Teacher Heather B

Four different types of laboratory instruction can be identified: expository (“cook book”), open-inquiry, discovery (guided inquiry) and problem based. The distinguishing factors are outcome, approach, and procedure. According to this classification, guided inquiry labs have an outcome known by the instructor, but unknown by the students; the approach is inductive and the procedure is given. In reality, guided inquiry and open inquiry laboratory activities span a range from highly structured to open-ended. For example, the guidelines developed for guided inquiry labs recommend that instructors allow student input on the design of experiments. The less detail provided in the procedures, the more “open” ended the activity.

Making more and stronger knowledge links is promoted in guided inquiry laboratory activities when students are given opportunities to apply the concepts uncovered by the activity in a new context. For example, after developing the relationship between  caffeine contained in energy drinks and heart rate. Our girls on Tuesday were able to adopt a “trained” skill of microscope use and Daphnia mount and jumped into a guided inquiry project were they applied different solutions of caffeine to the plankton.Once the girls had the the simple concept mastered, the tools, and the skill, not much time passed before we, the teachers, were no longer the instructors but merely helpers and assistants to their work. The room had metaphysically changed. I hardly noticed other people walking around. There was no world outside of the lab table and the work we did. This was a taste of the joy of meaningful inquiry.

The principle that learners must be actively involved in constructing personal meaning is at the core of guided inquiry laboratory activities. It is important that these activities are designed so that students learn the content by actively engaging in scientific inquiry involving observation, imagination, and reasoning. Tools models and procedures are not ends in themselves, but devices to promote new insights.

“Who am I?” is central to how successful a student is academically, socially and personally. Not only girls but all students seem to focus most of their energy trying to figure out their place in this world and we, as teachers, should be encouraging them to do so in their own way. Helping our students to build their self-esteem will help them to feel more confident in their ability to learn and interact socially in school and, in the future, the real world. Clearly, girls are bothered enough by labels they or others give themselves. I would also argue that the standardized tests we issue them are only adding to their identity issues by labeling them as failures or under achievers. I am amazed this week with how much Regents emphasis is put on the topic of orientation of an object in a microscope lens. There are actually questions on this and much lab time is spent moving paper cut outs of letter around a slide.  As a scientist who looks through a microscope daily, I can honestly say, EVERYONE arranges slides wrong. And what happens? Nothing …you just turn it around a go about your work. What kind of scientist identity (or lack of) would have been created in me if I was tested on a silly question like that? I still don’t know if I’d answer it right. If I ever had a test question like that than goodness I paid it no mind. I probably would have thought science was not for me.

In the mean time, I wonder when the time comes for these students to actually look through a scope at something cool. My earliest science memory is when my mother was taking a class a community college and she lifted me up on the lab stool to look through a microscope. My little mind was blown at what I was seeing. It was red flower/crystal-like and beautiful and nothing like what it looked like without the microscope. I have never knew what it was but never forgot what I saw. This was the moment that drove me to science. It was a moment that drove my values, desires and identity for the rest of my life. There is no test question for that and my ability to peer into the secret world of the microscope. I imagine finding that slide again. I can also imagine putting on the stage in the wrong orientation. I imagine I’d smile.

A good day but for different reasons. “Web quest” is not exactly the most exciting work but the girls really seemed to like it. Like it, in the sense that they took the research very seriously and truly seemed to want to do this well.  Each girl came up with incredibly detailed information about energy drinks and seemed to apply that information to some possible investigations. It drove me back to a thought I have had many times about these students. Perceptions of young people are remarkably negative. Americans look at today’s teenagers with misgivings and trepidation, viewing them as undisciplined, disrespectful, “in crisis” and unfriendly. This attitude is part of a larger story about young people — how we view their roles and the expectations we have of them — and are indicative of a larger narrative that casts many young people as less than full citizens. In effect, we, as a society, are telling young people that they lack the capacity to play meaningful roles in our communities.

The problem is there are consequences to low expectations. At a basic level, expectations shape the roles that are available to young people. One of the consequences is that young people often are treated as a set of problems to be fixed. No one is inspired when greeted with “We’re here to fix you.” But that is exactly what we do. in part, this is because the programs we create and the data we track about young people are largely problem-focused (teen pregnancy, dropouts, youth violence, etc.).

What will it take to change adult perceptions of young people? When adults are confronted with positive facts and statistics about young people, they tend to dispute the facts rather than change their ways of thinking. Research and theory dating back to John Dewey indicate that young people learn most when they are interested, engaged and self-directed. Some studies suggest that American adolescents spend only a small part of their days fully psychologically engaged — in contexts where they consistently report high challenge, high concentration and high motivation. More often than not, the daily context for high engagement is not school but structured, voluntary activities. The real question is, “how do we make after-school experiences like this into regular school culture?

It was just great to meet our girls. We have all seventh graders and I love that age. Girls still know that they can do anything and I hope that we can keep that thought alive in them as they continue through school. I don’t think many of our girls knew each other well quite yet so, I think that we should continue with “getting to know you activities” as the weeks go on. Once is not going to be enough. Unfortuantely, I think our own nervousness showed and it took us a while to relax and make the demonstration as fun as it could be. I have gathered some “icebreaker” ideas so maybe we’ll take a little time and use them next week.

Our task was to assess their knowledge of macromolecules and as one can imagine, with seventh grade, that is not much. However, we connected the idea  of sugar containing energy and we can jump on that next. I think some hands on work with connecting blocks or paper models might be useful.

It has been difficult to express this concern because it has little to do with what these students’ need from me/us (teachers). After all, I am not really doing this for me, right?

After three weeks of struggling teaching the metric system, graphing and hypothesis, I worry .. if this is what I have chosen to do, what if I get bored? Not with the students, but the material. 

I love science. Since a child digging around the rocks and sand on the beach to the adult digging around the molecules of the brain …I love science. So, what if I get bored with the New York State Living Environment curriculum? Especially with the drill and skill that I am watching these poor kids struggle with. If I had to do this I’d have my head buried in the desk too.

I know this is not my classroom and I am only observing. But, I have spent an awful amount of time practically begging them to just write the answers down on the paper. This is engagement? I just can’t do it this way. I also know that after W I need to continue with certifications, new classes and any chance to reconnect with my former life as a scientist. If I lose that connection then I will loose the connection of why I want to teach. I sit in my W classes and listen to the oddest proclamations, “there really is no scientific method,” “science is not about the measurability” and I bring these thoughts back to the scientists who gasp. The Method, though hardly linear, is alive and well. We strive each day for better measurability. 

When the movie The Happening was released I listened to an interview on Science Friday,NPR where the director, M. Night Shamalan, explained that he chose a science teacher as the main character rather than a scientist because he needed a character who was still open to accepting the mysterious as mysterious and not as a yet to be answered question. I was a little insulted by this characterization of science teachers. Looking back, he this idea of science teachers might be correct. This is not the science I want to teach. I want to teach the science I know or frankly …I’ll get bored.

So, it is up to me. I have keep, continue and develop the science connections. I have get all the certifications and make “professional development” personal. I have to bring these experiences to my students each and every year and not allow my teaching to be intellectually bound to the Regents review book. To be a great teacher, I must always be a scientist. It is selfish but frankly, if I get bored …my students will suffer. I am not teach to create suffering but to free them from it.

Much about urban schools is what I expected. However, one situtation I did not expect to have such small classes. Two of the classes are only 15 or so students simply because a third of the students are not there on a regular basis. I find it interesting that we, the student teachers, are being heavily encouraged to memorize names immediately yet, a week and a half into the school year I still have new faces and others I have only seen once. It breaks my heart. 

The interesting thing is that the other two sections only have four or five students in them. And that is by design. My CT was terribly concerned about this. Given all the research about the benefits of smaller class size, I really couldn’t understand what the problem was. Smaller classes increase student learning.  They have also been shown to have a host of other benefits, including enhancing parental involvement, reducing disciplinary referrals, lowering teen parenthood rates, and improving teacher morale and retention.

 …until I jumped in and taught a lab for the first time …with 5 entirely disinterested students. Now I get it. Five students just isn’t enough critical mass of personality to really mix it up, to get into effective groups, to have balance when one student is really pushing back. I’m not saying it could never work. But, when you have five souls who would really rather be anywhere else, it just tough.

Everyday feedback has been shown to improve student-learning outcomes. As its name suggests, everyday feedback is conducted regularly. It can take place in the context of the whole class, cooperative student teams, and with individual students. The purpose of everyday feedback is to hear student thinking on a topic, understand a student’s framework or model for that construct, and help student’s move along in their thinking. During this process, student misconceptions (sometimes referred to as alternative frameworks) are revealed. Knowing a student’s framework gives teacher’s a wonderful opportunity to guide students to more productive ways of thinking (without giving away the “right answer”).

Feedback and Whole Class Inquiry Assessment (WCIA) as described in the recent NSTA The Science Teacher (Gallagher-Bolos, J.A., and D.W. Smithenry, September 2008) interests me. The idea that the entire class must cooperate within their unique scientific community, and share the grade, is an innovative if not risky form of meaning assessment. One of several that would contribute to a student’s portfolio of projects, notebooks and grades. It seems the key to success is the authentic, timely feedback from the teacher to the class as a whole. Otherwise it could end up being and exercise in frustration.

I am interested in experiences other teachers may have had with this and intent on continuing research.

So far, I have dug up the following sources on WCIA:

Gallagher-Bolos, J.A., and D.W. Smithenry. 2004. Teaching inquiry based chemistry: Creating student-led scientific communities.

Smithenry, D., and J. Bolos. 1997. Creating a scientific community. The Science Teacher.

Crumrine, T. and Demers, C. 2007. Formative Assessment: Redirecting the Plan, The Science Teacher.