Instrutional design is key to student learning. As I continue on my own journey of learning I am the student and the teacher. As I earn more about myself as a learner and the learning process I begin to understand more completely the importance of designing instruction with the end in mind.
What should we teach our students? What is important and will be remebered by them longer then two weeks? Is getting a good grade on a test a real measurement of a students learning? What constitutes learning? Is this the goal of education? If so then is content knowledge really learning? All theese questions come to mind as I teach my students about photosynthesis or earthquakes or blood splatter patterns. I think back to my days of schooling, what do I remember? My friends, cheerleading, how to cut class, how to take short cuts in doing homework, the meaning of friendships, what I liked most and least about school. The clubs, dances and parties. No where in these memories is the periodic table from chemistry or cellular respiration or dates that coincide with all the diifernt wars. Instead those bits of knowledg are well gone, out of my mind right after the test. What is left is learning of human interaction, relationships, memories seered in my brain due to emotion and activity. I learned how to make friends, how to get along with others, how to work in groups, how to get away with things, how to pass a test. All this learning I still have with me today and comes into place in my work and at home. So I ask you, where is the knowledge, the content, the concepts? Some where stored in my brain, maybe.
I would like to do better for my students. I think education is about learning not merely knowledge. I want to find a way to help students learn the big ideas of science so that they will be remebered and can be applied to school and life. My goal as a teacher is not to cram content information into their head but instead to help them understand the big ideas and themselves as learners so that 30 years from now they will remeber more then the clubs, the friends and how to pass a test. I want them to look back and say I learned about science, the world and myself in Mrs. Faller’s class.
In trying to define science I find it easier to define what is not science. Science isnot definitions, calculations, fill in the blanks, crosswrod puzzles, multiple choice, converting to metric……..To often I think as teachers we get bogged down with “all the stuff” we forget the science. Science is doing! It is not pasive it is active!!It is not memorization it is engaging, interesting and fun. This is what are classes need to be. As teachers we spend so much time teaching the facts and concepts we forget about the pure joy that comes from discovering, observing or wondering.
The reason I teach science is not for the facts or concepts, what drew me to this field is the same thing that draws a child to wonder how birds fly or why the leaves change color in the fall, the discovery of the answers, uncovering the wonders of the world.
I think with all the state requirements the wonder of science and the fun has been lost. We need to look back at what is science and teach from this framework and let the conepts, principle and theories that give the answer be discovered by our students.
Students bring with them to class prior knowledge that needs to be uncovered before a new topic or concept is presented. Discussions start with “student talk” and from this comes the introduction of vocabulary after the concepts are understood. Students need to be metacognitive about their learning, aware of their own thinking and how they learn. By having students think out loud and explain their thinking to one another and to me undertanding begins to emerge. Class time is spent carrying out investigations that will guide students to the concepts. Students need to be mentally active selectively taking in and paying attention to information, and connecting and comparing it to prior knowledge in an attempt to make sense of the new information. In an attempt to make sense of this new information students will try to make it fit with what they already know. If students prior knowledge is at odds with the new information (learning) it will become difficult for students to learn new information. Constructivism is the trm associated with how humans learn. Key points from this theory include: learning is active, learning is the interaction of ideas and processes;new knowledge is built on prior knowledge;learning is enhanced when situated in contexts that students find familiar and meaningful;complex problems that have multiple soutions enhance learning;and learning is augmented when students engage in discussion of ideas and processes involved. It is my goal to have a class in which students are discussing science, doing science, teaching each other science and offering problem-solution strategies for evaluation by peers.
The ecosystem projects are going well. Students have done a great job with their research and have spent the last 2 weeks testing their knowledge and designs. A few changes have had to be made due to organisms dying but the students have done a great job of analyzing what went wrong and making the changes needed. As the ecosystem inquiry comes to a close students have been given a second task of researching and then presenting to the class a Biome of their choice. Taking what they have learned about ecosystems and the interdependence of organisms and have applied there new knowledge to a Biome. Students were given questions to guide their research and were given the freedom to choose how they would like to present to the class what they have learned about their particular Biome. Some students have chosen to do posters, powerpoints, travel brochure, childrens book and even a talk show. Class time is very fluid. Students are at differnt points in their research and ecosystems. Some students are researching either additional information about Ecosystems because changes have had to be made, other have completed their ecosystems and have had successs so they have moved onto the Biome projects. I move between the classroom, computer lab and library guiding students, answering questions, keep those that need it on task. Students have constructed knowledege from doing science. They have been in control of their learning. I serve as a facilitator and learner along side of them. I have had posative feedback from the students, they have told me they enjoy learning this way. We will close the bottled ecosystems up on November 5th. Students will continue to record observations in their science journal through the three month period. As we close up this ecology unit I will be showing them “Planet in Peril” and using questions that go along with the documentary as a guide to a our discussion. Through this documentary I will weave together all the concepts we have studied in this unit.
Knowing what prior knowledge a student brings to the classroom is essential to learning. As a teacher I am continually suprised by the knowledge and lack of knowledge my students bring to science class. I have found that the times when I assesss prior to a new unit or concepts the lesson goes much better then when I just jump in with out figuring out what they already know. In addition to knowledge I am finding that my students lack basic science skills and this worries me. I believe this is in part due to the lack of science in their elementary and middle school years. My teaching experience has been mostly in privated education, in buildings that house k-12 students. I can’t help but think that science, to many elementary school teachers is very scary. They focus on the subject areas they are comfortable with and many may not be comfortable with science. When I student taught, in kindergarden in a privat christian school, science was not part of the children’s day. I found this very unusual because young children tend to be very curious and enjoy science. So while I was there I taught science in place of Bible two times a week. The students loved it. But once I was gone so was the science. As for middle school science my experience is that the teachers teaching science are either not certified to teach science or are people working or retired from a field having to do with science but lack the knowledge and familiarity with curriculumn to implament and teach these students what they need to know. So each time I stand in front of my 9th graders to teach earth science I not only need to remember to assess prior knowledge but also prior skills as well.
Day 2:
Students enter the classroom excited and eager to share what they found out through their research. Students are recording all information and group discussions in their science journal. As students share their new found knowledge with each other I use my labtop and type up this new information, which is projected on the screen for all to see. I interject at times, when appropriate with a scientific term for what they are talking about or with a question that leads them to a concept or idea that I want them to know about. For example: In our discussion of the “things” animals need to survive I introduced the terms biotic and abiotic factors. When students were asking about materials and where would we get them I introduced the term nutrients to talk about the materials. Whenever I did this I typed it up on the computer so that students not only heard the connection but saw it as well. In our discussion students asked if they could put two or more living organism in the bottle and I told them yes. I then asked about what would be needed for both, which led to a discussion of interaction of communaties. Students then had another opportunity to research what would be needed if two or more organism were put in the bottles. I asked them to find out and bring back to the forum the type of relatioship that existed between the living components in their ecosystem. Gave them text books, other books and computers to find the answers.
Comment: Once again the students were very engaged the whole class period. They asked alot of questions and listened to each other. As they did their research I circulated around the room answering questions. Both days I have done this I have not had the time to pull us back together to share but have opted to do it the next day. This has not seemed to be a problem. As for assessment I collect the journals and check to see that the work has been done. I give students a grade for their work. I am also assesing what they are learning with each interaction I have with them. It would be great if I had some kind of rubric to work with.
Day 1:
I just began a new unit in my 10th grade Biology classes on ecology. I began with the challenge that as research ecologist it would be their job to design an ecosystem, in a 2 liter bottle that can support life for 3 months. I told them they could use sand, soil, rocks , snails, aquatic plants and pond water to build their ecosystems. Students began by brainstorming with their partner various designs for their ecosystem. Some students wanted to use more then one bottle and I told them that was fine. After about 10 minutes we shared with each other our design ideas. The students started to ask questions aimed at how they were going to keep their living organisms alive. Students chimed into the discussion , using their prior knowledge to give advice to each other on what certain organisms needed to survive. I then had each pair come up with 5 research questions that they would need to find the answer to and off to the computer lab we went. Students spent the remainder of the period researching information about the needs of their living organism.
Comments: This was alot of fun to do with the students. They were excited and asked questions and were engaged in the whole process. I saw them through out the day and they would come up to me and tell me something else about what their organism needed to survive. I found out later that many of them spent their study hall and advisment time working on science.
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