Join21st century tools
By Mary Bigelow
Posted on 2011-10-26
Click here for the Table of Contents
Will we ever get to the point where we can sit back and say “Our students have these skills. We’re set until the 22nd century?”
A great benefit for NSTA members is electronic access to all of the journals. After you read the print version that is part of your membership, you can read the articles in all of the others. Even though they might be oriented to a different grade level, there are always ideas that can be kicked up a notch or simplified. And this topic certainly relates to all grade levels.
It makes sense that I’m reading a digital version of this TST issue on 21st century tools. On the other hand, in the year 2011 (well into the 21st century), we’re still talking about tools for the century. Just think about tools that have come and gone already (the original iPod or PDAs for example–even the computer mouse). What hasn’t gone away, as the editor suggests, are skills such as adaptability, critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, self-direction, and systems thinking.
Back in the 1990s, when I was a technology director, a school board member asked what tech skills students needed to get good jobs. I suggested that the technology our students would use routinely in their jobs hadn’t been invented yet and that the students would be doing jobs that didn’t exist at the time (such as the Visualization Scientist described in the Career of the Month—which dovetails with the October Science Scope theme of Art and Science). So the best thing we can do is prepare students in the skills mentioned above. The articles in this issue address these in a variety of science classroom contexts.
The authors of Science in the 21st Century: More Than Just the Facts show how these skills are integrated into the Urban EcoLab project. They describe (with a graphic and summary chart) a framework for Four Ways of Knowing Science (understanding, doing, talking, and acting on science) and how these four ways of knowing were incorporated into an environmental science course with a local context. As the conclusion states “Ecology, and indeed science, doesn’t just happen in exotic rain forests or desolate polar ice caps—it happens in students’ neighborhoods and city blocks.”
Science, Technology, and YA Lit includes a list of young adult reading titles and how teachers can promote critical thinking and connections with technology [SciLinks: Reading and writing in science]. And in Getting Up to Speed, students integrate the content and process skills in real-life scenarios related to walking (e.g., How much do I walk in school?) [SciLinks: Speed]
The teacher-author of Customizing Curriculum with Digital Resources describes the Curriculum Customization Service, an online curriculum management tool he used to integrate classroom resources, such as lesson plans, with digital and traditional resources. I wonder when districts will replace the “textbook selection” committees with “resource selection” committees, tasked with using tools such as this to tap into the continually updated resources that are available digitally.
When a scientist participated in a PD project I was involved with, the teachers were amazed at the percentage of time he spent in communications—grant writing, presentations at meetings, and writing about his research. The 21st Century Oral Presentation Tool Bag has resources to help your students improve their oral communications and information-literacy skills. The article includes a rubric and self-assessment guide. Secret in the Margins illustrates how teachers can incorporate nature-of-science understandings into existing lessons (rather than create new ones). The 5E lesson format was used in a unit on atomic structure. [SciLinks: Atomic structure]
In the earlier decades of the 20th century, pregnant teachers were dismissed and pregnant teenagers dropped out of school. Pregnancy in the Laboratory looks at potential hazards for teachers and for students (not just at the collegiate level but also at the secondary level).
TST also includes the column Headline Science with brief articles on current research and background information for teachers and students. [SciLinks: Virus, Sunspots, Carbon Cycle, Neurons/Nerve cells, Nanotechnology, Asteroids, Fungi, Cells]
Don’t forget to look at the Connections for this issue (October 2011). Even if the article does not quite fit with your lesson agenda, this resource has ideas for handouts, background information sheets, data sheets, rubrics, etc.
Click here for the Table of Contents
Is the computer mouse dead? Or dying anyway?
By Martin Horejsi
Posted on 2011-10-25
The computer mouse has been a stable since 1984 when it was popularized on the Macintosh computer. And has gone relatively unquestioned since. However, the mouse also prevents us from doing many things. Like what, you might ask? Well, doing those things that we now commonly do with touch-screen tablets and phones.
A computer mouse, regardless of its number of buttons is still a mouse. That means it operates one cursor at one spot on one display. While UIs (user interfaces) have gotten creative with the ever-growing number of mouse buttons, wheels, and clicks, I view the device as going from one to two to three to five to absurd numbers of actionable pressure sensitive spots on a deck-of-cards sized forever-horizontally limited symbolic object trying desperately to mimic a vertically imprisoned arrowhead. Mostly the additional buttons on a mouse operate other features in a faster pathway, but still there are only so many buttons one can keep track of, program, and install updated drivers.
But today, we are learning to love a faster, simpler, and arguably more natural interface using gestures with one or more fingers. While four fingers seems to be the limit right now, possibly because we only have four fingers, the combination of swiping in four directions (up, down, left, right) with one, two, three, or four fingers give sixteen obvious possible combinations. But wait there’s more! Gestures include pinching, stretching, tapping (single, double, triple), and two and three finger rotation (left and right). While not all combinations work together right now, it is clear that the number of possible communications signals that can be sent to the computer from a few activations of a couple muscles operating one hand can be turned into hundreds of possible meanings.
And that’s just one motion going one way. If the computer could respond with submenus (which it can) or pressure sensitivity (which is possible in some programs) or even acceleration which proportions the speed of the gesture with its active effect or duration which are common preferences, the level of control is truly infinite. And all that with just one hand…and without a thumb! I can easily imagine a dual surface vertically positioned pinch interface system giving the opposable digit we are so proud of as a species (well Order anyway) a useful computing purpose beyond punching squares on a tiny keyboard, or sharing a oversized space bar with yet another thumb.
So what does all this mean to science education? Well, I would like to posit that much of the imagination behind our science education teaching with technology is mouse-driven and therefore suffers from two-dimensional thinking. If we could free ourselves from the excruciatingly limited choices of the computer mouse, we might open an entirely new world of rich, interactive content. Imagine navigating the periodic table like you can Google Earth! Imagine moving thorough a complex spreadsheet of data as if you were diving in and out and around a high-resolution photography.
What is the gain? Three things come to mind. First, it will allow a customized presentation (or perspective) of information for the user. Second, it will present the data in ways that will likely allow new discoveries from the same information set. And third, it will spur new, more powerful ways to present, share and manage information.
While the visual computing of Hollywood with the immersion of Minority Report and puppeteer speed of Iron Man coming to mind, it might seem like the wild and visionary techniques for engineering and statistics are a long way off. But as gesture-controlled computing gains traction in school environments, I’d bet the objects of science fiction dreams might be closer than they appear.
The computer mouse has been a stable since 1984 when it was popularized on the Macintosh computer. And has gone relatively unquestioned since. However, the mouse also prevents us from doing many things. Like what, you might ask? Well, doing those things that we now commonly do with touch-screen tablets and phones.
How's the weather at your science museum?
By Debra Shapiro
Posted on 2011-10-25
photo courtesy of the Franklin Institute
Teachers and students are heading to science museums around the country to learn about weather events such as hurricanes, tsunamis, and tornadoes. In the photo, for example, these young visitors to Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute are using a shake table to learn about earthquakes and their effects on various structures.
Besides educating students about severe weather, these exhibits offer a look at weather forecasting and the instruments forecasters use, as described in a recent NSTA Reports story. If your school isn’t located near a science museum, not to worry: Many exhibits have online components, such as videos your students can watch.
Have you taken your students to a science museum to explore the weather? Tell us how your trip went and what they learned.
photo courtesy of the Franklin Institute
Getting ready for college chemistry
By Debra Shapiro
Posted on 2011-10-21
photo by Bret Brookshire
Why are these Texas high school students from the ChemBridge Program smiling?
Perhaps it’s because they’re taking a course that lets them earn college chemistry credit and high school science credit. Perhaps it’s also because they’re visiting Freshman Research Initiative science labs at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin. UT developed ChemBridge for students in high schools that are underrepresented in postsecondary institutions, to acquaint them with its college chemistry program.
Find out how ChemBridge is helping both students and their teachers succeed in chemistry in this NSTA Reports story.
photo by Bret Brookshire
A New Reason to Visit the Library
By Debra Shapiro
Posted on 2011-10-20
photo by Michelle Sixta
They say “everything old is new again”: The time-honored practice of seed saving is taking a new twist, with seed-lending libraries springing up around the country. California middle school teacher Rebecca Newburn started one at her public library–and helped her students start a seed-lending library at her school. She’ll tell you how seed saving can help you integrate science in your curriculum in this NSTA Reports story.
photo by Michelle Sixta
Catch sessions on Framework and Science Standards in Hartford
By Cindy Workosky
Posted on 2011-10-20
Greetings … Interested in learning more about NRC’s Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards now in development, catch one of the many sessions slated for the Hartford Regional Conference.
Featured Panel: Stephen Pruitt, Achieve, and Francis Eberle, NSTA
Thursday, October 27
12:30–1:30 PM
Connecticut Convention Center, Ballroom A
A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Helen Quinn, NRC Study Director
Friday, October 28
12:30–1:30 PM
Connecticut Convention Center, Ballroom A
Exploring the Science Framework; Harold Pratt and Francis Eberle, NSTA
FRIDAY, October 28 (CORRECTION)
2:00–3:00 PM
Connecticut Convention Center, Ballroom A
If you need more information on the conference, click here.
Greetings … Interested in learning more about NRC’s Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards now in development, catch one of the many sessions slated for the Hartford Regional Conference.
Featured Panel: Stephen Pruitt, Achieve, and Francis Eberle, NSTA
Thursday, October 27
12:30–1:30 PM
Connecticut Convention Center, Ballroom A
Effective meetings
By Mary Bigelow
Posted on 2011-10-19
I recently became the science department chairperson. My meetings are a disaster! People arrive late and complain when I try to discuss issues. I don’t think we accomplish anything. What can I do to make meetings more productive?
—Irene from Wisconsin
As a new chairperson, you may run into some resistance from teachers used to an existing format (or lack of one) for faculty meetings. Their resistance often results in off-task behaviors that interfere with your goals. We teachers complain there’s little opportunity to collaborate, yet without any structure, faculty meetings often become gripe and gossip sessions. If meetings in previous years were seen as a waste of time, you may have to be persistent to let people know that things are going to be different—and then make sure they are different.
Send out an agenda a few days in advance and send a copy to the principal. Use e-mail or an attachment to the agenda to communicate information items so the meeting time can be spent more productively. Rather than a bulleted list of agenda items, phrase them in the form of a question for your colleagues to consider. For example, instead of “Safety,” ask, “What do you do to ensure that students work safely in your lab?”
Be respectful of people’s time. For afterschool meetings, give your colleagues a few minutes to tidy up their classrooms, but start and end the meeting at the designated times. Follow the agenda (unless the discussion becomes really interesting or productive). Set aside a few minutes to recognize new issues or other concerns but use the “parking lot” idea for those that could or should be addressed at another time. Celebrate any of your colleague’s successes or accomplishments, too. (One of my principals would give out posters, tote bags, or other goodies he picked up at conferences as door prizes at meetings. Some thought it was trivial, but most of us appreciated his efforts). Some treats at the end of a long day may sweeten the meeting atmosphere.
Rather than giving advice or mandates as the department chair, ask questions to start discussions: “What happens when…? Have you ever tried…? Did you notice that…?” Get to know the curriculum and standards for areas of science in addition to your own so you can ask meaningful questions and help others make connections among subjects. The cooperative learning strategies you use in class (e.g., jigsaw or think-pair-share) could be modified for small-group discussions at your meetings. And listen to your colleagues. Sometimes they just need to think out loud. However, if someone tries to sidetrack the meeting, return to the agenda.
It may be helpful if the meetings have a theme or purpose. Perhaps the teachers would be willing to use meeting time for tasks such as developing a safety contract, creating rubrics for student work, or establishing guidelines for notebooks or science projects. These activities may take more than one meeting to accomplish and can be standing items on the agenda. Introducing new technology or applications and providing time for teachers to work together with them can also be productive. But you don’t have to do this all yourself. Are any of your colleagues willing to demonstrate technology or share instructional strategies with the rest of the group.
At the end of the meeting, ask each participant to submit an exit slip with any comments, commendations, or recommendations. Send meeting minutes to all members of the department and to the principal to keep him/her in the loop.
It may take a while for teachers to adapt to a new format outside of their comfort zone, so give yourself (and them) some time.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikecogh/3479000511/sizes/s/in/photostream/
I recently became the science department chairperson. My meetings are a disaster! People arrive late and complain when I try to discuss issues. I don’t think we accomplish anything. What can I do to make meetings more productive?
—Irene from Wisconsin
Move it! Motion and forces
By Mary Bigelow
Posted on 2011-10-17
Click here for the Table of Contents
The topic of motion and forces would be in my Top 10 list of topics in which students benefit from hands-on investigations, simulations, and videos. Students of any age (K–12 and even college) enjoy rolling, sliding, dropping, and flying things. It’s one thing to focus on mathematical formulas in physics (as my college physics courses did) but I might have learned more if I had the chance in earlier grades to manipulate and visualize the processes.
The articles in this issue have many suggestions for manipulations and visualizations. Although designed for younger students, the activities can certainly be used with older students who are unfamiliar with the topics or kicked up a notch or two for experienced students. Pushes and Pulls includes a probe you can use to assess students’ (mis)conceptions on the topic.
With all of the electronic pastimes available today, children are unfamiliar with some classic toys that illustrate motion and forces. Objects in Motion describes how spinning tops can engage students in conversations about movement. (Am I showing my age by remembering Slinky, yo-yos, and hula hoops as ways of experimenting with motion?) [SciLinks: What Are Forces?]
Why don’t rolling objects reach the bottom of an incline at the same time? sounds like a question tailor-made for investigations with a few different kinds of balls and a desk chair that spins. Or the investigation that connects play and science in Let It Roll. How many ways are there to move? is another question worth discussing, using the 5E activity describe in this article. [SciLinks: Friction]
Becoming Science “Experi-mentors” describes a professional development project in which teachers worked together in learning communities to investigate moving objects. I’ve been involved in similar projects, and it is exciting to see teachers become more confident in their own inquiry skills and share their learning with their students. The project used simple materials and focused on developing a sense of collegial curiosity on the part of the teachers. [SciLinks: Forces and Motion]
Interdisciplinary activities can be used to make connections with the theme, too. The Art and Science of Notebooks ties into some of the ideas in this month’s Science Scope and its theme of Science and Art. Inquiry Science and Active Reading caught my eye, because reading in science has been a professional interest of mine since my grad school days. The authors describe how to use a modification of the cloze procedure in which students work in teams to develop and use skills in comprehension, inference, and interpretation of science text.
A Balancing Act contains activities for primary and upper elementary students on the topics of balance and center of gravity. The authors of May the Force Be With You describe a 5E lesson in which students make and use a simple tool to investigate net forces. [SciLinks: Balanced and Unbalanced Forces]
The classrooms described in this issue appear to be busy places with engaged students. Isn’t it a shame that more students are not encouraged to explore their world through play?
And check out more Connections for this issue (October 2011). Even if the article does not quite fit with your lesson agenda, there are ideas for handouts, background information sheets, data sheets, rubrics, and other resources.
Click here for the Table of Contents
Not your typical science fair
By Debra Shapiro
Posted on 2011-10-17
photo by Brian Dunkley
It may look like a science fair, but the Invention Convention at Crosby Middle School is much more. The event at this Louisville, Kentucky, school is the climax of a three-month unit that takes sixth graders through the process of creating an invention while showing them the real-world aspects of science, math, reading, and writing. Science teacher Brian Dunkley describes the process in this NSTA Reports story.
photo by Brian