In my classroom, I liked to have music playing when the students came in. It was usually classical and the students seemed to enjoy it–one student was especially fond of Mozart. From some recent tweets, I discovered several sites with a different take on music videos—they are related to science topics.
Frank Gregorio, a science teacher from Virginia, posts videos on the Gregs Educational site.   Spectacular graphics and music are part of these “trailers” that can be used as introductions to class topics (or just because they’re beautiful). They’re less than 5 minutes long and include a brief summary. Most have some text overlay but no narration. The videos can be downloaded from the site. I’m going to use a few at the beginning of some workshops I’m doing.
I’d love to know how the producer of The Symphony of Science videos does it.  The narration is mixed so that it sounds like the scientists (such as Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Carl Sagan, or Stephen Hawking) are “singing.” The lyrics are provided along with the sources of the information. I can watch these over and over. I first became familiar with this project through a remix of Mr. Rogers.
Science Bulletins are documentaries from the American Museum of Natural History that feature stories, data visualizations, and news updates on discoveries and research in astrophysics, Earth science, biodiversity, and evolution. They also feature music and beautiful graphics.
 
Graphic: http://vimeo.com/channels/114270

We all have seen how children begin making sense of the world before they have any formal or informal teaching about a concept or topic…discovering through exploration that the world has textures, some things are for eating and some are not, objects can be moved and some appear to move by themselves, light comes and goes. A Private Universe (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 1987) is a now classic film revealing that early ideas that are not scientifically accurate, called misconceptions or incomplete ideas, may be held onto into adulthood. Recent college graduates are asked to explain why the moon seems to change shape and position. Why should we all be able to explain this natural phenomena? Not because it affects everyone’s daily life but because we should have had experiences that would allow us to use our reasoning to figure it out.

Understanding relationships between position of objects, and light and shadow, are necessary to understand how the appearance of the Moon’s phases occurs. We often learn about the Moon’s phases through reading and observing and moving a model of the Earth and Moon in middle and high school. By then we have had many experiences with moving objects and using light to cast shadows that change as the objects move. Learning about light through many different experiences helps young children build their understanding of how it works, learning about some of the properties of light. Part of being a child’s first teacher (after the family) is being aware of how beginning ideas may become misconceptions that children must discard before they can build a more scientifically accurate understanding.

One such misconception that some children believe is that all objects make light. Some objects (sun, flame, light bulb, lightening bug) do emit light. However, we see most objects by sensing the light reflected off their surfaces. The light originally comes from a source that emits light, such as the sun. Children may think that all objects emit light. Experience with trying to see an object in absolute darkness may be the experience they need to understand that only some objects emit light, such as light bulbs, flame and glow sticks, and that most objects do not create light.
In my effort to provide experiences for children that will help them build understanding of scientific concepts, I have to remind myself of a caution expressed by educator and researcher Jeff Winokur about teaching children. He said that, “Just because they see it doesn’t mean they understand it”. He was discussing teaching the difficult-to-teach concepts of water evaporation and condensation but I am applying it more broadly.
Setting up a situation where children can see light reflected from a surface such as smooth cardboard (but not a mirror), may broaden their understanding of reflection of light. Mirrored surfaces are not the only objects that reflect light. We see by sensing light reflected from any object we are seeing.
We must talk with our students, discuss all ideas and the evidence for holding these ideas. Ask children to consider alternative explanations for their observations and always encourage them to seek answers to questions. There is an on-going discussion about teaching to help students change their incomplete or inaccurate conceptions in a forum in the National Science Teachers Association’s Learning Center —look for “Avoiding Misconceptions in Science Education” thread in the “Elementary Science” forum.
In the October 2012 Science & Children I write about providing experiences where children can try using all of their senses to sense light, to help them build a beginning understanding of light and how it works. We built a “block out the light” box to view objects without light available. I think the children were disappointed not to see something amazing, but then they got it—with no light inside or coming into the box, they couldn’t see the object.
Read the Editor’s Note by Linda Froschauer, Hard to Learn Hard to Teach, for planning steps to support student learning.  A Formative Assessment Probe–Talking about Shadows by Page Keeley, and a Science Short–Modeling Light and Shadows by David Carrejo and Judy Reinhartz also address the hard-to-teach concept of light.
Here are a few ways to use our senses to try to sense light. Add other ideas in a comment and please let me know if any of them are likely to lead to children making misconceptions about light!

Sense	Activity
See	Have children identify all the sources of light they see during a school day (light fixtures, sun, flashlights, moon and other reflected light sources). Caution! Remind children never to look directly at the sun because it will damage their eyes even though they may not feel hurt.Looking at objects through various colored films (acetate) will give the experience needed to understand that the objects only appear to be a different color, they do not actually change color. When looking though a red film at an object children may say, ‘It’s red!” By asking, “Did it change color forever?” parents and teachers can prompt thinking about the properties of light and how our eyes sense light.
Hear	Have children close their eyes and listen for the “sound of light”. Have them listen to all available light sources to avoid thinking that a noisy fluorescent light fixture is the “sound of light”.
Smell	Use a flashlight with a quiet switch. Have children close their eyes and turn their backs to you. Have them tell you when the flashlight is on by sniffing for the “smell of light”. Have children sniff all available light sources to avoid thinking that a smell in the air is the “smell of light”.
Taste	From a safe distance, have children capture a mouthful of light from the sun, a light fixture or a flashlight and report on the taste, if any.
Feel	Use a flashlight with a quiet switch. Have children close their eyes and extend a hand in front of them. Have them tell you when the flashlight is shining on their hand by feeling the light. Many light sources make heat that we can feel but, in this activity, we focus on being able to sense light, not changes in temperature, with our skin.

 

The budget situation in the past few years has lead to a number of teacher layoffs and reassignments.  In many cases, beginning teachers bear the brunt of these. But often overlooked are the effects of these changes on the teachers who remain (and their students), as teaching positions are shuffled around to cover the furloughed positions.
I recently talked with MH, a middle school general science teacher for 25 years. Two years ago, the district instituted a hiring freeze and began furloughing and reassigning teachers. When a high school biology teacher retired, MH (who is certified in biology) was transferred to the position. She  shared her experiences and offers advice for teachers and administrators in this situation.
Describe your middle school experience. I was teaching in a new building, in a lab that I helped to design and with a curriculum that I wrote in cooperation with my colleagues. The lab was well supplied and the inventories were in order. During my time there, I was also an athletic coach, academic team leader, and department chair. I earned a master’s degree and additional graduate credits. I served on the supervision/evaluation and professional development committees. I presented at workshops and attended NSTA conferences. I was satisfied with my middle school role and I think I did an excellent job.
How were you informed of your reassignment? I was told of the transfer during the week before the end of the school year. Staying at the middle school was not an option. So in addition to the end-of-year activities with my eighth–graders, I also had to clean out my personal materials and prepare the lab for my successor. With the move, I was no longer a department chair. I felt as though the rug had been pulled out from under me.

What is your course load at the high school? I now have four preps: academic biology, ESL (English as a Second Language ) biology (co-teaching with an ESL teacher), advanced biology, and a botany elective. I also have a homeroom, lunch duty, and one planning period per day. Fortunately, I teach in the same lab all day and I don’t have to share it with another teacher. The technology is adequate.
How much time did you get to prepare? The high school was closed for the summer, so I could not get into the lab until two weeks before classes started. I was surprised that the lab was in disarray and that the inventories were not up-to-date. Some of the equipment was not in working order, and I was concerned about the status of safety equipment. I did my best, but it took a while to get the lab in a condition that I was satisfied with.
How familiar were you with the curriculum? I am credentialed in biology but I had been away from it for a long time and I had never taught the subject at the high school level. The subject now has more emphasis on molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics, and genomes. The only curriculum document available to me was an applied biology curriculum, and I was told to “beef it up” for the academic class and modify it for the ESL class. I had access to the textbooks for the courses that use them. I researched other botany courses and blended them to create a curriculum for the new course, and I was compensated for this curriculum work. I did a lot of reading over the summer to catch up with the content, but I found that I actually learned content right along with the students during the year.
What were your biggest challenges? I left an environment in which we had established professional learning communities with common planning time. The high school schedule does not allow much collaboration during the school day. I do meet with the other biology teacher after school hours (we do not have any common planning time during the day). In general, the high school teachers seem to be content-focused and not as attuned to the whole child approach to education.
My lab is set up very differently. It is smaller and the students sit at the lab tables. I’ve had to adapt my instructional and classroom management strategies for this arrangement.
The middle school students were much easier to engage in the learning activities, while the high schoolers seem to focus on non-academic events, such as social activities and their jobs. But I do enjoy the level of conversations I have with the advanced biology students.
Any advice for teachers and administrators? I felt like a new teacher, starting over in an unfamiliar school teaching subjects I had never taught before. But everyone assumed that I did not need any assistance. I would suggest that

• Transferring teachers receive advance notice to vacate their classroom or lab.
• Teachers should have access to their new classrooms over the summer to prepare lessons and labs, organize materials, and inventory what is there.
• Teachers should be compensated for any curriculum updates or rewrites that they must do.
• The district safety officer should be available to assist in inventorying and any clean-up of chemicals or other materials.

My most important suggestion would be to provide a welcome and an orientation for transferring teachers. Even though I was an experienced teacher, I was unfamiliar with the school building and its culture. I had a lot of basic questions: Where is the copier? Whom do I call if there is an issue with the technology? What is the budget? What is the fire drill procedure?
It’s ironic that years ago, I requested a transfer to the high school but was refused. But change can be good. If it is something that you want to do, go for it.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spcummings/361167519/
 

This is a complete set of interactive PowerPoint Slides for High School Biology that is geared toward specific state standards. You may select the standards from any of the 50 states. The lessons are divided into nearly 100 manageable “chunks” of from 3 to 12 slides. This way the educator can use any individual topic in the sequence that best fits their curriculum. The flexibility of being able to integrate all or some of the lessons and use them at the most appropriate time is one of the best features of this program. The way the topics are broken into small, manageable pieces is also a great feature. This would allow for remediation with students who need extra time with a topic or pre-teaching a topic for students who need additional support. The animations are well done and will keep the interest of high school students. Age-appropriate animations, which won’t remind students of kindergarten, are used throughout the program. Video sequences add depth; practice problems enhance the lessons; and important terms can be clicked on to reveal more information. Some of the slides have teacher notes already embedded with information for the instructor such as insights about diagrams and instructional suggestions. Overall this is a highly useful program for biology teachers. If I were a new teacher, I could design my entire course around these slides. As an experienced teacher, I can use these slides to add depth and breadth to my existing PowerPoint slides. This product takes the “hard part” out of lesson development and gives the teacher a complete set of ready-to-use lessons. This is a great resource that I and my students have enjoyed for the past few weeks.

JogNog is an educational game site which engages students in test preparation in a fun, lively way. “This is crazy….it’s really fun but you’re also learning!” exclaimed one player. Students enter an ancient city and are challenged to “build towers” by correctly answering a series of test preparation questions in a limited amount of time. The game is enhanced by cool sound effects and visuals that may appeal to fans of video games. Players are given the chance to re-take the challenge until mastery and they “complete the tower”. At that point, they may alert a parent or teacher, via email, and request a form of “compliment” in return. One suggested compliment is “a special dessert”. Questions for the quiz towers are often aligned to textbooks or standardized state tests which cover a core curriculum. For example, one tower prepares students for the eighth grade science component of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System. Other towers cover mathematics and language arts at levels ranging from elementary to high school. One versatile feature of JogNog is the ability for teachers to write their own towers. Questions may be written for a particular textbook or pulled from existing towers. After completing a unit of study, teachers may even challenge students to work in groups to write and edit their own tower of questions to be played by the class. Student feedback on this site has been very positive. Working at their own pace, students gain confidence as they practice answering multiple-choice questions under time constraints. The ability to access JogNog on mobile devices such as the iPhone allows students to get valuable test preparation on-the-go. This is an appealing alternative to test preparation booklets for many students. Teachers also benefit by using valuable class time to prepare the class for the hands-on or open-ended writing portion of state assessments. For teachers looking for a fun, interactive way to help students review the core curriculum, this product is an excellent choice.

Based on many different sectors requests to have schools integrate skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, and problem solving into academic subjects, the term of 21^st century skills surfaced several years ago and has been promoted throughout the educational, political, and business arenas in recent years.  Usually the mantra goes something like –we need to prepare our students to use 21^st century skills before they enter college or the workforce.  For many years, the question has been “what is a 21^st century skill” usually followed up by “do we all mean the same thing when we say 21^st century skill?”
Recently a report titled “Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century” was released by the National Academies Press and was jointly coauthored by the Board on Testing and Assessment, Board on Science Education and the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education which attempted to do just what the different stakeholders but predominantly the educators have been asking – define 21^st century skills or as the report refers to them – 21^st century competencies (already a new word to define).
This report groups 21^st century skills into three broad domains – cognitive, interpersonal and intrapersonal skills. The domains cover the following:

• the cognitive domain, which includes thinking, reasoning, and related skills;
• the intrapersonal domain, which involves self-management, including the ability to regulate one’s behavior and emotions to reach goals; and
• the interpersonal domain, which involves expressing information to others, as well as interpreting others’ messages and responding appropriately.

Interestingly enough one of the answers to a definition of a 21^st century skill is to define “deeper learning.”  According to the report brief, “Deeper learning is the process through which a person becomes capable of taking what was learned in one situation and applying it to new situations – in other words, learning for “transfer.” Through deeper learning, students develop expertise in a particular discipline or subject area.  This in itself is an interesting aspect to the proverbial pendulum in the educational world – defining 21^st century skills terms with 20^th century definition in that the concept of transfer of learning is not new – it has been around since the beginnings of educational psychology and has had various terms associated with it such expert versus novice learner in How People Learn.
However, one of the foci that the committee focused on and specifically reported on was that “deeper learning develops 21st century competencies, but also that the relationship flows both ways: 21st century competencies can aid the process of deeper learning in a discipline or subject area.” While this may not seem earth shattering, it is an interesting aspect that it has finally been summarized as a key point in this field of education and that the report begins to identify strategies that support the transfer of knowledge such as:

• Use multiple and varied representations
• of concepts and tasks,
• Encourage elaboration, questioning,
• and explanation
• Engage learners in challenging tasks,
• Teach with examples and cases
• Prime student motivation
• Use “formative” assessments,

The report does summarize the overall domain areas which were defined, the list of competencies which fall within those areas generated, as well as strategies examined that aid in the transfer of learning; however one thing was noted which still will need work before we are all on the same sheet of music, the actual agreed upon definitions of those competencies.  For one of the final recommendations for further study included “establishing agreed-upon definitions of 21st century competencies and ways to measure and assess them.”  So, while we have moved forward some, we still have many undefined ideas.
So to generate some conversation, what one competency (skill) would you want defined first and why do you think it is important?
 

The Leading Edge is a blog that asks those involved in science education leadership whether that be administrators, policy makers, supervisors, state leaders to continue the conversation on something that was presented in the recent issue of The Leaders Letter, an e-newsletter that is a joint project of the National Science Teachers Association and the National Science Educational Leadership Association.  To sign up to receive future issues of the Leaders Letter, click here  To see archived copies of the e-Newsletter, please click here.
The topic is directly related to one of the features in that month’s e-newsletter.  Recently however, one of the blog readers made a valid point that it would be great if the resources and/or links could be included within the actual blog as references or resources.  This point was well taken and made sense that if reader simply found the blog posting that they may or may not have seen the actual references and resources mentioned in the initiating document. 
Therefore, for future posts, information on the original resources and links to those references will be provided for readers use.  Thanks for your continued interest in the Leading Edge as well as the Leaders Letter.