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?

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? 

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 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!

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!

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?

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?

This wiki has just been recognized as one of the best “edublogs” of 2006. 

We used a wiki in my science teaching methods class as  a way for students to share knowledge and resources in preparation for teaching.  I look forward to exploring what Vicki’s and Julie’s students put together in less than an month for ideas on how to use this medium effectively in future classes.

As you browse their work, what ideas do you see that teachers should use in class wikis?

I did not get the impression that the teacher was inexperienced. But I think this story might be useful for new teachers to hear to remind them of the awesome power they hold in their classrooms, and in the lives of their individual students. Given the long journey in our public school toward treating all students some degree of respect, I found it unbelievable that this scenario could still happen.

Specifically, he tells us about his school’s response to students misusing instant messaging capability in a 1:1 computing environment. I thought this was interesting because of two conversations threads we’ve been having in our methods class: (1) we spent the last week talking about the decisions teachers make to facilitate an orderly learning environment, and (2) the challenges introduced when a teacher decides to use information technology in his or her classroom.

If you started teaching in a school where all students had laptops, how would you deal with their use of instant messaging? What do you think of Chris’s description of how the issue is being handled in their school?

In the ethics episode, I was especially interested in S. James Gate’s discussion of Einstein’s concerns for the apparent discrepancy between our stated value of equality and our country’s treatment of African Americans. Gates, a theoretical physicist at the University of Maryland, also discusses the relation between science and other creative endeavors such as the arts. I thought his comments about the role of diversity in science were illuminating, and important for science teachers to communicate to their students.

I miss these conversations because they I think they made what I was teaching more meaningful to me and my students.

I am hoping that “After the Bell” will be a place that I can share interesting things I learn about teaching during the week that might not make it into our short time together each week.

- J.