JoinManaging Communication Channels
By Mary Bigelow
Posted on 2016-07-11
Last year, I tried improving my communications with students and parents via electronic media. I had lots of responses, but I was being texted, tweeted, emailed, and called on the phone at all times of the day and night. While I want to encourage these communications, I’m looking for ideas to manage them and keep my sanity! —G., Colorado
It sounds like you have a case of “be careful what you wish for….” Many teachers would love to have parents and students contacting them, but I can understand how this can become overwhelming.
In a recent article in Educational Leadership (May 2016)*, Catlin Tucker, an English teacher from California, shared her ideas on “avoiding technology overload.” You may find them helpful as you try to manage communications with the many other responsibilities of a science teacher:
- Establish virtual office hours. Just as college professors publish office hours in a course syllabus, let student and parents know when you can be contacted in real time outside of class and when you’ll be able to respond to messages they leave regarding class topics and issues. Post these times on the class website and your online class calendar.
- Choose one communication channel. I hadn’t thought about this, but the author suggests that having a preferred medium helps you be more focused without switching between texting, tweeting, emailing, and traditional phone calls. The author settled on email for non-urgent questions and texting for more immediate needs. Both of these also give you some time to think about the questions or issues before responding. (But if many of your parents do not have email, you still may have to rely on phone calls.)
- Make information available online. Use a class blog, webpage or other online methods to post information and a calendar. Update it frequently with assignments, videos, the syllabus, handouts, rubrics, extra readings, class schedules, and multimedia resources. Include your syllabus and safety acknowledgment form, too. Encourage students to refer to the calendar to try to avoid the “Are we having a test tomorrow?” or “Did I miss anything when I was absent?” type of questions. This means that you will have to update the site on a weekly or daily basis.
- Set up a space where students can connect online. Students often will answer each other’s questions or offer advice. The author suggests having a private community site or forum you can monitor and participate in. You can get feedback on what students find interesting or concerning about your class.
- Protect unplugged time at home. Your personal time is valuable. Teachers need a break to take care of their families, prepare lessons, go to graduate classes, participate in community programs, or have a little “me” time for exercise or relaxation. Let students and parents know when you’ll be online and when you’ll be offline. You should also consider how available you want to be on weekends or holiday breaks.
I would add another suggestion: Protect your class time. I was visiting a classroom where the teacher’s phone rang several times and she received several text messages. She attended to these distractions, which interrupted the lesson. Let parents know that during the day, your phone will be off (or muted) to incoming messages out of respect to your students and the learning process. You will not be able to respond to a message until a planning period, after school, or during your stated office hours. This is especially critical for science teachers supervising students in a laboratory situation. They must have your undivided attention.
One downside of communications technology is the perception that we are “on call” 24/7. You’re wise to consider how to make these communications an efficient and effective asset.
—–
*Five Tips for Avoiding Technology Overload
Photo: https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1181/3172841858_4f317b12f7_m_d.jpg
Last year, I tried improving my communications with students and parents via electronic media. I had lots of responses, but I was being texted, tweeted, emailed, and called on the phone at all times of the day and night. While I want to encourage these communications, I’m looking for ideas to manage them and keep my sanity!
How Can Science Teachers Use Examples of Dishonest Science?
By Lauren Jonas, NSTA Assistant Executive Director
Posted on 2016-07-09
NSTA members ask and answer one anothers’ questions about science teaching every day via the listserv, and the topics are fascinating. The latest question, trending on our NGSS list, focuses on dishonest science. The answers and comments are eye-opening!
Question:
“We’re exploring what it means to be principled and show integrity in science and I’m wondering if you know of any famous (or not so famous) NON-examples of integrity in science? When did dishonesty in reporting data lead to some devastating consequences? Any insights are appreciated!”
—Sara Severance, 8th Grade Physical Science Teacher, McAuliffe International School, Denver, CO
(question shared here with her permission)
Top Answers from NSTA Members
- In 1998 Andrew Wakefield and colleagues published an article in the Lancet that the MMR vaccine may predispose children “to behavioral regression and pervasive developmental disorder”. As a consequence, vaccination rates began to drop, and outbreaks of measles climbed. Other scientists immediately began researching the topic and could not replicate the results. After much investigation and debate, The Lancet completely retracted the article in 2010. Wakefield et al. were found to be guilty of deliberate fraud. If you do a search on this, you will find much more information, but here is a good article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136032/.
- Three quick ones: Univ. of Utah and cold fusion, South Korea and stem cell research, Ptolemy and changing the math/data to fit the heliocentric model of the universe (just covered a few minutes ago in my 8th grade Earth science class).
- I’m not sure if this is what you are thinking of, but the Tuskegee Syphilis Study from 1932-1972 is certainly an example of egregious human rights violations, racism, and deception done in the name of science. I mentioned it in my Introduction to Microbiology class last night. http://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm
- There’s also the classic case of the Summerlin’s spotted mice. Here’s a fairly recent editorial on the 1974 case, http://w.astro.berkeley.edu/~kalas/ethics/documents/painted-mouse.pdf. It was also reported on by Peter Medawar in his great essay book, The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice and Other Classic Essays in Science.
- Here is an interesting article with links to experiments that – for various reasons including dishonesty and confirmation bias – were not reproducible by others: http://ncse.com/blog/2016/04/now-word-from-captain-obvious-0017038.
- How about Watson & Crick stealing Rosalind Franklin’s data? They end up with the Nobel prize and she dies of cancer.
- I am wondering about Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa Cells. The Smithsonian has some good information on her and there is also the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
- Scott Reuben falsified data on postoperative pain that had a major impact. Here is one link: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-medical-madoff-anesthestesiologist-faked-data/. You can easily find more. I teach 6-8 MYP Integrated Science and use it at the beginning of the year to exemplify ‘Principled’ and ‘consequences’. It’s a pretty appalling case.
- Here’s another one: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/07/01/researcher-who-spiked-rabbit-blood-to-fake-hiv-vaccine-results-slapped-with-rare-prison-sentence/.
A Word of Caution
Hat Tip to NSTA member Nathan F. for this reminder: “I think we need to be careful of using isolated examples of poor science. Students may extrapolate to “you can’t trust science” instead of ‘peer review is important makes science a self-correcting system.’ This is where we as teachers need to use our expertise. I can envision a list of quality research projects a mile long and a list or poor research much much shorter.”
Join the Conversation
Do you have examples that you use with your students? Please share your comments with us!
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The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.
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NSTA members ask and answer one anothers’ questions about science teaching every day via the listserv, and the topics are fascinating. The latest question, trending on our NGSS list, focuses on dishonest science. The answers and comments are eye-opening!