I’m not sure there are enough grains in a fist-full of sand that a twelve-year-old picked up on the beach for how many times I’ve began a lesson with that question. Peering over a 2,000-foot canyon rim, huddled by a tide pool beside the salty, ocean spray, or on a tiled floor by the lab table on the second story, I’ve asked this question. I ask the question, whether it was started by a student’s observation or my own or just a way to spark conversation, but it turns on a switch that illuminates a space that didn’t seem to be there before. Suddenly, there are at least a million things present in front of each student. All five senses are dispensed and available to take in these surroundings: It looks mostly green, but there’s a little bit of yellow, or gray, or…It feels heavy, kind of like…Check out this one, it’s more…What began as a group of twelve-or-so mostly-disengaged or distracted students in a circle becomes a semi-amorphous but self-directed, dynamic group. I migrate to the clusters of collective minds forming and glean information, then probe the independent minds making further inquiries.
"What do you wonder about it?" I then ask. The independent minds already well on their way with this question as they all bring creative, unanticipated ideas that seem to bounce off one another, and clarifying visions begin to form. While some students have been busy enough engaging with every possibility about what is before them, I realize there are some still waiting to see the value of this prompt, the illuminated space, and how it could be pertinent to their lives. “What does it remind you of?” I ask lastly. At this, the illuminated space doesn’t have a border drawn around what is occupying the mind at the present. A single observation is enough to invite today, yesterday, five years ago, family, best friend and dream to this space and allow it significance and meaning. This observation, just like the others, doesn’t need to be showy or groundbreaking, it just needs to be yours.
I have worked with students across the country, from every age and background, and these questions along with many other inquiries have guided some of the most transforming science experiences with children I have been so lucky to have witnessed. This inquiry is one of the many aspects of problem-based learning that I have honed in my teaching style through the Science Teacher Certification program at Antioch University New England. You can reach me at the contact information page, and I am eager to speak with you about my teaching possibilities.
Problem-solving design and teaching: lessons learned
When I started out in problem-solving design, I was essentially lost in a world of examples and concepts that were almost not at all familiar to me. Sure, I understood what it means to solve problems, but as a way to teach a subject was almost completely foreign to me. I had certainly incorporated inquiry into a lot of my past experiences with students but problem-solving almost felt like something that only engineers and mathematicians would even potentially try to teach. Trying to transform lessons, experimenting with a biosphere and designing problem-solving challenges for actual students all felt completely devoid of relatable and familiar lessons I’d grown up with. Simply even starting with a design of a lesson felt like I had no frame of reference. I’d jumped into a pool but didn’t know how to swim.
Then, amidst the confusion, I started to see some patterns. I could see a way to take something that has a perfectly well-explained answer for how it is and leave just the “stuff” behind. You give a student the parts to make a pulley but no blueprints; you have the substances to make a chemical reaction, but no directions to show how they work together. Taking what I thought teaching was and leaving it at the door and just having a phenomena in front of me and the students could be all I need to teach a lesson—and hitting lots of education standards in the process.
My disbelief about how solving problems could be a way to teach an entire subject began fading away. I didn’t need to have the answers at-the-ready or the homework assignment that made sure students know their terms—and I didn’t have to be front and center. Students can learn about the world by solving problems, and come out of it not only with a relationship with science but also a framework for how to ask questions about everything else in life.
From my first co-teach in 9th grade earth science, I realized that going deeper than the text, just looking at things in front of you, brings about more learning than knowing the answer. I continued this transition into my second lesson, putting an exciting challenge in front of students to somehow get water out of thin air. I realized I had succeeded when the students didn’t even need to know the answer to their phenomena, they just knew that it happened and how.
I grew up with a lot of anxiety around school. Seeing the red pen on the paper was absolutely disheartening. Figuring out the system to memorization, multiple choice and following the steps felt like a hopeless battle for my brain. I had to “slave away to make an ‘A’”. As I’ve taught students over the years, I’ve tried to remove as much pressure from them to get the right answers or feel anxiety about their learning. In a traditional teaching approach, I would probably be sacrificing understanding for an accommodating environment. With problem-solving science, I realize now that I can design a lesson that doesn’t leave behind the stragglers, creates community understanding and puts me in a more effective place as a teacher. I know it will take a lot of effort to make a science curriculum based in problem solving, but I think I’m more convinced than ever that it’s the only way most students are truly going to make science a part of their lives.
How does the design & teaching of the problem-solving course reflect the major tenants of problem-solving & inquiry?
From the beginning of class, we were given challenges. Creating a biosphere to sustain multiple generations of spiders put the science work directly in front of us, with only some simple parameters to follow. It was up to us to come up with ways to seal our biosphere and make it sustain life with whatever we put in it. We were doing the science exploration, rather than being given steps on how to do it or a lecture on earth systems. Much like our assignments during the class, we had the “it” put between us and the teacher. Through our readings, we were given some normal text to read mixed with related media and were given hints of what to observe for, journal prompts and what to be ready for in class. Most of these worked together to center us on ideas that we could be able to discuss and bring up in class. The goals of the readings weren’t for memorization or replicating ideas but to allow group discussion around ideas from the readings, raise questions and engage with it. We were asked questions that were aimed around solving problems introduced in the readings and inquiry about something from within the readings. In this way, our time in class was a way to check our understanding brought about by the readings but to allow us to choose the direction of our inquiry.
We were assigned reading facilitations, where we were given one of the readings from the week and one of us was assigned the role of facilitator. This gave the opportunity for us to create our own questions and challenges based around the reading for our classmates and model an inquiry-based approach to learning. Through discussion and engaging with the readings we demonstrated our understanding while practicing a problem-solving approach.
As a regular part of class, we were assigned algorithmic transformations to practice making traditional lessons more “algor-heuristic” and problem-solving oriented. Doing this regularly, we were able to practice incorporating our learning into potential lessons. We also had the opportunity to give feedback and critique others ATs and make changes based on our learning.
In classroom observations, we had the opportunity to see several classes using problem-solving science with students and see students engaging in problem-solving science. This gave us the opportunity to see classroom management practices, content delivery and student understanding on a regular basis. Afterwards, we were able to reflect and debrief on what we observed and critique lessons based on how it modeled problem-solving science. Regularly doing this allowed us to better identify problem-solving approaches and their effectiveness in student understanding. Without this observation, we would be missing an exercise in applying our learning in the field. In this way, the problem-solving course modeled exercises in practicing observation and identifying concepts in an actual class setting.
The opportunity to design and teach a lesson for these classrooms was the ultimate way of putting our skills we had been reading about, discussing, observing and practicing into the field. With specific and real objectives in mind, meeting teacher expectation and standards and achieving student understanding, we were able to test our problem-solving lessons and learn from them. After each lesson, we had the chance to journal about our experience and discuss in class how things went. There was room for growth in each lesson taught and ways of incorporating new knowledge into each teaching opportunity. By practice, we were using prior knowledge to guide future exploration.
Lastly, our professor modeled problem-solving and inquiry by leading our course with the “it” between us and him. He would give us questions for discussion, have us turn to prior learning and put our practice of problem-solving on our own with him as a guide where we needed it. There was no lecture, there was problem-solving science and us. Jimmy would even join us in discussion or on a question, especially if he didn’t have an answer either. He gave us more questions and more opportunities for understanding rather than answers. Our class time was a model for problem-solving science that we could use to understand teaching in our own practice of problem-solving science.
Journal Week 5 9/25/18
In National Science Education Standards, one line particularly jumped out at me: "inquiry into authentic questions generated from student experiences is the central strategy for teaching science." As I read this, I realize that this is a bold statement in the face of the science experiences I had as a child. I by no means had a poor education, but inquiry into questions from students' experiences was not the central strategy of my science learning, maybe not even the second strategy...somewhere around third or fourth maybe! I realize that not all teachers avoided this, but it was not a strong practice for me as a student. I was given a vocabulary list to memorize, a lab guide to follow from A-Z and regurgitate as a lab report, textbooks that told me what the world of science is for me rather than have me experience it myself. I realize more and more that, as the standards boldly said, inquiry should be central.
In my experience, science was not the subject to raise questions, to discuss ideas, to bring experience to the table (unless it was something like, "Oh! Teacher! I saw a cumulonimbus cloud the other day and at night there was a thunderstorm!"). This makes me pretty disheartened, realizing that the subject I enjoyed so much in my own inquiries and explorations (into things like wildlife, weather and anatomy) were being denied this continued inquiry and exploration by my own teachers! I understand through this course, though, that taking a problem-solving and inquiry approach to science teaching just doesn't happen nearly at all in our education system. Why is the one thing that is most important to our understanding of science, more than the vocabulary and lab procedures, is the one thing being withheld from us as students...until we are graduate students in a science degree?
I'm hopeful that problem-solving science becomes more mainstream, even though the textbooks and pre-determined labs still run wild in our school systems, as the standards keep pushing us toward inquiry for students, and by teachers as an example. We can change this if we want to.
Journal Week 3 9/13/18
I think orientating science teaching around discovery and real-life problems is an incredibly effective teaching strategy when used in the right time and way. When I say the right time and way, I mean to ask these questions: Are any of my students unable to handle a real-life problem challenge in a group setting? Is there enough stimulation and inquiry in the project itself to keep students motivated for a class, week, semester, etc.? Would the subject matter and context inspire students or be less interesting? Do I have enough students capable of taking on roles within their groups, like speaker, writer, investigator, etc. and maintaining those positions for the duration of the project?
My biggest comparisons to this are two examples: one an honors course from my undergrad called Political Decision-Making and another a program in environmental education I used to do called Town Meeting. First, in my honors course, me and a class of twelve reenacted major political events in history as fictional and actual historical roles as part of a national college-level, predesigned course. We debated the rights and wrongs of democracy for ancient Athens, dealt with budgets and wars, and tried to keep from losing our heads (as more than just a play on words) during the French Revolution. We had different roles, different political interests and secret agendas that forced us to cooperate with other classmates and be at odds with others. The experience required way more than the average course-load of researching history, political strategies, and unearthing dirt about our opposing factions. It was one of the best courses I ever took, and I have a greater appreciation and solid base in history on ancient Greece and France than I ever would have had on my own. In this case, delving into history with "real" consequences, a good bit of acting and negotiation and teamwork that rarely happens in a standard classroom. For that, I think real-life problem teaching is incredible.
For my second example, "Town Meeting" was a lesson designed for 5th-8th grade students in our residential program on the coast of Maine. In this, one of us as the educators would get in costume as the "Mayor of Saco" announcing that the students were the town folk and that there was a major problem with the jetty causing major property losses and damage in Camp Ellis area of Saco Bay. The mayor would then invite a Jettyologist (an expert on jetties who was also an educator) to give the geologic and human history of Saco Bay and the jetty. After hearing this information, groups of 10-12 students would divide up and be given their roles as town people, which were pre-made stances and feelings about the jetty as fisherman, homeowners, biologists, etc. Students would have 2 group members present their stances to everyone. Then, the jettyologist would come with new information he/she discovered on potential solutions to the jetty. Now, as "regular town folk" and out of their role, group members are assigned one speaker, one time keeper and one agenda-person. The agenda-person would keep the group on task with a set of questions about pros/cons of the jetty, which solutions sound best and why, leading the group through the questions in order. The time keeper would make sure they watch how much time they have before the speaker needs to present the entire group's stance on what to do about the jetty. By the end, the students engaged in a real problem facing citizens of Saco, regarding taxes, history, cost to damages or construction or removal, etc. This activity was indoors, with no time spent exploring ecology concepts outside. Some students had difficulty doing the activity, if they were the typical "fidgety" kid in class or had other learning challenges. Some students preferred learning outdoors and didn't like that they had to spend an entire lesson indoors. Many students, though, actually enjoyed the Town Meeting! The social aspect of working as a team or pretending to be in a role offered an invitation for students to be creative and collaborative. Sometimes the representatives of town people were incredibly hilarious and thoroughly enjoyed the spotlight in front of their classmates. Others liked having the group roles of time keeper, agenda person and speaker. Some loved devising new ways to approach a problem of removal or alteration of a jetty and town houses. Engineering, citizen concerns and environmental concerns all went into their decisions. And, later in the week, they would actually be able to see the jetty and the houses that are literally falling into the ocean--their decisions reflect a real-life emergency! Rather than just hearing about the problem and solutions and say "what should the people who live in Saco do?", they actually needed to think for themselves "what should WE do?" Overall, I think that real-life problems and discovery are great learning opportunities. I've greatly benefited from my experience with them and I've seen a lot of kids benefit from reenacting real social and political roles, tackling real problems and relating them to their lives. There's a lot of potential for inspiring dreams in students to pursue these challenges as a career. I do think, however, that there are also a lot of students where this just gets to be difficult for them. Maybe they struggle to understand the problem or have difficulty working with their classmates. Maybe the subject just isn't as interesting to some students as it is to others. One of my classmates in the honors course put a minimal amount of work in, and had a general apathy to it, and for some of the coursework this posed a real challenge to keep the "show" alive and actually progress through the politics. I think that's why, from the readings, there's a lot of mention of the hard work that goes into making these real-life problems actually work in the class--they take a LOT of effort from teachers to help come up with the lessons and facilitate the entire thing. If everyone is on board, it can be great. But it should be designed as best as possible to work for everyone, and allow as much engagement as possible. If a few students or teachers waver, it can be hard to keep the enthusiasm going.
Journal 1 2/6/19
Constructivist Classrooms--p. I Honoring the Learning Process
The idea of constructivist classrooms sounds really appealing. Letting students build and explore or create new frameworks for their understanding of how the world is. I think I would have a tendency to be too open, where I don't have enough framework for them to explore all class or incomplete learning goals. I've noticed, anyway, that when I open things up, I can stagnate things and get lost in abstraction. In that case, I might end up tinkering in the process to keep learning going, having a pocketful of back-up cool things to learn about. I think that there's a way to balance my tendency toward being too open with creative opportunities for student understanding.
Journal 2
2/19 Heart of the Matter, p. 85 "It would take 6,000 extra hours of classroom time to cover all the information required in most state standards, roughly the same amount of time that it takes to earn a master's degree." This sentence stirred a lot of emotions for me. On one end, it makes me frightened that this is somewhat the number of hours I am going to be putting into my time at Antioch, and I certainly feel this investment! On the other, about the standards, I feel disheartened, enraged, confused and cynical. I feel like we've come to a point where most people in society see that our public education system looks like a circus: a juggling act of appearing to keep everything in the air with a realization that it can all come crashing down. These are the lives of students, parents, teachers, administrators and the community as a whole that are being juggled with this blind sense of confidence. I know that I feel discouraged about the standards as a teacher-in-training. It is maybe the least appealing thing about teaching to me. So, what is our society's plan to deal with this? It seems that the developers of the standards, in coordination with Dept of Education and textbook companies will keep the illusion up without any halt, much like we approach climate change in our society. For those who see through the illusion, we might cynically want to see it all come crashing down to expose the reality. But future generations of students will suffer in the willful collapse, and I just don't feel right about that. I'm not sure what our standards are going to be 10, 20, 50 years from now. But I'm going to bet that a significant change is highly plausible. Maybe we will give autonomy to teachers to make quality lessons that appeal to their and students' interests. Maybe the only standard expectations are that students' wellbeing is promoted; that they come away with confidence knowing something they learned that year that will be meaningful for a lifetime. Maybe education won't be a system and will be a community, which it so desperately has tried to be for years. In the 6,000 hours I spend on my master's degree, hopefully I can spend it seeing a new standard to strive for: a standard for promoting students' wellbeing.
2/11/19 Student/Teacher Interviews In my observation of an 8th grade outdoor science classroom, I interviewed the teacher, who I’ll call Tina, and one of her students, who I’ll call Margaret, about their thoughts on curriculum. Currently, they are doing a unit on maple syrup and working on understanding how it works, how people do it today, the science behind the trees and they will do their own research project about maple syrup at the end of the unit. Tina and Margaret both don’t like having too much homework for class. Tina only gives students about 1 hour of homework per week, if that, and understands that students’ lives are busy with many other things after school, so most of the work is done in class with the students managing their own time on their work in class throughout the week. Students can build in time to class to finish homework before they get home. Margaret finds that reading science books is the least helpful homework, in that it just feels hit or miss whether it is fun to read or not. Her idea of good homework is having more free time to work on certain projects they already work on in class to make them even better. Tina tries to aim more for this and make research homework that furthers class work and projects and connects to home life, not worksheets, but does have readings and videos they need to watch. Tina feels that, even though she doesn’t like giving out homework, routinely building it in small amounts has the students take it more seriously than if they rarely have any. Overall, it sounds like Margaret feels that homework is interesting most of the time and sometimes there are just some things that aren’t going to be as fun as their projects. For feeling most engaged in class work, Margaret said that she really settles into certain positions that help her in class. When she works independently, she can put her headphones on and listen to music and get a lot of work done. Being around friends and classmates, though, can help keep her stay motivated even when they’re working independently. She feels that a great science class has more independent work, and smaller groups to work on projects are better. Tina tries to arrange her class so that, when not working on labs, they routinely sit with different classmates, and if they are engaging in discussion, be able to see everyone. With all the project work, student-driven research and structure to allow students to find connections, it seems that Margaret enjoy the independence of the class structure. Tina’s outdoor science classroom is based largely on in-class projects, which are about 50% of students’ grades. Quizzes and tests are the smallest part of student’s grades, at about 10%, and are not very frequently given. “CAP scores”, which are student self-evaluations based more on their own learning rather than their effort put into the unit, are the other portion of grades, and the teacher and student go over these scores together. Tina says that the 8th graders are very self-aware and their scores often line up with hers. Margaret seemed to reiterate that participation, working well with partners, showing that you care and fairness are what she seems as the most important parts of assessment. But she also felt that the effort and work you do relative to your partner on projects should be part of assessment. Tina and Margaret had different favorite science units. For Tina, the Thermal Insulator Challenge is her favorite to teach, where students try to create their own insulating mug and advertisement for it. They have to really research the properties of thermal energy, change their prototypes three times to improve design and use a lot of creativity in their advertising pitch. They have the opportunity to reflect on how their design was and if they made their best work or would try to improve it. For Margaret, the Winter Survivor Challenge is her favorite unit. They take the personas of New England animals and get to use a lot of research and creativity to see what adaptability animals need to survive the winter. She is also really enjoying the current maple syrup unit, because it is exciting and she is able to connect it to home where she now knows she has maple trees in her backyard that she can actually use to collect maple syrup. A favorite unit of both Margaret and Tina, though, was the carbon cycle. In this unit, they connect a lot of things to a bigger picture in a creative way, and Margaret enjoys being able to do a “choose your own adventure” style story that they create about carbon. As a private school, Tina doesn’t need to write her curriculum for the standards, and so her “exit skills”, science skills that she feels are what 8th graders should understand are her bottom line. She wants students to feel really positive about what they know as a science student and to feel they can follow what they’re passionate about. Her advice for teachers is to keep motivated in refining your craft, picking something every year to adjust and not assuming what worked last year will work next year. For Margaret, she felt that teachers shouldn’t stand up and lecture all class. They should have students do hands on work and go outside every once in awhile, and in Tina’s class, it seems that this is how they do it. While the philosophies of science education might be different between Tina and Margaret, it appears that for teacher and student, the current class structure of hands-on, project-based learning with student-led inquiry is a system that works well for them. The students seem to be able to engage in deciding how they want to spend their work time and they decide how they want to further research their projects. Margaret seemed to sound like “the more of this stuff, the better” and while the classroom allows for a lot of creative exploration, time and planning constraints do bring these projects and units to an end eventually