Reflections of a Techie

July's reflection comes true

In scrambling across the web, I've found a treasure chest of opportunity.  Science for citizens is actually the name of the chest.  And it was a bit of a treasure hunt that brought me to their front door...more about that later.

Science for Citizens offers regular folks like me (if I'm regular I guess) the chance to participate in science projects from right where we live, doing pretty normal stuff and then sending in what we learn to the principal investigators.  Here's their nutshell of a mission

In a nutshell...

If you're a citizen: This is the place to find out about, take part in, and contribute to science through recreational activities and research projects.

How cool is that?  And the mission statement is this

ScienceForCitizens.net will bring together the millions of citizen scientists in the world; the thousands of potential projects offered by researchers, organizations, and companies; and the resources, products, and services that enable citizens to pursue and enjoy these activities. We aim to:

• Enable and encourage people to learn about, participate in, and contribute to science through both informal recreational activities and formal research efforts.
• Inspire greater appreciation and promote a better understanding of science and technology among the general public.
• Create a shared space where scientists can talk with citizens interested in working on or learning about their research projects.
• Satisfy the popular urge to tinker, build, and explore by making it simple and fun for people—singles, parents, grandparents, kids—to jump in and get their hands dirty with science.

Who could resist something like that?  To be sure, not me!!!  So I've nosed around the website and found at least a couple of projects that I'm already working on.  The first one is very low key and super easy.  Robins.  Yep the birds that hop around my yard all day and night...little brown and orange-breasted birds.   They are sweet, they love my bird bath in the front yards, although it's very hard to photograph them there. 

The idea is for citizens everywhere to document where and when someone sees a robin and then upload the observation report.  There's a very cool map that locates your robin observation and you can see where the robins can be found in the United States.  The scientists running the project are monitoring climate change and weather changes on where these little guys migrate.

Then on June 21st, I'm getting excited for another super simple, easy to participate in science project.   From the Science for Citizens Blog comes "Snap a picture and mesure albedo!!!"  By taking a picture of a piece of white paper...yes, a picture of white paper...you could help scientist to take measurements from all over the world on albedo.

But what's albedo, Marsha?  Albedo is the solar energy that bounces back back to space after it hits the Earth's surface.  Not all of what the sun sends out and that makes it thru the atmosphere all the way to the surface, stays on the surface.  Some of it richocets off the earth's surface & back out of the atmosphere.   

"For three years Dr. Kathleen Gorski and her students at Wilbraham and Monson Academy near Springfield, MA have been snapping pictures of white paper and using them to measure albedo by comparing the white paper to the surrounding ground surface. "  the blog reports.  So how much fun would it be to participate in a project that tries to take the most accurate measurement of something as scientific as this?  And simple.

If you're like me....well, just remember June 21st between 5-8pm is the time and place.  Snap your picture and you're in the loop....a citizen scientist.  I first came across this idea of albedo when we were studying climate...and learned the more that the earth absorbs, the hotter we become in theory.  So studying things like how much is reflected back, helps to monitor how climate change is or is not happening.

 

Treasure Hunt    So how did I find this jewel?  Well, thanks to my newly acquired Twitter skills, I'm beginning to read the Tweets of very interesting people.

Responding to those Small Strategic Steps

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.

How do you help students improving the quality of their questions?

Practice and processing of that practice....is the simple answer.

We practice it a lot. 

We take a topic and start thinking about questions that are interesting...and then they start brainstorming a big list.  Topics trend up and down...and the longer the brainstorming goes the better the questions get.  Students hear a good idea and use that good idea in building their question.

We process a lot.

Once we have a pretty long list and everyone is just repeating, we start processing.  I ask them what are questions that are easily Googled and which ones are ones that will require more thought.  It's a simple filter...but a good one.  It's actually a skill that is sort of invisible but very useful if you stop and think about it.

Ususally the processing ends up with min-conversations about what they think or where they'll go to find out more.  I believe it's a great way to incorporate vocabulary development....just slipping the words that I know as their teacher that are relevant to the topics.  Sometimes we leave it there. 

Sometimes we save the list because we use it throughout the set of lessons.  Answering them.  Keeping them on the unanswered list.  Using them for inquiry projects.

Practice and process.  The simple keys to getting better at asking quality questions.

 

Connectedness...what does that mean for a school leader?

Almost from the first sentence, I'm hooked on these ideas that school leadership is complex and that it can be an enigma.  Lyn Hilt then proceeds to discuss how skillful use of digital tools can improve and expand the way in which we interact with our communities.  Her post called "Successful School Leaders Today Need to Harness Technology and Social Media" was a wonderful early Christmas present.

As a teacher, I jumped for joy as I read one of the first suggestions how to improve the daily staff email....

Use a staff blog to highlight resources, ideas, and post important informational items; help staff subscribe via RSS to be notified of blog updates. Send out weekly “must-reads” posts to inspire your staff. Create a Diigo group for your school to fluidly share resources – all staff can contribute.

I know that if other teachers are like me this would be shockingly revolutionary.  I can't imagine having weekly or daily tangible examples of resources, being encouraged to build my professional skill set by subscribing to RSS feeds and/or social bookmarking.  Imagine if you were a struggling teacher who was afraid of technology.  Sure this would be intimidating, but if you were given the adjustment time to "lurk" and just absorb and watch this example unfold everyday, it has to creep into professional conversations and that conversation builds ways for us to help each other.  Also wouldn't this be a terrific living example of what you could turn around and use with your students....creating this epistle of student work, announcements about class happenings and collecting important resources?

If I was jumping before, I'm turing cartwheels at this point when Lyn says "Establish meeting norms that include “banning the use of computers or phones during meetings” (p. 37)".  Oh my gosh....do you know how many meetings I last through because I am expected as a fully functioning adult to sit quietly and be a pillar of inactivity.  Usually as someone speaks, I'm thinking about how what they are saying does or doesn't work for my classroom....and how I could customize the information to make it even better.  I can't imagine how rapidly ideas would be disseminated if, during these meetings we could be 

Encourage relevant use of technology during meetings. Establish backchannels  for discussions during meetings. Consider the use of Today’s Meet or the chat features of Google Docs to capture the flow of ideas. Empower your teachers as part of the conversation.

I know this is scary for the people holding the meetings.  But honestly if you can't keep their attention, commanding obedience isn't going to work.  Just like kids, adults will look atttentive on their outsides while inside their heads they are making their grocery lists, thinking what's for dinner, their workout routine at the gym or any one of a million things.  How much more a meeting convener could determine if people were "getting" the idea by seeing who was engaged with the idea and who might have questions from reading a backchannel conversation.

Really, go and read Lyn's post and see if you aren't ready to sign onto a school where teachers are pushed to learn more technology....where tried and true leadership techniques are evolved into even better tools....where the use of digital tools is modeled for teachers and stakeholders. 

With a focus on learning how could something like these ideas not elevate a faculty...being inspired by their leadership and gently encouraged to do more and to be better?

Lettting them Choose....Getting Students ready to effectively use tools

Was reading an excellent post called I Did Leave it Up to Them.  This is someone after my own heart because this is precisely what I'm trying to do too.  I knew this was going to be a great post; listen to this

I gave the students a choice of tools (i.e., iPod Touch, Nintendo DS, iPad, and Livescribe Pen), and they were able to use any of the tools in any way that they wanted, as long as they shared their learning with me.

I think this is so smart.  Give them a number of tools that they know how to use and then let them decide on the best way of giving you back the information.  I did this with our Mastodon Project but since it was so early in the year, we didn't have network resrouces working yet, so very few of them utilized technology options.

Aviva is a 1st grade teacher, so her post really is evidence for people who might be skeptical that young children can use technology.  But probably the key to making this work is the modeling step she speaks about so well.  It seems to me that it is a forgotten step quite often.  You have to use the instructional tool so often in front of students that they get quite familiar with it.  I know that I had to not only show how to use the temperature probes, but also them use them in several demos before I asked students to use them for their own investigations.

I experience this in the past couple of weeks in my own room.  I wanted students to use probeware as an efficient means of data collection....which should free up time to help them focus on the analysis of what was happening.  The first couple of weeks they struggled to see how the graphs and tables revealed any patterns....and now don't even notice that they're using a tool.  They are focused on the science.  Even when I didn't have laptops on which to use the software and had to transfer them to a different interface on a handheld device, they were still able to do the analysis.

I think both of us are focused on empowering students to find their voice and to communicate with us.  Choice is a huge motivator and incorporating new technology tools with appropriate modeling makes it all possible.  I love the idea of "Letting Them Choose".

On a completely different note:

Another huge idea that this post included was I've been thinking about reflection, too.  And Aviva speaks about using smaller size paper to get students to write more.  I've done this when we read.....students are very resistant to reader logs in science class.  But they're totally content with creating mini-summaries and WOW facts (thanks Stephanie Harvey for this great idea).  Aviva read about it from  Zoe Branigan-Pipe wrote  how to improve audio feedback for her students who were writing their first lesson plans...she used sticky notes to amp it up.

Don't you just love how all good teaching circles around and around?

 

Updated with more reflection quotes from lab reports: Out of the mouths of my developing young scientists

Updated:  More student reflections were turned in today and I thought several students were able to share wisdom that seems well beyond their 12 years.  What do you think?

We were off a lot but still in the right direction.  I've learned that making predictions is harder than it seems.  I think next time we could pay more attention and spend more time just looking for patterns in our data.  That would help make it more accurate.

What we thought was not only confirmed by looking at the graph but in the emails we sent to Mr. ________(I'm replacing our buildings and grounds HVAC manager's name with a blank).  We thought it was turned off at 2:50pm.  That's what the graph showed and then his email said we were right.

We finally figured out that when the sun went down the building cools off.  It took us a couple of days to figure that out and we know it should be simple.  But it wasn't.  Now it seems simple.  I learned you have to stop and think about the common sense of things to get it.

Student reflections are getting better.  Here's a sampling of what I read last night in their lab journals.

I should have taken into account that there was more than twice as much cold than warm water. If I had done that, my prediction would have been closer.

My predictions were off. I think this is because we let the water sit in the air which is cooler than than the warm water. Big mistake. Won't do that again.

I learned to make the next prediction by comparing it to the trial I just finished. That made it much easier and I got to be a good predicter.

We had to get better at starting right after we measured. If we took too long measuring the water cooled down and it warmed up to room temperature too fast.

The graph of what we did kept dropping so I knew something was different. Then I figured out that the heat doesn't come on in the weekends. I just need to use common sense sometimes because everyone knows NOW that buildings aren't heated up as much on the weekends.

We looked a points on the graph where the temperature started to steady. That was at 10 hours so we knew it was as cold as it was going to get.

I wasn't that close. I was off 6.8 degrees. If I had changed it according to how the water had cooled or warmed up I could've gotten closer. But I forgot to do that. Next time.

All our trials worked out to help. Our design was very successfull because it warmed a "little" and cold air escaped. But it mostly was a good insulator because we made so many thermoses that were terrible.

I learned that graphs help you find patterns. Patterns help.

I did not know that cold could be that cold. If I got to measure the cold before I started. If I got to measure the cold first and the hot first so I knew each one's temperature, I could have made a better prediction. I have to think about that next time.

I finally figured out, after reading the emails, that since they turn the heat off at night, the building's termpature adjusts to what's outside. That never ever came into my mind. Now I know they're all related at least a little bit.

My prediction was closish. I could do better next time by looking at the graph with all three temperatures and amounts. Big clue.

How can something be a little formative and a little summative?

Like Donny and Marie, I was a little bit formative and a little bit summative in what I did with students last week.  And I think it worked almost as well as the teen wonders singing their way into the hearts of America so many years ago.

We were undertaking 3 different challenges to build models that represented different things students had read about in their textbook around the weather topics of wind and water.  Instead of giving them worksheets and a quiz, I turned the big ideas of these topics into challenges.  They had to show me they could build a model that represented their learning.

In the three days of experimenting around, students figured out lots of about how weather "works out there"...meaning outside of the textbook in my classroom.  We used video clips where they could narrate what they were learning and leave those for me to watch at night.

I can check off some process and content skills from what I already hear (so it's summative).  And I hear other things that they need more help learning...either thru questioning that leads them to consider other ideas or even a mini-lesson. 

One of the most effective mini-lessons for this group was to have them re-scan thru the textbook chapter with me...they were stuck and didn't know what to do next.  As we re-read the textbook, you could almost see that now the words had more meaning.  Parts of things that were just words before now had a reality to them that they didn't have before....and re-reading allowed them to connect this new learning to those words....which helped them realize a path that might be productive.  The whole setting a reason for reading escalted 10x what it normally is...and they saw the textbook as a helper to getting them a working model.

Building models....Inquiry learning is hard, messy and rewarding

It's hard work building models that show how weather works...or at least parts of it.  I laid out three challenges for my students to do this past week that would demonstrate their mastery of the concepts of rising/falling air, water vapor forming clouds and dew/frost formation. 

There were several publisher-written labs to perform, but I wanted to give students more control over how they went about learning how wind and water work in the atmosphere. 

Oh Mrs. Ratzel, can't we just have a worksheet?  Please it would be so much easier.

I love this.  No one tells me what to try.

I'm making a ton of things that don't work, but I'm learning even more.  I have a bunch of stuff I know that won't work.

Don't worry, I have lots of ideas left.

I'm asking my dad how to solve this problem tonight.

 
You can see that students had a whole range of reactions to this open-ended challenge where the only hints I provided were the readings from the textbook and lots of materials that I set out for them to use. 

For two days they tried lots of different ideas.  Lots of things didn't work but I don't think a kid thought they "failed".  They knew it was more of a treasure hunt so it wouldn't necessarily be the first path they'd take.  Each group had decided which challenge to attempt so in some classes, every group picked the same challenge and in other classrooms I had all three going on at once.  Eventually students realized they could share results with each other and that it would help....and so they compared data in some cases and in other they showed how they built an apparatus.

In this first video you'll see a group trying to document what they've learned about rising and falling air.  Unfortunately what they thought they could show didn't work and then they try to explain why.

 

In this next group, they had more success.  Even though this group had repeated trials where it worked before they started filming, I think they were shocked when it worked as they felt like it would.

 

In both cases, video was a huge help to me to listen in on what they're articulating about their learning...and it isn't easy getting the model to show what they learned, video tape and explain ALL AT THE SAME TIME. 

You can tell they own the learning and I think it demonstrates a couple of things:

1. Students love to be in charge of what they learn.  They'll probably learn it deeper and more forever than anything I could find in a pre-made lab.
2. Students love choice and getting to pick the challenge they must solve.
3. Learning is very messy.
4. Kids can suffer "failures" if they still learn from the experience....and I don't think they see these as failures for very long.  Rather I think they are astute enough to see that it's fiddling around that helps them learn.
5. Real self-esteem is derived from these kinds of experiences where they solved the problem.  At least way more self-satisfaction than what they gain from follwing a publisher's lab correctly and coming out with the right answer.
6. That said, I couldn't do what I do without the publisher sending me in the right direction.  I do greatly value the labs they create....I just need to tweak them to be far less prescriptive and lots more opened.  But they have done the work to find what's safe and probaby age-appropriate.
7. Doing this kind of work with 30+ students in one classroom is a HUGE challenge from space planning to getting enough materials to being safe...and giving them any independence.  Oh how I long for a classroom with only 25 students.

Three lessons learned from student debrief of tiered labs

Presentations were an amazing experience this week.  Students improved in their ability to "talk science" and their electronic posters got more and more focused.  They could tell this too and I think they walked away with a real sense of accomplishment.  In our de-brief sessions, they said time and again how much they learned about heat transfer AND how hard it was at the beginning but how they "got" it by the end....usually followed by a big smile!!!

Focused listening is crucial

Guest expertise allows students to achieve more things

Learning the pedagogy for scientific argumentation is a high art-form

• Again I learn the lesson that it helps to sit and really listen to what each group saying.  That focused attention is crucial.  Several groups had subpar presentations but with a few tweaks...."oh, that's what I should have done", they could recraft their presentation.

In order to do this I have to design lessons that allow me the freedom to become a part of the audience.  Again this back to what Sheryl taught me this summer to morph into the passion based classroom where students know they're in charge.

 

• Having guest speakers help.  We had a mechanical engineer present to the classes...and he was brilliant.  Mostly because you could tell he does presentation after presentation.  The graphics were engaging and the content was relevant.  Students loved what he explained to them....and they were able to transfer watching him present to what they should do.  It wasn't hard for me to ask them...."Did Mr. M read the slide to you when he presented?"  "No...he told a story about it and the slide had the key words."....and lightbulb moment...."Oh, that's what I should do?"  and then they were off.

The generosity of parents to participate in our classes is staggering.  This dad chatted via email with my students about their analysis of heating patterns, asked questions and suggested ways to think about things differently....all before he gave up an entire morning to come to speak with my students.  He's an engineer for a local consulting firm and he works at building hospitals....knows tons about HVAC systems.   What benefit my students gained from interacting with him and validating their ideas....nevermind the excellent role model he presented about how engineering can be a great career option.

 

• Practicing scientific argumentation is good.  Seems like a no-brainer to say that, but increment practice steps really help.  Since we've been focused on relating data vs evidence, they're really getting better at it.

Teaching for discourse is hard work.  Well worth it.  But it takes years and years to get any good at it and to develop any intutitive sense of what will work with students.  I'm getting there.  The big encouragement is that the Next Generation Science Standards are going to rely heavily on this idea....so I'm ahead of the curve on something.

 

Listening picture used permission under CC Attribution license   http://www.flickr.com/photos/40732566596@N01/109538354/

Pepper spray gone wild....come on doesn't anyone remember Kent State anymore?

Normally I'm not a huge political poster.  But the pepper spraying incident really got my hackles up.  These are my favorite Photoshopped images.  They say it all.

Honestly don't these pictures say it all?  Tumblr has many more, but I figured this was enough copyright violations for one post.