In focus groups, science teachers tell NSTA staff members that time is their biggest challenge. We hear that again and again, and we listen! Many science educators are excited about the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and have begun to implement them in their schools and districts. We hear from many members of our network that, even in states where the standards have not been adopted, teachers still want to use them because of the innovative research underpinning them, and to use the practices. And they tell us they need resources that are quick and easy to access. So we are pleased to say that we have released a series of quick reference guides to the NGSS, and they’ve been edited by our in-house NGSS guru, Ted Willard!

Here’s a link to each grade-specific version, and the description follows:

• The NSTA Quick-Reference Guide to the NGSS, Elementary School
• The NSTA Quick-Reference Guide to the NGSS, Middle School
• The NSTA Quick-Reference Guide to the NGSS, High School
• The NSTA Quick-Reference Guide to the NGSS, K–12

Since the release of the first draft of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), NSTA has been at the forefront in promoting the standards and helping science educators become familiar with and learn to navigate this exciting but complex document. Later, when the final version was released and states began adopting the standards, NSTA started to develop resources that would assist educators with their implementation.

Along the way, NSTA learned that even the simplest of resources, like a one-page cheat sheet, can be extremely useful. Many of those tools are collected here, including:

• a two-page “cheat sheet” that describes the practices, core ideas, and crosscutting concepts that make up the three dimensions described in A Framework for K–12 Science Education;
• an “Inside the Box” graphic that spells out all of the individual sections of text that appear on a page of the NGSS;
• a Venn diagram comparing the practices in NGSS, Common Core State Standards, Mathematics, and Common Core State Standards, English Language Arts; and
• matrices showing how the NGSS are organized by topic and disciplinary core idea.

This guide also provides the appropriate performance expectations; disciplinary core ideas; practices; crosscutting concepts; connections to engineering, technology, and applications of science; and connections to nature of science. It is designed to be used with the NGSS.

The NSTA Quick-Reference Guides to the NGSS are also available in grade-specific versions—one each for elementary and high school—plus a comprehensive K–12 edition. The four Quick-Reference Guides are indispensable to science teachers at all levels, as well as to administrators, curriculum developers, and teacher educators.

As humans, we are driven to explore and explain our surroundings; we wonder about the things we see and try to figure out how and why they appear the way they do and what some of the underlying mechanisms might be that drive what we see in the world. At its core, science is a systematic and community-driven process by which humans make sense of the world around them by examining patterns and data from the world and developing models that can account for those patterns. Ultimately, it is the models we have of the world that allow us to create explanations for the things we see around us. This process whereby we examine, wonder, and seek to explain is a cyclic one and is at the core of the scientific enterprise.

In contrast, as teachers we are used to thinking about our classes as a series of discrete topics to teach. We consult textbooks, pacing guides, and standards documents to get the list of things to make sure we cover by the end of our grade level. We tend to think about each unit of instruction separately, and despite good intentions to weave things together, many of us have trouble making really substantive connections from one unit to the next. But, this conceptualization is not in line with how scientists themselves think about their disciplines. The writers of the Framework for K-12 Science Education have been very deliberate about how they portrayed the content of each discipline as a set of big, overarching, interconnected core ideas with just a few major components identified for each idea. Part of the promise—and the challenge—inherent in the vision portrayed in the Framework is for us as educators to move away from lists of discrete facts organized into separate units and toward a coherent set of ideas that can provide a foundation for further thought and exploration in the discipline. Indeed, the writers of the Framework and most science educators agree that it is impossible to cover all the scientific content that is relevant to modern science.

Instead, our ambitions as teachers of science need to be re-focused on developing deep and flexible thinkers with an understanding of how a relatively small number of truly core ideas support the broader scientific endeavor on an ongoing and generative basis. Students with encyclopedic but inert knowledge will not be prepared for the 21st century. Instead, the outcome of a quality science education that spans grade levels and develops in appropriate ways from early childhood through adolescence should be a cadre of students who can use their understanding of the core ideas of the discipline to make sense of the world and to further our collective understanding of it. Good science education is not an end unto itself, but a beginning.

Come with me for a walk through an imaginary school. Let’s tiptoe into a classroom and see what kids are doing. We open the door and slip into the back of the room. We see kids at tables working with clear bins of water, cups of hot water and food coloring. We ask the kids what they are trying to figure out. One girl pipes up and says, “We’re learning about convection currents. See, when you put the cup of hot water under the end of the bin here it makes that drop of food coloring swirl around.” Another student pipes up, “Yeah, see, the food coloring drop goes up once the area is heated. Heat rises, that’s convection.” Sounds pretty good right? Kids are working with stuff, watching how things work, and using science vocabulary. Seems cool, huh?

Now let’s go into the class next door. We sneak in the back and see they have the same set up at their lab tables. Let’s ask the same question: “Hey guys, what are you up to here? What are you trying to figure out?” This time a student says, “We’re trying to figure out how hot air balloons work.” “Oh yeah”, you say, “what do these tubs of water have to do with hot air balloons?” The students proceed to tell us that they are using the tubs, the food coloring, and the cups of hot water to see what happens when you heat up just one area of a fluid. A boy says, “see when we put this drop of food coloring on the bottom of the bin and then put our hot cup of water underneath, something starts to happen. The food coloring swirls around!” A girl adds, “yeah, so it’s kind of like the hot air balloon. You heat up one part of the water or the air or whatever and that part goes up. We want to know why that happens!”

So, what is the difference between these two classrooms and what does this have to do with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the science and engineering practices? In the first classroom, the students are engaged in learning about a science idea, convection, whereas in the second classroom the kids are trying to figure out how some aspect of the world works. They are investigating, questioning, and modeling a phenomenon with the ultimate goal of developing an explanation for why hot air balloons go up when the air inside them is heated. In this second case the kids are engaged in the science practices and it is through that engagement that they will learn an important science concept. In the first classroom the kids may emerge with that same concept under their belts. Presumably at the end of these lessons both groups of kids should be able to define convection. However, in the first classroom that definition seems to be the end goal. In the classroom centered on a phenomenon, it is the start of something more. The kids recreate a convection current in their tubs and then ask, “why does that happen?” Understanding how differential heating of a fluid can cause movement is a fundamental idea to much of Earth Science. Here rather than positioning that idea as basically a term, convection, that needs to be given to students and experienced, the second teacher has created a rich problem space around it. The kids not only get to the basic idea of convection, but wonder why it happens, which can lead to further investigations of the nature of matter, density, and many, many applications of density currents in the natural world.

One way to characterize the difference here is around framing. The term framing is one we use in our everyday life quite a bit. Listen for it over the next few days. We say things like “the media framed the debate around…” or “she framed her participation in the discussion by…” The way I am using it here is consistent with Scherr and Hammer’s description in their 2009 paper called Student Behavior and Epistemological Framing: Examples from Collaborative Active Learning Activities in Physics published in a journal called Cognition and Instruction. In that paper they say “a student may frame a learning activity as an opportunity for sense-making or as an assignment to fill out a worksheet. The student’s understanding of the nature of the activity affects what she notices, what knowledge she accesses, and how she thinks to act.” For any activity in a science class we should be asking: How are the kids framing their activity, what do they think they are up to? In the first class they’ve framed the task as demonstrating convection. The second class they’ve framed it as investigating a phenomenon.

The more I work with teachers on shifting their practice to better align with the NGSS, the more I realize the importance of framing. The material activity in the two classrooms was exactly the same; kids were creating convection currents in tubs of water. However, how those activities were set up and what the kids thought they were doing was completely different. One was confirmatory; the other was exploratory. So even though the material activity was the same, the intellectual work was quite different. In order to be fully engaged in the practices, it’s simply not enough to merely learn about the science idea, however creative and hands on the task may be. To engage in the practices, really participate in them, a student has to frame the task as an exploration. The intellectual work of the classroom has to be centered on figuring out how or why something happens.

So, as you begin to shift your classroom towards the vision of the Framework and the NGSS I ask you to pay attention to this issue of framing. What have you done to set up the tasks in your classroom? What do the students think they are doing and why? How can you create the conditions for students to participate in the practices?

Today’s Guest Blogger

Cynthia Passmore, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor specializing in science education in the University of California, Davis School of Education. She did her doctoral work at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and prior to that she was a high school science teacher. Her research focuses on the role of models and modeling in student learning, curriculum design and teacher professional development. She investigates model-based reasoning in a range of contexts and is particularly interested in understanding how the design of learning environments interacts with students’ reasoning practices. She has been the principal investigator of several large grants and has co-authored several papers on modeling in science education that have been published in journals such as Science & Education, The International Journal of Science Education and School Science and Mathematics; e-mail her at cpassmore@ucdavis.edu.

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

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Children notice patterns in nature in small moments as they play in natural areas and find a new kind of leaf, or suddenly realize one morning that they are leaving for school before the sun comes up. Did that happen recently with any of your children with the daylight savings time change? Teachers can build on these observations by helping children record their observations and track small changes, and then holding discussions or conversations reflecting on these records. One of the crosscutting concepts described by the Next Generation Science Standards, Patterns, is central to many science investigations at all ages.

The crosscutting concepts, “Patterns”, “Scale, proportion, and quantity” and “Structure and function” are evident in children’s play as they choose large leaves to serve as “plates” and smaller leaves or flowers as the “food” for their housekeeping scenario. They repeat the patterns they see in the layout of food on plates, and notice the scale of the food pieces compared to the size of the plates and the structure of the stiff large plates and the easy-to-tear smaller leaves.

In the October 2014 issue of Science and Children, I wrote an Early Years column about children examining plant leaves on multiple occasions over time, and discovering patterns in shape and other attributes. 

If you have already investigated leaf shapes in your program, your children might be ready to become citizen scientists and observe the “leafing-out” of a favorite plant. Young children and their teachers can participate in Project BudBurst. This is an on-going investigation into when a plant bud begins to open–not very exciting if you only check once but when children check a plant weekly, and then document their observations with drawings or photos, the gradual change becomes exciting. And during the data gathering period, they can celebrate the day when a leaf is “as big as a fingernail”, or even their hand.

Some favorite trade books that call attention to leaves and patterns are:

Leaves

• A Tree Is Nice by Janice May Udry,
• Maples in the Mist. by Minfong Ho,
• A Log’s Life by Wendy Pfeffer,
• Autumn Leaves by Ken Robbins,
• The wonderful tree; a story of the seasons by Adelaide Hall and Gyorgy Lehoczky,
• I Am a Leaf by Jean Marzollo
• Trees, Leaves & Bark by Diane Burns
• Red Leaf Yellow Leaf by Lois Elhert
• A Tree is Growing by Arthur Dorros

What other books that you use in your program can you share with us?

Patterns

• Echoes for the Eye by Barbara Juster Esbensen,
• Insect by Laurence Mound,
• Children’s Guide to Birds by Jinny Johnson,
• Fish by Steve Parker,
• The Book of Sea Shells by Michael H. Bevans,
• Pattern (Math Counts) by Henry Pluckrose

The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire suggests using songs and books to teach the concept of patterns to young children.

http://www.childrens-museum.org/cmnh2010/about/content.aspx?id=398

What books or other resources about patterns can you share with us?

In a previous blog, a teacher posed a question about getting her students to participate in discussions.

She shared her experiences in trying the strategies suggested by our colleagues and her reflections on the results:

I have already implemented pair-share strategies, and students varied in their willingness to talk to each other. I found at this point that the girls were quieter when paired with the boys. I must say that the boys are not aggressive or demeaning, and really supportive of other students, so …direct intimidation was not evident.

I had one girl willing to participate at the beginning, but she tended to back off after a period of time. I got the sense she was feeling like others are not speaking up, so perhaps she shouldn’t either. There was another girl who, although very quiet, [became] willing to talk.

I tried to divide the room for a week between boys and girls so that the pair-share could be done with same gender. This was only mildly successful. But it gave me the opportunity, to meet with the girls to encourage them and listen to the discussion. I found they were still very quiet and seemed to be “afraid” to be wrong and did not want to risk speaking, even with their female peers. But it was better. After pair-share, I would open it up to allow the whole class to talk and when I asked for volunteers to share a certain answer based on their pair-share, all the boys hand went up and the girls just looked across the room and kept their hands down.

I did ask one student, outside of class, if she might be willing to try to volunteer more, as when I did call on her, she usually had something to say. I told her that I need some role models, and I thought she could help. The next day she did volunteer. I am also going to speak to the girl who started and then stopped to encourage her directly. 

I am now planning on changing seats again, based on personalities, and strengths to mix them back up and continue to try. I plan on starting with the suggested strategy about a small group in which students each have to take turns talking, then summarizing what the next person said, then sharing more and then the whole group decides to see who will share with the class. I will try this twice during the class, and a different person has to do the sharing part.

The hard part is I want to be able to get a pulse on their understanding as we go along, but with half the room not willing to share their answers, I never know where they stand. I do use the thumbs up and thumbs down technique to get some answers and this helps a little, but I still see the girls look toward the boys to confirm their decision of the “right” answer. 

So the pair-shares have been going a bit better, but there still is hesitation. I have started calling on students who did not raise their hands (I told them ahead of time) during pair share, so they could be sure they had something to say. This helped a bit. Boosting self-esteem is a piece I am going to work on, too. I think this is going to be a yearlong project. I need to break through layers of issues, but I will keep trying.

L. is using a process called action research,* a systematic approach to address the situation in her classroom:

• Identify a situation or problem
• Gather information to identify possible actions or solutions (student background, more on the context of the situation, suggestions from the literature, or recommendations from colleagues)
• Take action based on the information
• Collect and analyze data
• Reflect on the results
• Develop an action plan to address the situation or identify a need for further research

For more on the action research process:

• What is Action Research? New Mexico State University
• Action Research
• Action Research for Teachers

There was a suggestion for L. to try “Round Robin Journaling.” The April/May 2014 issue of Science & Children had the article Assessments in the Arguments with a description of this strategy.)

For more on class participation:

• Encouraging Class Participation—How can you provide opportunities for all students to participate in a discussion?
• Participation Rubric—What do we mean by “participation?”
• Gallery Walks—How can they be used for discussion and feedback?

Photo:   http://www.flickr.com/photos/rongyos/2686415336/

There is plenty of discussion this week on what’s ahead for education and science as Americans head to the polls on November 4, and the testing/accountability issue is really moving to the front burner as major players in education—including President Obama—weigh in on the issue.

But first, take a look at Education Week’s election guide, a great primer for K–12 political junkies interested in the key races to watch in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the key gubernatorial races. The primer also tracks key education ballot measures in the states.

ScienceInsider is running an After Election 2014 series on issues of concern to the science community. This story on the American COMPETES bill nicely sums up the political divide on this legislation over the last few years.

Earlier ScienceInsider installments (featured in a previous issue of NSTA Express) focused on the federal government’s attempts to improve STEM education. Writes reporter Jeff Mervis, “The last 2 years have provided a vivid reminder that improving U.S. science education will depend at least as much on grassroots efforts as on the federal government. The administration’s biggest gambit—a plan to restructure the $3 billion federal investment in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education—went down in flames after lawmakers from both parties and community leaders denounced it as unwise and poorly designed.”

Testing and accountability are also hot in Washington, D.C. right now. On October 15, the Council of Chief State School Officers and the Council of Great City Schools announced a joint effort to improve student testing and released a two-page Commitments on High-Quality Assessments.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s blog post earlier this summer, which stated “testing and test preparation takes up too much time,” seemed to raise eyebrows since the Department of Education has been a stalwart champion of testing/accountability/teacher evaluations.  Last week Education Week reporter/blogger Alyson Klein reported that “President Barack Obama appears to be behind his administration’s recent rhetorical push on the need to reconsider the number of tests students take, sources say. And the president’s new thinking on tests would seem to put U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a pretty awkward position.” Read why.

A few days later a broad-based group of 17 organizations—including the Alliance for Quality Education, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the National Education Association, and the National School Boards Association—announced A New Social Compact for American Education, promising “a groundbreaking rethinking of accountability that replaces the current paradigm of ‘test and punish’ with a focus on what is needed to support and improve teaching and learning.”

On Oct. 29, Education Week again blogged that big suburban district leaders are now favoring different testing models for NCLB waivers, calling for options for districts such as grade-span testing at key points, or testing that just samples certain students. The group called for fewer and better local assessments, and less focus on the state summative tests.

Capitol Hill is also on top of the testing issue. Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) introduced the TEST Act, a bill that would significantly change the K-12 testing and accountability regime and would eliminate the federal requirement for science testing.    This bill has bipartisan support and garnered significant attention in the press, along with a similar bill introduced by Rep. Chris Gibson (D-NY) and Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), which has the support of the NEA.

Stay tuned.

Jodi Peterson is NSTA’s Assistant Executive Director, Communications, Legislative, and Public Affairs; and Chair of the STEM Education Coalition. She can be reached at via e-mail at jpeterson@nsta.org or Twitter @STEMedadvocate.

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

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The Echo Meter Touch is a hardware module (with ultrasonic microphone) and software app that work together to let you monitor, record, and analyze bat echolocation. The module plugs into the power port of an Apple iPhone or iPad. Considering that bats represent about 20% of all classified mammal species with over 1,000 species worldwide, this device could have broad applications.

So, how does it work? Bats emit sound waves to find prey and navigate in flight. The bats’ ultrasonic sounds are detected, recorded, and logged by the Echo Meter Touch. Using the Global Positioning System (GPS) function of your Apple device, this product will also record the location. These recordings can be saved for later analysis. It is amazing to me that this device can automatically identify the species of the bat, based on how the bat sounds. In my area, I was able to find several Eptesicus fuscus (big brown bat). Near our school, I found Lasionnycteris noctivagans (silver-haired bat), and then was surprised to find in my own backyard a Lasiurus cinereus (hoary bat) hovering around my swimming pool.

To get started, you’ll need an iPhone or cellular-equipped iPad. The Echo Meter Touch Bat Detector software can then be downloaded for free from iTunes. I also recommend the Bat Auto-ID feature, available on iTunes for an additional $149, which automatically identifies bats in the field. This software updates itself with new bat classifiers as they become available. Without this feature, you will get records of the bats’ locations but not precise identifications.

Once you have all of the necessary equipment, you’re ready to find bats in your area. Set the device to live mode, and the GPS view will track where you walk and give the exact location of where a bat is detected. To identify the bat species, you simply scroll back from live mode and click on the bat symbol. With the Bat Auto-ID enabled, the device displays an abbreviation that you can use to identify the species in the software database, which includes all North American bat species. The database includes pictures and in-depth information about each type of bat and is easy to navigate, which makes this device appropriate for upper elementary through high school science teaching. I believe the product—a durable and reliable scientific instrument—would be useful in field work to a bat seeker at any level of expertise.

The Echo Meter Touch comes with Discover Bats, a DVD that includes segments on how and where bats live, how bats can be helped, and other bat-related issues. The product also comes with a handbook that is the backbone of the kit. It contains 21 integrated lessons, library references, background information, a detailed glossary, and a bibliography of supporting resources. This outstanding device enhances instruction and motivates students to learn more about bats. It seems plausible that by integrating the Echo Meter Touch into instruction, teachers will not only engage their students but will also have the opportunity to include parents and many others from the community. Using the Echo Meter Touch in science instruction will heighten interest in bats and offer students meaningful adventures in scientific discovery.  

We’re just one short week away from the Orlando NSTA 2014 Area Conference on Science Education. We’ll be making ourselves at home at the Orange County Convention Center in sunny Orlando, Florida, November 6–8, 2014. We invite you to join us as we explore Science: Adventures into the Future. Conference strands will focus on elementary science education, environmental explorations, and STEM connections.

We’ll kick things off on Thursday morning (November 6) with our keynote presentation Michael DiSpezio at 9:15 am. Lauded for his interactive presentations, DiSpezio has hosted more than 60 broadcasts of the Jason Project, The Discovery channel, PBS, MTV, and the Weather Channel just to name a few. A former marine biologist, he has co-authored several dozen science textbooks that are used in K–12 classrooms and several dozen trade books on science topics ranging from critical-thinking puzzles to HIV awareness. After completing his graduate studies at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, he worked as a research assistant for Nobel laureate Albert Szent-Györgyi. With a master’s degree in biology from Boston University, he extended his passion for education as a K–12 classroom teacher for nearly 10 years.

Programming-wise, we’ve hand-selected and vetted more than 200 unique sessions, workshops, and presentations resulting in a diverse range of programming with something for everyone—from classroom teachers to administrators and informal educators at all age levels and interests.  You can check out all the sessions online via the Session Browser or view the program (pdf).

We would also like to recognize and thank our outstanding Exhibitors who have lots of exciting hands-on activities in store for you.  We have over 90 unique exhibits to visit and have put together nearly three pages of highlighted activities taking place in the Exhibit Hall over the course of the conference. You can also review all of the Exhibitors by taking a spin around the online floor plan, which includes a roster of exhibitors, a description of what they’ll be featuring, and where they’re located in the Exhibit Hall.

For the latest conference information, download the Orlando Conference App. If you’re not already registered, there is still time to join us and you can register online 24/7.  We’re excited to see you next week!

Today’s guest blogger is Jason Sheldrake, Assistant Executive Director, National Science Teachers Association. For question about the Richmond exhibits, please contact Jason at jsheldrake@nsta.org; or contact Jeffrey LeGrand, NSTA Exhibits and Advertising Associate, at jlegrand@nsta.org.

2014 Area Conferences on Science Education

Orlando, FL – November 6–8

Long Beach, CA (in collaboration with CSTA) – December 4–6

2015 National Conference on Science Education

Chicago, IL – March 12-15

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

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It’s not every day that a science-teacher-turned-author gets the call that a former first lady of the United States could use his help. When that happened to me, I was uncertain if I would have anything to offer someone of Mrs. Carter’s stature. I dusted off my decades-old copy of her autobiography for a refresher on Mrs. Carter’s incredible life and assured myself that if she wanted a garden to attract monarch butterflies, I had the experience she needed—my 15 years of middle and elementary school teaching would come in handy in the months to come! Within 48 hours, I had security clearance and found myself in Mrs. Carter’s front yard helping her and the National Park Service plan a butterfly garden that would one day be part of the gardens surrounding a presidential burial site.

The diminutive Mrs. Rosalynn (as she is affectionately known) exudes a certain soft-spoken elegance in addition to her ability to make everyone in her presence feel comfortable and welcomed. She listened intently to my butterfly-gardening suggestions, asked good questions, and had firm ideas that a garden should have a purpose that serves its surrounding environment. In this case, bringing butterflies and other pollinators to her hometown of 700 people would be helpful to the farmers in the area whose crops could benefit. Furthermore, schoolchildren and other visitors could learn from the garden when it eventually opened to the public. When she found out that multiple gardens would promote a higher butterfly population, she wanted to make that happen.

Though it was her meeting, Mrs. Carter graciously allowed her husband to give input. Even though Jimmy Carter was the 39th president of the United States, it’s clear that he respects his wife’s projects and values her work and their partnership, which has lasted 68 years. Typical of the keenness of both Carters, the former president asked if any of the plants I suggested would bring unwanted pests to their yard. I explained that aphids would likely follow the milkweed to the yard, but that pesticides are not an option in a butterfly garden. This piqued the interest of both President and Mrs. Carter. When I suggested that ladybugs would be an environmentally friendly, natural option, the Carters looked at each other, seemingly sharing the same thought. The Carters’ local church has a couple of ladybug infestations a year, and they could bring some ladybugs home when it was their turn to help clean the building. (Yes, the former first couple helps clean their church!) As I reflected on the conversation, I often imagined the shoe box full of ladybugs they might bring home from their church to release in their garden.

The Carters are an incredibly humble, unassuming couple. They live in the same ranch-style home that was theirs before they lived in the White House. They are warm and genuine and still active learners at ages 87 and 90. Our very first meeting inspired me to write a book for children. I hope Mrs. Carter’s Butterfly Garden will inspire teachers, parents, and children to create gardens for butterflies and other wildlife.

Today’s Guest Blogger
Steve Rich is a former elementary and middle school teacher and author of the NSTA Press books Mrs. Carter’s Butterfly Garden, My School Yard Garden, Bringing Outdoor Science In: Thrifty Classroom Lessons, and Outdoor Science: A Practical Guide. (photo, right, courtesy of Brian Becnel)

The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.

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I know this is a rare problem: quiet kids. But what suggestions do you have for a ninth-grade class that is made up predominately of students who seem to be unwilling (or unable) to share thoughts or ask questions during class discussion. They’re even hesitant to answer direct questions aloud. Add to that all the girls are quiet and the boys are willing to answer and ask questions. I’m looking for ideas to motivate conversation, as my regular tricks are not working!

—L from Massachusetts

This is not as rare a situation as you may think. Even in a class with many students eager to participate, there are some who hold back for a variety of reasons. These students may lack self-confidence, there may be cultural or social influences at work, or they may have had negative experiences in previous classes. It’s easy to overlook these students, but it’s worth the effort to work with them. I was a quiet student myself, and I appreciated when teachers were patient enough to find out what I was thinking.

You could certainly use written activities to find out what these quiet students are learning and to share with other students, but I suspect that you want to provide opportunities for these students to become more comfortable communicating ideas with other students and participating in real time.

Our colleagues on an NSTA listserve had suggestions, many of which I would recommend based on my experiences:

• Aime: I do a lot of pair-share discussions. I think it is very important to build the social dimension so students feel safe sharing their ideas. So I do some short icebreaker activities and nonacademic pair-shares (favorite cartoon villain, amusement park ride, etc). I [also] have had luck with explicitly teaching how to speak and listen and modeling with a “brave” student in front of the class, then asking the class what did you notice us doing? Then move into a pair-share. 

• Bronwyn: To get them used to talking more and avoid stress in the beginning, I sometimes give them the question, let them talk it over in groups, and let them know that I will then choose people at random from each group. It gives them some support as they get used to the idea that they will have to speak. Often I’m surprised at how much they’ll say to each other and it can open up dialogue nicely.

• Elizabeth: Put every name on a craft stick or ticket and then pull out the names from a container. That way, in a nonthreatening manner, you include everyone. Teach them about this strategy before you use it, explaining the purpose. Often the quiet ones have deep thoughts, so employing the longer wait time helps the quiet ones too.

• Pamela: My quiet classes are the ones where it takes some time, but we can have great discussions because they typically have already processed their thoughts, rather than blurting out like my more vociferous students are apt to do.

• Maria: I find that using electronic tools like the Paddlet App or an online shared document with a question allows the students to type without having to be vocal. After this activity students may be asked to elaborate and from there continue the discussion. It also allows the student(s) to see other students’ ideas, add to the conversation, or ask questions in a safe environment.

• Karen: Assign groups of three to four students. Give them a topic to discuss and one minute each to talk. Only one person may talk at a time. The next person must summarize what the previous person said before giving their own ideas. At the end, ask one person to give a summary of what the group said. This forces everyone to contribute and gives everyone the opportunity to participate.

In addition to trying these strategies, it might be helpful to work with a few students individually to encourage them and let them know that their efforts will be respected.

Dig into the students’ history, perhaps with the help of the counselors or other specialists. Do any of these students have language or behavioral issues that affect their communications? How do the students participate in other classes? Talk with individual students about their hesitation and encourage their efforts.

You mentioned that some of the girls seem afraid to be wrong. I’ve seen this in my own classes, and not just girls! Maintaining a safe environment, which it sounds like you have, eventually reinforces the idea that what could be a mistake is actually a learning opportunity.

You have a great opportunity for action research on this. I hope you’ll let us know what happens.