What types of instructional experiences help K-8 students learn science with understanding? What do science educators teachers, teacher leaders, science specialists, professional development staff, curriculum designers, school administrators need to know to create and support such experiences?

Ready, Set, Science! guides the way with an account of the groundbreaking and comprehensive synthesis of research into teaching and learning science in kindergarten through eighth grade. Based on the recently released National Research Council report Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8, this book summarizes a rich body of findings from the learning sciences and builds detailed cases of science educators at work to make the implications of research clear, accessible, and stimulating for a broad range of science educators.

What is science for a child? How do children learn about science and how to do science? Drawing on a vast array of work from neuroscience to classroom observation, Taking Science to School provides a comprehensive picture of what we know about teaching and learning science from kindergarten through eighth grade. By looking at a broad range of questions, this book provides a basic foundation for guiding science teaching and supporting students in their learning. Taking Science to School answers such questions as:

• When do children begin to learn about science? Are there critical stages in a child’s development of such scientific concepts as mass or animate objects?

• What role does nonschool learning play in children’s knowledge of science?

• How can science education capitalize on children’s natural curiosity?

• What are the best tasks for books, lectures, and hands-on learning?

• How can teachers be taught to teach science?

How Students Learn: Mathematics in the Classroom builds on the discoveries detailed in the best-selling How People Learn. Now these findings are presented in a way that teachers can use immediately, to revitalize their work in the classroom for even greater effectiveness.

This book show how to overcome the difficulties in teaching math to generate real insight and reasoning in math students. It also features illustrated suggestions for classroom activities.

In a word – grades.

Grades reduces the complexities of learning and performance into one uninformative number or letter.  The only use of a grade is to compare “performance” of one student or school system to another.  It is not a true measure of performance.

The problem with any comparison system is that there are few winners.   No wonder so many students are turned off to schools.  Who wants to be a loser?

Evaluation for Growth

In real life (outside of schools), proficiency in a variety of skill results in a record of performance.  This track record of performance is what is most highly rewarded.

The level of performance for each individual skill is measurable.  In athletics, systems that measure track an athlete’s growth may lead to self-directed activities to increase performance.

My analysis is not new.  Teachers, principals, district administrators all know this.  But nothing is done.  Why?  As Einstein said, “Problems cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that created them.” And the grading problem involves layers and layers of political systems in which school are embeded.

Will we have the political will to truly change this broken system?  Only if each of us advocate for that change.  Join me.  Think about this, how can you contribute?

If you are a education researcher, study learning progressions for your subject area and develop diagnostic assessments for teachers to use.

If you are a teacher, create a performance assessment and an interim report that provides information on proficiency of skills rather than a summary of grades.

If you are an administrator, nurture innovative teaching that has relevance to the real world.

And write your representatives, include Arne Duncan.

“What has become clear to you since last we met?” – attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson

We had our second meeting on Wednesday, March 28 at 7:30 before school began. With the pressure of school beginning at 7:50, it rapidly became clear that we have much to do just in terms of building effective group dynamics. We spent the majority of the time reiterating what had transpired at the last meeting to a critical team member. That was important work, but could have been done prior to the meeting. First lesson learned. We need to establish group norms that will bring everyone to the meeting operating from the same page.

The meeting was attended by five members, but as the majority of the time was spent in a dialogue between two people, I could see some frustration building. There was very little time leftover to check in with the other team members. Second lesson learned. We need to establish a group norm that will allow each of us to speak briefly on our latest activities, prior to any review of the meeting agenda.

As before-school activities limited our time to meet, we felt the time pressure. It will be important to have a timekeeper to keep track of time. Third lesson learned.

Given these three lessons, I’ll be asking my group to agree to the following group norms.

1. We will start on time and finish on time.
2. We will attend all meetings. If we cannot make a meeting, we will read the minutes and ask for clarification prior to the next meeting.
3. We will have a check-in at every meeting to allow each member to report on any new thoughts, connections made or other relevant activities.
4. We will assign a timekeeper to help keep us focused and moving on our agenda items.

Beyond these practical items, my thoughts have been influence by my reading of snippets from Kouzes & Posner’s classic book on leadership, The Leadership Challenge. I’m on chapter 3, Clarify Values, which is the first step in a multi-step process of leadership. They name two essentials to the process of clarification, which I paraphrase:

• Find your own personal voice
• Affirm shared values with your group

Kouzes & Posner point out that groups whose members are committed to the group’s vision and mission are much more successful in achieving their goals than groups that are not.

So my question has become, “What process will allow our group’s individual members to reflect on and share their values in a way that builds group integrity and commitment to our common goals, mission and vision?”

My first thought is that I need to obtain everyone’s buy-in that such a process is vitally important. It has been my observation that anything that smacks of vision and mission statements in the public school setting is met with resistance from years of overuse. Nevertheless, I believe I can frame the process in a way that reveals the value of such work and motivates the team to participate.

I’ll post more along these lines as this process unfolds.

Does this sound familiar?  Today we were short staffed because of a requirement to deliver a standardized computer test to all the eighth grade students.  I had to cover for another teacher who was assigned to proctor the test.   My first two classes doubled in size and I was in a room adjacent to the testing lab, which shared a common non-soundproof wall.

So what do I do?

In another time and place, I would be scrambling to come up with a plan to keep all my pre-teens (7th graders) quiet and happy.  But today I had no problems.  With a classroom full of computers and a website that supports all kinds of learning, I was able to direct all the students to a thoroughly engaging website called MedMyst: Medical Mysteries on the Web.

The students were captivated by the storyline that placed them in a simulation of future world of 2254 after a great plague.  They played the role of a new recruit being trained to solve medical mysteries.  Students are exposed to a wealth of high quality information on epidemiology, all in a game-like environment.  Each student proceeded at their own pace in learning pathways of their own choosing.  The students were focused, quiet, happy and most importantly learning about disease and pathogens.  I believe that they learned in a much deeper and more satisfying way than I could ever provide using the traditional (boring) methods.

There is enough on this one website for several forty-five minute period classes.  To me this is a glimpse into the future of education.  Online game-like learning modules like these will fully engage students and allow them to differentiate their own learning while providing the best information the web can provide.

Hurrah for technology.  I believe in the future!

Individualized instruction and/or tutoring is probably the single most effective means of raising performance.  It is easy to understand why it isn’t discussed in reform circles as individualized tutoring is seen as far too expensive to be practical.

A classroom teacher simply doesn’t have the time or resources to individualize instruction for each student.  At the same time, we know that the uniqueness of individual cognitive development coupled with the impact of the proper or improper timing of instruction can make the difference between alienation from or love of learning.

What will happen when artificial intelligence advances to the point where expert cognitive tutors can facilitate individual learning?

Imagine an educational system in which each individual learner can follow their own intrinsically motivated curiosities and be guided by expert cognitive tutors.  How would that unleash the creative energy of students?

Also, imagine a world in which a teacher’s passions guided their curriculum and students came to them without the physical constraints of time or place.  How would that transform their teaching?

Imagine a world in which individuals self-selected their own educational paths.  Would society collapse without the current one-size-fits-all extrinsic controls on what students learn?  Or would society flourish as individuals blossomed to their fullest capacities?

I don’t know.   But I do believe that technology is making such rapid progress that such an imagined world will be possible in my lifetime.   And I believe in Thomas Friedman’s premise that in today’s flat world, whatever can be conceived will be achieved.   So dear friends, in your opinion, how would this possibility change the world?