Final Vision Statement

Despite all my studying, reading, and practicing teaching in the last five years, I managed to make it through my education degree having given very little thought to myself as a science teacher. If anything, I was more excited about how to use science cross-curricularly by having students write in a science journal. At the beginning of this term, I knew that I wanted to challenge students intellectually and enrich their learning through hands-on activities in science instruction. Unfortunately, upon self-reflection I realized that I had no idea how to implement this idea. Through many conversations, articles, and even hands-on activities, I now have a much stronger opinion on science instruction. I know that these newer ideas will change too, as they should, but now I have somewhere to start.

Science is not just a set of information that needs to be acquired. Science itself is discovering. Understanding. Thus, more science classrooms are being centered on “inquiry.” Inquiry can be most concisely defined as “investigation.” Just as science is not facts and equations, inquiry is not one activity. Inquiry is a process. I have come to learn that if I want to challenge students cognitively, I need to walk them through this learning, inquiring process, and eventually they will be able to do it on their own. This is the end goal, as schools strive to teach children to think, not just to regurgitate.

In my science classroom, I will first establish what my students already know, because they know a lot! I cannot give them knew information (and they cannot discover and internalize it for themselves) until they have confronted any misconceptions they may have and torn them down. Since students will loyally nod their heads as a teacher explains a new concept that contradicts their own understanding, teachers may never know the misunderstandings that are lying beneath the surface. Until these are addressed, it is just like building a beautiful structure on top of a cracked or uneven foundation. The building may last for a few years, but eventually it will crack and crumble due to the integrity of the foundation. In the famous sweater experiment, one teacher spent days letting her students try to prove that sweaters and hats create heat to keep children warm (Watson & Konicek, 1990). Students were so convinced that winter clothing created heat that they invented endless trials to prove their theory. Over and over again they rationalized the failed results (the temperature of the bundled up thermometer did not increase) to support their own theories. It was difficult, but the teacher let them continue to experience disequilibrium. Piaget proposed the term disequilibrium to explain the event “when a child’s conception of a thing or event is no longer adequate and the child seeks to establish a balance through” new learning (Peters, 2002). Finally, students were ready for new learning. The teacher offered a new theory that “warm” clothes are trapping body heat, and most of the students were ready to abandon their preconceptions. However, this brings up the question, when is it appropriate to move on? I want to differentiate instruction for all the learners in my science class, but we will not always be able to wait for 100% of the students to understand fully. The teacher in the sweater experiment decided to move on to the actual lessons about heat, hoping that the two boys still sticking to the “hot hat” theory would gain understanding with further instruction. I, also, will have to move forward with the majority of the class, but I will still pay special attention to my students who are struggling. They may receive extra help and I will have different expectations for them. Accomplished learning is not the same for all students. In the same way, it will take extra work to challenge my highest achieving students. They could have excellent grades but not be learning anything new. It takes time and energy, but I want to tweak assignments and activities to challenge these students as well. Maybe they can be given less information to start with, making it a puzzle, or maybe when they have finished an experiment, I can challenge them to think of other materials to try, variables to test, or just ways to change up their experiment.

Although addressing misconceptions are an important first step in inquiry-based science instruction, there are still lessons and activities to lead! In “Shifting from Activitymania to Inquiry” Moscovici and Nelson explain that pre-packaged science activities

“can be engaging for students and easy for the teacher. The outcome is usually defined and most students are successful in achieving the expected results. [Their] concern is that conceptual understanding and scientific literacy are not facilitated with this practice. Students follow procedures, usually without questioning the reasons for their actions” (Moscovic & Nelson, 1998).

Inquiry, on the other hand, is all about the questions. Together students and teacher develop a question or questions to answer. It may look like activities to an outsider, but the teacher is actually guiding students to create evidence to support their claim or answer their question. Students are not just doing activities to see something “cool” happen; they are actively working together to observe what is happening and ask why. Based on evidence collected in the classroom or in research, students can then make explanations based on what they see. Learning the difference between observations and inferences, and learning to explain inferences is very hard for many students, but will help them to not only think critically but metacognitively. Many sciences lessons or units would end here, but it is so important for students to complete the last two steps of inquiry. Questioning, finding evidence, and creating explanations are great, but students need to know that their own findings may not have been completely accurate. As scientists, they must compare what they learned or proposed with other classmates, schools, or professional scientists. Only then can they communicate what they have learned to peers, adults, or just in their science journal. Through this process students learn that scientific discoveries are based on hard evidence and collaboration.

            At the end of the term, I had the opportunity of team teaching a science lesson in a local Kindergarten classroom. Applying all my visions of inquiry was both eye-opening and relieving. We received a pre-packaged lesson on teaching Kindergarteners to weave. It was very detailed, and certainly engaging for the students, but did not stress any key science concepts. There was questioning, observation, and comparison going on, but we wanted to make it better. As a team we shifted the focus from activity to inquiry. Students eagerly learned to weave and then experimented with weaving various materials, observing their qualities, and testing the strength and functionality. They still had a great time, but they also hit 4 out of 5 steps of the inquiry process. This was eye-opening to me because I learned that science does not always look a certain way. Sometimes it looks like art, and sometimes it looks like chemistry. I was also relieved because adjusting a lesson to be more inquiry-oriented was not as hard as I thought it would be. At the beginning of the semester I would have told you that teachers who “did inquiry” were lofty, creative, flexible super teachers (and a little flakey). I like structure and planning, and I was afraid that inquiry would remove all that control. When inquiry is student-led, the teacher does relinquish some control, but I was relieved to see that inquiry could still be accomplished through a more teacher-guided lesson. As I grow as a teacher and as my future students gain responsibility and self-efficacy, we will try more student-led discovery, but I am comforted to know that inquiry is not an “all or nothing” idea. Any amount of discovery-based science is better than drilling facts and equations.

            I have not changed my original vision for science much but I have certainly filled in the gaps. I have been able to put a name to my style of teaching – social constructivism. For science instruction, one of the major ideas is that “children construct understanding in science by actively engaging with phenomena. …Students ask and refine questions related to phenomena, they predict and explain phenomena, and they mindfully interact with concrete materials. Active engagement, then, is both mental and physical” (Krajcik, 1999). I now know how to articulate how I want to teach science, a little practice teaching it, and plenty of time to grow as a teacher and create science experiences that are more inquiry-based and more student-oriented. 

• Krajcik, J. S., Czerniak, C., & Berger, C. (1999). Teaching children science, a project-based approach. McGraw-Hill College.
• Moscovici, H., & Nelson, T. H. (1998). Shifting from activitymania to inquiry. Science and Children, (January).
• Peters, J. M., & Gega, P. C. (2002). Science in elementary education. Prentice Hall
• Watson, B., & Konicek, R. (1990). Teaching for conceptual change: Confronting chidlren's experience. Phi Delta Kappan, (May).

SLPE Reflection

Overview

                Overall I feel like the lesson went very well. I started Day 1 by doing a picture walk of the book with the students so that they could make predictions, get a chance to look at pictures, and to help them look for context clues before reading. For example, I guided them to identify colorful leaves and the sheeps’ thick coats in the illustration , and we concluded that it must be fall. A few students also shared information or personal experiences about sheep and weaving, giving us a general idea of their prior knowledge of the content. Then, when my teammate read the entire book, students had a schema for understanding what they were seeing and hearing. They behaved very well and were engaged in the shared reading. Although some of the weaving vocabulary was rather technical, I feel that students could comprehend the main ideas of the story due to the previous picture walk and accompanying illustrations.

           For the rest of Day 1, my two teammates, myself, and the classroom teacher each sat at one of the four table groups. Each table group weaved with paper strips through slits on a paper loom while discussing vocabulary and patterns. The pacing of the lesson was great, since the Kindergarteners did need 25 minutes to weave the paper for the first time.

On Day 2, I was a little late and thus very flustered. This seriously affected my teacher presence and ability to manage whole-class moments. Thankfully, my teammates graciously covered me and kept things running smoothly. The students, at least, were unaware of any problem! We started the day in table groups, inspecting authentic items. The items rotated through the groups, so that each student had an opportunity to touch and discuss every object. I really enjoyed the low teacher-to-student ratio that would not ordinarily be achievable. Next, each table received one strip of foil, wax paper, tissue paper, and plastic straws. We pulled and twisted our materials to test their durability and flexibility. The group worked together to come to conclusions and mark their results on a checklist.

            The bulk of Day 2 was spent in “expert groups.” Each table received new paper looms and strips from one material to weave with. We told students that they would be the experts on that material. My group had foil strips and we started by reviewing our information about foil from our checklist. I asked students how we should manipulate the foil based on our knowledge. Students supplied that we should be gentle because it tears easily. As students weaved, I questioned them on the properties of foil and the difficulty of weaving with foil. One student decided that the task was “heasy - hard because it tears easily and easy because it was easy to weave.” I was very proud of the students for backing up their observations with evidence! When all the expert groups were done weaving with their special material, it was time to communicate their findings. Each table had a turn standing up, showing off their work, and describing the physical properties of their specific material. For example, students observed that foil is shiny, tears easily, and does not require tape because it folds over. Wax paper was slipper and hard to glue. Tissue paper was easy to glue, tears easily, and pretty (colorful) when complete. The plastic straws were very strong and easy to weave with but required tape to hold them into the loom.

Learning Performances

This final communication as well as informal discussion at table groups on both days made it clear for me and my teammates to assess whether students met the learning performances. Students were definitely able to “weave a simple paper loom with teacher modeling and assistance” on Day 1. Then on Day 2 when students weaved again with a different material, fine motor skills and patterning were reinforced. The concept of alternating the over-under sequence with each strip was difficult for some, but all students successfully weaved over and under with paper strips and their expert material on Day 2. Students were also able to “verbalize that different materials have different properties that affect their use.” All students successfully identified physical properties of their expert materials, and many were able to connect those observations to the ease or difficulty with which they weaved the material. For example, the students who said that wax paper was hard to glue because it was slippery. This shows that all students are at a different level of understanding, but all students could be successful in achieving the basic learning performance.

Modifications

            I am very pleased with the modifications we made to the classroom teacher’s original lesson. Instead of just weaving with paper, we also read a book, tested materials, became experts, and communicated results! All these activities were engaging to the students and effective in guiding students to discover that different materials have different properties. We were able to respect the teacher’s plan while still adding to it and enriching the activity.

            A few things went differently from the lesson plan when we actually taught the students, but I feel that they were all good adaptations that showed our discernment “in the moment.” First, on Day 1 after students finished weaving with paper, I thought of a fun little “game” for the students to do, to reinforce the over-under pattern. I asked the teacher if this would be okay, or if it would just distract/confuse students before music. She was game for the idea, so I went ahead. I lined up the class in two rows facing each other. Each pair of students across from one another was to either link their hands together to make a “bridge” or sit on the ground and put their feet together, making a “wall.” This was very difficult to set up spontaneously, as almost every child needed to be physically guided to their position. Then the students at the front of the line got to go through the “tunnel” created by the class’s bodies. I asked the class to call out help to the students going through the course. “Under the bridge...over the wall...etc.” After students went through the tunnel, they lined up at the door for Music, so the tunnel got progressively shorter until everyone was through. It was pretty crazy and spontaneous, but the kids had fun and got to move with their whole bodies.

On Day 2, several adaptations were made. For example, we compared the weave of a crocheted scarf with a cashmere scarf instead of looking at burlap during the opening discovery rotation. This was a last minute change, but students did not mind, and it was easier for all students to participate in touching a long scarf than a smaller section of burlap. Then, we reduced the original five materials in the lesson plan to four materials (wax paper, tissue paper, foil, straws) so that there would be a one-to-one correspondence between special materials and expert groups. I think that if we had tested five materials, students would have been preoccupied with the missing fifth material during the expert group activity. In our lesson plan we chose to have students weave with the expert materials in pairs instead of individually because we thought it would be too difficult, but based on their success on Day 1, we felt comfortable giving each student a paper loom to weave with on Day 2. Thanks to this adaptation, each student was fully engaged and occupied during the lesson, not waiting for their turn, and every student had a product to decorate and take home.

            Finally, instead of closing the lesson with testing the strength of a large sample of each material at table groups, my teammates and I improvised a demonstration in front of the whole class. We held up our own sample of each material and asked students if they thought it was strong or weak and how we might test it. We led students to agree that we could test the woven product by seeing if it would hold a heavy water bottle. Each sample was held up, students made predictions, and we carefully placed the water bottle on top. Depending on if the sample held or bowed and the water bottle fell, we asked students why they think the water bottle fell or didn’t fall. This whole-class prediction, observation of a test, and then discussion worked out very well. Since students had spent most of the hour in table groups, they were ready to handle whole-class focus.

Future Instruction

            If I were to teach this lesson again in the future, there are a few things I would change. I do not feel that we adequately differentiated instruction, so we were fortunate that no students finished significantly before or after the whole group. I enjoyed improvising a movement activity on Day 1, so I intend to research games that emphasize patterning or parts of a whole.

            These two lessons would also not be the end of our discussion on properties of materials. I would love to guide students through further discovery of properties in the following weeks. Just like the weaving lesson, other “required” Kindergarten lessons can be reworked to teach foundational skills and scientific principles.

               

Science as Inquiry

During this experience I learned about what Kindergartners are capable of - physically, academically, and behaviorally. It was a good reminder to see what great observers they are! Even the youngest of students have great potential to engage in meaningful scientific inquiry. In some ways, they are the “best” for science because they are willing to take risks and are constantly adjusting their pre-conceptions as they discover the world around them on a daily basis.

It was also very helpful to be reminded that scientific learning is still important in its simplest skills and concepts. Upon first considering weaving, I thought that it was purely a fine motor skill activity. Now, I understand that young students are still learning that parts make up a whole, and that materials have properties. This does not always look like physics, biology, chemistry, or earth science, but they are still engaging in science.

After this experience, I feel more confident that I can have an inquiry-oriented classroom. It may be more or less teacher-directed depending on the age and responsibility of the students, but it can still be inquiry. By practicing over and over again, I feel comfortable that I can evaluate my own science lessons and activities by the 5 essential features of inquiry to check my teaching.