Portillo Week 3 Blog Post

This week, we uncovered new ideas to unlock prior student knowledge, encourage classroom discourse, and adapt our instruction to elicit students' ideas. Russ and Sherin share the importance of contextualizing concepts, probing student responses, and seeding new ways of thinking during student interviews. AST gives an example set of norms for a safe classroom because "talking is a form of thinking" which makes their ideas public, and can be a resource for other students. We are also given a set of discourse moves to further elicit responses. AST identifies rich tasks and gives information on eliciting observations and hypothesis of an event, as well as pressing for observations.



The main themes of the articles and my thinking revolve around using probing questions, both in student interviews and in the classroom, in order to elicit student ideas in a safe environment.



There is a very strong relationship in these themes across the articles. Even in my current school, there is a strong focus on effective questioning. It is interesting to me that this idea spans in all areas of student engagement, both in the classroom and in student interviews. The hardest part for my classmates and I seems to be the continuation of questions without providing answers. This allows the students to productively struggle and truly work with the material rather than acquiring it and memorizing it. One of these methods that AST mentions is I-R-E, where teachers simply ask questions to elicit a short response. Rather, the focus is to create an environment where academic discussions are allowed to thrive. I need to recreate norms that allow my students to see the importance of talking in an academic way so that conversation can be used as a resource.

This same theme of questioning, to a degree, should occur in student interviews. One huge difference is that students in these interviews should not receive affirmation of their response from the teacher. This allows the teacher to gauge the student’s thoughts about a topic before teaching it. The questions for these interviews should cause students to think about the event without the teacher having to explicitly state what it happening. By using high-quality questioning in our lessons, we can ensure that our instruction is student driven and merely facilitated by teachers.

I have been trying to implement higher level questions into every lesson and work that I give my students. After reading these readings, I attempted to get the students to carry a class conversation about what happens in a chemical reaction, such as vinegar and baking soda. By simply allowing them to talk, I was able to see what they understand and any alternative conceptions that they had. I was then able to ask more probing questions in response to their thinking.

Ex. "I believe that the baking soda dissolves in the vinegar."
"So the baking soda disappears?"
"No, the vinegar changes and the baking soda changes. Their, like, chemicals change and a gas it released."

This served as a great hook for our lesson on physical vs chemical changes, especially after conducting the experiment after the discussion and asking the same questions again.

Lewis - Week 5 Blog

Models are great forms of showing reasoning and growth in the discipline of science (among other content areas). Reading about modeling and the potential impact it can have makes me curious and anxious to utilize this tool within my classroom. Up to this point I'd never heard of modeling and as one article pointed out, this form of teaching takes time and "PD involving ambitious pedagogy".

As I read I started to conceptualize modeling as an activity within my classroom. Activities that are engaging, purposeful, and differentiated are always sought in order to cater to students needs. Modeling in the sense of having them produce a visual representation of their learning seems like such an activity. Through the readings I was able to better understand that models are best used for portraying a particular event and should be revisited over time to show growth. It is also important that the concept is being explained in the model, as to avoid "posterizing". Another benefit is the ability to apply modeling to various forms of collaboration including small groups, whole-group, or on an individual basis. This allows for class interaction and promotes engagement.

Reading these two articles made me reflect and question where I could implement these strategies into my classroom. Most immediately I think of standards that aren't as concrete such as particle movement between the states of matter, physical and chemical change, and/or conservation of mass. These stick out the most because they'd provide the opportunity for students to depict visuals of these as processes with indefinite outcomes. This makes a modeling activity less concrete then the scientific method or engineering design process would be, and should challenge them appropriately within the classroom. Can't wait to take a stab at it.

Portillo - Week 2 Readings

In order to be an effective science teacher, we need to provide an anchoring event with an underlying explanation to create a buy-in for students, along with essential questions so that students may develop explanations for the event. It is also important that teachers use models to engage students with skills, such as asking questions, designing studies, collecting and analyzing data, arguing about evidence, and communicating explanations. However, the author stresses the importance of not simply replicating models, but constructing, testing, evaluating, and revising models.



A theme that resonates in my mind from these readings is the ability to use models to do what scientists do: construct, test, evaluate, and revise models. Another resonating theme is structuring our lessons to engage students with an anchoring event (hook) that is relevant and allows the student to look for particular data.



A common theme among the readings is the need for evidence-based explanations. These are needed during the formation of models in a science class. The article suggest allowing primary models before learning content, and then allowing the students to revise their models as they learn more information. This reconstruction of models is, of itself, modeling for what scientists do in the real world. By allowing students to reconstruct models, the idea that scientists also do this, and do this often, is reinforced. AST reinforces this idea in the engagement article. The article reinforces the use of evidence-based models in class. Often these phenomena can be used as a hook at the beginning of class. By doing this, we can receive buy-in from our students while getting students to create evidence-based explanations that they can revise.



These are methods that I sometimes use in my own classroom, but often have trouble doing with abstract concepts. I have also found that often, the creation of models can be frustrating for the students, who do not want to be wrong. This anxiety of being wrong can sometimes even keep them from wanting to produce any product. However, without this productive struggle, the students will resort to simply learning facts, without understanding the process that must be applied to any scientific area. By using engaging activities to grab the students’ attention, and then creating evidence-based explanations or models, the students in my classroom have effectively learned the scientific process while also obtaining the results in learning that they need.

Dawkins_Week 3

The author does a great job with introducing the term talk.  For example, talking is a natural process in our everyday lives.  However, the concept of talking in science classroom can be unnatural.  I like that the author reminds us as teachers that we must be purposeful to create productive talk in our classroom.  I notice that both articles emphasis the concept of allowing students time to think prior to answer questions.  

The idea of “IRE” is commonly used to control students talk.  As a student teacher, I was guilty of using this method as a tool to control my classroom especially during observations.  I like how the author emphasis that there are many variations of “IRE”.  It is important to remember that “guess-what’s in my head is most difficult for student of different cultural and linguistic.  The idea that talk is important for learning is one of the key iras of this article.  

Both articles highlight that in order for the teacher to be success pre-planning is required.  I like how the author introduces the root of all three common problems is that students lack a focus or understanding of the learning.  Often, I have observed students in labs that are unsure of the reason for completing experiments.  In order to prevent the above from occurring, the teacher most anchor.  

Harris - Week 3

Overall, I found these articles to be both highly applicable and consistent with my ideals for my classroom. One of the reasons I most wanted to teach science was the value of thought and process in the discipline. Science certainly has a lot of content but, more important is the ability to "think like a scientist." This idea was repeatedly mirrored in the articles' discussion of valuing thinking over answers. In science as well as the broader world, the ability to clearly articulate ideas is crucial. I have often noticed, though, my students’ reticence and uncertainty of how to engage each other in academic discourse. I particularly like the suggestion to have students help to create the accountable talk stems. Encouraging them to take part in the creation of the norms helps increase buy-in and accountability by fostering a heightened sense of ownership.

Additionally, I really liked the emphasis on promoting student ideas as resources. Through strategies such as the student interviews, these ideas can help increase the applicability and relevance of teacher's lessons. In class, these ideas can be built upon and used to spark further inquiry and suggestion. Continually recognizing student ideas as both useful and valuable can also help to create the safe environment required for productive discourse. It shows the students that they are heard, valued, and capable or creating new information (rather than simply reproducing the thoughts of others).As I begin to design my classroom for next year I will definitely revisit these chapters so as to more quickly and consistently implement these norms. For the remainder of this year, I will work to ensure that I am asking my students higher level questions and pressing them to think through and support their answers with evidence.

FInally, EL students make up a very small percentage of Peart Cohn's student body and so are often overlooked. I wonder how these students can be engaged in these conversations in a way that enables them to both contribute and understand.

Neely - Post #2

Teaching practice set: Eliciting students’ ideas and adapting instruction (http://ambitiousscienceteaching.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Primer-Eliciting-Students-Ideas.pdf)

·       With the goal to change students thinking about a topic you must first start with finding out what students know.  To do this at the start of a unit or topic an anchoring phenomenon where current student understanding can be discovered through questioning.  Then general steps for that include there being an introduction, a student hypothesis and then group/class explanation. 

o   Thinking about this and next year I almost want to make my room a ship theme, where I am the captain.  As a captain everyone is responsible for their own work and the crew/student rely on me as I rely on them to make it through the year together successfully.

A Discourse Primer for Science Teachers

(http://ambitiousscienceteaching.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Discourse-Primer.pdf)

·       Productive discourse must be facilitated as it is not what normally occurs in students’ lives.  Steering students to answers will get them to understand it in a way different that simple hearing it.  Students talking can easily give insight to those participating.  To help all feel comfortable talking a safe classroom must be established first and kept (students should be encouraged to respectfully disagree when appropriate).  Being tactful with it all a classroom environment with frequent discourse is possible. 

·       IRE (“initiation-response- evaluation” discussions) is common in classrooms and after having read about direct instruction I am afraid is often what I do.  For me I have a paper in the back of the room saying 5-seconds as I know I can suck at providing wait time.  Reading this I am wanting to add more of the turn and talks as I can in classes to have students help each other.

Using Interviews to Explore Student Ideas in Science

(https://ite404.weebly.com/uploads/7/6/1/6/7616101/russ_interviews.pdf)

·       To teach one must first learn what students know, interviews work for this purpose.  Direct questions may lead to recitation of “school-based knowledge,” whereas putting questions in a context can get a deeper understanding of a student’s understanding of a concept. Asking for clarification may give an idea of what surrounding concepts on a topic students are familiar with.

·       I most recently failed to ask for clarification for what students actually know about atoms, when they mentioned they had already learned about them.

Getting to student learning seemed to be the theme of this week’s reading, not the teacher lecturing or students reciting.  It is not a goal of having students be able to answer basic questions with school-based answers, but to have the understanding to explain topics. For me entering into this next month and having to review for the EOC I am asking myself about how to do it best. 

Applicability question/thought… I am thinking with students working in pairs to explain a topics relations to Biology may allow students can in part reteach each other as needed while allowing potential discourse.  Then in having students on different topics switching I may be able to get some insight as to what may need to be retaught as a whole group.

Maskan - Student Voice

This week’s reading included topics that provided insight to student thinking, student language in the classroom, and how to adapt instruction. Through the reading, I will start a unit with an opportunity for students to make a hypothesis and provide an explanation. In order to drive helpful feedback I will amplify parts of their responses, re-voice, or probe them to support their reasoning. This way I provide an opportunity for the students to see where we can make revision throughout the unit. By further using models of small group or list of hypothesis on the board that we can revisit. This model allows me to uncover student idea and conceptions and allow students to go beyond a hook; they’ll explore their thinking, ideas, and knowledge in the long term.  This is also the reason that talking in the classroom that works to introduce scientific language and have them engage in discussion that goes beyond one word answer dialogue (guess in my head).  This along with student interviews will allow me to have a higher cognitive demand and make lessons that connect the activity with student ideas, seeks the “why” explanation, and allows probing and pressing. Student talk allows students to make their thinking public and as a teacher it ties back into knowing what my students are curious about, how they process ideas differently, and how I can plan my lesson to clear misconceptions.

Moving forward I want to make sure I build a classroom environment that is safe and allows students to feel comfortable to voice their thoughts. I really enjoyed the picture in the Ambitious Science Teaching article that showed different dialogue starters on how to respectfully disagree with an idea. This poster was made by students and allowed them to create a document that they collectively agreed on. I thought this was clever because it allowed students to think about the impact of their language and provided reassurance to students that you can disagree with ideas and not the individual.  The interview portion was also a new idea that I am excited to incorporate in my classroom. It was an easy way to get some student insight without it being a time consuming assessment. Moving forward I also want to have more resources that tells me how I can incorporate more student voice and language for ELL students.

Lewis - Science Talk

Cultivating a classroom where "science talk" and academic language is used is one of the primary goals of all science teachers. In these three articles there were many strategies to take away, and many factors to consider that promote "science talk".

At the head of science talk (in general) was the need to assess student's foundational knowledge about a given standard/concept. One strategy for doing so is leading interviews where students are asked probing and relevant questions to gauge their understanding of a particular topic. Before reading this article I'd never thought to interview students to check their understanding about an upcoming standard. As the article pointed out, this process is not evaluative but can provide important information regarding their prior knowledge.

In science, it is another goal to have students engage in meaningful discourse about the concepts explored in class. As we discussed in last weeks class, anchoring events serve as good access points for students to think critically and engage in intellectually stimulating discourse. Rich discussions can then be pushed by teacher and student questioning, where higher order thinking yields personal discovery. As A Discourse Primer for Science Teachers points out though, classrooms must first be established as safe-spaces for students in order to foster engagement from all, leading to the expression of ideas at a class-wide level.

Overall, these articles were enjoyable reads. Throughout my career thus far, questioning has been a constant place of reflection and refinement as I at times have struggled to ask higher ordered questions that require my students to do the "heavy-lifting". These three articles provided great insight into promoting "science talk" and introduced strategies that I plan to incorporate into my classroom.

Robison - Week 3 Readings

I really enjoyed all three of these readings. Although challenging, it gave me realistic examples of ways to have better in-class discussions with my students to overall open up their way of thinking. The questioning, on the teacher's part, is vital in creating beneficial "science talk" in the classroom. I tend to want to give my students too much information without making them think through it for themselves first, and these articles gave me ideas of ways to steer away from that. I want my classroom to be a place where the students are doing the thinking, so in turn, they are doing the learning. I hope that my students are able to have informative discussions with one another about the topics that we discuss in class, and more importantly, the "bigger picture" of each topic.

These articles have encouraged me to do more planning on the front end of my lessons in order to formulate good questions to generate more classroom discussions. I feel that in many of my classes, I am doing most of the talking, but I would love to have my students do more of the talking. I hope to encourage them to engage with one another in higher-level thinking and conversation through my formulated questions so that I am not just giving them the "right answers" for the tests.

My favorite part of the readings was the last article, which discussed interviewing your students. This is not something I ever would have thought to do, but how do you know what your students already know without asking them? Although this would require a little bit of extra time and planning at the beginning of the unit, it could save the teacher time in the end. It is important to realize that students might know more information than we, as teachers, think that they do. In order to frame our way of teaching and our students' learning, we must discover all of their prior knowledge to the topics.

Fumia_Week 3 Post

I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of these articles for a couple of reasons. I think one of the biggest reasons these articles resonated with me was because of how practical and applicable they were for me. I wanted to teach science because of how important I believe the “thought process” behind scientific reasoning is for becoming successful in this world. In order to generate students’ ideas it starts with my questioning and planning on how to develop rich tasks that elicit these students’ ideas.

One of the biggest take away I got from these articles is how closely they aligned with my belief I hold on the importance of presenting information. I want my students to be able to synthesize their own thinking and then deliver in an academic setting and in academic vernacular. In order to do this effectively, synthesizing one's own data as well as supportive research is necessary. Students will need to critically think about how each point proves their initial question or hypothesis.  Speaking academically requires one to enact his or hers verbal and non-verbal behaviors. Speaking academically means that the tone and language is utilizing precise vocabulary and terms related to the topic. Furthermore, students most have presentation skills in a way that shows the audience their knowledge and expertise on the topic (body position, not reading from the slides etc.).

However, the more I read through these articles the more I realized how challenging it is to generate high level thinking conversations from my students. How can I challenge my students to better understand their own idea? The ideas of other group members? Then respond in a way that allows for a dialogue to open up? I feel as if I can engage my students in conversations about science they will then reveal a lot about their conceptual understandings, thus showing me how they are making sense of new ideas. If I breeze over this and focus on just throwing out information I am completely missing the point of teaching. Overall, the discourse primer for science teacher’s article sums up my thinking perfectly for this weeks reading “students ideas are resources for others.” Not only do I benefit from hearing my students thoughts but also the entire classroom gets an opportunity to hear how others are thinking. The benefit from understanding others thinking and then given the chance to explain your own trumps any other type of learning.

Attig- Science Talk in the Classroom

I think one of the biggest reasons I enjoyed these articles is because I found many of the practices to be not only practical but equitable. Often times in the classroom, the practices are not always beneficial for all students involved. I really loved how easy these practices were to implement as well as how differentiated the practices could be.

One of the biggest take aways I got from these articles was the idea of giving kids think time. I grew up being extroverted and so I often do not think about formulating thoughts because they often are already out of my mouth before I ever even really think about what I have said. However, I recognize that many people aren’t like this. I think it is so important to allow think time for kids how really truly need the think time. Some kids need to connect their thoughts before they are ready to present them to others. Not giving those kids time and just jumping ahead is a complete disadvantage to those kids and it leaves kids behind. This means that there are kids who aren’t getting what they need and are unable to make meaning and create new thought.

Another reason I enjoyed learning about these ideas is due to the meta-cognitive practices. According to Howard Gardner there are 8 different types of intelligence: naturalistic, logical-mathematical, linguistic, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, spatial, and musical. Many of these are relatively easy to keep in mind during a lesson. However, one of the hardest ones to incorporate is intrapersonal. Intrapersonal intelligence is the ability of a person to recognize characteristics of them self and to be very in tune with ones emotions. Often times these people are very introspective. Typically we do not provide opportunities for kids to self reflect on what they have done. We do not provide chances for students to develop any sort of metacognition and this is vital for some kids. Other kids just need chances to better themselves and need time to think about it.

The last thing I really enjoyed was the idea that we have to use student’s prior knowledge to frame their learning. Often times in any sort of daily conversation, when you attempt to convince someone that you are correct, you cannot simply tell him or her that they are wrong. You have to fit in your beliefs with theirs and come up with a commonality before you will ever convince them that anything you are saying is correct. The same thing goes for learning. So often we separate students lives and beliefs from school. Students are taught that everything they are taught in school is “fact” even if it conflicts with their personal experience or belief. Then they memorize it for the test and forget about it the next day. Real learning happens when kids can make connection and integrate it into their prior knowledge. However, if we don’t know what kids know and how they’re already thinking we cant guide them in the right direction.

Lopez - Science Talk in the Classroom

Student discourse in a Science classroom enables teachers to understand their students' prior knowledge, if students understand a concept or are reciting from memory a definition, word, or phrase related to the concept, and perhaps most importantly, allows students to think aloud and process what they are learning. A teacher's role in this discourse should be to help make students' thinking visible, refine or revoice students' ideas, probe for clarification, and press students for deeper meaning or connections beyond recitation. Teachers should also create a safe space for students to engage in meaningful discourse about Science ideas and teach students how to have these conversations with each other.

I felt very challenged by these articles to really evaluate the types of conversations that we have in my fifth grade classroom. I often use I-R-E to evaluate students' understanding in class discussions and monitoring independent or partner work, and then am frustrated when students are not able to apply their knowledge to a new context, or a question that is phrased differently. Reading these articles was really eye-opening as to how I should be leading the discussions that challenges students to be able to explain ideas in different contexts. I would love to have a classroom that operated in this way and where students were interested in pressing or probing each others' ideas as well. I can also see how this would be a natural structure when paired with the phenomenon question or anchoring events.

I struggle with how to allow space for these conversations and dialogue and discussion and still make sure that all of the standards that are expected to be learned are by the end of a school year. I already feel like I don't have enough class time and that's without allowing space and time for these conversations. I also think there would be learning curve for me as the facilitator. I think it would be really helpful to be able to observe teachers who use these skills in their classroom each day. I particularly think I would struggle with the right balance of higher cognitive demand questions that aren't inaccessible for students, but also not erring on the side of too simple. However, I think that I will try to be more intentional in encouraging this sort of discourse as opposed to simply having students recite definitions or science vocabulary.

Dawkins Models

Summary

Scientist utilize models and modeling to represent ideas and collaborate with others.  Teachers should incorporate modeling in classroom to help students furthers there understanding of various scientific concepts.

Models and Modeling: An Introduction

• Modeling is the process that scientists use to represent ideas about the natural world.  Models are a tool that is used to collaborate with other scientists.  One of the benefit of models is to stimulate new ideas.  The key to modeling is explanation of facts and ideas.  Despite the many benefits of modeling, effective modeling are often not used in the classroom.  Instead, poor representations of models such as poster boards are often used in the classroom.   Poor utilization of modeling in the classroom does not provide great benefits to students.  

What are models?

• Scientific models represent systems such as a wetland ecosystem.  Models does not include all important information.  Models are often reconstructed and updated with an increased knowledge base.  Effective models stimulate new ideas.

Models and modeling in the classroom

• Traditionally, models are found in textbooks used in schools.  These types of models are often used to communicate scientific ideas.  The concept of “posterize”(create posters of) are often used in classrooms.  This practice can be limiting due to the fact that real life reasoning is not incorporated in this process.  

What does scientific modeling look like in the classroom?

• Planning starts with reviewing of the curriculum along with the Next Generation Science Standards.  The teacher identifies the topic and reviews the concepts of the topic.  It is important to the teacher identifies misconceptions and unknown concepts.  The models that students create should be full of visual representations and explanations.  Most importantly, students should be able to add on to the concepts of model as their knowledge base increases.

Critique and questions:

The author does a great job of identifying poor models that are often used in the classroom.  

What are some additional tools that can be used to update text models displayed in school issued materials?  

The author mentioned English Language Learners can benefit from visual representations.  

Should different methods be used for English Language Learners as related to model creations?

Maskan - Week 2

In order to be an efficient scientist, individuals need to demonstrate their ideas. Most often this is done through models. Models show and explain how a certain scientific thinking or theory is based, and provides evidence of what we know and how it may look. Unfortunately in the classroom modeling has often been a fragmented and static tool that shows a small or limited representations of the real world application.

Through this reading I understood how to incorporate student thinking and past knowledge in the classroom. In order for my students to understand science they must have the opportunity to “practice” being scientist. This is be possible by using effective models in the classroom that would require my students to build ideas, test, and revise their work and thinking. This also allows my students to build knowledge and use the activities as an opportunity to work and make corrective measures like a scientist.  When planning a unit, I can can use students’ prior knowledge into the new curriculum and allow students to create a connection on what they know and what they will learn. This can be used as anchoring event, where students attempt to explain a science phenomenon with their own reasoning. By having students come up with explanations, students will be more engaged and curious to know the “why” or the underlying explanation. Essential questions can also be used to help guide and relate student lives, experiences, and allow relevance into the unit.  Next, students can create a model and explanation and throughout the unit come back and revise their models based off critique of other models, new evidence, and ideas. These steps of revision can teach students how the science world is data based, and that accepted principles could be changed and revised just like their experiment/activities in class.

These readings helped tie together how working as scientists can allow students to bridge gaps between different principles and allow students to “create” the work rather just “do” the work. It allows students to personalize their learning and make revisions, build, and test their ideas based off new evidence, just like what scientists do in the real world. By fostering this instruction in the classroom, it ties in student engagement because students can create models to explain phenomenon that will make sense to them, while also allowing them to tie concepts into their world. 

While reading, I was thinking how my classroom culture and relationship is an important component in order to effectively use the above methods. I worry that some students may feel frustrated or intimidated by revising their thinking, and a foundation of trust needs to be built between student/teacher, and peer to peer. This way a student is comfortable to put down their guard and revise, accept new models, evidence, and ideas that may challenge their model.