It’s taken a while to process the vast quantity of things that I learned during the California Science Teachers Association conference in San Jose- the closest terrible metaphor I can come up with is digesting after a pie-eating contest. As a brand new science teacher, I was excited to go to a conference with all these science teachers who had ALL THE ANSWERS on how to get students to learn! And think! And turn into amazing scientists! I was especially jazzed that the whole science department was going, so we could bounce ideas off each other and really maximize the takeaways from the conference
Now that it’s been a few months, I’ve been able to start actually using the strategies in my classroom. I’m not really good at picking one thing to implement at once; I typically go for the AND approach, since I want my students to have the benefit of all the things right away. With that in mind, here’s some of the interesting takeaways that I got:
Low floor, high ceiling
The California Academy of Sciences had a fantastic workshop that focused on making concepts accessible to all students, while still challenging the high achievers. Their example? Assessing how much of the moon is lit by the sun when it is a crescent moon. The ‘low floor’ is the moon, which is a universally experienced object, so it’s a low floor that everyone can come in on. Students made predictions, then put their predictions on anonymous post-it notes that the teachers collected and put into makeshift bar charts. I’ve since used this in my class, and it’s a fantastic way to take away the fear of wrong answers, because no one sees who put what!
The teams then worked on modeling the moon’s lighting based on motion, then reassessed their answer, making a new set of bar graphs. When I used it in my class, it was an extraordinary way to visualize how much the students had learned from the less.
At the conference, the groups were then invited to explore one of a series of questions that were posted around the room that varied in difficulty. This is the ‘high ceiling’ concept; some groups only tackled one of the simpler questions, while other groups stubbornly attacked every single question. I loved how it allowed freedom of approach while still providing challenge that wasn’t just extra work. I’m starting to incorporate this in my classes with a ‘Go BEYOND’ question for students; these questions require students to really think about the concepts that we have discussed, but students who are at a more basic level of learning can choose to focus on the base information instead.I’m still struggling with the idea of accepting that some students won’t reach for the difficult questions, but perhaps I need to keep in mind what MUST be learned versus what they COULD learn…
Manipulatives
There was a great couple of workshops that used poker chips to model chemical reactions, and I immediately implemented it in my classroom to help with balancing equations! Students have a tendency to jump to playing with numbers, but I hoped that slowing down with the chips would make them check in with what was actually happening with the balancing. Interestingly, there was a divide in students that has replicated in Ian’s class- some students had it click when they used the chips, but others got lost as soon as the manipulatives were introduced! It’s nice to see a method for engaging the more visual and tactile learners, but I think in the future that I will give students the option to use them, based on whether or not they were helped previously.
There were a few other interesting ideas that I want to try to tackle, such as the concept of a storyline to tie all the units together, but that’s going to have to come during summer break when I have time to think. I’m tossing around the idea of a molecular gastronomy final project though- something that ties together the thread of science communication with a variety of chemistry principles that we have talked about, which has the added benefit of making the girls make the connections to practical applications? If I play my cards right, maybe we’ll end up with a feast during finals week…
If anyone wants to see the various notes that I took in Notability, they are all here: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1Ssr9qiRDTlkfwEM5QusIqHPNMuV41Cu2
Thanks Katie – such fun and fresh ideas … I love the concept of a storyline tying all the units together …
I would be curious about the percentage of students who actually try to solve the most complex and/or all the questions…I would put money that the majority of students do challenge themselves. Conferences provide great content, but as often they can reinforce ideas that you are already using and remind you of things that you may have "put away." And, they do just what this one did-create the opportunity to think about what you are doing. Thanks Katie. I'm intrigued by the stroyline idea as well….great way to create meta-cognitive understanding.
Conferences are magically overwhelming. I love how you brought back some discoveries to put into practice right away… that is always the challenge