A Teacher’s Thoughts

I’ve been giving Vicki Davis’ idea of a students as pro learners some thought lately. In a previous post I asked what can I do to allow students to become “pro learners” of science? This is a great question and one that can be applied across disciplines. I think it is so great because it really creates a focus on the core skills of understanding in any given field. What is required of an 8th grader on his or her way to becoming a pro-learner of science?

Practice being scientific

A science class should focus on the practice of being scientific. Students should spend their time asking questions and devising ways to answer them. Sounds familiar right? Well, consider that most of the questions students are guided to answer can be found through internet. Finding and handling information is certainly a key skill but if that is as far as it goes, well we just have a newer version of an old curriculum. Tom Martin recently wrote:

Students must learn first-hand how to both imaginatively create new hypotheses and to dispassionately critique them. Many commentators have rightly implored us to make certain that young people encounter the “thrill” of discovery. While this is undeniably desirable, it is arguably even more crucial that they experience the agony (if only on a modest scale) of having a pet hypothesis demolished by facts.

So how do we get at this?

Teach asking the next question

Traditional science curriculum offers cursory coverage of a wide range of topics. Many teachers try to stimulate interest with a question approach. When students discover (by finding it in a book or online, or through a cookbook lab) the answer, they move on to other things. It is taken for granted that the lesson was constructed to illustrate a specific point and once some factual information has been learned it must be time to move on.

I recently asked my students to show me evidence that explains why warmer water balloons tend to float in cooler water. A response pattern emerged that showed so clearly the learned focus on the teacher. The students only knew they had the “right” answer based on my reaction. So when one student offered “because heat rises”, a phrase familiar enough that everyone bought it, they looked to me.

My response was, “yeah, I’ve heard that too…” the students were immediately content.

“Yes! We know the answer.”

To be able to state that heat rises is factual knowledge, applied to a new situation. But to be able to ask oneself, “why is it that heat rises, and for that matter what is heat?” is an entirely different level of ability. So after I let the students sit in contentment for a moment, I continued my sentence.

“… yeah, I’ve heard that too but, why does heat rise?”

Now students began thinking. Then I told them I would need some evidence and they were off. Two days later we had discovered that heat rises because warmer fluids are less dense than cooler fluids. They had shown that the density difference is due to a change in volume and not mass. They had learned that the change in volume led to an increase in space between molecules. Students had collectively tested over twenty different possibilities to arrive at this. They had analyzed each others’ experiments for strengths and weaknesses and learned to be their own judges of the acceptance of a hypothesis. In fact, at one point when I had been satisfied, I was rejected and they went on to collect better data.

Until the last step I did not allow them to Google their way to this knowledge. I did this because I really don’t care a whole lot about their understanding of buoyancy phenomena. What I do care about is their ability to figure things out in a methodical, scientific manner. I care about their ability to critically analyze their peers’ and their own experiments and ideas. This is the business of science.