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InTASC Standard 8: The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage learners to develop deep understanding of content areas and their connections, and to build skills to apply knowledge in meaningful ways
Table of Contents
Introduction
Introduction
To support my students in developing rich understanding of science content, it is crucial that they have opportunities to be scientists. Hands-on learning allows students to problem-solve, experience and interact with the content and build transferable skills over time. I utilize several different hands-on strategies to support students in understanding and applying content knowledge and to help them draw connections between scientific vocabulary and concepts and real-world examples. Students simultaneously grow in their laboratory and investigative abilities as they problem-solve and experiment.
Labs
Labs
In addition to serving as a formative assessment tool, labs provide me with the unique instructional opportunity to support learners in understanding content deeply, applying their knowledge, and improving upon their lab skills. Labs help students understand content more effectively because they give students a real example to apply their knowledge. These examples can assist students as they grow in a way that is tangible, applicable and enables them to summarize their learning.
For example, in our first science unit, How can I make new stuff from old stuff? students grapple with the difficult concepts of chemical and physical properties of matter. Rather than use direct instruction to explain the differences between properties, students instead categorize substances based on their properties, in a hands-on lab. Specifically, students compared the solubility and melting points of fat and soap, (demonstrated in the images below). In this instance, lab opportunities helped students understand that soap and fat are different substances, based on their different chemical properties.
Through these experiences, students thus simultaneously build their laboratory and problem-solving skills, while also applying classroom concepts to scientific practices. Further, through this investigation, learners gained a deep, rich understanding of chemical and physical properties of matter because they were able to apply their knowledge of properties to a real world comparison of two everyday substances. I supported their learning through my teaching; however, students were able to support themselves and to make the difficult conceptual connections to make progress toward answering the question, How can I make new stuff from old stuff?
Solubility of Fat and Soap Lab
Students were able to apply their conceptual understanding of chemical properties through this solubility laboratory opportunity. Students tested the solubility of fat and soap in both vegetable oil and and water. Students thus deepened their understanding of chemical properties of matter and applied their laboratory skills through this lab. By applying knowledge of physical and chemical properties to analyze their results, students connected these concepts to real world examples - such as the solubility of everyday items, (fat and soap).
Here is an example of the scaffolded worksheet that corresponds with the solubility lab. This worksheet allowed students to record their observations and lab data as well as apply their learning in challenging questions.
Students used their observations from the lab and their background knowledge of chemical and physical properties; they applied this knowledge to answer rigorous questions in post-lab questions.
Melting Point Lab
Students further applied their classroom learning through this Melting Point lab. Students compared melting points of soap and fat and then, drew conclusions to deepen their understanding about what makes substances different from one another. Students completed scaffolded, rigorous checks for understanding questions to ensure their accurate application of science knowledge.
Here are examples of scaffolded worksheets that correspond with the Melting Point lab. Students made predictions prior to performing the lab and then applied their observations from the lab on subsequent questions in this worksheet.
These scaffolded worksheets allowed students to record their data and observations and so, improve their scientific inquiry and analytical skills. Following, students deepened their content knowledge by using lab data to answer difficult questions.
Density Tower Lab
Students deepened their knowledge of mass, volume, and density through a density tower investigation. Students helped me layer various liquids in order to understand their densities. Items that were more dense sank down in the glass cup and those that were less dense stayed on top. Items layered in this picture, (bottom to top,) are: sand, glue, honey, dish soap, colored water, apple cider vinegar, and vegetable oil. Objects including a q-tip and a weight were also dropped into the glasses to further explore density and determine if they were more or less dense than the liquids. Prior to this lab, exit ticket data in all three of my classes showed confusion with regards to density. Thus, I used this lab as a way to engage students and also to provide them with a hands-on experience in the content so that they could apply their knowledge and deepen their comprehension. Students then performed a similar investigation on their own using vegetable oil and objects such as soap, cotton swabs, coins, honey, water, and more.
The scaffolded worksheet to the right, (front and back,) demonstrates how students furthered their scientific understanding by using predictions, detailed observations, and by comparing objects' density following the two density labs. Students then applied learning from the labs in subsequent check for understanding questions, which required them to make connections between their understandings of atoms and molecules with this new concept of density.
See the Lesson Planning section to understand how I utilize labs as a way to purposefully support my tactile learners in deepening their science content knowledge and laboratory skills.
Simulations
Simulations
Students engage in simulations that provide them with content-rich learning opportunities to apply their knowledge in new ways and to investigate critical questions. There is an increasing demand in society for individuals to be 21st century learners and thinkers; thus, simulations also afford students the opportunity to prepare themselves as future technology leaders with technological skills, in addition to as content experts. Simulations that are rooted in rigorous content knowledge and are engaging for students will assist them in deepening their understandings and invest them in the learning at hand.
In our first unit, How can I make new stuff from old stuff?, students have the opportunity to utilize a simulation about the different states of matter. This simulation is called PHET states of matter. In the lesson cycle, students have just learned about various physical and chemical properties and matter and have observed how fat and soap have different solubility as well as different melting points. In this simulation, students have the opportunity to explore what is happening on the inside of substances that makes them different. Students saw this by increasing and decreasing temperature in the simulation and by watching molecules move. Following, students applied their content knowledge and lab observations when answering rigorous check for understanding questions. These questions tasked students to make connections between observations from this states of matter lab to previous learning about the movement of atoms within molecular structures.
Students thus applied their knowledge in a new way and built off of their previous skills to create a helpful connection between old and new knowledge. Students perform simulations throughout the year in order to test and apply their knowledge of science content. For example, when students learn about ecosystems later in the year, they use a Predation Simulation to understand food webs. This simulation connects in-class learnings about ecosystems to real world patterns of predation in food webs; this allows students to increase the depth of their understanding and then, apply their learning as they answer check for understanding questions.
Simulations overall represent a hands-on strategy that helps learners improve their understanding of scientific content, advance their technological skills, make connections between concepts, and virtually explore something that they may not be able to directly observe in real life – such as atoms changing states.
PHET Simulation Examples
Here is an example of a student from the "high" science class who "Exceeded Mastery "on the scaffolded states of matter simulation questions. This student used their observations effectively in order to apply this learning to challenging questions about atoms and molecules.
Here is an example of a student from the "low" class who "Exceeded Mastery" on the simulation. This student effectively demonstrated they understood what happens at the molecular level when there is a change of state and how this makes substances different.
This simulation is especially helpful for tactile and visual learners because students can literally observe atoms changing states due as temperature changes.
This states of matter simulation helps support students in more effectively answer the unit-driving question, How can I make new stuff from old stuff? This simulation allows students to learn the important fact that substances are made up of matter that can exist in different states. Further, they learn that different substances will have varying melting and boiling points because the chemicals within these states have more or less difficulty changing states.
Predation Simulation Examples
Here is an example of a different simulation that I use with my science students. Through this simulation, students understand the complex relationships between organisms in a food web. This student from the "high" science class "Exceeded Mastery" and effectively applied their learning to explain how interactions between predators and prey impact ecosystems.
Here is an additional example of student work from the predation simulation. This student was from the "low" science class. However, this student was able to "Exceed Mastery" on this scaffolded worksheet following this work. Simulations extend learning such that it is accessible to more students; more students are able to gain the intended learning outcomes and deepen their content understandings.
Experiments
Experiments
In a similar fashion to labs, experiments provide students with the chance to explore class concepts in meaningful, hands-on ways. Experiments more specifically allow students to deepen their understanding while improving upon the specific skill of scientific inquiry. Unlike previous standards and expectations, Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) emphasize the scientific inquiry process as a way for students to ask and answer questions about the world. Students are expected to be able to design and conduct experiments based on their own hypotheses and procedures.
These hands-on experiences provide them with inquiry skills that can be applied throughout the year and can help students understand concepts more thoroughly. Further, this hands-on instructional practice allows students the interdisciplinary opportunity to use mathematical skills such as measuring and collecting and analyzing data, based on their scientific results. In addition, students apply their skills of scientific literacy through writing formalized lab reports.
One experiment that helped students develop their understanding of scientific inquiry and build their exploratory and analytical skills was the Paper Plane Lab. This hands-on activity helped students apply their scientific inquiry knowledge to a real experiment, and it helps them further on in the year, when they design and execute their own experiments for Science Fair. Experiments present a useful hands-on experience where I can support students in developing their own testable questions, using problem-solving and analytical skills, and then apply those skills to their own experimental designs. To improve their ability to create detailed procedures in an experiment, students also participated in the PB & J experiment. Students worked in teams to create the most detailed procedure possible to create the most accurate scientific procedure. This experiment helped deepen students' understanding of how explicit and specific the scientific inquiry process is.
PB & J experiment
Students worked collaboratively to create specific directions for how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. One student from each group read the directions to me, and I followed them to create the sandwiches. This process of creating their own procedures will help students design and implement their own experiments later on in the year.
What resulted were some (messy) and inaccurate-looking sandwiches because their directions were not specific enough. Students learned, through this experiment, the importance of creating specific procedures during the scientific inquiry process.
Paper Plane Experiment example
Students analyzed the effects of a plane's shape on flying distance in this experiment. This experiment also helped students deepen their understanding of the scientific inquiry process. Here, students created testable questions and hypotheses, determined their variables, designed their experiment and procedure, tested it out, and analyzed their collected data to draw conclusions.
Links
Links
PB & J Experiment Image: https://creativecommons.org/
PHET States of Matter Simulation: https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/states-of-matter-basics/latest/states-of-matter-basics_en.html
Predation Simulation: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/64899842/
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