After watching the videos and reading the assigned chapter for class this week, I had a few thoughts. First...
I'm super psyched to teach science, but it scares the crap out of me
- Science is one of the most intimidating areas to teach because of the student-generated, independent thought required for the students to truly learn and understand the material.
- I love the idea of experiential learning, but I know that I have a little Ms. Dotty (
Under Construction) in me that worries about the possible lack of control required for that type of learning situation.
- I also worry about student engagement. If they are not interested or don't care, an experiential learning environment could be disastrous.
However, what really seems to be bothering me the most is...
How do you do it?
- Given that research shown even at the time of the videos' publishing (1997) that the classic lecture-lab classroom environment isn't conducive to student learning, why is the curricula still designed this way?
Our reading this week (Chapter 4 of the ever adrenaline-fueled
Ready, Set, Science!),
focuses
on the core concepts of science and how, for students to better understand these concepts, it is better to build on
those concepts through learning progressions over an extended period
of time (such as years) rather than weeks or months.
With this in mind, it is discussed that current (at the time of publishing, 2008) national science standards are not, in fact, designed to emphasize grade level learning progressions:
Current national, state, and district standards do not provide an adequate
basis for designing effective curriculum sequences, for several reasons. First,
they contain too many topics. When the NSES were compared with curricula in
countries that participated in the Third International Mathematics and Science
Study, the NSES were found to call for much broader coverage of topics than
those in high-achieving countries. Second, the NSES and benchmarks do not identify the most important topics
in science learning. Comparisons of the NSES with curricula in other countries
show that they provide comparatively little guidance for sequencing across
grades.
Ready, Set, Science!, p. 62.
To me, what this boils down to is that for years, despite research telling us otherwise, we have been designing curricula based on bad standards that reinforce the use of ineffective teaching methods, which are in turn put into practice in order to just get through the material.
Luckily, there has been movement in recent years to
revamp the NSES using the very same
approaches that research has been telling us for years to use if we want to create scientifically-minded thinkers. Funnily enough, these new proposed science standards, called the NGSS, or Next Generation Science Standards (which is funny because it has literally taken us generations to start using research-based standards) coincide with the Common Core standards (which I happen to adore). Common Core standards, as we all know, not only center around the application of knowledge through higher-order thinking skills, but are also research-based and consistent across grade levels.
Which is great. Wonderful, in fact.
Or it would be, if Tennessee hadn't refused Common Core.
In fact, we were just having this discussion the other day in Dr. Gilbert's COMP class; more specifically, we were discussing the struggle that Tennessee teachers still seem to be having across subject areas to cover material, meet Tennessee state standards, AND make sure students are actually learning.
But even if we did have Common Core standards, the organic, student-generated learning approach is time consuming. So would teachers still be having the same problems, just in a different equation?
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| "How do I reach these keeeeeds?!" |
- For example, in Can We Believe Our Eyes?, a teacher compares two classroom scenarios; in one classroom-let's call this Class A- the students spend most of the term experimenting with light bulbs and electrical currents through hands-on, student-generated learning groups. By the end of the term, they truly understand how a circuit works, but they have only covered that material.
- By comparison, a traditional classroom, Class B, uses the traditional lecture format, and may only spend a few weeks on the same unit. The class then goes on to cover all of the required material and standards, but in doing so, only skims the surface of student understanding for those materials.*
From an educator's standpoint, obviously Class A would be a more effective learning environment because the learners have to apply higher-level thinking processes and are made to revise their thinking through collaborative discussion. In doing so, they are bringing to light and correcting misconceptions, learning the material, AND becoming intelligent thinkers.
HOWEVER, thinking realistically, the approach used in Class A is very time consuming (see 44:50 in
Under Construction). What happens when not all of the prescribed course material is not covered in an academic year?
Much like the teachers in the videos, I'm not offering any concrete answers. However, these are questions that are certainly making me revise my own thinking about education, and certainly about my own classroom.
*This same scenario was discussed in COMP with Dr. Gilbert (coincidence?! I think not...), and it has had me thinking about this ever since.
