Reflections of a Techie

Tools to amp up kids' thinking

I've been working all week on scientific argumentation...trying to distill the parts of what makes a scientific argument and then how to teach those parts to my 6th graders.  It is a daunting task.

One thing I know for sure is that I need constructs or models for how they should think when approaching a task.  I know that it will mean that they must also know when to apply the strategy, but I think it won't leave them so flat footed if they have a bag 'o tricks from which to pull.

My Google Reader brought me a very interesting post by Dave Gray on something he called Q-Tools.   Dave Gray » Q-tools: An approach for discovery and knowledge work.  He has a set of very insightful pictures that capture the thinking strategy that will be applied to a particular setting.

THIS is what I am hoping to create for scientific arugmentation.  I wonder if it's better to first think up the final product (something like making a claim) or if it's better to think up pictures to define the filters that you must apply to your thinking (evaluating the claim for evidence--stuff like data, facts, opinions or theories).  Probably doesn't matter.

I'm going to hang out a bit more with Mr Gray's piece and see what I can come up with about my own thinking structures/filters.  But thank you for the great seed of an idea!!!!

Hunting Down articles for scientific argumentation

Students (plus way too many of the rest of us) easily believe something that is supposed to be scientific.  Just using the label helps create an air of credibility around what you're saying.  One only has to look at infomericals to see the entire industry that has sprung up from this method of arguing.

I had an opportunity to take a class at KU about Scientific Evidence and Argumentation.  Professors there (Janis Bulgren and J D Ellis) are trying to define a method for teaching students to look at scientific claims that are made and critically review them.  A tall order for middle school kids, don't you think.

But actually there is a method to their madness.  Not an easy method by any means, but certainly "do-able". 

My first obstacle is finding material that is of interest to my 11 and 12 year olds.  Then I have to find something that will interest them that applies to my curriculum and is within their reading level.  Climate concerns...especially those that deal with global warming...are interesting to them and I found this article.  "Seasonal Factor Seen in Melting and Ice Shifts in Greenland" from the NYT.

I think it's claim is easy enough to find, so is the evidence that is presented to support the claim

• Recent studies have shown that this water, which flows deep into the ice through natural drainpipes called moulins, allows the ice to slide faster over bedrock toward the ocean. And the faster the ice flows, the faster sea levels rise. But a Dutch study using 17 years of satellite measurements in western Greenland suggests that the movement associated with the meltwater is not as rapid as had been feared.
• The acceleration appears to be a transient summer phenomenon, the researchers said, with the yearly movement actually dropping slightly in some places.

I think another article I found about the new LZR swimsuits would be fantastic.

Since its debut at the Missouri Grand Prix in February, the new Speedo LZR swimsuit has made nearly as many waves out of the pool as it has in it. With 18 of 19 record-setting, long-course swims – the same pool format of the Olympics – and 17 of 18 record-setting short course swims for the LZR dating back to its inception, Speedo has had to withstand charges of “technological doping” from those in the swimming community and beyond.

FINA, the international governing body for swimming, met with the world’s top swimsuit manufacturers in an emergency meeting Saturday to determine whether the suit and others like it were giving certain athletes an unfair competitive advantage. Though FINA endorsed the suit for a second time and decided to allow other suit makers to copy the design, some in the swimming community have begun to take the matter into their own hands.

The NCAA men’s National Championships, the Italian Olympic Trials and the Canadian Olympic Trials are among meets that have banned the LZR – as well as TYR’s new swimsuit, dubbed the Tracer – from competition.

Both of these articles are simple enough to read, they make some scientific claim and need a reader base that can critically analyze the points they put forth.  This is a huge skill for our students to learn even if it isn't on any of the No Child Left Behind tests...it will be something that they can practically use forever.

I'm just beginning my journey and we'll see how it goes.  Things could be very exciting.

Rapping to Convert Metric Measurements

Well I'm back at it....trying to find ways to make the startup of the science school year fun.  Fun and learning rules just never seem to go together.

I'm armed with an array of lab safety games, the Absent Minded Professor Skits and MatchUps. 

But when I started looking for fun ways to teach conversion of metric units of measure....well, you can probably see where things started to go awry.  Then I remembered Teacher Tube...a place where many colleagues are doing incredibles things with video.  I found Mrs. Burt who was rapping about converting from big to small and small to big units.  That may not sound so critical to a blog reader, but to an 11 or 12 year old kid, it's huge.  They never understand when to multiply and when to divide.  I think she does a crackerjack job. See what you think.

Kudos to Mrs. Burt for being brave to rap, for having such a great way to remember which operation to use and for sharing with those us who can't do what you're doing!!!!

Phoenix Lands, Preps to Start Digging and Running Experiments

The Phoenix is on the Martian surface!!!!! and about to start its experiments.  Can you imagine how unbelieveable the next 90 days of experiments will be?  This little robot who is about to start digging to find hidden treasures within the soil and rocks below it.  With the chemistry experiments that Phoenix it can do, scientists think they'll find new information that has never been.  In the fall, the sun will permanently set on Mars and Phoenix will be encased in the Martian polar ice cap or frozen carbon dioxide 1 meter thick.

Honestly I have to tell you that I haven't been this excited about something in our space program for years.  Last night as I watched every second of the 7 Minutes of Peril/Terror, I kept thinking about those long ago days when we were all crowded into my elementary school gym to squint at a TV way up on the stage...hoping that John Glenn would be successful.

Not long after it landed, I got my first email from one of my students.  They were excited and wondered if I had watched.  And then came another email and another and another.  It would seem that 7 or 8 kids watched this broadcast on Sunday night.  We studied robots and then extended that study to the Phoenix.  Thinking about this 450 pound robot that traveled for almost a year really pushed my students to think beyond their beloved Sumobot.  They began to catch a glimpse at the possibilities.

How exciting.  What if one of them someday is able to go to Mars?  Oh to be young and at the point where all the fun of space exploration is before you!!!!  What are the scientific truths of the Martian polar ice caps  (especially in this year of Earth's polar zones)?

Using motion dectectors to explore speed and velocity

I used the Go! Motion Vernier probes this week to teach about speed.  Historically students have struggled with this idea and the graphing as freaked them out.  Not this year.  I borrowed a motion detector from a colleague and set it up in the front of my room.

The labs that Vernier suggested were powerful teaching tools and my kids "got" it.  Right off the bat and better than any other year I can imagine.

It was powerful to project the graphs onto my Smart Board.  These huge graphs made getting everyone at the same place at the same time pretty easy.  I loaded a blank graph onto the SB and used 2 students of very different heights to slowly walk a distance I had pre-measured.  This way they figured out how the detector worked and got into the spirit of the activity.

Next I projected a graph onto the board and they took one minute to plan how they would walk so that the line the motion detector plotted would match the one I displayed.  Discussion between shoulder partners was abuzz with tons of ideas.

When they started to walk, it only took a couple of student tries for them figure out what worked and what didn't work.  Once they had the idea, we worked on strategies for getting a closer and closer match.  Without even realizing it, the students learned that to have a flat line on the graph you needed to stop moving; to get the line to have a steeper slope they needed to speed up and so on.

One of my perennial science ba-humbug kids said to me..."hey I actually get this."

We added on just a bit....I asked them to use the Smart Board pen and draw a prediction line of what would happen to graph if they walked toward the detector instead of away.  Out of the 4 classes, 3 classes correctly predicted.  All classes "got it" before 10 seconds had passed.

Here is a perfect case where the lesson wasn't about the technology, but what the technology allowed us to discover about the concept.  It's why I love technology and can't imagine how I'd teach some concepts nearly as well without using it.  I wouldn't want to go back to the pre-SmartBoard days or not have access to probeware. 

I'm just starting to learn about probes...now I have 2 under my belt...this motion one and the temperature probe.  Maybe I can get a grant to buy a force one or the UVA or UVB dectector.  this is engaging science...it is science where we learn by doing not just by reading.  It makes the textbook stuff come alive and they really comprehend what they read.

Forces in Water Bottle Rockets

I just submitted a donation request and am keeping my fingers crossed.

Force and Motion is the unit I'll be starting in April and know that to do is much better than reading.  I am hoping to  integrate the design, testing and analysis of water bottle rockets.  The thing is that some of the consumeable supplies are expensive....certainly recycled 2L bottles aren't. 

We'll see but I want to DO science...not just read about it.  I also think it will be a great way for my students to work on their graphing skills in science, testing and journaling their results.

Student generated work---Properties of Water

One of my students took on the challenging of conveying what he'd learned about the properties of fresh and salt water using Voicethread.  What I really like about his work is that it is well written, has his voice and that he cited his sources.  He did a terrific job.  See what you think.

Tying History Inquiry to Earth Science---It's the Droughts that Did It!!!!

In the middle of my Earth's Water unit I knew I needed some more punch...something to perk student interests in the ever present water cycle (how many times does it appear in the curriculum???? a million????) and ocean chemistry.  Climate change current events is everywhere so I knew that something could pique the interests of my students.

Sure enough it was a book about Droughts.....sounds pretty exciting doesn't it.  Well, the topic is even if a whole book isn't.  I knew that they were especially interested in the Dust Bowl.  Heck many of their grandparents remember  the 1930s.  So I thought I utilize that as my hook.

I created another Voicethread that merged our science content with historical pieces from the Kansas Historical Society.  They went nuts reading the newspaper article accounts of dust storm encounters.  They were amazed at the photographs that are available.  In a little over a week they left over 100 comments about what they were seeing and what interested them.

Take a look at the work they created and the comments they left.

Summarization in Science--Finding the Elusive Main Idea

The ability to summarize is tough to develop.  I've been working with my students all year to identify and use the text features of our textbook...and it's really a straightforward easy to use book.  The main ideas of a section are always in bigger red font and the support details are always in smaller blue font.  Then the bolded sentences explain the key points of the section.  Seems so easy. 

But it isn't.

I asked them to use a graphic organizer to record the main idea of Section 2...Water on Earth.  So it should have been fairly easy.  What completely stumps them STILL is how to turn "Distribution of Earth's Water" into a statement..."Earth's water is distributed between ......" .  They're much better than in August but we have so far to go.

The next hurdle was taking those blue details and turning them into that list.  OK...I completely love the book, Summarization in Any Subject by Rick Wormeli.  I knew about these text structures before I read his book, but I think his "be on the lookout for these words to tip you off to the list" were very helpful to my students.  I tried the good 'ole concept map graphic organizer...didn't work.  But Rick suggests a staircase organizer.  Haven't seen any of those, but I think I'll find some for Monday's review.

I've also created a SmartBoard shell...I put each of the headings into a text box.  Then I'm going to let them move these around and see if they think additional information is needed.  We can add that. 

I'll admit that I've been thinking that maybe words are the best way to summarize this...maybe that's the problem.  Maybe I should use a circle graph, have them draw a picture and call it good.  Worry about summarizing with words on something different.

Videopodcast of Nova--Absolute Zero

This little video will help my student envision how particles of matter can behave differently.  Thanks to PBS for posting this clip....I thought it was only availabe at YouTube and that is blocked by my district.

It makes me feel better when the scientist doesn't really understand what is happening but thinks it's very cool.  What fun.