How We Write a Conclusion...Lab Skills 5

So what does that data mean???

That's always the big question isn't it? We take the measurements, make the mess, graph the data and then....

What?

Well, traditionally, we answer an overly structured set of "right there" questions that really have nothing to do with the data, but perfectly mirror the textbook definitions that we want our kids to parrot back to us on standardized tests. Because, surely, if they can repeat the definition and maybe even remember the formula, then they understand the concept, right? 

Right??

To be honest, for the longest time, I thought that was okay. I didn't realize that even though my kids could spit out the correct words, they probably weren't really getting to the heart of the concept. I had learned about density from a textbook and I understood it just fine, thank you, so surely everyone else could as well. 

When I asked kids to write a conclusion, I was really just looking to see that they could write a coherent paragraph that somehow worked in the definition of whatever idea we were trying to cover. I rarely, if ever, asked them to explain how their data described that definition. One reason for that was because I knew they hadn't taken very good data, but another reason was simply that I myself didn't really know how to analyze data. This is actually something that I have always struggled with. For one, I am not very good at writing in general, but mostly because I didn't know how to explain what my data meant. This goes back to the fact that I didn't NEED the data (thank you, conclusion questions). In fact, for the longest time, I didn't even realize it had a purpose. Looking back, I am pretty hard pressed to pinpoint a time when I truly had to write a decent analysis. So I really struggled with how to explain to my kids about the importance of summarizing their data.* One of the first assessed targets I wrote was Lab Skills 5: I can analyze laboratory data in order to clarify the questions, hypotheses or methods of an experiment. I knew I wanted my kids to be able to do this, but it feels like it has taken me forever to actually get a handle on how to, you know, assess it.

Several years ago, I realized I was doing it wrong and started trying to change how I taught my kids to write that paragraph at the end of the lab. And for years I struggled to get them where I wanted them to go. This year, I had sort of an epiphany when I had a chance to sit down and really look at what I was teaching my kids.

I know I keep referring back to this, but the Modeling has been so good for me in so many ways. I also know I am a little slow on the uptake here, but this year, I realized that it breaks down a conclusion into four parts**. Now, many of you modelers will recognize these four different representations of data. We use words, numbers, mathematics and pictures to show what our data means. So this year, I have hit my kids pretty hard with writing good conclusions.

First, we summarize our data in words. Basically, we want to answer the lab's original question. What IS the purpose of our data? What are we trying to find? What is the relationship between the variables? I have a poster on my wall that shows how kids should begin their conclusion. And until we get the hang of it, all conclusions begin with the words "According to our data..."***

I have a lot of kids that want to try to simply summarize their procedure. They seem to believe that putting lots of words on paper will make it appear like they know what they are talking about. This might work if I didn't actually read the words, so sometimes I have to do a bit of steering towards why we did what we did. Our first lab in chemistry is a six part Conservation of Mass series, so we do a lot of walking through the entire lab write-up during the first few parts. I gradually take that support away and by the last couple parts, they are on their own.

A mathematical description of the data typically comes in the form of the slope equation. Algebra is a prerequisite for chemistry and our kids spend an awful lot of time with  y = mx + b. This is a perfect example of being able to spit out the "correct" answer but having no clue what to do with it. We talk about "x" and "y" being generic variables that can represent anything. We also talk about how we have independent and dependent variables in our experiment and we can substitute these variables in for "x" and "y". It never ceases to amaze me how long it takes for kids to realize that the term variable means the same in math as it does in science. In chemistry, we don't always have a mathematical relationship, as these are usually derived from graphs, but kids have to be able to recognize when it does not apply and that is apparently a lot harder than it might seem on the surface.

Assigning a number value, however, is done for almost every lab. Whether that number comes in the form of a ratio determining an empirical formula, a slope value giving us a density or an amount of recovered product, we can usually describe our data with a specific value in some form or another. In some cases, there can be more than one number to report, often in the form of the original data and then in percent error.

The last part of our conclusion is a particle diagram. Until I did the Modeling, it had never really occurred to me to have kids draw picture representations of what happened in the lab. Modeling is big on particle diagrams, whether it be the chemistry or the physics, and for some kids, this is no problem. For a lot more than I would have predicted, this is a huge problem. Because this is hard. You are looking at a whole new level of understanding when you require someone to draw a particle diagram of a chemical reaction. I have an amazing number of kids who can balance a chemical equation without being able to explain it in terms of the particles involved. This is really another example of being able to get the right answer without understanding the underlying concept.

About half way through the first trimester, I typed up some basic posters to stick on my wall. For some kids, I STILL have to point to each one in turn and remind them what needs to be included.

These were my rough drafts that I did on a whim. I plan on editing them a little bit when I get a chance, but that isn't too high on my priority list for this year. 

I have done a decent job of sticking with assessing these four parts this year. I like, and I think the kids appreciate, the structure involved with it. If nothing else, it gives us a starting place. I am somewhat surprised I haven't changed it up at all. It is by no means perfect, but so far it has really done what I want it to. ****


*It has suddenly occurred to me that I did this backwards. No wonder my kids were struggling with conclusions...we weren't focused on the data...

**In my defense, Modeling workshops are extremely intense! You cover an entire years worth of material in 2-3 weeks. I am still trying to digest it all! I KNEW this in the back of my mind, it just didn't click until this fall.

***Or in Mary's case, "The lab data suggests..." Whatever, she got what I was asking.

****See, terrible conclusion...

Lab Skills 8...What to Do with It...

I have never understood how someone could teach science without including labs as a part of that teaching. I mean, really, isn't that the whole point???

Now, I will be the first to admit that I have not always done my kids justice when it comes to the labs. Like so many others, I "did labs" without clear goals in mind. With any luck, kids could get some decent results and probably be able to decode the conclusion questions at the end. The lab didn't really mean much other than they would maybe get a better visual of the book description and I wouldn't have to talk all day.

In the last couple years, my focus on labs has shifted. A large part of that shift is a direct result of the Modeling. Here, labs are vital. This is where we get our information. We don't read out of a textbook that density is mass per unit of volume, we actually measure that relationship and define it later on. So if Group 4 doesn't get a graph that is at least somewhat linear, we can't see that relationship, and therefore, can't define it. 

Taking good data has become important. 

The problem is, my kids have virtually no lab skills. They just don't do labs in middle school.* What few labs they did do were more of a "hands on" let's take a break from reading kind of thing. You know, what I used to do...

The lab skills didn't matter. 

So what if I should have gotten 7.8 grams of salt and I ended up with 23.4 g???** This was okay because the teacher is going to summarize what we should have gotten and if I pay close enough attention, I will get the answer right on the test.

This has always bothered me. A lot. I just wasn't sure what to do about it. So this has turned into my year to really focus on what I need to teach my kids about precision, accuracy and basic lab skills. This has not always gone smoothly, but taking a few minutes during a lab to teach some of those things has made all the difference.

So enter Lab Skills 8. Originally, I wrote this skill to assess whether or not kids were rounding correctly. We would discuss significant figures and what accuracy and precision were appropriate to record. I ended the summer with it written as: 8.  I can recognize accuracy and precision of data depends on instruments used. (ΔHS.1.3.3d)

I never liked that wording, mostly because I had to explain it to every single person who read it. Before school even started, Bryna suggested this: I can use significant figures to appropriately communicate the precision of data and calculations.


I liked this wording so much better, so I changed it to begin the year.

Now, I like significant figures just as much as the next science teacher, but with all the upheaval I had going on in my room, I didn't focus on them very much. And really, do those rules REALLY make any sense?? Not, at least, to a teenager. They tend to focus so much on the rules that they miss understanding why those rules exist. So basically, I told my kids to round to least precise decimal place and be done with it. Even with that we were still struggling, but for the most part, my kids are rounding to a reasonable place and I am okay with that.

Then I actually started assessing with it. The more I got into it, the more I realized I wanted this target to assess more than what it was. The original idea was to assess only on the recording of the data, but as I mentioned, I wanted kids to be held accountable for the accuracy of their data. 

I debated quite awhile about how I wanted to handle this change. I thought about leaving this skill alone and adding in a separate skill specifically for data collection. I didn't like this for a number of reasons***, but I really thought those skills should go hand in hand.

We started a new trimester last Monday, so I took the opportunity to yet again rewrite that skill. I think I like this one, but I guess we will see how it plays out.

So here it is...the new and improved....

Lab Skills 8.  I can report data and calculations in a precise and accurate manner.

*I KNOW!!! I have issues with this and have made them known...I am working on that.

**Actual results.
***Not the least of which is that then I would have 11 lab skills instead of 10 and my OCD would not allow that to happen.

Inner Peace...A Modeling Update

I don't think there has ever been a time in my teaching career where I could say that I have truly become comfortable with what I am teaching. I taught at my first school for one year before getting married and moving on. My second year teaching was at a school so far away from my home that I moved to a closer district the next year. I taught at the middle school level for two years before being non-renewed, and fell into my current position the next year. I have now been in my district for eleven years, which might have found me in a fairly comfortable place if not for all the new classes I have been "allowed" to develop. In those eleven years, I have taught twelve different classes. Now, some have a little overlap, but creating a new class from scratch nearly every year was a lot more stressful than I realized.

Until today. Today, I got an idea what it really feels like to know what is going on.

Right now I have two sections that are working through the Modeling Chemistry. One is a regular chemistry class and one is what we call applied, that is made up of "those" kids.

My first year with Modeling was, well, tumultuous. The entire situation was new to my kids as well as to me. Even if they hadn't been so incredibly resistant, I am pretty sure they would have sensed my unfamiliarity with the process. They can smell fear, you know.

Last year was my second year, and while I was at least more familiar with the material, I still had some issues and wrinkles that I needed to iron out. Luckily, the kids I had were much less resistant. I think word had spread that I could take whatever they could send my way and stick to my guns. I am pretty sure that if I had given in, just a little bit the year before, I would have had a lot more testing of boundaries. As it was, I had a great group of kids who for the most part bought in to what I was trying to do. For my part, I spent a lot of time writing out exactly* what I wanted to accomplish with each lesson just so I could go back and remember what worked and what didn't. While I'm not obsessed enough to read it all out during class, it has proved invaluable to look over beforehand and remember what types of things tripped kids up. Since I seem to know where I want them to go, my questions and prompts are actually leading them there.**

The other day, I assigned the first worksheet in my chemistry class. This is not a common occurrence, as I really try to save homework for special occasions. The worksheets in the Modeling units are wonderfully done. These are not "right there" questions that kids can google, nor are they all repetitions of the same problem. When my kids came to class today, there was true panic going on. They had tried. They didn't get it. Their parents didn't get it. They were never going to pass this class.

It took awhile, but I reminded them that we had had this conversation about homework awhile back. Remember how it's practice? And struggling is actually a good thing? This doesn't count toward a grade, so let's whiteboard the problems and see what we come up with.

Then things got really tense.

The first couple of questions were pretty straightforward. The group presented and every head in the room turned to me to see if I was confirming their excellent work.

Cue the crickets.***

Finally someone, almost with a twitch, said, "well, is it right??"

So I said, "do you think it is?"

These pauses are going to kill me.

The group presenting, of course thought they were correct. When I asked if anyone had written anything different, no one spoke up. So I asked them if they had any questions about how this group came up with their answers. Again, not a sound.

As the group started moving towards their seats, one student turned around with her paper and asked me if what she had was acceptable. So I stopped the group and had them go back up to their whiteboard.

Now, here's where it got tricky. We stopped and talked about the overall purpose of whiteboarding. It isn't just about copying down the right answer on your paper. This is about learning from each other and being able to ask questions when you don't understand. Not necessarily asking ME, but asking your classmates to explain their thinking.

The big question for this question was that the student had done the problem in a different manner, but came up with the same answer.**** There followed a huge discussion about whether or not this was "correct" for this problem. Apparently, in the past, there has been only one way to get to the right answer, and that is how the teacher has already explained it. No free thinking allowed.

Yeah, whatever. Personally, I would like to see this every time. While this student explained how she came up with her (same) answer, a couple other kids were nodding their heads. Comments like, "oh, I get it now" started rumbling around the room. Kids were talking to one another, asking good questions. There was really only one smart-alec in the room and he was put down pretty quickly.

By the end of the hour, I had students fighting to present their problem on the whiteboard. I had retreated to the back corner and didn't say another word.

It took us two days to whiteboard this worksheet. In fact, with this class, we are taking quite a bit longer on everything, but I am so okay with that. All of those little details that have taken all trimester to even get the nerve to bring up the last two years are being addressed here in the first month.

And they are buying into it!

So today, we are whiteboarding a lab. The discussions going on are amazing and so beyond anything I would have expected up to this point. I am wandering around the room listening, waiting for questions. There are none. I hear one group who seems to be struggling say "well, we will present it and see what everyone else has done. Maybe they can show us where we messed up." Whoa! Really? I move on to eavesdrop on another group. They have a gorgeous multi-color whiteboard that oh-my-goodness includes a particle diagram!

I'm pretty sure I'm dreaming here. I am also a little nervous because I don't really know what I did to get here so quickly (or, for that matter, at all). I'm not entirely sure I did anything at all. I think, though, that it comes from knowing exactly where I want my kids to go and having a plan as to how to get there. What I do know is that I have never been so excited, or relaxed, about where my classroom is headed.



*When I say exactly, I mean word for word, every-question-that-makes-sense-OCD-scripted type of write out.

**Now this is probably not news to most of you. I can see you shaking your head, wondering, "is she serious?" All I can say to that is, yes. Yes, I am.

***There seems to be a lot of awkward pauses in my room this year.

****Seriously, the stars are all in alignment today.

*****My footnote addiction seems to be getting worse...sorry about that...

Oh Yeah, I Have a Job

I have not had a school thought since May 25.

Haven't even missed it.

My plan this summer was to spend a little bit of time every day and get ready for school in the fall*. I have so many things I want to do differently that I simply can't wait until August to start fixing them unless I want to ed up in a straight-jacket somewhere.

So it's been a little bit of a struggle getting back into chemistry mode today. I am back at a short Modeling Workshop this week looking at the new chemistry units 4, 5 and 6 that were revamped last year. The old sequence just kind of skimmed over quite a bit of crucial information but still expected kids to figure it all out. The new units go back and add in a little bit of filler to help bridge the gap from macroscopic observations to more microscopic.

Unit Four discusses the difference between mixtures and compounds. The Modeling still skims over those in a series of demonstrations/notes that didn't do it for my kids. I added in a mixture identification/separation lab last year to help kids visualize and practice those techniques. Plus they needed the practice. My kids come to me with horrible lab skills and this is an easy one for them to practice with. There was also a general consensus about kids not being able to recognize a mixture, pure substance, element or compound in a particle diagram. I had a hard time trying to figure out how in the world I messed up this section so badly that they couldn't do that, but apparently it wasn't just me, so I am not sure where this confusion comes from or how to clarify it. To me, it seems so simple, but apparently to teenagers, I might as well be teaching string theory.

Then we get into the law of definite proportions and the law of multiple proportions. The transition from relative mass to the mole is much smoother and I think it flows a little better for kids. They still have a hard time with using the relative masses to show the laws, but that is something I can help them through fairly easily. I have an idea for a lab, but it is not fleshing out as completely as I'd hoped. I'll come back to that.

We still have a few issues to hammer out tomorrow, namely the idea of how the molar masses of the elements came about. We spent a good amount of time today trying to figure out how to do the calculations on Worksheet 1 in Unit 5 and we still did not come away with a clear understanding of how to explain it. Basically, it compares several elements' mass ratios in their oxides to each other and in turn compares those masses to the mass of hydrogen in water. The problem is that hydrogen does not combine in a 1:1 ratio so it throws all of our calculations off. We can't seem to find a way to explain how the ratio is accounted for in the calculations in a way that doesn't seem to say "just believe me". If I can't get a grasp on it, how am I supposed to expect kids to?

So question for you....how do you explain relative mass? Does anyone out there have an amazing activity that lets the kids manipulate stuff? If you do, please share.

Have any of you done a test run with the new materials? How did it go? Did you do anything amazing to help kids get it? ASU (and I) would really like some feedback about any problems or successes you may have had!


*Looking back, this seems that this is my plan every summer. How is it that I never seem to get this done???

Modeling: Year 2

To say that this year is going better is such an understatement that I have deleted and retyped it about ten times trying to find a better word.

For one, my room is MY ROOM this year. There is no ghost of chemistry past whispering to kids that this class was so much easier last year.

I am also much more comfortable with the material. Last year, I just seemed to be a day or so ahead of my kids and really did not feel prepared enough to keep them focused. Not only were they learning how to Model, but so was I. This year, I have been able to sit down and write out detailed lesson "plans" for each day, including a list of questions (and answers) to ask during the whiteboard sessions. Having a clear goal in mind sure helps me focus and get the kids where they need to be. Who knew?*

One aspect that really bothered me last year was the lack of engagement on the part of my kids. Whiteboard sessions were still treated as a presentation to me rather than a class discussion of their results. I just couldn't get them to let go of me as their safety net. This year there have been a couple things, one on purpose and one accidental, that have made a huge difference in our whiteboarding.

After a week or so of whiteboarding "practice", I got tired of asking the same questions of every group. Seriously, did they not hear me ask the last group? So I made out notecards. These are handed out randomly and have a general question written on them.** If the presentation does not include the answer to your question, then you are to ask it of the group. This forces the kids to actually listen to the presentation, evaluate whether or not the question has been asked, and if not, then get it out there.

This has made such an amazing difference that I can't even believe it. All of a sudden, kids are sitting up and paying attention. They are asking questions, and you can bet that if the question has already been answered, someone is going to let you know. The quality of the presentations have also improved. For some reason, having me ask those questions every single time didn't seem to register with them, but now it's their peers who are asking and that seems to be much more important.

The other turning point this year was a total accident. I was gone. There were two weeks in there that I was gone for four days. The first day was typical, not-get-much-done-pull-one-over-on-the-sub-pretend-we-don't-know-anything. I came back the next day and pretty much just lit into them about responsibility and maturity and all that. They rolled their eyes and I rolled mine.

And I told them the test was still on. They panicked and they whined. "But, you are going to be gone!" Yep. So you had better figure out pretty quickly what you need to do to be ready.

I was gone the next day for their review. They whiteboarded the study guide that day and when I came back the next day, you would have thought it was Christmas morning. Kids jumping up and down, grinning from ear to ear. One boy, I swear I heard him giggle.

They had done it. They didn't need me. They could have a group discussion and learn from each other. They even kicked out a student who wouldn't quit talking. They were even relatively excited about taking the test.

Since then, my room has transformed. I can honestly say that kids are (mostly) engaged. And I feel so much less stressed about whether or not I am doing it right. We whiteboarded a worksheet today and I sat in the back and didn't say a word. Kids were following along, asking for clarification and checking each other's work.

This is actually my ultimate goal. I don't want to be the center of attention. I don't want to be needed. I want those kids to figure it out on their own, and I think they are well on their way :)


*I know, you probably knew.

**I have eleven as of right now and am pretty sure I am going to add in some lab specific questions later.
1. What is your independent variable?
2. What is your dependent variable?
3. What is the relationship between _____ and _____ ?
4. Is your y-intercept negligible? How do you know?
5. What kind of relationship is this?
6. What about the particles themselves cause this relationship?
7. Do we know what "x" represents in our equation? "y"?
8. Is the relationship constant? Direct?
9. What does your y-intercept represent?
10. What does the value of your slope mean?

A Late Thunderstorm

It is happening again.

Today we whiteboarded the first worksheet over density. We had discussed our lab yesterday and talked about what the relationship was between mass and volume.

The grumblings have started. I didn't teach them about density! That thirty minute discussion we had yesterday? Oh, we were supposed to pay attention to that?

The good news is that this particular rumbling is occurring a whole ten days later than last year! And it wasn't so much a mutiny as it was just general complaining.

So at this rate, in about 17 years, I shouldn't get any grumbling until after school breaks for the summer. I can't wait :)

All in all, this year is going so much better than last year. I think there are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that I feel much more comfortable with the environment I want to create. Last summer my Modeling class ended in July and I rushed in and, well, just rushed in. I hadn't taught "real" chemistry in several years, so was a bit out of practice and at the same time trying to radically change how these kids expected to be taught. This year, I at least am familiar with the material and the process and have been able to go into class with an actual plan. And I think word got out from last year's group and so the kids' expectations were different coming in.

I know it's early in the year, but I still don't have my classroom climate where I would like it to be. We were in the middle of a discussion today when an administrator knocked on my door and had to talk to me RIGHT NOW. I asked the class to continue on and come to a consensus. Um, yeah, that didn't quite happen. The discussion apparently came to a screeching halt and uncontrolled chaos reigned.

I can handle that. There is something about having a specific problem to tackle, even if you aren't sure how.

I'm just glad that this year my kids aren't openly plotting my demise.

My First Day of School and That Pesky Exploding Can

Okay, so my first day of school was over a week ago. If this is how my year is going to go, I should just start hibernating now!

There has been a lot of discussion about this on every listserve you can find about what to do on the first day of school. Everyone is pretty much in agreement that reading through a syllabus is a great way to immediately cause disinterest in your class. The Marshmallow Challenge seems to be a popular choice with the physics crowd, and to be honest, I really want to try that in my classes some day. I teach Chemistry, so I kind of want to keep in with a chemistry theme and, of course, the question on every teenager's lips seems to be "when are we going to blow something up". The Modeling has an Exploding Can Demo set as the first activity to do with the kids and there has been some discussion about that activity as well. Some teachers cannot do this because they do not have access to natural gas. Some like to go over their class rules on the first day (why, why, why??). And some don't like the activity because students have a hard time explaining what is happening.

I love this demo and find that the first day of school is the perfect time to do it. My principal even came in to do a short evaluation on the first day this year (seriously???) and was pretty surprised that we were already in the lab causing a ruckus.

It's a simple demo that catches kids off guard, because about the time everyone stops paying attention and chatting about their summer, the thing explodes. I had one kid this year who actually dove under the lab table to take cover. He may never live that one down.

To specifically address those teacher who don't want to use the demo because kids can't explain it, you are absolutely correct. That is the whole idea. It's OKAY not to be able to explain something. If those kids could perfectly explain every action of every particle inside that can right now, then for goodness sake, send them to the counselor to get into a more advanced class. The whole point of a chemistry class, after all, is to learn how matter interacts with other matter.

This demonstration actually serves several purposes for me. First, most kids have reformatted over the summer and need to get some of those brain gears moving. Second, we come back to this demo several times throughout the year. After talking about reactions, for example, we go back to page 1 in our lab book and re-describe what we think those particles were doing inside the can. And finally, after the demo, the groups draw their particle representations of what they think happened and the next day we whiteboard those ideas. This is where I set up my norms for our whiteboarding sessions.

I try to pick kids that I have worked with in the past or who know a little bit about me and have them be the presenter for their group.

And then I grab my bag of chips. A snack size bag with just a few chips is perfect for this. While the group is presenting, I munch on chips. Doritos work well because they are really loud and kind of messy. I create a pretty decent distraction by crumpling up the bag and stuffing it into these mysterious little compartments in my desks. A couple swigs from my pop bottle (shake it up to get a nice loud escape of gas) and it goes flying across the room into the trash can. Usually by now, kids have noticed. I kind of look around the room, "oh, was that inappropriate?" My apologies. I then have the group make a note on the board.

The next group is a little nervous now, so I leave them alone.

Third time's a charm, so I get out my phone. I have it set to make the beeping sounds when you type so kids know what I'm doing. Of course I "try" to hide it like my students do, but pretty soon, they start to notice. "Oh, was that inappropriate as well?" Please make a note.

Now the last one is kind of tricky. I have to have someone presenting that knows me pretty well or I let them know ahead of time what I'm going to do. I don't want anyone in tears on the first day. After they present, I pretty much argue that my answer is the correct one and their group is just plain wrong. I usually have a hard time keeping a straight face for this one.

So now we have three things on the board that we as a group have more or less decided are inappropriate for the setting. They then get to suggest any other behaviors that might best be left at the door. We talk about how important the whiteboard sessions are when it comes to getting information. We talk about the difference between hearing and listening. We talk about respect. We talk about general polite behavior.

These two days are a pretty good introduction to the class as well as the general setup of the modeling classroom. The kids get to experience what the rest of the year is like and possibly more importantly, do NOT get the answers on the first day. This can be uncomfortable for a lot of kids and some do not handle it well.* I have actually had kids ask me for a textbook so they can look up the right answer. Good luck with that.

Learning in this room isn't about getting the right answer RIGHT NOW. It is about having to discover the right answer in another place and time and connecting it back to what you did on the first day. If I can get you to do that, then I have done my job and can sleep well at night.

Have a great year!


*From some of the discussion, some of the teachers do not handle it well. Get over it. Nobody knows it all. And besides, if all you do is tell kids the correct answer, you are taking all the fun out of science class!

A Letter to My Colleagues

Quick, off the top of your head, why did you become a science teacher?

Now, I'm not talking about the whole, "I wanted to make a difference in a child's life" type* of answer.

I want to know why you became a SCIENCE teacher?

Was it because of the textbooks? Because you like to hear how smart you sound when you lecture? Let me guess, you like nice, neat, orderly rows of chairs, right? Good Lord, tell me it isn't because of the math....

I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that your answer has something to do with the fact that SCIENCE IS JUST FREAKING AWESOME!!! You get to build things, discover things, manipulate things, and, yes, every once in awhile, you get to blow things up.

THAT'S why we went into science, am I right?

So how the hell did we end up spending all this time writing on a chalkboard (or horror of horrors pointing at a powerpoint) and having to "find time to do a lab"?

We can blame the standards. We can blame the textbooks. But the fact remains that we have gotten away from what science truly is. It's mostly the way I was taught, both in high school and college. It's the way I knew, so it was the way I stuck with. And then, one bright shiny day, a little gargoyle crept in and whispered in my ear, "pssst...you're doing it wrong."

And suddenly, last summer, I found my way out of the abyss. I accidentally took a Modeling workshop and completely changed the way I teach my kids.

Modeling is not a set of materials that you use in your classroom. I refer to it a lot as a curriculum, but it really isn't that, either. It is a WAY of teaching, a METHOD of getting students to use their own data and observations to construct their own knowledge of the world around them.

Did you get that? Those kids OWN their learning. And that's pretty powerful.

You can describe Modeling with nearly every past and present education buzzword you can think of: cooperative learning, inquiry, student-centered, constructivism, differentiation, critical thinking, problem solving, formative assessment. The list goes on, but it doesn't need to. I have seen what it can do in a classroom, and I don't need any edujargon to convince me.

I have taught both ways to kids on every end of the learning spectrum, and I can say with certainty, that for me, this is the way to go. I have seen brilliant kids take off and run with it, reveling in the challenges the class presents. I have also seen lower kids finally have the success in school that they never would have experienced in a traditional classroom. Modeling can reach them all.

Now, I am not going to claim that there is absolutely no other method that is effective, but I do know that Modeling has been extensively researched and tested in the classroom since the early 1990s. I have met many other teachers who have had the training and have yet to hear one speak negatively about it. This is not to say that it is an easy way to teach. This is one of the most challenging things I have ever tried in my classroom but it has also been one of the most rewarding.

Oh, and have you heard of the Common Core? How about the Conceptual Framework? These documents are soon going to shape what happens in your classroom. I have sat in on sessions on both of these, and you know what the big question that is on everyone's mind? How am I going to learn how to teach this way?

Get thee to a Modeling class, that's how.

Try it, because really, what do you have to lose? It'll put you out of your comfort zone, but that's what needs to happen if you want to change. I have heard one story (undocumented and purely anecdotal) about a teacher (one) who has gone through the training not fallen in love with it. Want to know my first (undiplomatic) reaction?

Go teach math.**


*Don't get me wrong - that's an excellent reason!

**KIDDING! KIDDING! Math teachers don't hate me. In fact, want to truly integrate math and science? Go to a Modeling workshop. That's where I truly learned about the quadratic equation.


P.S. This was written as an assignment for my Modeling workshop as a way to convince a colleague to give Modeling a chance.

Good Lord, We Have a Textbook

I find it somewhat ironic that our Modeling workshop leader gave us a textbook to read. Not just some quick study, tell-me-everything-you-know-about-teaching-physics kind of book, either. Teaching Introductory Physics. This thing weighs more than my car. If I were to have seen this on Amazon, I would never in a million years even have considered buying it. Even if I had an extra $118 and had seen the six 5-star reviews.

Our first read was assigned last night. The first third of Chapter 2: Rectilinear Kinematics. Huh?* Even if I had somehow managed to obtain the book, I doubt I would have ever thought this chapter would be interesting, let alone comprehensible.

Since I am being graded on this, I figured I had better at least skim through it so I could pretend to discuss it during class.

Just goes to show you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover.

This chapter is about motion (yeah, that's what rectilinear kinematics means) why kids really might not understand motion, even after you "teach" it. Basically, don't feel too bad, we aren't truly wired to intuit these ideas and the ideas that we DO have are often not quite right. These concepts are not things that have been discovered, so much as invented, and even then, we didn't really start to figure it out until sometime in the seventeenth century.

Arons has spent  decades not studying physics, but studying how students LEARN physics. Instead of dryly trying to explain the concepts, he comes at it from the perspective of the student. What misconceptions do kids come in with? And more importantly, how do you get past those misconceptions and get kids where you want them to go?

For example, they probably don't have a good working definition of an instant. (Apparently, neither did I.) Arons explains what those misconceptions probably are (same as mine) and for those of use who maybe didn't get much out of our Physics 101 class fifteen years ago, offers up an amazingly simple explanation. An explanation that I could successfully use in my classroom.

Arons reiterates several times the importance of discovery when it comes to the classroom. "Teaching is significantly strengthened if one carefully abides by the precept 'idea first and name afterwards,' in the introduction of every new concept." Otherwise, you have a 'normal' classroom scene where kids are frantically trying to copy the definition of the term you just wrote on the board and memorizing the equations.

This is the whole basis for the Modeling cycle. Introduce those ideas. Let the kids discover the relationships themselves. Once they have a pretty good grasp on the concept, then put a name to it. Arons even goes so far in his discussion of velocity to suggest flipping the equation over and trying to define it, just to see what they come up with.**

I realize I have only read part of one chapter, and this is by no means meant to be a full book review, but at this point, I would encourage you to check it out.

So, tonight, I'm hoping for a reading assignment.


*Interesting fact: When I typed in rectilinear, it did NOT show up as misspelled.

**Did you know that has already been defined by geophysicists? I had no clue. It's obviously not well know as Wikipedia doesn't even have an entry.

Physics Modeling Day 1 and an Epiphany

If you know me at all, you know that I fell in love with Modeling last summer. My first year Modeling Chemistry was filled with ups and downs and everything in between. It was rough. And exhausting. But I know this is one of the best teaching methods out there. I can't help but think this will get somewhat easier with time.

So this summer, I am taking a Physics Modeling class. Three weeks. Twelve days. Great discussions. Lots of goodies. I have been excited about this class since I signed up in March.

What a nerd.

We took the Force Concept Inventory today. Now, bear in mind that I haven't taught actual physics since some time in the last century. This test kicked my butt! I talked myself out of so many answers you would think I didn't have a license to teach this stuff. So when we go into "Student Mode" this time around, I will truly be able to play that part. All the better for me, I guess :)

Today we covered Unit 1. Mostly this shows the kids how to set up labs and take good measurements. We did the Pendulum Lab. Again, this is probably the same lab done in every single physics class in America.

But different. You know, backwards from the "normal" way to teach. Start with the lab and then develop the ideas.

One quote from our teacher really hit home with me today. "It is important to let students take their own data and create their own graphs and discuss it. They have to see for themselves or they are never going to believe it."

I had never really thought about it in terms of "believing" it before. Oh, sure, I am well aware that some kids simply don't pick up on the ideas and need to come at it from a different angle, but for some reason, I never considered that one of those kids wouldn't believe me. This is physics, for crying out loud, not evolution. (I know, I know, touchy subject, please don't yell at me for that one.) And besides, why wouldn't those sponges absorb everything I say in class. I have masters degree, doggone it, I'm know what I am talking about!

But that's the whole key, isn't it?

When we walked in this morning, there was a set of questions on the board for us to think about. One of them was "What is a student-centered learning environment?" It's one of those things that I kind of knew the answer to in the back of my head, but never really sat down to think about and articulate. All it took was one simple quote and a semi-coherent blog post to really bring it all home.

Those kids have to see it with their own eyes. Write it in their own hand and speak it with their own voice. Only then can they "believe" it.

This is the core of Modeling. The entire pedagogy is based on those kids seeing for themselves how this world works.

Man this is awesome.

The End of the First Model Year

School's out.

I think.

It's been a strange year and it doesn't really feel like the end of school yet. Maybe it was the weather, but even the kids on the last day were just kind of laid back about the whole thing. Well, um, okay, see you next fall!

Now that my classroom is finally cleaned up, I've been able to sit down and think about the year. There are so many things I did differently this year that I am having a hard time sorting it all out in my head.

So let's start with Modeling.

If you didn't know, I accidentally took a workshop on Modeling Chemistry last summer that totally changed the way I teach. Well, that's not entirely true. It totally enhanced the way I teach. It filled in all those gaping holes and dead ends that I kept running into. I was so excited as I went through the workshop, and I still love the program. I am taking the Physics workshop in July and can't wait to go.

What I Like: The Plan.
Modeling isn't just a teaching method. A lot of work has gone into developing the curriculum and coinciding the information with the methods.The curriculum starts at the beginning of our understanding of matter and takes those kids through those observations and discoveries. Kids have to think about why matter behaves the way it does. They create their own "model" of matter, just like all those famous scientists did.

What I Like: The Interaction
At the end of our workshop, we were supplied with a dozen giant student whiteboards and even some dry erase markers. This is where it gets good. Instead of me standing up there telling the class what they should be getting as their model, the kids stand up there and tell the class what they got as their model. Even if you don't follow the Modeling curriculum, go get some whiteboards and have those kids work out and explain what they know. The idea here is that kids are able to ask questions of their peers in order to further their understanding. It's brilliant, it's interactive, I love it.

But...

What I Don't Like: The Interaction
I didn't do this well at all. My kids never truly took ownership in their own learning enough to be able to ask the right questions. I would ask them questions, they would more or less answer them. The other students rarely asked questions and when they did, they turned around and asked me. It's hard to create a student centered classroom when they know where I am. This spring, my Chemistry class was the last hour of the day. I would leave for track. Girls would leave for softball. Boys would leave for baseball. Don't even get me started on the FFA teams. We more or less gave up on the whiteboarding toward the end. If I would do it right, it would be a better tool. As it was this spring, it was so much of a stressor that I simply dreaded it. I'm not sure how, but I definitely am going to come up with some ways of getting the kids more involved.

What I Don't Like: The Curriculum
I have never been one to blindly follow a curriculum. There were a few things that simply were not explained sufficiently for my kids. I just needed to come in from a different angle. This wasn't a big deal, but some of my kids needed more support than what this curriculum supplied. I wouldn't even go so far as to say this is a problem with the program, just that some might need more.

What I Don't Like: Inquiry
Now, before you get all in a fit, I don't mean to say I don't like inquiry. I LOVE inquiry. I want to do more. The program allows for inquiry, but isn't really set up that way. When we went through the curriculum in our workshop, we were supplied with all the labs*, so this is what I did with my kids. It's not the worst thing I've ever done, but I would like to do better. It is hard to turn kids loose in Chemistry (well, for me anyway) when they don't know much about the chemicals in the closet. Shawn has his kids apply for a grant in order to start on their labs. I really like this idea, and am going to come up with something like that. Or maybe I'll just use his. I love the internet. When I cleaned up my room, I more or less organized my books according to subject. I have 17 chemistry lab manuals collecting dust on my bookshelf. I'm thinking that if I give kids a question, if they get stuck coming up with a procedure, they can use the manuals to help guide them along. Someone might as well use them.

Now that I have that out of my system, I can honestly say I love this program and would highly recommend the training to anyone who can possibly get it. The problems I have had I think I can chalk up to this being my first year and not knowing what I was doing. Now that I have at least tried it in a real classroom, I can focus on those things that weren't terribly successful the first time around.

It'll be here before I know it.

*Thinking on this now, it's entirely possible this was done because of time constraints. We covered the entire curriculum (including doing the labs) in two short weeks.

A Tale of Two Chemistries

We finally closed on our second trimester this week. If you remember, we last left our hero* dangling off the edge of insanity. Come to think of it, I really don't ever seem to get too far from that edge.

My Regular Chemistry class settled down a little bit and more or less accepted that I wasn't going to change what we were doing. It helped that the most vocal mob was broken up. It also helped that our incredible librarian told her groupies to suck it up and rise to the challenge. After awhile those rusted wheels started turning and it wasn't quite as painful.

I never could get them into a discussion with our whiteboarding. They just kind of assumed that whoever was talking was right and dutifully copied down those answers. I'm not sure what adjustments to make there. I thought about requiring them to ask at least one question per day, but couldn't decide whether I wanted to fight that battle or not.

I'm not sure my class learned everything I wanted them to. Even the very last day, kids were not able to recognize when a substance had the nitrate polyatomic ion in it. While kids do need to take some responsibility for their own learning, I blame me for the most part. I need to be more aware of when my kids are not getting it and not let them sneak past me when they don't understand. I think I trusted the curriculum too much when it told me to let them figure things out on their own. Having never been in that position before, they weren't ready for that. I let them flounder for too long and I lost them and never got them recovered. And when you lose them in the first couple weeks, they are lost for the rest of the time. The Modeling people do not like you to mess with their curriculum, but I definitely need to add in something in  to help them understand some of those concepts a little more. I have never been one to follow every little detail anyway, so why start now?

Probably what bothered me more than anything, though, was the last day. Everyone was so relieved to be done with Chemistry. Me included. I really don't want my kids to hate my class. I don't want them to see it as something to just get through. I want them to love it. We live in an incredible, beautiful world and I want them to wonder at it. I'm more than a little disturbed that they keep saying that they hate it. I am hoping (praying) that this is just because I haven't taught Chemistry for several years and that once I am comfortable with the material again, it will go a little more smoothly.

My Applied Chemistry took off with the Modeling. We had relatively small groups (12 in each class compared to 22 in my regular chemistry) and they were pretty comfortable with each other. The whiteboard discussion really turned in to learning most times. Of course, every once in awhile, someone would ask something like "why is your shirt green today?" but hey, they are teenagers, you can't expect a whole lot of maturity all the time.

One great thing about Modeling is it forces those kids to actually do something other than copy from their neighbor. They never know who is going to have to speak for the group or what questions I am going to ask, so everyone has to be prepared and know what is going on. My Applied kids truly benefited from this approach and, of course, this is true for Regular as well, but it doesn't seem to be as crucial for them.

Modeling is just what is says it is. You create a model of matter. We start with the basic observations that have been obvious for your entire life and actually describe them. We draw them. Instead of kids reading about these models, we create them ourselves. This has helped those lower kids develop an understanding of where that information came from. When I ask them why is H2O written that way, instead of saying "because you told us," they can look back in their lab notebook and see the evidence for why. That is what I really love about it. And that is why I will keep doing it.


*Hehe, that's me.

Modeling Update

At the last minute, I decided to try the Modeling curriculum with my Applied Chemistry. I have 21 students in 2 sections. Only a few of those students come to my class without an IEP.

I debated for a long time as to whether or not I wanted to tackle modeling with these kids. Every indication I had up to this point simply screamed to me that the kids didn't like it.

But, being who I am, I ignored all that.

Actually, I looked long and hard at the arguments presented by those kids. What it boiled down to was that these kids were out of their comfort zone. They knew how to work the system and were upset that the system had changed. Having taught (almost exclusively) IEP and At-Risk kids for many years now, I am fairly confident that most of those kids don't really have a comfort zone when it comes to school. They were going to resist me no matter what I did.

So, modeling it was.

We are following the exact same curriculum that my regular chemistry class used in the fall trimester. The only modifications I have made have been to the math sections. A lot of my Applied kids haven't taken Algebra yet, so it didn't really seem fair to ask them to make those connections. We are focusing on the study of the particles and their behavior.

I did show them how to find the slope of our graphs (some even had a faint idea of where this was going!) and talked about what that slope meant. Several of them made connections to mountain slopes that my chemistry kids never even considered. That IS why it is called a slope, after all. I did not ask them to write the equations or try to come up with the constants on their own.

I do feel like I am walking them through a lot more than I did my chemistry kids. Whether I am doing this because of the makeup of the class or because of my experiences in the fall, I really can't say. Probably a little of both.

The big problem I have (and this is not new) is kids just not doing work. I had three lab notebooks turned in blank. BLANK. Nothing. Seriously, why even bother turning it in?

But that annoyance aside, the big thing here is that these kids are doing great. They are actively involved in the labs and the data interpretation. They discuss the results with their small group and participate in the large group discussion so much better than their "smarter" peers.

Overall, the experience has been so much better than last fall. I've even got kids wanting to read out of the text book.*

Direct quote: "Miss, I had no idea I was this smart!"

I'm so glad I took this chance.

*Most of these kids are in our Tier 2 or Tier 3 reading intervention classes, which means they are way below grade level. We have readings in the textbook as a reinforcement AFTER we do the lab and discussions.

Last Minute Change of Plans

I had decided last week that I wasn't going to use modeling to teach my Applied Chemistry. This is a lower level class that is mostly taken by kids who have an IEP or are considered at risk. Essentially, we go through the first half of chemistry. I have taught it for several years and more or less have it set up where I am happy with what I do and how the kids handle the material.

So, today we started our new trimester. Can you guess what I did? My first class starts at 8:25. At 8:15 I decided to abandon everything I was comfortable with, everything I had worked so hard to build for the last five years.

I think they can do it. I think I can do it. The clencher for me was my class sizes. Both sections have less than 13 kids, so I am pretty sure I can give each kid the attention and help they need to get it.

I briefly thought about modeling one section and not other, but that seemed really insane.

Modeling Reflection

Whew.

Okay. So, I've made it through my first trimester of modeling chemistry.

I like it. I like it a lot.

I'm just not very good at it. Yet.

We have a monthly PD session with everyone that was in the workshop this summer that has been my saving grace. It is wonderful to know that other people are having the same struggles as I am and to be able to get some ideas about how to deal with them. Our leader keeps telling us to be patient and that it could take about 5 years before we are truly comfortable with it.

Wait! FIVE YEARS??? I want to be good at it NOW!

I know, I know, patience is a virtue.

There are several things I need to work on. On the surface, they seem pretty straight forward, but they are key points and in practice, aren't so simple to correct.

-Kids do a lab and present their results to the class. This forces them to pay attention to the lab and try to work through what the results actually mean. This also has greatly improved our lab skills and measurement precision.*

-The explanations of the ideas is refined through questioning by me and ideally the other kids. At this point, I haven't been able to truly get my kids to ask questions of the presenters. They still turn to me to ask the question. One of my focus areas this trimester is to get more of a class participation during whiteboarding. They also expect me to summarize the lab and basically give them the analysis. I want them to feel comfortable writing their own analysis, but I'm not exactly sure how to take away that safety blanket. I think maybe I need to change the way I grade them. Maybe not so much whether they came to the correct conclusion, but whether the conclusion they have makes sense with their data. But, then, I want them to see the correct relationships, so I'm not sure how to find that balance.

-Modeling takes a LOT of time. We are half way through the course and we will start talking about bonding on Monday. If I had been following along in my textbook, I would have finished that up weeks ago and already been through chemical reactions. I would be lying if I said I wasn't starting to panic a little bit about that. According to our district curriculum** (and state standards), we should be way past that. I'm feeling pretty secure, however, with the knowledge that I truly believe my kids are coming away with a better understanding than they would in a more teacher-centered classroom. I wasn't so sure of this until we took our final on Friday. I set it up so that there was one question for each target that we covered this semester (SBG reflection to come). Basically, it was a giant retake and an opportunity to raise their grade on any targets they wanted. They panicked about which targets to test. They whined about how their grade could go down. They didn't study at all. They did wonderful on their tests. For all the "discussion" we had about how to teach and learn, in the end, they overwhelmingly DID get it.

-Our leader keeps talking about how modeling uses inquiry to learn chemistry. It doesn't. Guided inquiry, maybe, but true inquiry, no. Students do not come up with their own investigations, let alone their own questions. Those are all given. Maybe with time, it could evolve into that, but right now, my classroom is more of discovery driven than inquiry driven. And I'm okay with that.

I at least have a starting place. I'm thinking the discussion issue is the one I really need to focus on. That is too huge a component for it to not be moving along as smoothly as it should. This trimester I only have one section of chemistry, so this will serve as a trial run of sorts and I will get to turn around and fix some things immediately for the third trimester. I'm also not coaching this winter, so I will be able to prepare, reflect and adjust a lot more than I was able to this fall. So, all in all, I am excited about the upcoming trimester.

Isn't it nice to be excited about your job?!

*One thing I have not focused too much on this year has been significant figures. A lot of kids are still giving me answers with 8 decimal places. I have decided to leave that for now. My kids are feeling so overwhelmed with the changes that I don't want to push them over the edge.

**I might point out here that I hate our district curriculum. The person who wrote it just kind of copied our state standards and added in some other random stuff she liked to do.

The Mutiny

It all started with one of my extended absence students returning. Her close cousin was killed in an accident and she is dealing with a lot right now. She is also a pretty good student (although with an attitude) who is now a week behind, not just in my class, but in all of them.

And she is mad.

At me.

And my "whacked out grading system." I love that. I just graded lab notebooks and each student received scores on five of the Lab Skills targets.*

Once she started ranting about her failing grade (I enter missing assignments as zeros strictly for my bookkeeping purposes), a good number of kids joined in.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from this "discussion":

"I want to read a textbook and fill out a worksheet." (4.0 student)

"We shouldn't have to know what we've done in a lab." (another 4.0 student)

"I don't get anything out of the whiteboarding." (This is as the student is texting under the table)

"I can't get a good grade with these target things." (This student didn't even turn in a notebook.)

There were others, some directed at me personally, but the gist of it could be summarized into one complaint:

"I don't want to have to work for my grade."

This is pretty much exactly what our modeling instructor warned us about. The kids who are traditionally A and B students are the ones who really struggle with figuring stuff out on their own. They have learned to play the game and when the game changes, they can't adapt.

Somewhat surprising to me are the kids who are emerging as really good thinkers. A few of my really low readers are excelling in this class, probably for no other reason than the pressure of fill-in-the-blank is not there. Hands on thinking seems to bring out the best in them. This is also kind of a wake up call when one of the A/B students claims that "everyone in this class is failing." Oh, the priceless look when someone who has struggled so much in the past speaks up and says, "I have a B."

I also have a couple really brilliant kids who are really thriving on this as well. They seem to be enjoying the new rules and are being challenged in a system that more often than not ignores them to focus on the low achievers.

All in all, I am foreseeing a few parent phone calls in my near future. I have been doing much better about that this year and have already put in a few calls myself. This has always been a weakness of mine and I am determined to do better this year.

What is amazing to me right this second is that I have never once thought that maybe I should go back to teaching in a more traditional manner. I truly believe that this is a better way.

Even if my kids delete me from their Facebook friends.

*Hmmmm...was going to link to this, but apparently I haven't posted them. Coming soon: Lab Skills Targets!

And the Thunder Rolls

I am beginning to hear the first rumblings of dissidence in my classroom. The kids are starting to realize that I am really, truly, not going to stand up in front of the room and lecture to them. This is making quite a few of them nervous.

Some of them are having full blown panic attacks.

Some are beginning to realize that the whiteboard discussions are their opportunities to ask questions and clarify what they know. Some are still too busy texting to even know what class they are in*. A few are cursing under their breath.

I'm having trouble with my 5th hour. There are a few kids in there that simply cannot stop talking. It makes no difference who they are sitting next to, that person is wonderful to talk to. It's also early in the year yet and we really haven't decided who the alpha male is going to be. There is a lot of big talk and strange teenage animal noises still being made and I am hoping this gets resolved in the next few days so we can all get down to work.

My classroom climate with this group is no where near where I want it to be, and I don't really know what to do about it, so the frustration is setting in.

We also just took our first real quiz. Some of my kids are having a hard time transitioning to the SBG.

Kid: "So what did I get on my quiz?"
Me: "Well, let's see, you got 3 out of 4 on Lab Skills target #8 and 2.5 out of 4 on Lab Skills target #3.

Kid: "Sooooo, what did I get on my quiz?"

Kid #2: "Can I do extra credit?"

They'll get there.

And so will I.

*People who decided cell signal blockers are illegal have never had a room full of teenagers to teach.

They Might Believe Me Now

School started. Kind of without me. I never did get my classroom put together how I wanted it and I am really frustrated with the condition in which the previous teacher left so many things.*

But the modeling part is awesome.

The chemistry curriculum starts out with a six part lab that measures the change in mass under several different conditions. One of the key ideas that kids need to buy into here is that their data actually mean something. For so long, they have hurried through and ended up with numbers that don't tell them anything. It didn't matter because they never needed to use those numbers in any meaningful way.** They were TOLD what they should have gotten and that was good enough.

Not any more. During my workshop, we were advised to do the first part of this lab and then bring the kids together to discuss the data. It's pretty simple lab where the kids find the mass of a piece of steel wool, change it's shape and mass it again. Of course, the mass shouldn't change, and, of course, most kids don't notice all the little pieces that fall to the floor as they scrunch it up. Each group did the lab once and we compiled all those trials. Our data gave us absolutely no indication as to whether or not the mass stayed the same. This leads us into a discussion of being careful in the lab and paying attention to what they are doing.

So back to the lab we went. I wish I had a picture of the pure disbelief on some of these kids faces.

Kid: "You mean we are going to do it again???"

Me: "Well, were you able to draw a reasonable conclusion based on our data?"
Kid: "No, but couldn't you just tell us?"

Me: Evil laugh

We repeated the lab and compiled results. Guess what? Still no trend in the data.

So back to the lab we went.

By now they are kind of figuring out they need to pay attention. Third times a charm and we were able to show that we really didn't lose any mass.

But then, we had the next five parts to do. It took a day. We compiled the results. They did pretty good until Part Four. Our data was scattered everywhere.

So back to the lab we went.

Better. Getting there. Then we looked at Part Five.

So back to the lab we went.

By this time, kids are really getting after their partners for spilling a drop of water, and kids are checking and double checking their measurements. Then we started to graph Part Six. I got two bars into the histogram when it became apparent that they were going to have to redo that one too.

So tomorrow, it's back to the lab we go.

I just keep thinking about how if I had done this lab last year, I wouldn't have even given a second thought to how poor the data really was. Oh, I knew they weren't being as careful as they should and I would have to tell them that their data "should look like this," but I never could justify the time it would take to redo the lab.

This is different. Their data is going to shape what they know instead of the other way around. We have spent four days on this lab and I feel like we are accomplishing something.

And I am loving it.

*Although maybe not as much as my student aide, bless her, who has been busy attempting to clean glassware and cabinets for me.

**Guilty.

The Big Idea

Modeling is student centered cooperative inquiry in an active constructivist classroom.*

Without a textbook.

So modeling is based on inquiry and we all know that is a good thing. I have always had trouble with implementing inquiry in my classes. I was taught that inquiry was just letting your kids explore the ideas they wanted to know more about. In a room full of chemicals, you can probably sense my hesitation with that idea. Even if you can overlook the occasional explosion that could possibly occur, there is still the nagging suspicion that my little cherubs might not actually be learning anything.

Insert a solution to this conundrum. This modeling workshop is helping me to finally see how to set up my classroom so the kids are taking charge of their learning. And it is the complete opposite of lecturing.

Each unit has a specific design that has been carefully structured in an order to help kids come to the right conclusions and then reinforce those conclusions. Instead of opening a textbook and staring, glassy-eyed at a diagram on page 713 (while thinking about what they did last weekend), the kids start out with a lab. What really stands out for me is that several of the labs we have done are labs that I already do. Kids then describe not only what they did in the lab, but also what they think happens to the particles involved. Those kids are developing a model from their lab experience instead of trying to make sense of someone else's depiction of what happened.

The ideas are first described (by the kids) after the lab, verbally. Each group gets up and tells you what they learned. This oral presentation is often accompanied by a diagrammatic explanation on the whiteboard. I'm talking a diagram at the particle level. What's really great about this presentation is that those kids have to explain and then defend their models with the rest of the class. This is where they can adjust their ideas. Their discussions are lead by them with questions from me and the other students.

Why did you do that?

How did you do that?

The idea being that if you can describe your thoughts, then you probably understand them. I have had this happen to me many times. As I am talking to my kids about some concept, something occurs to me that never has before. Suddenly, I have a new understanding and a new connection to that idea.

Now what has been impressed upon us in this class is that it is the STUDENTS' responsibility to ask for clarification. The whiteboard sessions are in place of the lectures of a traditional classroom. For some kids, this could take some time to become comfortable in this type of situation. This is where the climate of your classroom is crucial. It's all about trust. Those kids need to feel safe in your classroom. They have to know that no question is wrong and that no one is going to make fun of them for not getting it. There are a couple teachers in my workshop that I really don't see being successful with this type of curriculum simply because of their personality. I could be (I hope I am) wrong.

Then the kids present their data graphically. For example, we measured the mass and volume of substance and graphed this relationship. Traditionally, they would already know that in all matter, there is a relationship between its mass and volume and this is called density. Here, instead, we are letting kids see the linear relationship between those properties. AND (I have to admit, I had never even considered this) those kids are going to put this data into the slope format to determine the relationship. So for example, we (as do most of my kids) know that the equation for a linear relationship is y = mx + b. In this curriculum, we are actually going to plug those values in add labels to all those variables. I don't know about you, but it usually takes my kids about half a year to make the jump from what we are doing in class to what they learned in algebra last year. Here, we throw them right into it and have them create an understanding of what the slope of that line actually means.

THEN the instructor comes in and brings closure to the experiment.** Once I have an idea that the kids truly understand that relationship, then I assign the term. Something along the line of "you know, there is a name for this relationship, and it is density."

So instead of those kids (not) listening to you lecture about density, where they have no ownership in what they are learning, they are taking control and telling YOU what they know. To be able to understand and explain an idea is a powerful ability.

If they can do that, then they understand the world.

*This is my definition with as much edu-jargon as I could get in.

**What I really, really love about this is that this is one of the few times that I will be in front of the class talking to them.

New Life for Old Labs

"Your kids will be shocked and angry when they first realize there is information on the test that came from the labs." This is a quote from our modeling instructor.

My initial reaction is shocked disbelief. Why wouldn't they be expected to recall information over the labs? Why would I not expect my lab class periods to be just as important as everything else?

Then it kind of dawns on me. Um...I don't do that.

In my classroom (as in lots of others), labs have been used to reinforce information that is given to the student usually in a lecture format. Here is a typical "learning cycle":'

Me: OK class, today we are going to learn about *drum roll, please* DENSITY!

Kids: *Grab pencils and notebooks ready to copy down every word I say.* Well, those who aren't texting, anyway

Me: Density is the unit we use to describe the amount of matter in an object. We use the formula D=m/v and the label is g/mL or g/cm3. Let's do some practice problems. Let's go do a lab to prove I know what I am talking about.

Kids: Do we get to blow anything up today?

Me: No. But don't forget to wear your goggles, because we all know they are oh so important when working with aluminum and water.

Everyone does lab and extremely simple (and sloppy) graph. They hurriedly copy their conclusion from the 'smart' kid and turn in the lab as the bell rings.

This is how I learned chemistry. This is how I was taught to teach chemistry. This is how I have taught chemistry.

Ugh.

I have known for a long time that this isn't how I wanted to teach. For goodness sake, if I am bored, my kids must be comatose. But up until this point, I haven't been in a position to sit down and really analyze my teaching methods (whole other blog post, there).

Herein lies the brilliance that is modeling.

The kids are going to do the SAME lab I have used for years. Except they are going to do the lab before the concept (or even the term density) is introduced. After we do the lab, all the groups come back together and record their results on a whiteboard. Each group gets to explain their procedure and their results. When we did this in our workshop, all the groups put all their data together and graphed all of it. (More on that later.) Then, instead of the instructor showing the graph and explaining what the data meant, the STUDENTS interpreted the graph and explained what the data meant.

This is the key difference. They are not 'proving' that I gave them true information and then memorizing the equation. They are proving to themselves that there is a relationship that needs to be defined. And they are discovering and explaining that relationship on their own.

Now the really hard part. You as a teacher are going to become a wallflower. You become the facilitator of the discussion and ask the kids to think about what they have observed and what it all means. In this system, there is little room for the teacher that likes to be the center of attention. So many of us like to hear ourselves talk. I spent a lot of years and thousands of dollars to learn this stuff and by golly, I'm going to impart some of it to my kids. But that isn't what education is about. It's about learning. And I have found that kids don't truly learn when they have to take notes for 62 minutes.

There HAS to be a better way.