This activity is for discovering what makes streamers move. On a breezy day, give each child a small stick with a streamer attached. Let children explore with their streamers and challenge them to walk in different directions and to hold the streamers in different ways to notice what happens. A materials list, internet resources, standards, and safety practices are provided. This book selection also includes the Table of Contents, Preface, About the Editors, Introduction, Simple Graphing for Young Children, Science Teaching Boards and Boxes, Basic Materials List, and Index.
This activity is for discovering what makes streamers move. On a breezy day, give each child a small stick with a streamer attached. Let children explore with their streamers and challenge them to walk in different directions and to hold the streamers in different ways to notice what happens. A materials list, internet resources, standards, and safety practices are provided. This book selection also includes the Table of Contents, Preface, About the Editors, Introduction, Simple Graphing for Young Children, Science Teaching Boards and Boxes, Basic Materials List, and Index.
This activity is for observing that wind can make objects move. In the activity, children take a walk around the school grounds on a breezy day to look for things that are moving. Children are asked to describe the things they saw once back inside. A materials list, internet resources, standards, and safety practices are provided. This book selection also includes the Table of Contents, Preface, About the Editors, Introduction, Simple Graphing for Young Children, Science Teaching Boards and Boxes, Basic Materials List, and Index..
This activity is for observing that wind can make objects move. In the activity, children take a walk around the school grounds on a breezy day to look for things that are moving. Children are asked to describe the things they saw once back inside. A materials list, internet resources, standards, and safety practices are provided. This book selection also includes the Table of Contents, Preface, About the Editors, Introduction, Simple Graphing for Young Children, Science Teaching Boards and Boxes, Basic Materials List, and Index..
This activity uses the sense of touch to match objects. In the activity, each group of students is given a matching set of materials to observe and describe. After initial discussions, children are asked to consider how the objects feel and one set of objects is put in a feeling box. Children can choose an object from the other set and then take turns reaching into the feeling box to find its match. Follow up with a discussion about how they were able to find matching items without looking by using their sense of touch.
This activity uses the sense of touch to match objects. In the activity, each group of students is given a matching set of materials to observe and describe. After initial discussions, children are asked to consider how the objects feel and one set of objects is put in a feeling box. Children can choose an object from the other set and then take turns reaching into the feeling box to find its match. Follow up with a discussion about how they were able to find matching items without looking by using their sense of touch.
This activity focuses on identifying various materials by touch. The activity encourages children to touch and hold the various materials as they make a collage. When collages are finished, put them on tables and have children feel each collage and try to find their own. A materials list, internet resources, standards, and safety practices are provided. This book selection also includes the Table of Contents, Preface, About the Editors, Introduction, Simple Graphing for Young Children, Science Teaching Boards and Boxes, Basic Materials List, and Index.
This activity focuses on identifying various materials by touch. The activity encourages children to touch and hold the various materials as they make a collage. When collages are finished, put them on tables and have children feel each collage and try to find their own. A materials list, internet resources, standards, and safety practices are provided. This book selection also includes the Table of Contents, Preface, About the Editors, Introduction, Simple Graphing for Young Children, Science Teaching Boards and Boxes, Basic Materials List, and Index.
This activity is about reusing materials to make sounds. In the activity, children use their used cups and paper towels to make a noise maker that results in a very realistic duck sound! Children will want to continue this activity all day long. Instead, have them make and describe different types of sounds and to brainstorm other uses, including different types of noise-makers, for items they can reuse instead of throwing out. A materials list, internet resources, standards, and safety practices are provided.
This activity is about reusing materials to make sounds. In the activity, children use their used cups and paper towels to make a noise maker that results in a very realistic duck sound! Children will want to continue this activity all day long. Instead, have them make and describe different types of sounds and to brainstorm other uses, including different types of noise-makers, for items they can reuse instead of throwing out. A materials list, internet resources, standards, and safety practices are provided.
Imagine what fun it could be for 3- to 7-year-olds to engage in a game of Prism Play or Magnetic Scavenger Hunt or Where Did the Shadows Go? Then imagine how convenient it would be for you if such activities came with the connections, standards, and assessments today’s early childhood educators need most. Your dream resource comes to life in this revised and expanded edition of A Head Start on Science: Encouraging a Sense of Wonder. It builds on children’s innate curiosity through 89 developmentally appropriate, teacher-tested activities in life, Earth, and physical science.
Imagine what fun it could be for 3- to 7-year-olds to engage in a game of Prism Play or Magnetic Scavenger Hunt or Where Did the Shadows Go? Then imagine how convenient it would be for you if such activities came with the connections, standards, and assessments today’s early childhood educators need most. Your dream resource comes to life in this revised and expanded edition of A Head Start on Science: Encouraging a Sense of Wonder. It builds on children’s innate curiosity through 89 developmentally appropriate, teacher-tested activities in life, Earth, and physical science.
Ed News: Teach STEM Using Laughter, Creative Techniques
This week in education news, in several states, retired teachers and other state workers haven’t gotten a cost-of-living adjustment to their pension checks in years; Bill Nye’s new podcast—Science Rules—to launch May 16; U.S. 8th-graders are getting better at applying their knowledge of technology and engineering to real-world challenges; NMSI unveiled new STEM Opportunity Index; Wyoming State Board of Education approves state computer science standards; different kinds of students are flocking to career and technical education, according to a new analysis; animal dissection will remain in California biology classrooms; 43% of U.S. adults believe teachers are “very prepared” or “prepared” to handle discipline issues in the classroom; and a new study finds black and Latino college students transfer or drop out of STEM programs at higher rates than their white peers.
Two state flagship universities — Penn State and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) — have made strides in retaining and graduating more underrepresented students in STEM fields thanks to a program pioneered by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), according to a new paper in Science magazine. Read the brief featured in Education DIVE.
Many teachers go into the profession, despite the relatively low wages, with the expectation that they will be taken care of in retirement through their pension. But in many places, that promise isn’t being met. Read the article featured in Education Week.
If you grew up in the 1990s, you’re probably familiar with Bill Nye. He was the host of the popular PBS series Bill Nye the Science Guy, a TV program that ran for a hundred episodes and introduced kids to a range of science concepts. More recently, he hosted Bill Nye Saves the World, a Netflix series designed to educate the wider public about the importance of science. Now, Nye has a new project: a science-themed podcast called Science Rules, which will launch on May 16th. Read the Q and A featured in The Verge.
New NAEP results show girls outscoring boys in almost every area but not taking as many STEM classes, while performance gaps persist between students of color and their white peers. Read the article featured in Education DIVE.
The National Math and Science Initiative today unveiled the first version of its STEM Opportunity Index (SOI), a multi-layered online map that illustrates strengths and potential gaps in public STEM education around the country. The Index is based on the nonprofit’s STEM Framework for Success, a collection of 114 indicators that are measured by publicly available data. Read the press release.
Wyoming is one step closer to teaching computer science in K-12 schools across the state by 2022. A mandate to do so was passed by the state legislature in 2018. Last week, the Wyoming State Board of Education approved revised computer science standards. During its March meeting, the SBE received input that more could be done to make the standards accessible. Read the article featured on the Wyoming Public Media website.
A new breed of students has flooded into career-technical education, and they’re transforming a slice of the K-12 world that’s long suffered from stigma and disrespect. These students are focusing on professions like engineering and health care instead of traditional trades like manufacturing and agriculture. Read the article featured in Education Week.
A bill that would have barred K-12 students from dissecting animals during science instruction narrow failed to move out of committee after lawmakers expressed concern that it went against local control. Read the article featured in K-12 Daily.
Less than half of U.S. adults (43%) believe teachers are “very prepared” or “prepared” to handle discipline issues in the classroom — while a slight majority, 54%, say they are “unprepared” or “very unprepared.” Read the article on Gallup.com.
A study by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) of 1,100 high school students found 60% want teachers to be more creative when teaching science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses. Read the brief featured in Education DIVE.
Lab classes have always left Shason Briscoe wracked with anxiety. The 21-year-old senior at the University of California at Davis wasn’t concerned about the academic rigor or long hours spent in the classroom — it was the uneasiness he felt when his peers and instructors watched him. Briscoe, who is African American, studies computer engineering at UC Davis, where black students constitute fewer than 3 percent of students in the program. Often, he is the only black student in his classes. Read the article featured in The Washington Post.
The irony of standardized testing is that it seeks to equalize assessment in a way to level the playing field for all students. Regardless of where students are in a state or the country, these exams, not made by classroom teachers, are supposed to show what students really know and can do against a decided upon value. Of course, most educators understand that they do nothing of the sort. Read the article featured in Education Week.
Stay tuned for next week’s top education news stories.
The Communication, Legislative & Public Affairs (CLPA) team strives to keep NSTA members, teachers, science education leaders, and the general public informed about NSTA programs, products, and services and key science education issues and legislation. In the association’s role as the national voice for science education, its CLPA team actively promotes NSTA’s positions on science education issues and communicates key NSTA messages to essential audiences.
The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.
Collecting real-time data is important in science and science education, but it also presents a wonderful opportunity to learn about graphing and data visualization in general. It also provides an inspection into what learning actually looks like. I’ve used the Vernier Hand Dynamometers for many years to teach graphing to students from preschool to grad school. Using a few planned activities, and a gentle progression from concrete to abstract, “being the graph” leverages immediate feedback to “teach” how data is presented in a graph.
The Vernier Go Direct Hand Dynamometer can run as high as 10 samples per second over a 600 Newton range (safe up to 850 N) all while talking to a computing device via Bluetooth 4.2 up to 30 m away (your mileage may vary). The internal replaceable 300 mA rechargeable battery should easily allow a whole day’s worth of dynamometering.
The strain-gauge based isometric force sensor (AKA: Vernier Go Direct Hand Dynamometer) fits comfortable in the human hand, and a pair of fingertip pads are provided for more refined and less forceful gripping surfaces. Output can be in newtons, pounds, or kilograms and the dynamometer can talk to a computing device through Vernier’s Graphical Analysis 4 software whether by bluetooth or cable.
The Vernier Go Direct Hand Dynamometer is exceptionally good at measuring muscle fatigue in addition to strength. Single-subject experimentation can include limb position during data collection, dominant vs non-dominant limb measurements, and predication line following across different force values such as trying to follow a prediction line while at the upper end of grip strength.
Vernier has the following suggestions for operation: “To assess grip strength, hold the sensor in a vertical position so that the fingers and palm of the hand make contact with the sensor pads. Squeeze the sensor so that force is applied to the pads. To assess pinch strength, hold the sensor in one hand by the case avoiding contact with the pads. Using your thumb and forefinger of the opposite hand, place each on the opposing pinch pads and squeeze. If the default experiment duration is too long for your experiment, change the data-collection parameters in the program you are using.”
Further, the Vernier Go Direct Hand Dynamometer has seven distinct sensor channels including X, Y and Z acceleration, X, Y and Z gyro, and of course force. The measurements of acceleration and/or rotation add a triple dimension of what’s possible with this sensor. Further, you can calculate the total magnitude of angular velocity as well. In less than one cup of coffee, you could design a dozen physiological experiments all capable of enthralling the students and teaching far above the sensor’s pay grade.
But back to learning to learn. In a nutshell, the progression moves from exploration (which also allows the teacher to notice the upper limit of the student’s strength with the dynamometer. The next step is to answer a few questions about what makes the graph line go up and down. And the third of the beginning steps is to try and trace over a predication line drawn on the screen.
At this point, the student should be offered multiple opportunities to trace the predication line since that’s where much of the learning takes place. In fact, you could look at the graph the student is making through time as watching actual learning taking place. I can just imagine the synapses being connected and organized to allow the student to read the graph and duplicate the data in real time by providing the proper force input across the X-axis of time.
From here, we can use some target questions to help verbalize and solidify the concepts in the predication line. For instance, the slope of the line, a plateau, a drop to zero, and a repeating cycle (harmonic motion). Talking through the graph helps the student and the rest of the class to reason through how a force over time is represented by a continuous line. It also gives the students a chance to learn and exercise the vocabulary of graphing.
You know, maybe it would be easier to show you what I mean. Here is a progression of data screens that present the initial steps of creating a data visualization that actually shows learning in realtime and to a significant level of resolution.
Step 1: the student squeezes the dynamometer. Things to note include the range of force (0-x), and also that if the student is making the connection between hand squeeze and force. The latter is usually apparent as the student squeezes and releases rapidly indicating some play.
Step 2: Point out to the student some of the things you notice including what the graph looks like at zero force, various slopes (both ascending and defending) fast vs. slow responses and small changes compared to large changes.
Draw a prediction line using the tool within the software that is well within the force and motor-skill capabilities of the student. Start the line several seconds into the time axis and about in the middle of the previous force measurement. This will give the student time to orient the relationship between squeezing the dynomometer and the fixed line.
Actual learning is visible in the graph. Squeezing becomes more refined and scaled. Note some of the larger changes in the prediction line are accompanied by an opposite reaction, usually harder squeeze. Over time, the student follows the predication line with less amplitude, and sudden force adjustments are made in the correct direction more often.
After several attempts, the student now reads the predication link as force quantity over time and adjusts grip accordingly. The student follows the predication line much closer, and fewer directional mistakes are made. Also, the finer adjustments made over time based on predication line slope are smoother and controlled.
Currently, there are two versions of the Hand Dynamometer offered by Vernier with corded version selling for one dollar less in price. I’ve used both and the addition of the Bluetooth option is well worth extra buck. It allows the dynamometer to move about the classroom with ease. And most importantly, as I discovered using the corded model, a student’s enthusiasm for squeezing the sensor can sometimes exceed the length of the cord.
Other sensors also offer similar opportunities for learning how to “be the graph” including the Go Direct Motion Detector. But no matter what you use, or how you use it, the application of a digital sensor with realtime data graphing will also create visible learning in realtime.
Collecting real-time data is important in science and science education, but it also presents a wonderful opportunity to learn about graphing and data visualization in general. It also provides an inspection into what learning actually looks like. I’ve used the Vernier Hand Dynamometers for many years to teach graphing to students from preschool to grad school.
Legislative Update
Appropriators Provide Boost for Federal Education Programs
ESSA Title IVA and Title II See Increases for FY2020 Programs
Earlier this week the House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee for Education met to mark up their FY2020 annual spending bill for Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. The Democratic-controlled subcommittee ignored the Administration’s proposals to eliminate key programs (ESSA Title IVA, Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants; ESSA Title II, Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants; and ESSA 21st Century Community Learning Centers program) and instead provided a six percent funding increase for Department of Education programs.
Overall, the subcommittee provided $75.9 billion for the Department of Education, an $11.9 billion increase above the President’s budget request. Highlights include:
$500 million increase for Title II state grants, the only dedicated funding for teacher professional development for many States and districts, to a total of $2.55 billion;
$150 million increase for Title IV Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants for a total of $1.3 billion;
$100 million increase for 21st Century Community Learning Center program which supports before school, afterschool and summer learning programs, for a total of $1.32 billion;
$1 billion increase for IDEA State grants to a total $13.4 billion;
$1 billion increase for Title I grants to a total $16.859 billion;
$300 million for the Education Innovation Research program, with $125 million devoted to STEM and Computer Science.
The bill also requests an additional $13 million for grants to improve the effectiveness of CTE programs in STEM areas, “particularly computer science,” and an extra $60 million to support state-level “pre-apprenticeship” programs.
Appropriators are also seeking $260 million for a Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Initiative to support SEL and “whole child” approaches to education. Within this amount, support would be provided for research that addresses student social, emotional, and cognitive needs; teacher professional development in child development and learning, including skills for implementing SEL strategies; a program to make schools safer through a new competition that will help districts to increase the number of mental health and child development experts in schools; and funds to provide comprehensive services and expand evidence-based models that meet the holistic needs of children, families, and communities.
In a press statement signed by NSTA, the Title IV-A Coalition says it is “extremely grateful to the House LHHS-Education Subcommittee for the proposed $1.32 billion, an increase of $150 million over the enacted FY19 level, for the bipartisan Student Support and Academic Enrichment block grant program. We are thankful that House appropriators have once again recognized the importance of this flexible funding stream, which at this level of funding, will continue to allow districts to meaningfully invest in all three areas that the program supports: safe and healthy students, well-rounded education, and the effective use of technology. Building on the past two years of strong investments in Title IV-A, we are excited about the ongoing opportunity for states and districts to maintain and expand the critical programs and educational services they have been able to support using these funds.”
The bill was sent to the full House Appropriations Committee, which is expected to approve it next week, before it heads to the (Republican-controlled) Senate. Stay tuned.
Climate Literacy, Education Bill is Introduced in House of Representatives
On Earth Day, Congresswomen Debbie Dingell (D-MI) and Julia Brownley (D-CA) introduced The Climate Change Education Act (H.R.2349). The bill authorizes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to establish a Climate Education Program office and administer a grant program which would promote climate literacy by broadening students’ and educators understanding of climate change, the consequences of climate change, and potential solutions. It authorizes $20 million a year from 2020 to 2025. Read the bill here.
Toolkit on ESSA Funding for Science and STEM Now Available
The Council of State Science Supervisors (CSSS) has posted a new resource that educators can use to better understand and access federal funds under two US Department of Education programs—ESSA Title II and Title IVA.
The CS3 ESSA Title II and IV Toolkit explains these ESSA grant programs and points to actions that state and district leaders and lead teachers can take to use this funding to support high quality science education for educators as well as students.
ESSA Title II (Preparing, Training, and Recruiting High-Quality Teachers, Principals, and Other School Leaders Grants) allow districts and states to fund teacher professional development. Districts can also use this funding to provide stipends to recruit STEM teachers, and support generalists (like elementary teachers) who integrate more STEM into their classrooms.
ESSA Title IVA (Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants) will allow districts to provide students with a well-rounded education and improve instruction and student engagement in STEM by:
Expanding high-quality STEM courses;
Increasing access to STEM for underserved and at risk student populations;
Supporting the participation of students in STEM nonprofit competitions (such as robotics, science research, invention, mathematics, computer science, and technology competitions);
Providing hands-on learning opportunities in STEM;
Integrating other academic subjects, including the arts, into STEM subject programs;
Creating or enhancing STEM specialty schools;
Integrating classroom based and afterschool and informal STEM instruction; and
Expanding environmental education.
Also check out the resources NSTA has available on ESSA here.
Stay tuned, and watch for more updates in future issues of NSTA Express.
Jodi Peterson is the Assistant Executive Director of Communication, Legislative & Public Affairs for the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and Chair of the STEM Education Coalition. Reach her via e-mail at jpeterson@nsta.org or via Twitter at @stemedadvocate.
The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.
Jose Rivas’s AP Physics 1 students at Lennox Math, Science, and Technology Academy in Lennox, California, work on a rotational inertia investigation.
“I have converted several standard labs from AP Physics 1 to more engaging inquiry labs using NGSS [Next Generation Science Standards]. I want my labs to connect to my students’ lives, phenomena they see and feel every day,” says Jose Rivas, AP Physics 1 and engineering teacher at Lennox Math, Science, and Technology Academy in Lennox, California. “The old way [of teaching labs] was very procedural. Students had to follow steps and get a result, then answer questions at the end. It was very teacher-guided,” he says.
One lab Rivas revamped uses an Atwood machine, a physics laboratory device often used to demonstrate basic principles of dynamics and acceleration. The machine typically involves a pulley, a string, and a system of weights. “Students look at how mass affects acceleration when they find the weight of a penny using an Atwood machine…I tell [them], ‘You have a penny and equipment [I provide, such as rulers and stopwatches]. You have to figure out how much this penny weighs,’” he explains. He no longer gives students instructions for doing this.
“Students set up their procedure and decide what their claim is and how to support their data. The fun part for them is they develop a setup themselves. They compare their calculations to the penny’s actual weight,” he relates.
“Some students find out that pennies from different years have different weights. I ask them, ‘How does that affect your experimental design?’ Then they troubleshoot ways to decrease errors,” he reports. “It’s important that students get opportunities to fail and re-evaluate their original claim. It’s not about [getting] a specific result.”
Students can even “use other resources besides the pulley. It gives them an opportunity to be creative. Students control the lab and can explore,” Rivas observes. “We miss creativity in science and engineering. Students can still collect data and be creative.”
With the NGSS, Rivas contends, “students are given ownership of how they approach a phenomenon…[It really works when they can] identify the properties of a phenomenon they witness every day.” After identifying students who like baseball, for example, Rivas says he has those students conduct “a baseball bat analysis [in which] students develop their own claim based on what they want to analyze. How can they hit the ball on its ‘sweet spot?’ How does inertia affect the swing of a bat? Can a bat be made better? They come up with good ideas.”
When doing inquiry labs, Rivas stresses to students, “I’m not the repository of all knowledge. We need to look at resources [for finding the answers]…[It’s important to] not be afraid to say, ‘I don’t know.’” He tells new teachers, “You’re not going to get this the first time. It’s a process.”
When revamping labs, Rivas says he uses the NGSS Appendices because they “show you what growth should be for science and engineering practices. This helps with vertical alignment.” He also uses Page Keeley’s Uncovering Student Ideas book series. “They have good open-ended phenomena [and] inspire me to create my own scenarios to develop good investigations for my students.”
Transforming “cookie-cutter” labs to inquiry-based labs “takes a lot of time for the teacher, but it’s time I want to spend,” Rivas concludes.
‘Don’t Reinvent the Wheel’
Vanessa Wentzloff ’s philosophy about tweaking cookbook labs is expressed in the title of the workshop she hosted at a Michigan Science Teachers Association conference: Don’t Reinvent the Wheel: Creating Inquiry Experiences for Students. “Use what you already have,” the Avondale High School (Auburn Hills, Michigan) physics teacher urges. “Just modify it…Start with a lab or lesson you’re very experienced with, comfortable with, and passionate about.”
Wentzloff offers these steps for transforming cookbook labs:
Identify the Disciplinary Core Idea (content) and Science and Engineering Practice (skill) you wish to teach.
Find a lab, demonstration, or activity you already use to cover this content.
Explore how you can adjust this lab to meet your skill.
Decide when you’re going to do the inquiry experience and determine what purpose it serves.
Adjust the purpose and guiding question based on inquiry.
Keeping your skill in mind, determine what you want to keep from the original lab.
Create your inquiry lab, making it as student-driven as possible.
She acknowledges that when revamping labs, “you’re dealing with a mindset shift in the science department” because both new and experienced teachers can “have a learning gap, [and say,] ‘We weren’t taught to teach like this.’” Teachers can focus on students’ interests when choosing phenomena. “The phenomenon is my favorite part of the unit because I can see what students are curious about…[You can] go off script based on students’ interests or what they’re curious about.”
In true inquiry, Wentzloff maintains, “students have lots of questions that can be connected to other things.” For her energy and momentum unit, for example, her students came up with this driving question: Is hockey more dangerous than football? “We looked at collisions in football: Why are they dangerous? [Because of] the energy or momentum transfer,” she notes.
“We’ve been so rigid with curriculum, and now we have a chance to make it student-driven instead of teacher-driven,” she says. “Look at the content piece; don’t [lead] students in a certain direction…[Think] of the process instead of the right or wrong answer.”
During inquiry-based experiences, “the students will figure it all out and make most of the conclusions you’re about to say out loud,” Wentzloff quips.
For example, she changed her circuits lab by asking students to build circuits, then make conclusions. “I didn’t give them any vocabulary; they had to make inferences” and describe what they saw, she explains. “This was very challenging for students… Sometimes students won’t get it right away or will see different things than what you expect. But the phenomenon should lead to questions [on the teacher’s part]. ‘What do I need to know to teach it?’”
If teachers think they’ll have to buy a lot of new equipment and supplies to do inquiry, “that’s a misconception,” Wentzloff points out. “If you’re already doing these things in your classroom, then just modify what you’re doing and use what you have at your disposal.”
Preparing for Inquiry
While modifying labs and lessons to make them more inquiry-based as a sixth-grade teacher at Woodrow Wilson Middle School in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Jessica Rosenberg—now a K–12 science curriculum specialist for the Council Bluffs Community School District— says she discovered she “had to work up to that inquiry piece” instead of immediately doing guided and open inquiry with her students. During her first year of teaching, she says she “followed the stages of inquiry in order, but this didn’t work. I had to teach based on what students needed…I had to help students lead themselves a bit better, gradually prepare them to do that.”
First “I would teach lab safety skills and do the lab as is,” without any inquiry, she recalls. “The next time [I taught a lab], it was still more teacher-led, but somewhat student-led [so I could] push their thinking a little further. It helped them gain more confidence.”
Eventually her students became ready for guided inquiry. “I gave them a scenario and a suggested list of materials or let them create a poster,” Rosenberg explains.
Finally, they were able to do a lab or lesson with full inquiry because “they were more confident and willing to try different things,” she reports. “I asked students to solve a problem or make something better.” For example, when teaching about potential and kinetic energy, she asked students to create a bobsled track to keep athletes safe during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
“One big misconception is that every lesson can be inquiry-based,” Rosenberg points out. “If the students don’t have the skills for it, you have to meet them where they’re at. Do scripted labs at first, then work up to student-led labs.”
Building students’ levels of confidence “is so hard because this generation feels like their every move is being looked at under the microscope” due to social media, she admits. “We need to teach them a level of acceptance of failure, that they won’t be outcasts [if they fail]. We need to build relationships with students and help them feel safe.”
Rosenberg says she has found “it helps to have a prepared list of probing questions to ask students, to prompt them, but not give away too much of the solution, guiding them when necessary.” In addition, teachers should “be flexible because students’ investigations may take a different turn. Maybe a student makes a connection that you didn’t anticipate. This makes the project even better,” she contends.
In a unit, “not every lab has to be inquiry-based,” Rosenberg maintains. She found what worked with her sixth graders was to have a driving question board featuring a topic or a debatable question. “Students posed questions on the board, and that helped keep them interested in the unit and allowed them to share ideas,” she recalls. “It helped me guide the conversation and hit the standards, tie in what students wanted to know based on the standards. Full inquiry came into play a lot more at the end of the unit,” although “not all students made it to full inquiry” because as sixth graders, they needed more time to develop the necessary skills, she relates.
Rosenberg determined whether students were doing full inquiry based on informal observations of “the percentage of how much I was doing versus the percentage students were doing. If students were [doing a high percentage], it was true inquiry,” she concludes.
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