Science and Self-Directed Learning

I've just completed my Master's Proposal1. While the process wasn't exactly enjoyable, I did enjoy being required to sit down and think through a pretty major student-centered unit from beginning to end.  My hope in designing this unit was to hopefully narrow the divide between how a scientist does science and how we teach students science.

I'll give you the quick & dirty summary below, but if you'd like to read the entire proposal: Have at it.

Goals

  • Make learning about science more like doing science
  • Allow students the freedom to follow their passions (within a broad framework)
  • Connect students to professionals who actively work or participate in their area of interest
  • Foster creative thinking and problem solving skills among students

In the first few weeks of the semester students will be introduced to:

  • the ideas behind the project and goals of the project
  • tools that will allow them to communicate and collaborate with classmates and outside collaborators
  • participate in smaller projects designed to grow independent learning and monitoring skills

The Main Thrust

  • Within a general topical framework (in this case: global warming), students will investigate topics and ideas that they find intriguing and interesting.
  • While there will be no set groups, students interested in similar topics may choose to investigate these ideas together. If they want to follow different paths later, they can freely dissociate as well.
  • Student experimentation, observation, and investigation will be encouraged.
  • Students will be expected to take their investigations beyond simple internet research.

Assessment

  • Students will meet at minimum twice a week with me to discuss what they've learned so far, problems they've run into, and future topics of investigation.
  • Regular reflections will be expected from each student. These can be in any format.
  • 5-minute "What I've Done So Far" presentations will be given by each student two weeks and four weeks into the unit.
  • A final demonstration of learning will conclude the unit. The demonstration can be done in any format that can be shared online. The emphasis of the demonstration is to show the depth and breadth of the students learning.

I Still Have Questions

  • I feel I can accurately assess student learning throughout this project. I'm not sure how to actually give students letter grades.
  • I'm worried about kids buying into the whole thing. Perhaps this is just unnecessary worrying, but I'm having nightmares of students just sitting around for 6 weeks twiddling their thumbs. What can I do to buy them in?
  • I want to connect kids to "experts." These "experts" don't need to all be climate scientists2, just people who know or have some experience on the topic. This means you. And your friends. And your colleagues. Participation could range from something like mentoring a student, to a one-time Skype chat, to simply commenting on student work.
  • Can you help?

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  1. WOOHOO!!     []
  2. Though if you happen to be a climate scientist, we'd love to have you help out.     []

Video projects: Lip service only

n my traditional cavalier/reckless fashion, I designed a project where students would create videos as the final product. I have two video cameras1 (a Flip and my point & shoot that shoots video), MovieMaker, three microphones, and a lack of experience with the moving picture medium.

Students got into groups, randomly selected a family of elements, and got busy researching & planning. Other than the typical issues that pop up when freshmen work together in groups2 things were going swimmingly. I suggested using PowerPoint as an image editor or stop motion picture creator, but other than that I really didn't push them in any direction for how they should produce the video. I was pleasantly surprised at the creative mix of puppet shows, live video, claymation, and other ideas that they came up with on their own. Despite the lack of equipment there were very few times when a group had to sit around waiting for a camera.

The trouble starts

Students began to download their video files and attempt to work with the files in MovieMaker. That's when things got dicey. Just a few of the problems we ran into:

  • Student accounts often were not able to download files from external devices. Sometimes it would work for them, sometimes it wouldn't. Weird.
  • Despite the claims on the official MovieMaker website, the program as installed on students computers could only import .WMV files. My video cameras saved files as .AVIs.
  • I sent students to Zamzar to convert the video files. Zamzar isn't always fast. Even better, students aren't allowed to download any files from online to school computers. When the conversions were finished I had to do all the downloading & distributing of files. I mourn the large amounts of class time that were lost due to all this file jockeying.
  • On a couple random days, the students weren't allowed to save any files into their network drives. Needless to say, that caused some frustration.
  • Beyond the problem above, twice during the project the school district's network drive was too full for anybody to save anything to it.

The irony

As a faculty, we've frequently heard from our administration (from assistant principal up to the SuperNintendo himself) that we need to embrace and encourage "21st Century Skills" with our students. As part of the NEASC accreditation process we're involved in the term "21st Century Skills" also comes up in every other indicator, standard, and student learning expectation.

The end

I probably won't try another video project this year. I'm pretty skeptical about trying it next year. The sad/frustrating/scary part of it all is that the issues with this project were caused by the lack of support from the administration and institution for a creative project that embraced "21st Century Skills." The problem didn't arise from poor project design3, a lack of student ability/skill, or a lack of resources. The problem arose solely as the result of an overly restrictive network and a lack of vision from those who control those restrictions.

The solution?

  • Trust students with the network.
  • Trust teachers with the network.
  • Think about what these "21st Century Skills" that are harped upon actually mean for how students and teachers will need to use the network. Adjust network restrictions accordingly.

Despite all the issues some pretty great videos came out of it. Check out a quick selection below:

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Creative-Commons image via P.C. Is2dent's Flickr stream

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  1. I did encourage any students with cameras that took video to bring them in. A few did.     []
  2. i.e. "Johnny stole my [noun]!" "I didn't take your [noun], you're crazy!" "MR. W!!!"  [you get this too, right?]       []
  3. Truthfully, it's very hard for me to judge the effectiveness of the project because the end result has been so overshadowed by all the technical issues.     []

Designing a student-centered classroom

Part of my Master's project involves creating a project/problem based learning (PBL) environment for my 9th grade science classroom. I'm getting to the point where I need to start nailing down some specifics, so I'm going to lay down what I'm thinking here (publish-then-filter, right?). Your comments and critiques are welcome.

I've seen several example PBL units that gave students one specific question to solve. They may have been good prompts, but the problem I have with this method of PBL is that it seems overly prescriptive. It doesn't give students much room to follow their own interests. I'd prefer to leave things much more open to student choice. Currently, I think I'd like to give students a general topic to frame their investigations (climate change or evolution of the universe, for example) and allow them to follow their interests to specific areas of study/research that they find interesting.

Goal:

Create at minimum a unit where students choose their own topic of research and follow their passion in determining it's continued direction. I want students to be able to follow their interests and passion wherever it leads them (with some limitations). Students will be expected to document their learning and do some sort of public exhibition at the end of the process.

Challenges:

  • Overcoming student expectations of school and science. In my experience, students expect to be told exactly what to study and how to study it. When given some choice they're often uncomfortable and unsure of how to proceed (I know that's how I reacted). Also, science is generally perceived as being a bunch of information and facts that they need to learn. Science is more about what we don't know than what we do know. I'd like students to ask questions that haven't been answered and try to figure out the answer.
  • Choosing a research topic. In theory, I'd like to simply say, "Research an area of climate change (for example) that you find interesting. Ready? GO!" I doubt this would work for several reasons. First, if students don't have any real background knowledge about climate change then they may not be familiar enough with it to be able to pick something that interests them. I'm torn on how much information I should cover before starting the student-directed phase. Second, students are unfamiliar with being able to control their learning in school. I'd expect a lot of uncertainty and frustration from students if I left things so open. At the same time, I struggle with giving students example research questions since they often just choose an example to follow instead of following something that they find intriguing.
  • The state standards (see recent posts). In all likelihood we're not going to cover as many content standards using this format. Depending on what topics the students choose they might not cover many content standards at all. I'm OK with this. My administration may not be. I found some research to support my position1, but that may not mean much to those who hold the power.
  • Fostering reflection/collaboration. I want students to be as focused (if not more focused) on the process they're going through as they are on their end product. I'd like them to reflect daily on what things they're having success with, what things they're struggling with, and what methods they're using. I also want students to be aware of what all the other students in the class are doing. Creating an environment where "collaboration through the air2" is possible- where students can freely leave their projects and go help other students who are struggling- is very important to my vision of how the classroom should run. Since this is (sadly) such a foreign idea for many students, I'm debating whether or not there needs to be some at least semi-formal structure to encourage it.
  • Documenting the learning. I want this to be a major focus of this project. I'd like students to have some artifact- digital or otherwise- that allows them to look back and see what they were thinking and doing with their topic throughout the entirety of the project. I'd like some analogue to the Reggio Emilio approach to documentation- but I'm not sure exactly how that plays out in a high school environment. At this point, I think giving students the option of how they choose to document their learning is okay. I'll give several examples of formats they could use (pictures, videos, written documents, audio notes), and several methods of organizing their documentation (blogs, wikis, etc.).

What do you think?

I feel like I've got a pretty good mental vision of what I want to happen with this project, yet I still have a lot of work to nail down the specifics and make it sound all scholarly. To date I've been reading lots of research and have a lot more research left to read. However, I'd love hear your thoughts on the challenges I've laid out above.

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  1. Students engaged in PBL gained less knowledge than students taught in traditional styles, but the PBL students remembered more knowledge several months later. They were also shown to have better problem-solving skills, be more open minded, and perform better on tests. See p. 567 of: Fallik, O., Eylon, B., & Rosenfeld, S. (2008). Motivating teachers to enact free-choice project-based learning in science and technology (PBLSAT): Effects of a professional development model. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 19, 565-591.  []
  2. I believe Gary Stager used this phrase, or maybe it was Peter Reynolds of FableVision?  []

Element card results

A big thank you to all of you who voted on my classes' element cards. In general I would say the project was a success. The front of the cards were generally decorated, though the backs of the cards were usually pretty lacking despite my appeals to make both sides visually appealing.

If you missed my earlier post where I explained the project please visit. I've also updated that post to include links to files of the handout I give students.

2nd Block

1st place: Plutonium

Plutonium

2nd Place: Carbon

Carbon

3rd Place: Fluorine
Fluorine

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3rd Block

1st place: Neon

Neon

2nd place: Aluminum

Aluminum

3rd place: Sulfur

Sulfur

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4th Block

1st place: Potassium

Potassium

2nd place: Calcium

Calcium

3rd place: Tin

Tin

Now I just need to do this for a few more years until I get a complete set of element cards. 🙂

Vote Now! (Element Trading Cards)

This isn't one of those super-tech-integrative activities people swoon over- but it's one I enjoy (and if you just want to vote on the cards and not read this, scroll down to the bottom).

After going over the basics of the atom and the periodic table, each student selects a different element off the periodic table. When doing this with multiple classes I don't let any two students use the same element (I've never had over 117 students do this in the same semester).

There's often some grumbling they so-and-so couldn't get the element that sounds like their name (Samarium is picked by a significant number of students named Sam), and always the fun of having male knuckleheads always select Holmium, Thullium, and Platinum (Holmium's symbol = Ho; Thullium's atomic number = 69; Platinum for the bling, natch), but all in all they seem to enjoy getting their "own" element.

I used to do this project every year mainly to reinforce effective online search techniques, and didn't do it when I moved covering atoms and the periodic table later in the semester- after we'd already gone over effective internet research techniques. The project isn't super-rigorous on the science end. I give the students a list of information to find for their element, they find it and design the front and back of their cards. Half the grade for this assignment is in the design. I thought of making design worth less, but all this talk of visual literacy floating through the intertubes made me think it's worth that much. If they can't display the information so it's easy to find and read, then the information is worth less.

As a result, I always have had classes vote on the best designed cards from each class to earn a few bonus points for the winners. Typically I'll have my 3rd period vote on my 2nd period's cards and vice versa. This year I figured I'd up the ante a bit by using one of those fancy online polling sites for the vote and invite anyone who'd like to vote to do so. So, you're invited!

Each class has it's own poll, so feel free to vote in all three polls: The polls are now closed. 🙂

  • First Block (this is the poll I posted to Twitter. If you've already voted you can skip it)
  • Second Block
  • Third Block

I used PollAuthority.com (as recommended by @Dsalvucci via Twitter), as it was the only site I could find where I could have images used as answers in the polls. I had a little trouble getting the poll to work properly the first time around, but overall the poll creation process was pretty easy. It turns out that once the poll is finished and saved you are unable to further edit the poll, which is what I was trying to do. Once I figured out that issue things went swimmingly.

Thanks for voting! I'll give an update this weekend or early next week when voting is completed.

UPDATE: I've closed the polls and tallied the result. I've posted the winners in a more recent post. In addition, here are the handouts I give to my students for this project:

 

Rookie mistakes

I sat down to grade my students' chemical reaction primer artifacts this weekend. It didn't take me long to realize that as a class we weren't done with these projects yet. Clearly I hadn't built in the necessary support for the project's format. I seemed to do pretty well supporting the information (as described previously), but I made a few fatal errors:

  1. These freshmen have next to no experience citing sources. I required in-text citations and a bibliography. We went over this on day 1, but not too much more than simple reminders since then. Many students did either a bibliography or did in-text citations, but not both.
  2. Many students gave Google, Yahoo, or Ask.com URLs as their sources for information or images. Again, we went over this on day 1, but with little prior knowledge of citing internet sources it's an easy mistake to make.
  3. I emphasized strongly that their artifacts should include lots of images related to chemical reactions. I didn't make it clear enough that those pictures needed to match up with the content being described. I can't tell you how many times I had pictures of chemical reactions with no explanation of what reaction it was or why it belonged in that spot.
  4. I didn't include a review and rewrite of their projects on the schedule. Especially the first time around, they really needed it.

Rookie mistakes, all of them. All easy enough to anticipate. Heck, I've even included reviews and rewrites in similar projects I've done. What was I thinking? Today, I created time for a review and rewrite. I graded the hell out of their artifacts knowing that I would give them time to fix them up.

I was pretty worried about class today. I was handing back rubrics with some very low grades on a project that was worth as much as a full-on test. I was very careful in how I opened the discussion on doing rewrites so as not to cause frustration, despair, or anxiety over the grades on the rubrics I was passing back. Here's what I did:

  • Created a positive (perhaps inspirational?) environment. I've been sharing short (~1 minute-ish) and fun videos with my classes all year. I usually don't start class with them, but I wanted to set a positive tone right up front. What better way than with 40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes?
  • Explained myself honestly. Because this was the first time they've done anything like this, their perception of what their finished artifact should look like is different than my perception- and that's okay. I told them it's my fault that I didn't do a better job explaining my high, even ridonculous expectations (went back to an old slide to illustrate), and that I should've scheduled a review and rewrite from the very start.
  • Ensured them the grade on the rubric wasn't binding. Once I decided to allow students to revise their artifacts, I toyed with the idea of not going through their artifacts and just explain to the class as a whole the issues I was seeing. I avoided another rookie mistake by diligently going through each student's artifact and grading it like I would if the grade would really count. I wanted each of them to see what specific things were lacking and needed to be fixed. It took 10 hours of grading this weekend. Morally, it was the right decision.
  • Maintained a totally positive outlook on their artifacts. I didn't want students to get the idea that I was disappointed or frustrated with their work and was simply having pity on them by giving them a do-over. I want them to know that revisions are a natural and necessary part of the work flow.

Dan Meyer noted that as your teaching expertise grows the technical challenges (i.e. designing and implementing projects, among other things) disappear and the real challenge becomes moral (will you put in the effort to ensure all are successful?). My technical challenges have decreased dramatically since year one. However, I'm not confident there will ever be a time when I don't mess up the technical stuff. What differentiates my mistakes in year seven from mistakes in year one is that now I can fix the mistakes.

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Teaser:
Even though I messed up, it's amazing to me that some students still hit it out of the park. Here are two artifacts that needed little fixing:

Artifacts of learning

Part 1 of the Chemical Reaction Artifact series of posts.

I'm teaching at a new school this year. I've been unhappy with how little I've been able to integrate projects that involve students creating an "artifact of their learning." I've been doing too much sage-on-the-staging, which I greatly dislike for a great many reasons.

I'm teaching a freshman level class (Integrated Science) that by some coincidence happens to be very similar to some classes I taught a couple years ago at my previous school. This is a happy coincidence because I already have quite a few resources put together for a good chunk of the material. It's not so happy because much of the material I have made up is a few years old and doesn't reflect the best that I can do.

What is an artifact?

Essentially, it's something the student creates in which they demonstrate their understanding of the required content. Most often I give students some choice in the format they use for their artifact. Example formats students often choose are a textbook, magazine, comic book, video, newspaper, PowerPoint presentation, poem/rap/song, etc.  The artifacts can vary in scope from covering a specific topic and take only a day or two to create to being a final exam and requiring a week or more to put together.

Background

The last two years I began implementing projects in which students create artifacts to display and assess their level of understanding of the content. I began having students create artifacts hesitantly. I was worried they might be fun but not be great as an assessment of student knowledge.  I quickly lost those worries when the student work came pouring in.

Why I love this

Student Choice. Students can choose the format of their artifact. Students who are excellent artists can throw together some amazing comic books. Those who are good with computers could create a webpage. I strongly encourage students to play to their strengths when introducing new artifacts.

Depth of Understanding. This is great for students who usually whip through typical assignments and then sit around waiting for others to finish. Since there's always more information, images, examples, videos, and so forth that could be added to improve their artifact, it gives them a chance to make artifacts that just blow me out of the water. Students who struggle with the content just need to make sure they cover the required material. As an added bonus, I usually have more time to work with students who are struggling since those whiz kid students don't need my help very often.

Synthesis. I can't emphasize enough how heavily I emphasize that artifacts must be totally written in students' own words, that they explain images and diagrams, and that they don't ever put any information into their artifacts that they couldn't explain to their grandmother. If they want to put it into their artifact but don't understand it, they'd better look up information on it, ask for help, and know what they're talking about before adding it.

Ownership. Artifacts require students to own the information. Students put a lot of time and effort into making them and I've found 95% of the students are proud of what they've made. It's theirs. It's different from everyone else's.

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Part of the Chemical Reaction Artifact series of posts:

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DONE! (Well...kinda)

I have just finished writing my Master's project proposal. It's been an experience. Since I've known I'll be moving out of state (circa November), I've been trying to finish all the classes I can to avoid the horrors of transferring graduate-level credits. Since January I've taken 10 credits, including my weenie 1 credit I get for the completion of my project proposal. Needless to say, I haven't had to worry about how to spend all my free time the last few months.

Below is a word cloud for my Master's project via Wordle. Care to guess the topic?

Wordle- Master\'s Project Proposal

Thanks to Terry and Kevin for bringing Wordle to my attention via Twitter.

When the hugeness hits me

I'm a pretty laid back dude. I don't get too worked up about major life changes. It's not that I don't appreciate the hugeness of the changes, it's just that I'm okay with change, and look forward to the new opportunities that result. I'm currently in the middle of some pretty huge life changes (i.e. moving from Michigan to Connecticut). However, I haven't had much time to reflect on their hugeness due to my crazy grad classes and end of the year school craziness among other things.

Today I received my first batch of exam projects from my 1st hour, and set right to grading them during my 2nd hour prep period. The first exam I opened looked like this:

Exam Cover

Needless to say, this looked like a pretty good exam. I was excited to go through it. Then I got to the first page (as seen below):

Exam1

The hugeness of the changes going on in my life became a little more real to me after reading that.

I'm going to miss this place. 🙁

Final Exam Projects- Day 4

I'll try to keep posting on the progress of the projects as I go. If you haven't already, check out the summary of what was happening on Day 2. Students are now set on what they're doing and how they're going to do it. Now it's just a matter of getting their projects done.

I gave this brief motivational speech at the beginning of each hour:

Here's how much time you have left to complete this final exam project (this is for my 1st hour class- their scheduled exam time is on Monday, so we won't meet on Tuesday or Wednesday)

You know what my expectations are for these projects. My expectations aren't Ridonculous, but they are high. It's okay to have a ridonculous project, but just an average one? I think not.

This is how much your final exam projects contribute to your overall trimester grade. It's not a joke, it's a big part of your trimester. That being said, it's up to you to create a successful project that meets the expectations I've communicated. You know what to do, it's up to you to do it.

If you don't, you'll be:

(Digging your own grave)

However, this project also provides an opportunity for you to:

(Climb the stairway to heaven)

I give this presentation because at this point in the project, they don't really need much of me. I've communicated my expectations for this project, they're familiar with the format (from earlier projects), and it's now just a matter of getting it done. I feel it's important for the students to realize that utilizing their time wisely is an important part of creating a successful project, but at this point I'm not going to go around whacking them upside the head if they choose to not use their time wisely.

Image Credits
Calendar, Expectations, & 20% images: Me. Feel free to use them
Laborer by CarbonNYC
John Foreman - 1696 by Neil101
Stairway to Heaven by Steffe
The Heavens Open by Young Einstein (angels added by author)