Welcome back to Ready, Set, Science! You are listening to episode 10 and this episode will be focusing on part 3 of the book Ambitious Science Teaching, “Supporting Changes in Student Thinking”. In this episode we are going to talk about how to support the ideas students have as they change throughout the unit. The goal is to ask students to expand on their ideas and to help students develop their own experiments.
Throughout a unit of instruction, students are frequently engaged in different types of activity.
For example:
students might do hands-on work with materials
use computer simulations
conduct observations of phenomena
design experiments
collect and analyze different types of data.
Students enjoy these activities because (ideally) they can make decisions about how to proceed, they can interact with peers as they work, they are challenged to think, and they like being recognized for doing science.
Unfortunately, the way activities are structured in many classrooms is far from ideal. In real science classrooms, students often follow rote procedures, they are rarely asked to think beyond what is given in class, and there are no attempts to link the activity with a larger phenomenon or set of science ideas. As a result, students do not connect with their learning and have difficulty making sense of the concepts.
The shift in this part is done through 3 practices:
Introducing ideas to reason with.
Teachers introduce new information via notes, videos, readings, discussions, activities or labs (or a combination of those) that help the students make sense of the phenomena and their original ideas.
These are just good teaching practices in general!
As new information is introduced students need to be given time to look at their original ideas and make changes or additions.
It is important to figure out how much to share and the vocabulary to use here. Concepts learned in a 5th grade classroom will not be learned the same by an 8th grade student.
Engaging with data or observations.
Supporting students in collecting their own data or engaging with data that has been collected is the best way to help them make sense of the concepts.
It is important to help students engage in discussion by moving around the room and talking with students as well as listening to their thoughts/discussions with each other.
Moving around the room is a way to see where students are in their understanding of the ideas.
Using knowledge to revise models or explanations
Now it is time for students to look at what they thought was going on, what they learned and to develop their new understanding.
The authors of AST, use something called a “Summary Table” where everything from the unit “summed up” in one area. (see picture on book page 189)
In this table, each activity completed in the unit is listed (or drawn) down the left hand side.
Across the top the columns are labeled with something that applies to each of the activities. Examples could be “what we observed”, “what we learned”, “”how it helps” or other similar statements. This is really up to you.
Reminders:
Students may need to be reminded to look back at their original ideas about the phenomena.
Students may come to us with ideas that cause a shift in your instruction based on their questions. This is ok! They are learning and remember that the best science teachers are flexible.
Well that is all for this episode and for part 3 of AST. Remember that you can find all of the resources that I mentioned in the show notes and on my website. If you are working through the process of AST, head over to instagram and let me know how it is going. These processes are hard but worth it and I am here to help you in any way that I can. See you next time!
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