after the bell

When I began teaching high school physics in the late 1980s, I wanted to introduce my students to the way that electronic data collection techniques, i.e. using computers and probes to collect and analyze data, were changing how scientific investigations were designed and carried out.  Despite the fact that I was communicating with colleagues each night on an AOL discussion board, I had no idea of the changes these computers would bring about once they were connected. 

This leads me to ask the question:  Despite the pressure you as new teachers feel to teach the “same old,” what is your vision about what is important to teach in order to prepare students for the 21st Century? 

This question is buzzing around in the ed-tech blogosphere, partly in response to Carl Fisch’s video, “Did You Know.”  A new video, “A Vision of Students Today” by Mike Wesch, drives home the antiquated nature of what is going on in higher ed classrooms, but there is little hope that what is going on in K12 classrooms is any more promising. 

I believe that in order to be a transformational teacher, you need a vision of what you want to teach that transcends your discipline’s  “standards” and leads you to dedicate some instructional time to what you think students will need to thrive and flourish.  Given the exponential changes that are occurring, what will you teach that gives your students this power?

One of the things I loved about teaching was its annual opportunity for forgiveness and  redemption.  The years that I was able to teach the same topics to a different set of students gave me the hope of eventually doing it well.  But this opportunity of a fresh start brings its own pressure, and many teachers believe that it is critical to start the year in a way that will pave the way to a successful year.  This belief is expressed wonderfully in this NPR audio essay by Emily Wylie.  How do her efforts relate to what happened with your best teachers?  Do you agree that getting the year off to a good start is important? 

The August 14, 2007 episode of public radio’s The Story  focused on Rafe Esquith’s views of students and teaching.  Mr. Esquith is a fifth grade teacher in Los Angeles and has written a book called “Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire – The Method and Madness Inside Room 56.”  What caught my ear in this story was Mr. Esquith’s description of how his ESL students came after class to act in Shakespeare’s plays. Over the course of the interview, he expressed the concerns of many of the teachers that I have known who were trying to transform their students over the course of the school year and have a lasting effect on their lives.  He doesn’t claim to be a perfect teacher by any stretch, but his message to new teachers is an important one.  You should be able to find the story, a link to Esquith’s web site and the show’s podcast by following the link above. 

Mike Rose’s commentary in ED Week, “Grand Visions and Possible Lives,” reminded me of the importance of the day-to-day interactions teachers of all types have with students in public schools.  Rose visited public schools across the nation to find out what was actually happening, and characterized the essential learning moments as follows:

This sense of the possible came to me when a child learned to take another child seriously, to think something through with other children, to learn about perspective and the range of human experience and talent. It came when, over time, a child arrived at an understanding of number, or acquired skill in rendering an idea in written language. It came when a group of students crowded around a lab table trying to figure out why a predicted reaction fizzled. When a local event or regional dialect or familiar tall tale became a creative resource for visual art or spoken word. When a developing athlete planted the pole squarely in the box and vaulted skyward. When a student said that his teacher “coaxes our thinking along.” When a teacher, thinking back on it all, mused on the power of “watching your students at such an important time in their lives encounter the world.”

As pressure mounts to measure one small part of what is supposed to happen in school, i.e. discipline-specific learning, I think it is important to also see the other parts of teaching and learning, since these are often the parts that teach us to thrive in a diverse society and are actually remembered by young people into adulthood.  What do you think should be the focus of public schooling?  If you are new to teaching or are observing in a  classroom, what moments similar to the ones described by Rose are you seeing?  How do teachers navigate these parts of teaching? 

As you gain experience as a teacher, your awareness of and concern for the development of your students will probably grow. When I was teaching, I was often concerned about how I was contributing to my students’ preparation for college (and life).  In this article, Mel Levine provides illustrative examples to identify cognitive tools that high school graduates should have in their “cognitive backpacks.”

In our science teaching methods class, we focused on planning instruction that addressed important science ideas and practices, but we did not talk as much about more general thinking skills.  I am curious to hear what do you think of Levine’s “4 I’s,” and how these can be addressed in the context of students’ engaging in science inquiry.

I read today that the State of Colorado decided to buck this year’s trend by refusing to require high school students to take more science and math.  Their decision is described here.  On the face of it, it seems obvious that one answer to our nation’s need for a larger technically qualified workforce is to mandate more technical coursework at the high school level.   There is also evidence that students who take demanding courses in high school do better in college. 

I agree with the opponents of the Colorado bill because they were concerned about the possibility that other courses, such as the arts and vocational programs, would be phased out.  One quote from the article was:   “Not everyone will be an engineer.” 

In my experience, these curricular mandates often have unintended consequences that outweigh their positive benefits. The concern opponents of the Colorado initiative was born out by a local superintendent I spoke with after Michigan passed a similar initiative last year.  I asked her if the new science and math requirements would strain the school system’s budget because of a need to fund enough science and math teachers for the added courses. She smiled and said she didn’t think so, since the number of students and the length of the school day would not change.  The only change would be the types of classes that were allowed to run, and the types of teachers that would be needed.  As a parent of a child that blossomed during his four years of taking French and four years of orchestra because he had some spectacular teachers in those areas, I had to shake my head. 

As new science teachers, what do you think about these initiatives?  Should students have to take more science and math?  Thinking back to your high school experiences, how would these initiatives made a difference?  What can you do as a new teacher to try to make such initiatives succeed?

The High School Survey of Student Engagement was conducted by researchers at Indiana University.

I found one excerpt from an interview especially interesting:

Yazzie-Mintz says the survey indicates students are just trying to get the diploma and leave:
“It’s as if the focus is so much on getting that degree, ending high
school, and going to college, that the focus on learning is actually
lost. If they’re not interacting with their learning, if they’re not
feeling that what they’re learning is relevant, if they’re not engaged
in it, there’s no seeds planted for that passion for learning or
exploration which is what would drive them to college and the next
stage. So I think a large part of this is ‘what is the purpose of
schooling?’ Is the purpose of schooling in high school to get kids out
with a degree and move them on to some level of postsecondary
education, or is the point of high school to involve them in some way
in learning and plant a seed for discovery in education that actually
carried into whatever they do next?”

I think this point is an important one for teachers because it illuminates an easy trap for teachers trying to motivate students in a particular subject: When students ask how why a topic important, arguing that learning A now will help them learn B, succeed as a C, or progress on career path D later might have unintended consequences. One of these consequences might be teaching that learning is all about jumping through an (endless) series of hoops in order to achieve some sort of credential, or career slot, and not about actually learning.

What do you think? What are some ways that you try to engage students in science teaching day-to-day? Are there some approaches that have worked better than others? How does the need to engage your students influence your lesson planning?

Leave your comments!

A conversation with Michael Summers described in the NYT tells about an undergraduate program at the University of Maryland – Baltimore County that recruits and nurtures minority scientists.  In addition to the main point of the article, which is that it is possible to activity promote minority participation in science at the undergraduate level, two points were also clear: 

1.  One of the barriers that minority students face at the undergraduate level comes about when courses are framed as “weed-out” or gatekeeper experiences, either for professional programs or the discipline itself.  While those that survive these courses might actually like the notion that they were somehow recognized as worthy of the continuing in whatever program they are progressing into, other students may take the posturing and rhetoric of exclusivity to mean that they do not belong.

2.  Prof. Summer’s efforts were inspired in part by K-12 school teachers.  One of these teachers was an African American who set high standards and communicated his enthusiasm for science. 

I believe that this article also suggests a vision for how K-12 teachers might encourage underrepresented groups of students to consider their options in science.  What can we as teachers do to reduce the exclusivity and increase the excitement around high school science?  What attitudes about students’ roles in science will you convey and how?

Share your comments!

Though how science actually works is often studied by philosophers of science more than by practicing scientists, the national science education standards clearly call for science teachers to help their students to understand how scientific knowledge is constructed in particular disciplines.

I ran across this explanation of scientific laws, theories, and facts on Edutopia.

Scientists often have their own views about these terms and others such as “scientific models,” which was not mentioned in the article. Would you agree with the article’s distinctions? What examples would you give your students for what are and are not laws, theories, and facts in your particular discipline. How will you explain the role of scientific models?

This article in Education Week discusses a Boston teacher’s efforts to integrate high quality laboratory experiences in his ninth grade physics class. You may wonder why this is news, but I am curious whether you agree with the author’s assessment of what quality laboratory experiences entails. How is what this teacher is trying to do consistent or different from the types of laboratory activities you designed in your unit plans? Do you think his classes are engaging in “science inquiry?”   Why or why not?

Is the idea of having students engage in activities before discussing content in class consistent with what we know about how students learn? What can you see as limits to this notion?