Monday, April 2, 2018

Exploration Strategies


Students need to explore the information that you give them in a variety of ways. It can be very helpful to have a variety of "tools" in your toolbox for a particular lesson. Sometimes, you'll realize halfway through a lesson that there's a better way for the students to be interacting with the information; in that spirit, the following list includes some ways to help exploration:

Note-Taking Exploration

Concept Mapping: It's difficult to adequately describe a concept map. Essentially, it involves linking concepts together semantically in order to gain a broader understanding of the connections between related concepts. I find that it's more helpful to use concept maps when dealing with units or lessons with a higher amount of vocabulary so that students can categorize and make connections. Concept mapping works very well as a review of known material as well, since it helps students make new connections. 


Cornell Notes: These are a well-known way for students to take notes during a lecture because it forces the student to organize their thoughts and make sense of the content as they are being exposed to it. Students divide their paper into three sections: a margin on the left for writing key terms or main concepts, a section on the bottom big enough for writing a summary of the page, and the main note-taking section for all of the words, drawings, equations, etc. that make up the content of the lecture. In addition to writing a summary at the end of the page, I have students leave extra room at the bottom of their summary for studying purposes. When the students are reviewing for a test, I encourage them write another summary of the information now that they have the bigger picture.

Note-Taking PairsStudent partners work together to improve their individual notes.  Working with a peer provides students with an opportunity to revisit and crosscheck notes with another source.  Partners help each other acquire missing information and correct inaccuracies so that their combined effort is superior to their individual notes. After students take notes, they form pairs and switch off summarizing sections and receive corrections and additional information.

Getting the Information (Analog)

Think-Aloud Problem Solving: Students are paired and given a series of problems. The two students are given specific roles that switch with each problem: Problem Solver and Listener. The problem solver reads the problem aloud and talks through the solution to the problem. The listener follows all of the problem solver's steps and catches any errors that occur. For the listener to be effective, he or she must also understand the reasoning process behind the steps. This may require the listener to ask questions if the problem solver's thought process becomes unclear. The questions asked, however, should not guide the problem solver to a solution nor should they explicitly highlight a specific error except to comment that an error has been made.

White Boarding: Using white boards in class for students or groups of students to demonstrate their understanding of a particular concept can be very powerful due to the accountability of the activity. Additionally, white boarding can be used in conjunction with all sorts of other pair and group activities (like Think-Aloud Problem Solving).

Getting the Information (Digital)

NearPod: Allows you do create interactive, digital lessons by importing a variety of files like PDFs, images, Google Slides, PowerPoints, websites, and videos. Very useful in a one-to-one setting (one device for every student).


NewsELA: Some people pronounce this like "Noozella," but I was introduced to it as "News E-L-A" because its foundations are in adapting articles to different reading levels. In addition to choosing an article and a reading level that you would like to offer to your students, you can assign those articles to students, quiz them and have them write responses. Like many other pieces of technology, you can integrate this with Google Classroom.

Peardeck: Much like NearPod, Peardeck allows you to create interactive, digital lessons as an add-on to Google Slides, integrate with Google Classroom, and automatically grade.


Processing the Information

Cubing: Cubing is an instructional strategy that asks students to consider a concept from a variety of different perspectives. You cut out a cube from paper (or cardstock) and put a different activity on each side of the cube. Students roll the cube and do the activity on the top; this can be used for individual or group tasks. This can be very helpful for forcing the students to represent information in ways they are not accustomed to, and then follow up their own exploration with a gallery walk of other students' explorations.

Misconceptions: In science, students often already have an idea how something works. Often, their conceptualization is at least partially wrong. Unfortunately, one of the most difficult things to do is to "unteach" a misconception and one of the major reasons why is because we as science teachers try and teach what the concept is, not what the concept isn't. The technique here involves identifying the misconception, having the student(s) explain why they think what they think, then starting the positive teaching of the concept using the misconception as the comparison framework. For example, if the misconception is that oxygenated blood is red and deoxygenated blood is blue, then the first step would be to ask why students think that blood can be blue. Usually, the answer is that it looks blue/green through the skin and/or that diagrams show it as being blue. At this point, the teacher must explain about how refraction causes colors and images to be altered, and that this is such a common misconception that the people who drew the diagrams thought the same thing!

Philosopher’s Chairs: Students have to take a position on a particular issue by sitting or standing on one side of the room. You as the teacher ask them to justify their position, which helps to clarify why they feel the way they feel. Students can switch positions during the discussion, and students who haven't been able to decide how they feel are forced to choose a side by the end of the discussion. This can be very useful for topics like genetic engineering, cloning, and prenatal screening.

Friday, March 30, 2018

Ways of Getting Information

For a lot of people, education boils down to how they get the information from someone who is more informed than they are. Obviously, in the 21st century, we are concerned much more than just information - we want to learn procedures, concepts, high-level analysis, and more. But information is still the foundation of everything else, especially in science.

Hands-on (manipulatives): By far, I've seen the most success when using hands-on activities with my students. When students can experience what they are learning, then they are not only engaged, but they form important connections to existing information and concepts. Hands-on experiences can be done poorly, especially when they are disconnected from the material that is being taught. My rule of thumb for hands-on activities is to walk through the activity myself and make sure that at least 80% of the time being students spend on task is explicitly connected to the concept; what students do must be connected to why they are doing it.

Videos: Ahh, yes, the famous cop-out of teaching. The video. What's that? It has pedagogical value? Yes, it can. Videos as an educational tool are never stand-alone. They always have to exist within a broader educational context, like a lesson plan, and the students have to be accountable for the content that they present. Even if a video is just used for engagement, it needs to lead to some bigger lesson. When showing a video, I always preview the video and write down questions that I want students to be able to answer. There are some wonderful series to use in biology, like the Amoeba Sisters and Crash Course Biology (they also have quite a few other subjects), many of which come with their own graphic organizers and handouts. 

Audio: I haven't dabbled in audio nearly as much, but I find podcasts and readings of textbooks to be useful in particular situations. I have assigned podcasts for supplemental material before, and I have recorded myself reading the alternative biology textbook that I wrote. I think these are two helpful ways to use audio, but obviously there are more specific contexts (listening to different bird calls, etc.) that work in biology, as well. However, audio can almost always be enhanced with video (why not display the bird along with the call?).

Verbal: This is how most of us experience school: the teacher tells us something new, and we remember it. If only it worked that way! The ability to make sense of and remember something that someone else tells us is contingent upon so many variables that it makes it nearly impossible to adequately lecture to a large group of learners. But presenting information verbally is not only necessary, but offers good practice for college and career, so doing so well should not be overlooked. Of course, the best verbal presentations include some sort of visual aid(s), so work on your PowerPoint or Prezi game, have a demonstration ready or use a role play acted out by students. Don't be the teacher who just writes every other word on their whiteboard and says, "Ta-da!" In my experience, lectures work best when the students already have been exposed to the information in a format like the flipped classroom. I also always make sure to build in time to answer student questions, but I don't assume that every student will be ready to receive that knowledge!

Non-fiction: Otherwise known as the dreaded informational text (like textbooks), non-fiction has the reputation of being dry and dense. But it doesn't have to be. Well-written textbooks take students on a journey through the material with pictures, figures, drawings and diagrams painting a more complete picture. I will often use sources like NewsELA and augment them with attractive visual aids to help illustrate the concepts. The most important aspect of informational text that you can master is that of reading level. There are a variety of ways to determine reading levels, like lexile score and Flesch-Kincaid score. I tend to err on the side of caution for reading level, ensuring that almost all of my students will be able to read what I present to them; for many classrooms, this can mean offering two or more different assignments to match the reading levels of the students.

Fiction: My masters work had to do with storytelling in the science classroom; I have recently revisited this topic for a unit having to do with climate change. There is a paucity of digestible fictional science appropriate for the classroom, but there are entire libraries of science fiction! I have worked with many teachers who have advocated for the use of science fiction texts to augment the classroom experience, but I have found it difficult to integrate into my own teaching. This is why I have turned to writing my own stories.


Monday, December 4, 2017

Engagement

The question is always, "How do I get the students to WANT to learn?"

In science, sometimes that is easily answered because the nature of the lab or activity is something that students are naturally curious about and just want to learn the material. But even in those cases, you have students who tune out because that's just not their cup of tea.

On the other hand, you have the day-to-day instruction that can sometimes feel like a drag. But here's a key: if it feels boring to you, it will definitely be boring for most of your students. I know that if I'm not excited about the day's lesson, then there's no chance for my students!

Engagement is not just about what you do at the beginning of class, either. Engagement is about how you design your curriculum, how you set up learning from one day to the next, one week to the next, one unit to the next. My students know that every unit, there will be a debate or presentation (which they love to do) - my "engagement" is simply that today is debate prep day! Of course, it's only easy because of the work that I've put in beforehand, establishing the norms and expectations so that it doesn't become tedious or too easy.

So if today isn't one of those days that you can wave a magic wand and say, "LAB DAY!" and automatically get their attention, then usually one of these strategies will help you out.

Compass Points (NEWS): Compass Points is a good way to engage students in a familiar format. You have the students write one piece for each cardinal direction, either on a sheet of paper in front of them, or on paper that is in each direction in the room. The E stands for "Excitement," the W is for "Worries," the N is for "Needs," and the S is for "Stance," "Steps," or "Suggestions." You would mostly use Compass Points for a debatable topic or a lab that students are about to start.

Demonstrations: Nothing beats an explosion, a reason to stand on top of a desk or table, or light something on fire. Just make sure the students know why you're doing it before you even allude to doing something crazy!

Discrepant Events: The kid sister of demonstrations, these are demonstrations and experiments that have a twist, and the trick is in the explanation. You can make it as inductive as you want and even have a discrepant event last an entire class period!

KWL: These are sometimes overly used, but they are a familiar and easy way to get students thinking about the topic that they are about to cover. Have students divide their paper in three columns, then label it Know, Want to know, and Learned. Students start the lesson by writing what they Know and Want to know, then revisit their KWL at the end of the lesson to write what they Learned (and if they Want to know anything else). I find KWL's to be particularly helpful for topics that students are already somewhat familiar with and more prone to be curious to find out more.

Videos: Ahh yes, some of us remember the TV being wheeled out and thinking, "Today's going to be a good day." But a good video can be just as effective as well-crafted direct instruction. As a biology teacher, my favorite YouTube channels are Amoeba Sisters, Crash Course Biology, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Cosmos.

Whole-Class Activity: Never discount the power of a fun game, human simulation or other way of getting the entire class up and about. When I teach ecology, I like to play a predator-prey game that I developed. Every student gets an organism card that they have to keep secret. Some students are producers (plants), a few are primary consumers (herbivores) and even fewer are secondary consumers (carnivores). One is a decomposer (like a worm), and I am the sun. I know it's astronomically heretical, but when I make a full circuit around the room, that completes one day - during that day, plants have to visit me in order to get little orange "energy" cards, herbivores need to find plants to get energy from them, and carnivores needs to find herbivores to get energy from them. There are wrinkles in the game: anyone who meets a decomposer loses one energy card to the decomposer; if two carnivores meet, the one with more energy takes from the one with less; etc. By the end of a "day," I've had plants hiding in corners of the room, carnivores fast-walking after their prey (no running allowed) and general mayhem in the strokes before midnight.

Padlet: This is a sort of interactive, collaborative Pinterest that can be used as a KWL, concept map, to-do list, Q&A, and more. Ultimately, it allows students to post ideas in text or graphic format and then refer back to those ideas over the course of a lesson or project.

Sunday, December 3, 2017

Types of Inquiry

Everyone talks about inquiry, especially in science classrooms. But it can be very difficult to understand exactly what it is, particularly when you're under the gun and need to design a lesson on Sunday for Monday! Basically, inquiry is when we turn the tables, and instead of us asking the questions of students, they have to ask questions and discover answers to those questions.

Of course, this works very well in science, so here are the major four types of inquiry:

Open
Students investigate questions that are student formulated through student designed/selected procedures.

Guided
Students investigate a teacher-presented question using student designed/ selected procedures.

Structured
Students investigate a teacher-presented question through a prescribed procedure.
Confirmation
Students confirm a principle through an activity when the results are known in advance.

I find that true, open inquiry is very difficult to implement and has to happen closer to the end of the school year after students are comfortable with the basic tenets of inquiry and science. Essentially, these are science fair questions, but you can still guide students in open inquiry to investigate a question that is about a particular unit of study.

Differentiation Strategies


I have used a variety of differentiation strategies over my career, but the simplest way to start is to treat every student as an individual who needs as much customized instruction as possible. So the question becomes, how do you do that and have enough time to do everything you grade papers, design lessons, etc.? Here are some ideas:

Tiered Assignments: The idea behind tiered assignments is that you have different levels of scaffolding for different levels of learners in the classroom. I have assigned my students two scores: high/low literacy and high/low focus. When I present them with labs, I have a background written for high literacy and one for low, and a set of instructions listed for high focus and one for low focus. This creates four natural groups, and if those groups are too large, then I split into multiple homogenous groups.

Compacting: This involves meeting students exactly where they are, high or low. You can give students the same credit for different assignments that teach about the same concept, just on different levels.

Interest Centers: Also known as stations, these can be very helpful to maintain students' engagement if a wide variety of granular information needs to be introduced. I like combining this with peer instruction, having students leaving one station teach the incoming students how to perform the station. This can create lags in the station cycle, so I often intervene in order to even things out.

Flexible Grouping: I think most of us use a variety of groups for a variety of tasks, but this formalizes that practice. It can help to dig out of entrenched groups as students start to rely on their partners instead of themselves.

Learning Contracts: Learning contracts can be very complex or very simple. I've done them for 4-minute bellwork assignments before just for that class period, and it works well alongside objectives.

Choice Boards: These tend to rely too heavily upon (mostly debunked) learning styles, but if they are actually of the same difficulty and elicit the same amount of evaluative data, then it allows students to choose what's easiest for them. They are time-consuming to put together, so I only do one or two of these per year for major concepts.

Sidebar Investigations: Sidebars can be especially helpful for those students who just want to know more about a particular concept, but can be an impediment if too many students opt to do them. It's best to assign students to the sidebars and to emphasize that they are optional.