Last year, a new science teacher in our middle school really struggled with classroom management issues. My principal is trying to help him, and she asked me if I could also work with him this year. I have some ideas, but I’m not sure how to approach him and offer suggestions.
–Melissa from  Nebraska
Even successful student teachers can get a rude awakening in their first year, when they are responsible for their classes from Day 1. They don’t have the advantage of stepping into a situation that was already in place, in terms of setting up a lab/classroom, equipment inventories, safety, and routines. It can be overwhelming, and some may be hesitant to ask for help.
Your principal must see some potential in this teacher, such as his content knowledge, real-life experiences to share with students, or ability to connect with adolescents.  She also seems to have recognized you have the experience and expertise to help this new teacher.
I would start by talking with the principal about the task. Are you to assume an evaluative role? That usually requires administrative credentials and there may be issues with the teacher contract if you were to take on this level of responsibility.
I suspect, however, that the principal is asking you to take on the role of a mentor—someone who can be a role model, a good listener, a provider of feedback, and a source of suggestions and resources. I’d ask what kind of follow-up, if any, the principal expects of you and the other teacher (e.g., a written report, a summary of your conversations). Even if the principal does not require any documentation, I’d still keep an informal journal of the process and suggest the new teacher do the same.

You’ll want to be helpful to your colleague but not a judgmental know-it-all. You could start with an informal conversation. “I understand that you had some challenges with classroom management last year. This happens to everyone, and Ms. Principal asked if I would be willing to help you. I remember my first year, and I had some real difficulties, too.” You could ask questions as discussion starters: What were your successes last year? What routines worked for you? What were your greatest challenges? What are your goals for this year? He may not realize that even experienced teachers face new situations every year, so it may help to share some of your current challenges and how you’re working on them.
Start with one or two issues he identified. For example, ask what routines he has in place for the beginning and end of the class period. Disruptions often occur at these times, and it is important for students to be engaged and to know what is expected of them. Having routines in place frees up time to spend on more important topics and activities, rather than dealing with discipline or logistical issues.  Share some of your suggestions for bell-ringers and exit activities, ask him to try them for a week or two, and debrief on the results.
Ask your principal if you may visit this teacher’s classroom. (Perhaps the principal would be willing to cover a class for you to do so.) As you observe the class, you’ll probably identify other items to discuss related to organizational strategies, safety issues, or student participation. It might also be helpful for him to observe your classes as your students follow your routines and engage in planned and purposeful activities.
The ultimate evaluation of this teacher is the responsibility of the principal, but your input and support can be helpful in helping him learn from his experiences and get his career off to a good start.

With the attention of educators across the country focused on STEM, the 2012 Summer Olympics provide a perfect opportunity to create new tools for science teachers. NBC Learn, NSF, and NSTA have partnered to create Science of the Summer Olympics videos with connected lesson plans that will help students apply both the concepts of science and engineering design. The series is available cost-free on www.NBCLearn.com and www.NSF.gov.

This installment, The Biomechanics of Usain Bolt, focuses on the interaction of knowledge of body systems and application of engineering design processes. In the science classroom, bioengineering is typically connected to work with genes. But the field encompasses a much broader stroke and the video gives students an inside look at how mechanical engineers no longer study only aspects of machinery.

If you’ve used the Science of… series in the past, you’ll notice a change in the lesson plan format. The lesson plans are based loosely on the research of Brian Hand at the University of Iowa, whose science writing heuristic fosters within students a more complete understanding of science concepts. The lesson plans use the videos as springboards to help you involve your students in developing their own questions to explore with liberal use of prompts to keep students focused during their investigations. The depth and complexity of the inquiry falls out of the grade level, background knowledge, and creativity of your students. Although the strategy can be used with elementary students through college-level, the videos and lesson plans are expected to be most successful with middle- and high-school students. A quick search in the NSTA Science Store will give you additional resources on the science writing heuristic.

You may not need another hands-on strategy, but take a look at the lesson plans anyway. Included are ideas for how to incorporate the videos into your own lessons as well as background and timing on the video segments. Then, be sure to let us know how they work for you in real classroom situations. And if you had to make significant changes to a lesson, we’d love to see what you did differently, as well as why you made the changes. Leave a comment, and we’ll get in touch with you with submission information. After all, inquiring minds want to know!

–Judy Elgin Jensen

Photo courtesy of Activ i Oslo.

Video
In “The Biomechanics of Usain Bolt,” Mechanical engineers Dr. Anette Hosoi (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Samuel Hamner (Stanford University) study Usain Bolt’s physical structure to help determine how he is able to run so fast. Their findings might enable them to develop solutions for people with movement disorders or to optimize the performance of athletes.

Lesson plans
Two versions of the lesson plans help students build background and develop a question about Usain Bolt, how a movement might be improved, or how bones and muscles work together. Both includes strategies to support students in their own quest for answers and strategies for a more focused approach that helps all students participate in hands-on inquiry.

SOTSO: The Biomechanics of Usain Bolt models how students might investigate factors how bones and muscles work together and how muscle strength impacts an action.
SOTSO: The Biomechanics of Usain Bolt, An Engineering Perspective models how students might apply what they learn in the video or other sources about analyzing actions or how movement might be improved through redesign.

You can use the following form to e-mail us edited versions of the lesson plans:

[contact-form 2 “ChemNow]

–Occasional commentary by Robert E. Yager (NSTA President, 1982-1983)
James Paul Gee (2012) has written a publication titled “Beyond Mindless Progressivism”.  He confesses his surprise that so many educators lapse into “mindless progressivism” with the assumption that children learn best by participation and immersion in activities proposed by teachers and/or the directions provided in textbooks and associated laboratory activities.  Students are merely expected to follow directions and repeat in classrooms what teachers or instructional materials provide.  Parents are often encouraged to help their children to do all that they are told to do and to be ready to report on it as evidence of their “learning.”  Teachers often report they want higher-order and meta-level thinking skills – but too often teachers and the curriculum do not help students reach such learning goals.
Gee indicates that most classrooms result in a few student “producers” while the remaining continue to be “consumers” (of real learning!).  He has called for more teachers to recognize that all students are different. He has found that students in typical classrooms are “divided into a small number of ‘priests’ (insiders with ‘special’ knowledge and skills) and the “laity” (followers who use language, knowledge, and tools they do not understand deeply and cannot transform ideas for use in new contexts).”  This situation is normal and should be expected by the most effective teachers.
Gee advocates “post-progressive pedagogy” and wants his readers to consider using the term “situated learning.”  He has offered 17 examples of such environments which can lead more students to useful learning and understanding.  Gee first suggests the learning classroom must acknowledge that there are multiple routes to full and personal participation for all members of a group, which is organized around common interests and passions.
His last feature of the learning classroom (#17) is that all learners will be well prepared to be active, thoughtful, engaged members of the public sphere which is the ultimate purpose of “public” education!  This means an allegiance to arguments and evidence over ideology and force.  It also means the ability to take and engage with multiple perspectives based on people’s diverse life experiences–not just in terms of race, class, and gender, but also the myriad differences that constitute the uniqueness of each person and the many different social and cultural allegiances all have.
Gee’s forward-looking suggestions are vital for current efforts to develop the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).  This means defining Science as the exploration of the material universe seeking explanations for the objects and events encountered.  Science then is portrayed as a search for explanations found in nature, supported with evidence to establish the validity of the explanations offered both by scientists and others.  It often means work in collaboration with others – much unlike the products of art, music, economics, and physical training. Unfortunately this central ingredient of science is something few students experience as science in schools.
Wondering about the natural world is fun and rewarding, but it is seldom enhanced or encouraged in classes called “science” in K-16 educational settings.  For students to succeed in real science they must look beyond textbook information or their teachers’ explanations.  The best science students too often are the ones who do what they are told – and who remember the words defined and described in typical science classes.  In a sense, real science is missing in most educational settings (schools and colleges) where it is supposedly being provided.  Teachers seek to control by assessing what students do not remember rather than being involved in learning with a purpose.
Technology results when engineers apply their understanding of the natural world to design ways to satisfy human needs and wants.   It illustrates its effectiveness (necessity) of being central to educational reforms and how it can enhance the curriculum and the teaching in all K-16 educational settings.  One problem is that most educators define science as the information in textbooks and/or from state and national standards or from their own experiences with one or more science discipline in classrooms.  This ensures that progressivism will continue and result in no real reforms of science teaching/learning.
How can we get more educators interested and working to meet the reforms which Gee has so meaningfully defined and illustrated!  Instead progressivism and the teaching of a set curriculum will continue to result in failure.  Few graduates are prepared to provide science for all students for citizenship responsibilities.
–Robert E. Yager
Professor of Science education
University of Iowa
Image of bored students courtesy of cybrarian77.

Hiking Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve
NSTA Costa Rica Trip Day 8
July 30th, 2012
(posted on behalf of Greg Neff) 

Today we are returning to San Jose, but before we do we will explore the Cloud Forest reserve. This reserve is part of the reserve protected by George Powell’s conservation efforts to preserve critical habitat and migration ranges in the Montverde area.  The reserve is managed by the non-profit, Tropical Science Center. This Preserve is part of a complex ecosystem, which includes: six distinct ecological zones and is helping to protect birds and butterflies, mammals, insects, and thousands of species of plants. 
There are several senderos (trails), and our hike began on the Sendero Bosque Nuboso (Cloud Forest trail) where we observed many stages of development of strangler figs. These plants can be of several different species. What gives them their name is the habit of growing around the host tree and becoming tree size themselves, thus restricting the growth of the host. This growth habit is an adaptation for growing in dark forests where the competition for light is intense. The plants begin life as epiphytes, germinating somewhere in the canopy of the host.  As the seedling grows, its roots grow downward encasing the tree.  When the roots reach the ground, it can derive its nutrients from the soil and it is no longer an epiphyte. The host eventually dies and the result is a hollow area inside the strangler tree.  This hollow area becomes roosting area for 40 different bat species, as well and many other organisms.
A large percentage of the surfaces in the cloud forest are covered with moss.  Mosses can hold up to 8 times their mass in water.  This water makes moisture available to the rest of the forest; epiphytes often are embedded in the moss.  The vast majority of the biomass is actually found in the canopy of the cloud forest, much less on the floor.
The trail intersected the El camino trail (the road) which was on old oxcart trail before the preserve came into existence.  We saw and heard a small portion of the 400 possible bird species.  Birds seem to be shyer and were very difficult to photograph.  We did see Trogans, several species of Wrens, Nightingale Thrush, Black Juans, and Wood Creepers.  Also discovered on this trail we’re several of the 420 possible orchids, ranging from plants the size of a bunch of thread with flowers the size of pinheads, to plants with flowers the size of my hand.
The Wilford Guindon trail lead off to a suspension bridge which brought us into the canopy layer.  Here we were able to get a closer look at the massive quantities of moss, embedded with epiphytes.  There is far greater quantity of light up here.  This trail returned us to the reserve center where we were able to board the bus and head to San Jose.
We had to make a decision whether to return directly to San Jose or to take a side trip to the town of Sarchi, where we might be able to peruse the large souvenir store.  The concern was that the side trip would add 2 hours to our return.  We were scheduled for a follow-up lecture at the hotel and our schedule would be tight.

Suggestion was made by this writer that instead of the side trip, we take the quicker route back and visit the tourist market in the center of San Jose.  We voted on the suggestion that was a quicker, but beautiful route back to San Jose.  When we arrived in San Jose, traffic quickly came to a crawl in the neighborhood of the market, as the small farmers union of Costa Rica was holding a demonstration, protesting land taxes.  Our schedule had to change and we lost out on the final lecture.  However we did make it to the hotel in time for dinner.