Engage Students with the Wonder of Science Inquiry

Brian Greene is a professor of physics at Columbia and the author of “The Elegant Universe.” In a June 1, 2008 NY Times Op-Ed essay Put a Little Science in Your Life, makes an eloquent argument for engaging students with the wonder of scientific discovery. He argues that the recitation of facts and technicalities often prevents student from connecting with the motivational power of inquiry.

Science is a way of life. Science is a perspective. Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding in a manner that’s precise, predictive and reliable — a transformation, for those lucky enough to experience it, that is empowering and emotional. To be able to think through and grasp explanations — for everything from why the sky is blue to how life formed on earth — not because they are declared dogma but rather because they reveal patterns confirmed by experiment and observation, is one of the most precious of human experiences.

… As every parent knows, children begin life as uninhibited, unabashed explorers of the unknown. From the time we can walk and talk, we want to know what things are and how they work — we begin life as little scientists. But most of us quickly lose our intrinsic scientific passion. And it’s a profound loss.

…Science is the greatest of all adventure stories, one that’s been unfolding for thousands of years as we have sought to understand ourselves and our surroundings. Science needs to be taught to the young and communicated to the mature in a manner that captures this drama. We must embark on a cultural shift that places science in its rightful place alongside music, art and literature as an indispensable part of what makes life worth living.  

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As I have often argued, educators need resources and training to craft a rigorous learning environment where students can function as 21st century professionals – critical thinkers who can effectively collaborate to gather, evaluate, analyze and share information. We can reconnect students with their innate drive to thoughtfully explore the world around them.

Reinventing Your Classroom

I taught high school for over 25 years and liked that each fall I had the chance to “reinvent” my classroom. That’s a perspective I’ll be sharing with teachers in the “opening day” workshops I’ll be giving over the few weeks. My travels will take me from Pennsylvania to Wyoming and on to Oregon. I’ll face countless teachers thinking about new students and new opportunities for teaching and learning.

A recent blog post in Techlearning Blog captured that back to school reflection. Jeff Utecht makes the point that our students are used to “free information” and asks some thought provoking questions.   He writes:

Our students believe that things should be free. They have grown up with an Internet where any information you want you can get for free. … How do we engage students who are used to information being free? …How do we get them to dig deeper and understand this free information?….We have to create an atmosphere of learning, a place that students want to come and want to learn. What do you give that is free that engages students? What is it that they come to your classroom for that they cannot get off the Internet in a faster, more visually stimulating way?  … So what are you going to do in your classroom this year that engages THESE students?… What is it that you can offer them that they cannot get anywhere else? How are you going to get them to dig deeper, to interact with knowledge rather than react from it? How are you going to engage students in the learning process and not allow them to be passive in their own learning?…This is our challenge! More

I agree with Jeff – students do expect free information. And they expect functionality – to be able to control information and customize it into something they can call their own. Their life has become an “open book test” and they get the information they want, when they want to – then they store it, catalogue it, alter it, and share it. There are few information gatekeepers in today’s world – students have become their own newscaster, librarian, and entertainment director.

This is an exciting time to be in education. There are so many interesting tools for creating learning environments. Over the next week I look forward to meeting many teachers who create classrooms where students can take on the challenge of intellectual work – rather than just look for the right answer. Teachers who want school to be more rigorous, relevant and engaging. Classrooms that give students opportunities to learn how professionals approach their work – scientist, engineer, artist, historian, mathematician, writer, and musician.

NCLB Narrows the Curriculum?

nclb logo
nclb logo

Periodically I think about the ironies of NCLB. Today, coincidence put a face on it. It started when I read an article from the Contra Costa Times, a SF Bay-area newspaper. “Schools Pile On English, Math Classes” details how NCLB can impact the curriculum. Middle and high school students pulled out of social studies, science, art, music, and electives to make room for additional classes in remedial reading and math. I understand that literacy and numeracy are necessary foundations, but shouldn’t they be imbedded into content of the very courses that are being cut? (For more on that point visit my website Content Reading Strategies That Work )

As the article noted,

Jason Ebner used to teach history at Antioch Middle School. That was before it became a thing of the past. Six years ago, he said, the campus began requiring two math classes for low-performing students. The following year they doubled up English courses. Social studies and science fell by the wayside. The practice has come back to haunt Ebner, who now teaches sophomore world history at Antioch High School. His students, robbed of history in junior high, increasingly come in without knowledge of the Renaissance period.  more

Today I also received a invitation from a local art-house cinema. One of my former high school students would be visiting Rochester for a special screening of his Sundance-award-winning film. I was one of three teachers he wanted to invite as “special guests who he felt contributed to his film-making career.”  I had lost track of him after graduation, but with some Googling I found that he was now working as a Brooklyn-based writer / director and teaching a class in the Dramatic Writing program at SUNY Purchase. If my memory serves me right, back in the late 70’s he was a student in my Media Studies class – a high school social studies elective that focused on the impact of the media on society – remember Marshall McLuhan?

I put the newspaper article and the invitation together and wondered about the direction some schools may take to reach NCLB’s goal of 100% proficiency by 2014. Will NCLB force a generation of students into the routine world of test prep? Will scores of innovative teachers will drop out of the profession?

While NCLB began with the admirable goal of narrowing demographic performance gaps and putting an end to sorting kids on the “bell curve,”  it may be doing just the opposite. Many low performing students are now banished from courses they might actually look forward to and sent to 90-minute blocks of remediation.  Ironically these low performing student tend to be from the very demographic groups that were falling behind in the performance gap. As if it isn’t enough of challenge to be poor, now you’re also shut out of art and music classes.

The “remediated” students may someday be “proficient” on standardized tests, but must that improvement come from the sacrifice of “soft skills” like teamwork, presentation and problem solving that they could have developed in project-based learning? As more courses are eliminated, will teachers be pushed aside in favor of computerized tutorial programs? Who’s going into education these days? My guess is – fewer creative teachers and more corporate service providers.

I wonder if someday a teacher will be thanked by a former student for helping their school to achieve “adequate yearly progress?”

Jordan – Educational Reform for the Knowledge Economy

I’m writing this post from Amman Jordan, where I’ve been visiting family and seeing the sights. In addition, I took some time for professional contacts to learn more about education in this part of the world.

My visit coincided with the 4th Annual Arab Forum on Education held in Amman. Many speakers saw educational reform as important factor in addressing the high (15 – 20%) unemployment rates in Arab countries. Jordanian Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit noted that “improving the quality of education requires … clear evaluation standards, adopting self-learning and creative programs instead of rote learning methods.” Jordanian Prince Hassan said that “democracy and development could only succeed with a foundation in modern learning and the encouragement of creative thought.” He added that “schools should be more than mere teaching factories – supportive environments catering for the needs of individual students.” Jordanian Times 4.25.07

While traditional instruction in Jordan had been largely confined to teacher-centered lectures, the country has now embraced a new direction with its “ERfKE Initiative” – Educational Reform for the Knowledge Economy.  Jordan’s Ministry of Education is making a major commitment to reform their schools to support student development in critical thinking, problem-solving and the “soft skills” needed for success in the new information economy. It seems Jordan is moving in a different direction than the US, where NCLB dictates that the routine drudgery of test prep is more important than fostering student innovation through project-based learning.

I’d like to thank my two primary contacts who both took time to meet with me – Khitam Ahmad Al-Utaibi, the Youth, Technology and Careers Operation Manager for ESP (the ERfKE Support Project) and Maha AlShaer, Project Management Specialist / Education from the US Agency for International Development.

Einjaloot_2 I feel most fortunate to have been able to visit the Ein Jaloot Secondary School for Girls. (Click photo to enlarge.) I would like to thank headmistress, Thamar Yousef AlSoudi, for being a gracious host. Her school of about 700 high school students is one of the pilot sites for Jordan’s new “major” in Management of Information Stream (MIS). With USAID and corporate support, the Jordanian Ministry of Education has developed an online curriculum and web portal called EduWave. I got to see it in action in a class held in a computer lab. It was rather crowded by US standards – average classes are 40-45 girls in a room that was about 20′ x 30′. The teacher projected the online material via LCD. Flash files were used to illustrate the sectors of the Jordanian economy. As the teacher posed questions, every student seemed to be ready with an answer. I asked Maha if the girls where giving back “canned’ responses. She assured me that they were answering “in their own words” and that many of the comments were “personal opinion.” I was pleased to see the teacher wasn‘t just playing “guess what I’m thinking?”

Next, small groups of students took turns in role-play exercises. One scenario involved the owner of small shop explaining aspects of inventory management to a new employee. A second featured an unemployed engineering grad that started a computer repair business. I queried the teacher about the girl’s preparation for the role play. She assured me that while she provided the scenarios, the students had to research and develop their roles and dialogue.

What happened next was a welcomed surprise. Students broke into pairs and were asked to reflect on what they learned from the lesson and role-play exercises. They worked online in the EduWave portal, recording their comments in their network profiles. I was told that EduWave provides full suite of student, teacher and administrative tools including a portfolio builder, online assessments, and access for student and parents from home. Since it’s in Arabic, I couldn’t evaluate the material or interface.

My visit is far too brief to pass judgment on the education reform in Jordan. But I was pleased to see the direction in which it is moving. The teacher I met told me about how pleased she was to be able to be part of this new program. Instead of teaching a rather dull keyboarding class she was now utilizing new technologies alongside her students in a more dynamic learning environment.  Ironically too many of her teaching peers in the US no longer find their careers as rewarding. Once a beacon of innovative instruction, we are stifling American teachers as we chase an illusive “adequate yearly progress.”

Jordan is a country surrounded by turmoil and conflict. Nonetheless the educational leadership appears to be sincere in their efforts to modernize and prepare there students to be productive members of the new global economy. But one observation brought home the challenges of reform in a tradition-steeped culture. As Maha translated the girls’ dialogue during the role-playing, she repeated used the word “he.” Finally, I asked her if girls were role playing as men. She smiled and admitted all the parts the girls had taken were male. As she put it, girls would find it “awkward” to participate in a role play “as themselves.”

Start Your Digital Scrapbook – I Collect SpamHaiku


Spam Haiku

I’ve found a tool that makes blogging too easy. Tumblr let’s you quickly post thoughts, dialogue, quotes, images and videos. The account is free. Sign up and start posting your content. The engine lacks design and management tools, but that’s a plus. It’s a format designed for short-form posting without the commentary. You don’t have to worry about creating a blog that that takes over your life. If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks.

I started a tumblelog a few weeks ago called SpamHaiku. Each morning I spend a few moments with my spam before I hit delete.  I’ve long admired the pointless subject lines – now with a quick copy / paste – I assemble a “poem.” I pick the morning’s most outlandish spam “author” and give them credit for the post. Here’s a few  of  “my creations.”

Pounds down
Mood up
Punishable footprint
Frown bereft
— Fern Fry

Goldfish sleepily
watch his pounds
disappear.
— Birdsboro Boone

Technology continues to lower the barrier for entry to the new media. The new copy / paste culture fosters a bottom-up takeover of the information flow. Will we upload more than we download?  Will the audience become the show?