better and better since the pandemic, I’m ready to be back. I want to know what you know. I want you to use your brain. I want you to think about things critically and analyze and evaluate. And you can’t do that if, if you have a machine doing it for you.

Rebecca 15:22
I think that’s so wise. I used to always tell my students that I assume the worst in them, and they always thought that was so funny and mean, but then they would laugh, and I was like, no, because then I’m only pleasantly surprised, like, I just assume you’re all cheating if you leave my classroom. And that’s why I don’t give you anything outside of here, because I don’t trust you at all, you know. And then everything you do is like an exciting like you did it. I’m so proud of you, but I want to talk then about flipped classroom. Then we’ll circle back to ELLs, because you brought it up, and I know you have experience with that. So obviously that happened during COVID. Did you continue the practice like when you came back from the pandemic? Did you go back to regular When did you decided you flipped? What do you feel like it’s been what do you like about it? What’s been effective? How do you make sure they actually do the things they have to do, like the Note? Yeah,

Speaker 1 16:08
so I’ve it’s a good question to ask right now, because we are at the point this school year where my students are starting to realize what happens if they don’t do their notes. Because it’s, I kind of throw them at the in the deep end, and they sink or swim with the flipped classroom model. Now, these are honor students, so, you know, we just have a heart to heart conversation, and I’m saying you have all these other classes they’re having. You do your homework, and you’re doing that homework. So why aren’t you doing my homework, which is watching a video and writing on notes. It’s got to be the most mindless, simple thing for them to do. And I think part of it is I don’t grade their notes. It is just an expectation of my class that you do the notes and you come to class with them completed, because if you don’t, you’re lost. You have no idea what’s happening in the class. That’s for honors. And I decided to flip when we got back from the pandemic, because I wanted to regain control of what my students were doing, and I felt giving notes in the classroom was a waste of my time for honors. I don’t like giving notes. It is. I mean, I could talk about biology, chemistry, environmental science forever. But is it interesting to them? Absolutely not. So let’s do the fun stuff in class, and by doing the notes for homework. And my notes are no longer than 15 minutes. Like 15 minutes is long for their homework, and I really try to keep it at 10 minutes for lecture videos for them to watch, maybe 10 to 12 slides, and a lot of them have a lot of pictures, not a ton of text. So it’s really a small ask. So we can get those 2025, minutes back in class, because you know how it goes. You give notes in class, you go off on tangents, you get questions being asked. It’s never just you know the 15 minutes that you really want to want to spend on that content. So I wanted to do it in honors for the cheating aspect, because at that point, we were still very much doing stuff online, and they’re sharing documents with one another. So like, you know what? Share your notes? I don’t care, but I’m going to try to regain control of my classroom and what you’re actually doing. Because homework was a joke, you know, it was graded for completion, and I kind of got into an existential crisis, like, why am I even doing this? So I decided to flip honors. For that reason. My other biology classes that I was in, we kind of did homework during the pandemic, and then when we got back into school, I didn’t actually flip that class, but I did just totally get rid of homework. Because I think what the pandemic did for a lot of people is just made them realize teachers, especially the dynamics at home that our students have that weren’t obvious before the pandemic got a ton of students that you know are one of a lot of siblings, sure they are one of the oldest, and they’re in charge of taking care of the youngest. And I also have students that are working outside of school, and I just felt like I was doing them a disservice by punishing them in school because they had what I think are more important duties at home. Absolutely, I just got rid of homework completely in that class, so I didn’t actually flip my other bio classes, just honors. But I do see it as a workable model. I’ve been playing around with note taking as stations instead of a lecture, because they work a lot better when they’re up and moving around, and they can still kind of chat with their friends at their stations. So that’s kind of like a modified flip version, because I’m still not the deliverer of the notes. They’re right reading an article, filling in the blanks in their note page, or watching a video at a station. In and filling and answering some questions there. So it’s like a modified flipped. It does take a little bit longer than just regular old lectures, but they’ve enjoyed it because, like I said, No one likes to listen to me talk all the time, absolutely.

Rebecca 20:13
So what do you feel like with your honors group, especially the one that’s you are flipping? I love that. You just were like, I’m not great at this. The expectations you do it because, like, you said, it’s like, what’s even the point? When you said expositional crisis? I’m like, we have all been there. Like, that’s what I did before I gave up law reports because I was like, I’m so sick of that. You know, it kills you. But do you even, like, hit the highlights of the notes? Or are you like, I’m literally not talking about this. I’m expecting you to have it. We’re jumping into this activity or this lab or whatever. Yeah, that’s

Speaker 1 20:46
a good question, and I’m gonna thank you for this, because I was, I did your secondary science simplified like professional development course a few years ago, and that was when I was transitioning back into teaching from being on a break. So that course was amazing. I’ll just shamelessly plug it right here, because it was, it was worth every penny. And one of the things I think that was part of that course was having like, a do now is something at the beginning of class you do like, five questions, prime time, yeah. That’s

Rebecca 21:15
what I call Yeah. So

Unknown Speaker 21:18
I call it the DNA do now activity.

Rebecca 21:20
I love that DNA. Thank you. Yeah, I

Speaker 1 21:23
love it too. Bio themed, and I do the same model. There’s five questions, and all of those questions are directly from the notes I asked them to do the night before. So it’s not we’re not jumping right into the content. I choose five questions purposefully, and as we’re going over the answers to those questions at the beginning of class. It’s kind of like bringing everyone to the same page. If they didn’t do their notes, they at least have some sort of knowledge now of of what is a semi permeable membrane, or like, what is the phospholipid and which part is hydrophilic and which part’s hydrophobic? So that’s how I hold them accountable, without actually grading their notebooks, because I told them at the beginning of the year I will never collect your notebook to grade it, because I think you need your notes every night if you should be doing something with your notes every night.

Rebecca 22:13
I love that. Okay, now let’s talk ELLs, and then we’ll circle back to how you felt that worked for ELLs. So first of all, why don’t you give a little context for your experience working with ELLs, and then share what you feel like their greatest challenges are in the science classroom.

Speaker 1 22:29
Okay, so my I had no experience with ELLs before I started my current position, and I’m in my fifth year at my current district, and I started in August, 2020, so everything was online. I was thrust into this with I actually didn’t know when I was hired, how many ELLs were in this district. So it was almost like a culture shock for me, because I had zero experience before. I was in a very non diverse district prior. So the pandemic was was very difficult, and it was very, very difficult to reach those students on a virtual platform. It just, it’s impossible, especially given a lot of their family dynamics. And when we went back in person, I was like, Okay, I need to figure something out. I need to reach these students, because I’m so incredibly passionate about science, and I think it’s so important for everyone to have a basic appreciation, understanding and some literacy of science before we send them out into the world. You know, these students should not be an exception. So I worked really closely with some of this teachers in my building that worked with these students, but that we have a total immersion program, so they are in my class with English speaking students. I didn’t always have an aide or CO teacher with me, so it was just me and this totally heterogeneous mixture of students in my classroom. So what I started asking was, what, what can I do to help support them? I’ve got some that speak no English. I’ve got some that have been here since second grade, so they’re pretty good. And then I’ve got some in the middle. And the biggest thing that was challenging, obviously, communication is really difficult. If you don’t speak the language. It’s very difficult to talk to someone and to get your point across. And also, as me, just being me, I talk very fast. And for Yeah, for students that that don’t speak the language very well, or even some of my students that have been here for years and can speak, you wouldn’t guess that they were ELL students. They still can’t really process the language as fast as we’re speaking. I mean, just think about I’ve I’ve tried to learn a little bit of Spanish, and I even listening to some of these students speaking with their friends. I can barely. Pick up, I know, saying science, I

Rebecca 25:02
had almost 10 years of Spanish, and I can read it and, like, translate, and then, like, I can speak myself slowly. But then, like, I can’t comprehend what you say back, because, like, you said, it’s the speed is killers.

Speaker 1 25:14
Yeah, it’s so fast. And on top of all that, so they, they’re trying to learn English, and then science. My gosh, how many vocabulary word I knew we have. I know another language for them. It’s not even just learning English, it’s learning this academic, technical language. And most of them, because I started just, you know, my advice that I was given was to just translate what I’m given for my students that, are we to level one or two? So that’s like, the lower end of English acquisition, and just give them the translated version. And then, you know, as time goes on, I’m like, Well, do they know what Osmosis is in? And it’s like, so that’s the other thing. There’s a lot of cultural differences, especially when you get to the high school level, if you have newcomers at the high school level, they probably haven’t been in school for a while. I have students in 10th grade. They’re coming from a country where I think their compulsory education ends at age 12. So I’m getting 15 year olds that haven’t been in school since they were 12.

Rebecca 26:19
Well, and even if you are translating, I would have multiple students that spoke Spanish, but they all came from different Spanish speaking countries, totally different dialects, like you said, such different cultures. Even my best effort to make like a one size fits all will never one size fits all, because they’re all these unique humans with these unique backgrounds. And then I had ELLs like non Spanish speaking countries, completely other languages. So it’s like, okay, so now my chance like this, it’s a lot. I’m so glad you’re here. Solve all the problems.

Speaker 1 26:51
Oh, please. I don’t think I can solve all the problems. Yeah. So it’s difficult to get these students acclimated back to a school environment, also the American school environment, so different from any other school environment, and just what they do, what their needs are and what their responsibilities are outside of school is so different from some of my other students now, sometimes similar. I do have a lot of like socio economically disadvantaged students, and they have similar challenges as some of these ELL students, but a lot of these ELL students are here to work, and I had a student in past couple years, in addition to coming to school every day, he missed my class every day because it was first period, and he would just, he would sleep in and come in when he woke up because he had a full time job after school. He worked at a restaurant, and he closed that restaurant every night, so no wonder he’s not in my class, right? So there’s all of these things. A lot of these students are working outside of school. So that was one of the things that informed my decision to get rid of homework, because these students have a lot of stuff going on, and I’m not interested in adding to their stress, right? Not interested in impeding on those responsibilities that I think are more important than completing homework for me. So I think as far as you know how to address a lot of these things, I do a lot of vocab with those classes, I do a lot of breaking down scientific words into their root words and their prefixes and their suffixes, because that’s not going to change across languages. You know, I talk about a specific example of one of my blog posts, Endocytosis, you know, Endocyte and osis, those are all Greek Latin terms, and every language uses something like those to explain and describe that process. So by teaching them those root words and the meanings that’s applicable across both languages, and instead of me teaching them, quote, unquote, English science vocabulary, I’m just teaching them science vocabulary, and even if they don’t know what the vocab term means, if they know those those roots, they could figure it out. And I was doing that before I had such a high ELL population. But now, you know, it’s way more helpful for students that are reading below grade level students that don’t speak English. Well, it’s just, it’s like one of those unifying things.

Rebecca 29:26
I think that’s great. What other things do you do to help try to support them?

Speaker 1 29:30
I use a lot of visuals, a lot of visuals, lots of pictures, lots of diagrams. And it’s not just using the pictures and diagrams, it’s actually also gesturing. I talk with my hands. I know this is a podcast and you can’t see me, but I know you can see me. Rebecca, I’ve got my hands going pretty well. I talk with my hands, and I I’m pointing. I’m circling things like with my finger, and just gesturing so they know where to look. I over emphasize things so they know. Where to put their attention. I started using word walls in the past. Oh my gosh, I guess it’s been the past three years, and I made a word wall for every single unit I teach in biology with the terms that are important to understand what’s happening. So the sign that I have on my wall has the term, and then there’s a picture to show the term. And I like to put the terms that have different meanings or opposite meanings right next to each other. So when we’re talking about that in class, I can just go over to my word wall, and I can point at those two sides and be like, what is different between these two things? What is this thing doing? What is that thing doing? And it really helps, and it even helps my English speaking students, I leave the word wall up all the time, even in quizzing and testing environments, and I see them looking at it all the time when they’re doing assignments in class too. I will hear I listen to their conversations. I love it when I hear that someone defined the word wrong, and they’re like, no, look at the word wall. Do you see the picture? That’s not and it’s just another tool for them to refer to, to remind them about what we’re talking about. Because, my gosh, there’s a lot of processes in the brain happening. There’s just a lot going on when you’re learning a language and learning new vocabulary and their meanings. It’s

Rebecca 31:26
so much. And I love word walls. I always say too, if people don’t have time to make them, I’m like, get your honors class to make them at the start of every unit, say your job is to make this year this unit’s word wall. And then you have it for all the other classes. And if they’re good, laminate them, and then you can just reuse it year after year. I’m not very like, creative, artistically, and so that’s where I’m, like, a big fan of relying on my students that that’s their gifting. Be like, yeah, help,

Speaker 1 31:55
yeah. I’ve, I’ve also done, when I first started doing word walls, I actually had the students make the sign. So I would give each student a vocabulary term, and I’d be like, Okay, you need to what does this word mean? They would write the definition on the back of the sign, and then they would use Google to find a picture. And I had a co teacher at the time, and we would just circulate around, and we would make sure what they were drawing actually made sense, right? They do not need to know what they’re drawing or the definition or make sense of it, but as we go through the unit, it would all start to make sense, right? So I totally agree. You don’t have to make them yourself. You don’t have to go out and shell out a ton of money to buy them. It’s a really good exercise for your students to do that, and even have them like present it, maybe beginning of the unit, they’ll make it. And then by the end of the unit, they should be able to explain that picture for them, absolutely as like a review for the rest of the class,

Rebecca 32:47
absolutely. Okay. So what are you doing? For assessments, too? For modifications, we always removed one of the multiple choice, so we only had three. And then I always tried to make sure I was using like instead of increase, say, like, go up or something, or have an arrow. But what other recommendations do you have for, like, assessments and making them better suited for our ELL students? Yeah, so

Speaker 1 33:08
you mentioned reduce choice options, which we do as well, just because it, it helps them focus a little more on, you know, the content, instead of like, oh my gosh, there’s so many words here, and I started using in the past two years Microsoft or since we’re a Microsoft school, they have a built in Translate tool, and that has been a lifesaver. Is it perfect? No, but it can translate anything I have at the click of a button and I have it in a totally different language. It’s amazing. Yeah, it’s made it so much easier, because before I was copying and pasting individual paragraphs into Google Translate, and then I would copy paste that back into Word, because Google Translate doesn’t do the formatting, Word will at least keep the formatting to a certain point. So that was a game changer for us. And students can also translate stuff themselves. Like, if it’s a Word file, they could use that translation tool. It’s it’s available, like in every office program I’ve also kind of done a weird hybrid. This takes a lot of time. So this is not by any means, like a low prep solution, but for some quizzes we’ve been doing where the options are like the vocab word or the question is okay, the what does this word mean? I would always keep the vocab word in English and change everything else to their native language, because I’m using that vocab word in English in class. And like I said before, they probably don’t know that term in their native language anyway, so if I just keep it English, they might be able to kind of figure it out that

Rebecca 34:54
way. That’s a great point.

Unknown Speaker 34:56
Yeah,

Rebecca 34:56
that’s so smart. And like, I’ve never. Even thought about that when you’re translating all that, like you said, because they’re not going to know that term. Okay, what are some let’s tie it all back into the AI. Then, how are using AI to help with your serve the students?

Speaker 1 35:11
Oh, there’s so much. There’s so much. I actually put together an entire, like, little ebook freebie.

Unknown Speaker 35:18
Oh my gosh. Do

Speaker 1 35:19
you have a link to it. I do have a link to it, I will send it to you. Yes, send it to me so I can link it for everyone. Yeah. So in that little ebook, there’s five different areas where teachers can support students using AI. So there’s, I don’t even know where to start, but there’s the there’s real time translation tools, meaning, if you’re standing in the front of the front of the room talking to the class, they can get a live translation of what you’re saying. There’s a couple ways to do that, something that we’ve been doing recently. Again, Microsoft, when you are presenting a PowerPoint, there is an option to add captions, and you can change captions to any language you want. Wow. So when you’re presenting your PowerPoint, just turn on the captions, put it in the language that your students are need to speak, and you have that. Now there’s limitations to that, because a lot of ELL students aren’t actually reading on grade level. So the captions might not be great, but it helps. It definitely helps the other real time translation. I have Google Translate app on my phone, and it has gotten it just keeps getting better. When I first downloaded it back in 2021, 2020, when I started having these students, it was not great, but it has improved so much. There is an option on there, I think it’s the conversation setting where it will have it’ll split your screen. Half the screen will be upside down for the person that you’re talking to, and the other half is for you. And if you hit the button, it’ll hear what you’re saying, and then it will write what you said for the other person on their half of the screen in their language. And it also has the option to speak it, so once it’s translated on their screen, they can push like a little button and it’ll speak the translation for them. So if reading is a is a problem, they can listen to it that way. That brings me to the otter. Ai. I think we were talking about it before, yeah,

Rebecca 37:16
before start recording, tell the letters about otter.

Speaker 1 37:20
I will otter AI is is really awesome because it’s, it’s an AI assistant that can join zoom meetings, team meetings, any sort of virtual video conference. And what you can do during your class is you could start any of those online sessions and invite the otter AI into the session, and it will record the audio and create a transcript of everything that was said. And then you can actually query the transcript by asking it questions, very similar to chat GPT. You can also take the transcript and put it into a translation tool, and it will translate the transcript, and you can give that translated transcript to your students. Or, Oh, this is another hack. I just, I’ve done this, and I just remembered I did it. You can speak into otter, AI say procedures for a lab, or questions that you want on a worksheet, and it’ll, you’ll have the transcript, and then copy paste it into a Word document, and you’re done. So it’s really helpful. I find it a lot easier to use than the dictation tool that’s already in Microsoft products. So you can just record yourself, get that transcript, translate it. Yeah, it’s it’s really awesome to give them that summary and post it. If you have an LMS, we use Canvas, I know, like there’s Schoology, there’s Google Classroom, you could post those transcripts for them to access. Or for our school, our ELL students have a period, or multiple periods every day where they’re getting that support in their native language to complete some of their assignments that they didn’t have time to do in class. So that’s a really great way to keep those teachers on the same page, putting it on your LMS so they know what you’re doing in class. Because we know just generally, teenagers are not the most reliable with their memory and what they’re doing and what’s the point, what’s due, what’s not. So put having all that freely available on an LMS is, is nice too. So that leads me to a couple of the newer AI things that have kind of come about from all the chat GPT stuff. I was using edu aid, Edu a, I D, E, that is a education specific AI tool. I’ve been using it for over a year. I think at this point, it has a lot of different tools available in it, and I really like these education specific a eyes, because they’ve put guard rails in. And what I mean by that is there’s less hallucination. It’s kind of already guiding the A. In the direction you want to go, so you don’t have to be so explicit and specific in your prompting. It’s already put that prompting in for you. So there’s a lot of tools in that edu aid, AI tool that can support accessible learning things for your students. I think the hardest thing for me, and I’m still not great at this is taking my students Whitta level and figuring out what, what does that mean, they can actually do. And I discovered this recently on edu eight. I have this in my like little ebook, but under the content generator, if you choose the speech and language learning option, there’s a CEFR framework option, and that is basically, you can put in what you’re covering in class, and it will spit out the can do descriptors for listening, reading, speaking and writing for that topic for those students. So for example, I just did this just to get ready for to record this. I put in feedback loops, positive, negative feedback loops. And it gave me, you know, the different levels. For example, the objective for the lowest language level student is understand basic concepts of feedback loops and their role in body systems, and discuss real world scenarios where feedback loops affect stability and change. And the can do descriptors for listening. These students can understand the main ideas of a discussion about feedback loops in familiar contexts. So you might ask yourself, Okay, well, what’s a familiar context for that student? But at least you know what you should be expecting them to do. As far as reading, they should be able to read texts that explain feedback loops and identify key points speaking, they should be able to describe a feedback loop and give examples from everyday life. So we’re learning those key vocab terms in English. You’ve got a control center, you’ve got an effector and you have a receptor, they should be able to use those and then if you go up to the mastery level user, I would say this is like the highest wheel level. This is getting into synthesizing and creating and critically analyzing, evaluating leading discussions, doing an in depth research paper. So I love that tool when I stumbled upon it, because I’m a science teacher. If you go to an edu aid, I’m choosing subject science because they have a lot of good science tools in there, but you need to support the speech and language development students as well. So I found it in that area. There’s a couple others in that area too that I love. Oh my gosh, highly recommend. There’s another one. It’s for quick text plus Spanish support. You put in your topic, and it’s just gonna it’s not gonna give you a lot, it’s gonna give you four to five sentences about the topic you put in, and beneath the English sentence on that topic is the Spanish sentence. So it’s just giving you both languages next to one another, which is what I do anyway. So if I don’t have to manually do that in a document, right, AI is gonna do it for me. It’s amazing. So that’s how teachers can use the AI to support these students. I’ve also started using magic school a lot more. Magic school’s got a lot of stuff specifically for students. If you’re going to translate for these ELL students definitely adjust the reading level before you translate, because they might not know all of these terms. They might not be reading on grade level. I always adjust my text to at least the highest is fifth grade, even for like ninth and 10th grade science students, because they just have such limited English, even when it’s translated Spanish or whatever their native language is, I want them to be able to understand what we’re doing. And there’s a translated feature in Magic School. I love diff it. Okay, hold on, different rocked my world when I found out about it. Diffit is another tool that teachers can use to level text. Not only will it level the text for you, it will give you output of activities that you could do with that text. So I have a really great example. I did this last year when we were doing enzymes, because I had a great science lab report that was published in a journal, and the abstract, the way it was written, was perfect, as far as describing what does catalase do? So I use that abstract for my honor students, but I’m like, This is so great, and we’re going to be talking about this in my other class too. I want to level it for them as well. So I took the whole abstract from that lab report, put it into different and in different you can choose the grade level that you want it to rewrite it for. I rewrote it at a 10th grade and eighth grade and a fifth grade level, and then I chose the same output you can get. I can’t even begin to tell you how many. Different outputs you can get from different but the easiest one is probably you get the text. It pulls out some important vocabulary terms and puts them in kind of like a word bank that they need to find the definitions draw a picture or whatever, and then it comes up with multiple choice and short answer questions based on that text. So it’s giving you a whole activity, and you can download it as a Google Doc. I think you have to download as a Google Doc, and then I just convert it to an Office file. But I love diff it. I have used if it for sub plans in a pinch, because I can just find an article, a web page, even you can put in a URL for a web page to diff it a YouTube video, and it’ll crank stuff out, and it’s, it’s amazing. That

Rebecca 45:44
is amazing. I mean, this is so good. Okay, we definitely need your ebook link too. We have all these linked in the show notes as well, because those are so many great tools. Okay, so I want to know, I know you said that you continue to do the flipped classroom with your honor students, not as much, obviously, with your on grade level, and I’m assuming that’s the class that your ELLs are in. So do you have any like, what are you having your ELLs do outside of class? Are you just saying, like, study your stuff, like, read the stuff that I’m giving you? I really don’t

Speaker 1 46:16
do homework for those classes at all. And the homework that I have them do. It’s like, okay, you have a quiz coming up. Like, here’s the study guide. You should start working on the study guide. Maybe do questions one through five tonight, and by the time Thursday rolls around, when we’re ready to review, you’ll have the whole thing done. So that kind of scaffolding helps all students, right? And you know, as far as holding them accountable for it, I do Completion grades, if I do sign anything out of, out of, like the classroom, because I’m just looking for effort to actually try. And if you didn’t have time to write, you know, an entire paragraph to answer this review question, that’s fine, just like, What do you know? Right? I always tell my students when they’re reviewing that there’s three steps to getting ready for a quiz or test, especially when I’m giving them a study guide. First, you got to do the study guide without anything. Put your phone away, put it on silent, shut your computer down, just sit down with that piece of paper and do it from your brain, because that’s what you know. And then you got to go through it again a second time. Use your notes. Just use your notes. You should be able to fill the whole thing in with just your notes. But if there’s still something you’re unsure of, third step, go to Google, go to AI, find that answer. Ask me. I mean, right, I’m still here, but I’m encouraging them to be a little more independent. Problem solving and finding these solutions for themselves.

Rebecca 47:40
That’s a great idea, though, because it really helps them to see you’ll actually know how much you already know and don’t need to memorize if you just give it one go through

Speaker 1 47:47
that way. Yeah, it’s a sneaky way to get some metacognition in there. Yeah, I

Rebecca 47:52
love that. Okay, so at the beginning, you talked about how you’re like, totally fine with your students using AI, and you kind of teach them how they can use it. Are there any ways that you’re teaching your ELL students specifically that they can use AI to support themselves in this process of learning in the science classroom?

Speaker 1 48:09
Yeah, there’s a ton of ways. The one way that I think my students use the most is, again, I’m coming back to that Google Translate app. It’s amazing. They have a Google Translate app, and that app has a live camera feature. So if I give them a worksheet that is not in their native language, they can open up Google Translate, turn on the camera, and point it at the worksheet, and Google Translate will translate that worksheet on their phone for them. It’s insane. It is insane. I’ve found this especially helpful for like diagrams and pictures, because I can’t easily translate text on those so it’s unfortunate I give them a translated document, but the diagram is still in English, right? So they’re able to use the Google Translate app to just hover over that diagram, and they can get a little bit of context in the language they’re comfortable with. I’ve also a lot of our students have a little bit of a, I don’t say a technology deficit, but they need to learn how to use the tools that we I think that’s true for anyone you know, you get to a new job, there’s something, there’s always a learning curve. So there’s the ability for them to change the language of their web browser, and this works most of the time on Canvas, so it will also translate what is on Canvas for them. So I like to put some content on pages on Canvas, basically just a web page with text on it, and if they have their browser setting to their language, it will it should translate that for them, it works really well for the quizzes that they’re taking. It takes a step out of it for me, because I don’t have to make a second translated version if it’s on the LM s, as long as their browser is set to translate and. Magic School. I just learned about this. They’re piloting magic school for students, and I’m very excited for this. I don’t actually have like access to it, because it is really that new, but they have listed some of the tools that would be available for students to use, and they would have to be kind of guided there by their teacher. I don’t think students are going to be able to just get on magic school and use it. I think they need to be assigned, assigned, quote, unquote, from their teacher. But there’s translate pools on there, so they would be able to take any text that we would give them, and they could put it in Magic School themselves to get the translation I saw. They’re going to have a tutor me tool. So you could say, Hey, I’m reviewing for my quiz on homeostasis feedback loops, or I don’t understand the difference between the negative and positive feedback loop. So it will tutor them with that. Another one that I saw on there that I’m really excited for, and I think this exists on the teacher version as well. It’s called summarize it, where you can put in, like an article, and it’ll just give you, like a less than one paragraph summary of that article. Now, if you want your students to actually critically read and analyze an article, obviously don’t use it. But if this is a section of dense technical, scientific content, and they really just need to get the gist of it. That would be a great tool for them to use. One thing that I may have mentioned, but didn’t talk too much in detail, about, is using sentence starters. And sentence stems for these students. And there is a tool on magic school for students with sentence starters. So if they are stuck with starting writing, say, a sir, a claim, evidence, reasoning, response, the magic school AI could give them a sentence starter to get them started with that writing assignment. Again, I think it’s really important to give them that scaffolding, because there’s so much processing happening in their brains with two different languages, scientific vocab, terms that you really just need to take that part out of it. And can they just give you the general idea? So sentence starters are great, and sentence stems to, like, just fill in the blank. So we, we think this, you know, blank fertilizer has a positive effect on the plants because, and then that’s where they talk about their data. So those sentence stems and and starters are really good for them. I like to put them on worksheets where, if they if needed, you know, they’re writing a complete sentence to answer a question. I’ll put it right after the question. Here are some sentence stems. You could use sentence starters just to get you going. And this isn’t just for ELL students. I use this for my students with IEPs, right? Well, this is cross applies to all students. This is not just for ELL students. A lot of stuff we do with ELL students is also beneficial for our other students with academic needs.

Rebecca 52:57
Wow, those are such great tools. I love that. And I just love this goes all the way back to the beginning that you’re like, weird. I’m just gonna teach you how to use this. The teacher I was talking with last week, who’s gonna be on the podcast just a few weeks before you, was like, this is like, the Spark Notes of when we were in high school. And, like, our teachers just were like, don’t touch them. It’s like, we’re all, we’re all reading the Spark Notes and watching the movie of this novel. So like, let’s just, like, acknowledge that’s happening, and then like, you tell us what you want us to do from here. And I just think, yes, you’re really wise to, like, not be afraid of this tool, but to be using it, and not just for yourself, but your students. And these are such great specific examples. I’m really excited for my audience to learn this fall from you. Yeah,

Speaker 1 53:43
and, you know, I don’t know. I’m one of those people that thrives on chaos and change. So, like, I love to change things. When I was growing up, I would reorganize my room all the time. I’m like, I’m bored with this. Let’s do something else. But I think it’s just, I always come back to why am I a teacher? What is my point? What is my purpose? And I think being a teacher has changed so much just in the last 20 years, to be honest, maybe, yeah, 2025, years, I’m not here to, like, give them content anymore. My teaching philosophy is, I am here to get you ready for what is after high school? Yes, whatever that is, are you going to college? Are you going right into the workforce? And I’m seeing how industries are using AI, and I would be doing a disservice to my students to not teach them how it can be used, how it can be used ethically, right? What might be a little iffy about using her, because if you’re not, if they’re not informed, they’re either just going to do what my honor students were doing, which is, like, I’m terrified. I’m not going near it. I don’t want to be accused of cheating, or you’re just totally ignorant of the technology. So you walk into a job interview and they ask you about AI, and you’re like. Never used it. Don’t know what you’re talking about. That would be just because I truly believe that’s are the people that are able to use AI are going to be the ones that are going to be more competitive in the workforce. And again, what am I here for? I’m getting you ready for after high school, right? I know every student in my classroom is not going to become a biologist or environmental science, absolutely. So let me just give you a healthy dose of skepticism and understanding of science and just these skills, these science and engineering principles that we’re teaching with the NGSS, because those transfer, they transfer everywhere, absolutely.

Rebecca 55:39
And I think that perspective can set you free a little bit from getting if you don’t get through all the content, which I know is like such a stressor for so many, where it’s like, okay, well, what matters most? You know, to me, it matters the holistic nature of like, I’m helping this. I’m one of the last people, this adolescent human, that gets to influence them before they’re set on So like you said, does it matter most that we got through all the standards and all the way through evolution, or does it matter that they have these tools? Yeah, I think that is a really wise perspective. Okay, it’s officially, like, I’ve kept you so long, and I’m so sorry, but

Speaker 1 56:15
no, I could, I could, I could keep talking. I know I love talking about that. Just

Rebecca 56:18
circle back, uh, keep that on your radar, like five to six months for now, I’m gonna have to email you, but before I let you go this time, I would love to know, uh, what’s one way that you’ve simplified your life recently,

Speaker 1 56:32
kind of recently, but also I’ve been, I’ve been working up to this point. I didn’t do it cold turkey, and again, this is because of your secondary science, simplified. Course, I’m plugging it again, but I have, I have worked through a lot to get to not grading or collecting things. I am so minimal with what I actually collect anymore. And if I do collect it, you know, if I have a ton of students coming up to me and they’re like, Oh, are we turning this in? Because I know if I say we’re not, they’re not turning it in, they won’t put forth the effort, yeah? So sometimes they’re like, Yeah, you’re turning it in. And then I’ll turn around and just give it right back to them, and right, they’ll figure it out. They’ll know that it’s not in their grade book, and I didn’t write on it, but it’s just that accountability, right? And the stuff that I do collect for a grade, it really depends on what I’m looking for. For example, instead of writing out full lab reports, I have my students do like a summary lab poster like you would see at an exhibition of scientists presenting their work. So I’m really asking them to hone in on the important stuff and focus more on the data analysis and conclusions, and that helps me grade so much, totally and easily and more quickly, and I get a really good sense of, did they get it? I’m not making these students, the next scientist, some of them, yes, absolutely will be. But not every student coming through my classroom needs to write a formal lab report. And honestly, I do not want to grade formal lab report? Absolutely

Rebecca 58:01
no. So a teeth out, give me a few a dental filling like for cavity, anything I know, yeah, it’s

Speaker 1 58:08
the worst. So that’s one thing I’ve simplified. I just I’ve stopped collecting everything I grade more intentionally. Those posters I grade for accuracy. I really tear those things apart. But for example, we just covered the properties of water, and they did a little sketch notes, kind of summary of the different properties and how they’re important for living things. That’s a completion grade for me. I saw them working on those in class, and I saw the effort they put in. They were asking me questions while they were doing it. I don’t need to grade that for accuracy. I don’t have to go through my checklist. Oh, did they add color? Oh, did they label everything accurately? Like I don’t care. It was the process that I cared about. Yeah, check mark completion. So I

Rebecca 58:53
love that, and tell the people who have been hearing me harp on this for years and are still scared to do it, are all your kids failing? How are they doing? How are their grades? Now that you’re grading less,

Speaker 1 59:04
they are phenomenal. And I also want to add, biology is a we have an end of course exam in biology in the state I’m in, I’m in Pennsylvania, and, you know, I’m really embracing the new standards. We’re finally transitioning to NGSS, and I just love that it’s more process over content. I’m thriving in this environment, and my students are and they are everything is more I don’t know. They’re just having more fun in class, and they are more engaged, and they are less stressed about doing stuff. I am straightforward when I give them something, okay, this is your notes. Like, do this because this is your notes, and it will help you study. Or we’re going to use this on a later assignment so they can see those connections, instead of me just collecting it and all that. So it’s just, I’m giving them a little more context with why we’re doing. We’re doing. And I think my students from past years, I don’t think we’re far enough in this school year yet for my current cohort to know this about me, but I say all the time, there’s a method to my madness. I’m like, trust the process. There’s a method to my madness. That is my mantra in my classroom with my students. I

Rebecca 1:00:17
love it, and I just, I really am just encouraged to hear your positivity. And I always love talking to people different from me, and you are like, when you said that you love changing things up, and like you thrive in the chaos. I’m like, wow, can’t relate, but that’s why you’re the perfect person to have on here, because people need to hear from people that aren’t me. And I’m just, I’m really just grateful for your perspective, and I’m so excited for people to hear it. So thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 1:00:43
I want to thank you so much for having me on this podcast. I really was excited to share all this. I feel like I’ve fallen into this niche of ELL and all that, and I’ve learned so much, and I know this is a pain point for a lot of teachers, so I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to to be on the pod with you, of course, well,

Rebecca 1:01:05
and if you listen to this episode, how I’m gonna link all of your stuff in the show notes, people can get to you. But if you have a specific question for Elise and you want me to have her come back on to ask it, let me know. And we can compile a list, and then we can have like, another conversation about this, let me know. But then, Elise, why don’t you tell them to the best way that they can reach out just directly to you, if they want to talk directly to

Speaker 1 1:01:28
you, yeah, if you want to talk directly to me. I’m on Instagram at Keystone science PA, you can DM me. You can tag me in stories, whatever you want to do on Instagram. I also have a website, Keystone science pa.com, you can. I have a contact page on there. It’ll send me an email. And I’ve got a couple of those freebies coming out that has a direct link to those as well. So if you get that freebie, it’s all in there as well. So I yeah, we’ll we’ll connect. I’m here for you. I’ve already been supporting some teachers on their on their journeys. Awesome. Thank

Rebecca 1:02:04
you so much.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:05
Thank you.

Rebecca 1:02:06
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode and my interview with Elise. I know that these guest interviews can get a little longer, but I just get so excited to talk to real teachers in the classroom that are still on the front line, since I’m not, and just to be able to pick their brains. And I learned so much from these conversations, and I hope you do as well. If you agree that you do learn so much from these guest interviews, I would love it if you would leave a review for the podcast if you haven’t already. And then also, if you want to access any of those links mentioned in the show notes, if you want to connect with Elise, if you want to grab her ebooks. Head to, it’s not rocket science classroom.com/episode. 157, that is where the show notes live. And you can always find these links if you are looking for them down the road. All right, teacher, friends, that wraps up today’s episode. If you’re looking for an easy way to start simplifying your life as a secondary science teacher head to It’s not rocket science classroom.com/challenge to grab your classroom reset challenge. And guess what? It’s totally free. Thanks so much for tuning in and see you here next week. Until then, I’ll be rooting for you. Teacher friend.