A teacher that I follow closely is Shelley Wright. I somehow feel we must have separated at teacher's college as I feel she's my twin science teacher. Doesn't matter that she teaches AP Physics and I teach 11 and 12 year olds....we struggle with lots of the same things?
Take her most recent article at Voice From the Learning Revolution she talks a series of small strategic steps. Right off the bat, I'm in....because I can do almost anything that's small and if it's strategic, all the better.
She talks about the shift towards being a student-centered classroom as a roller coaster ride. This describes my personal journey towards becoming a teacher who does more coaching of students towards our science learning targets than one who pours into them. It's full of bends in the road...you don't expect students to react in a certain way and you really have to become a nimble responder.
Students need lots of help to make this transition and when you see them struggling, you have to change your course in a heartbeat. Doesn't that remind you of some of these corkscrew kinds of curves?
Shelley recommends
You can jump in and change everything at once like I did, but that’s slightly crazy. Instead, if you design one unit in one subject, at the end of each day, or week, you can analyze what worked and what didn’t.
While I see the wisdom in this approach, I also needed to have a strong understanding of how this learning would fit into everything else I'm doing. I couldn't do just one. For me, I had to conceptually get how this one change was going to fit into the bigger picture.
I think my reasoning goes something like this....my little guys are so inexperienced at science that you can be doing things differently without causing them to falter around. So if I'm going to do inquiry, I have to do in such a way that it doesn't jolt them. So maybe I could design a series of inquiry experiences that ease into the different skills they are going to need to do inquiry.
For example, I might need to teach them how to write a whole sentence or draw a picture with diagrams.....so when they tell others what they learned there will be information there. Honestly my students arrive....masters at the one or two word answers. It's back to the whole fill-in-the-blank mentality.
As some of my other colleagues say....I have to help my students "unlearn" first. Then they can do inquiry. And as Shelley recommends....talk about the learning. Boy there couldn't be any better advice than this. No matter how well or how badly something has gone...having the chance to discuss it with students to get their perspective and reaction...helps so much. It develops their voice as a learner, as an important member of the classroom and I get more insight by chatting with them in a class debrief for 10 minutes than if they write for that same period of time.
Strategic steps are critical to any kind of instructional strategy you're going to deploy. Inquiry because it emphasizes student independence and pushes them to be question-askers as well as question-answerers......depends on taking small steps.
Right on Shelley.
Thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/682213181/sizes/s/in/photostream/ for their CC license rollercoaster picture.
Marsha, I agree, we think a lot the same! Imagine if we could design a 6-12 science program together! This can be such a hard shift for students. I find my students need to unlearn so much, and those students who have figured out how to "play" the system, who get all the A's, are often reticent to let go, even if it is for their own good!
I admire your courage to lead 11 & 12 year-olds through this maze of learning. They are so fortunate to have you as a teacher.
Posted by: Shelley Wright | January 29, 2012 at 10:35 PM
Shelley actually sent me your direction this afternoon about discussing my very own roller coaster journey with 3rd-6th graders this week. I'm looking forward to hearing more about inquiry in your classroom! Blog lots, okay? :)
Posted by: Julie Cunningham (@techfacil) | February 02, 2012 at 02:58 PM