Thoughts on the Framework for K-12 Science Education

I've been looking at the Framework for Science Education since it was published online last week. I like that it's not just the science ideas but also speaks to how we should go about taking those ideas and making them into standards.

This section in particular (ch. 12, Guidance for Standards Developers, p. 221) stood out for me:
"That is, for a given core idea at a given grade level, standards developers should include guidance not only about what needs to be taught but also about what does not need to be taught in order for students to achieve the standard. By delimiting what is included in a given topic in a particular grade band or grade level, boundary statements provide insights into the expected curriculum and thus aid in its development by others."

This is such a powerful statement. So much of what plagues science education deals with getting caught up in the little details. Not that details aren't important, but we want to avoid continuing to make science about memorizing facts when it is really a PROCESS and a way of thinking. Yes, kids should know the key ideas and explanations of real-life phenomena (why do we look the way we do? why do we have seasons? Why do some places have earthquakes and others don't?), but it is SO easy to get caught up in minutiae and lose track of the bigger picture...especially when one considers standardized multiple choice tests.

This issue came up at the Science Instructional Leadership Team meeting this summer. We were utilizing the STeLLA science storyline program to come up with main learning goals for an investigation in the FOSS module, and there was a distinct division between some of the groups. My group had focused on the idea of food webs and feeding relationships, determining that the introduction to Mono Lake (in part 1 of the investigation) was a hook for the next few investigations and thus not central to the main learning goal. Another group disagreed, and - rather than using the standards and the big idea (food webs/energy flow) for which the Mono Lake ecosystem was merely a vehicle - they had gotten caught up in the defining characteristics of the Mono Lake ecosystem. Do students need to know about the salinity of Mono Lake in order to diagram a food web and to understand the feeding relationships that it encompasses? No, they don't. And yet these teachers - with the best intentions, I am sure - had gotten distracted by those details.

I think it goes back to what we learned at PEAK as well. As teachers, we need to prioritize. Start with the standards/the core ideas in science, then break that down into learning goals and unit objectives, then break that down into your lesson objectives. Once you have all those many objectives, you need to determine which are "essential" for understanding the core ideas, which are "important" for understanding, and which are "nice to know." Sure, it would be nice for my sixth graders to understand salinity and the effect it can have on ecosystems, but it's not essential....especially as we don't even live in a region where that's an environmental issue.

Puzzle Pieces

So I always mean to be better about blogging here, as this is a much better venue for going on about teaching than at my personal blog where my friends are far more interested in my thoughts on Captain America: The First Avenger than in the newest strategy that I'm trying.

At the moment, we've got just over two weeks before the kids come back, and it seems that the summer has just flown by. Of course, I imagine that has something to do with the two week-long conferences I attended (PEAK Learning Institute in Vail, Colorado, and the GE Foundation's Developing Futures NASA/NSTA Math-Science Integration Conference in Cocoa Beach, Florida) and the Berwick Buddy trip to Maine (also a week). It's left me with a lot of amazing ideas, but now I have to fit all the pieces together. CARE for Kids, PEAK, the 5 E's, BSCS's Science Storylines (from a district science leadership training), and several other things all need to fit into a seamless whole.

I have managed to edit my Understanding by Design Unit Template (backwards planning all the way, y'all), type up a PEAK topic planner, and merge my CIF lesson planner with a PEAK lesson planner. The last of which was the most difficult, though honestly even that wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be. I realized that all the sprinkles, showers, and drips (more on that below) fit in as transitions between the pieces of the lesson that belonged in the CIF lesson. The PEAK soak is the same as the CIF-for-science guided practice. The one awkward spot is where I have a section that could be Making Meaning (i.e. Explain) OR a sprinkle/shower/drip transition, but I suppose that really would vary just based on whether you had a lab-type explore activity that day, which would definitely require a making meaning section to the lesson, or whether you had been working on something that might not need that component. I honestly think I will tend far more to the making meaning portion of that choice, but I am hoping to be more creative with my strategies there than I have been in years past. I'd like to utilize various discussion and notebooking strategies there, as well as some PEAK engage learning strategies.

At this point, I suppose I should outline the whole PEAK water metaphor, which was a key focus in this conference that is just totally mindset-changing. The gist of it revolves around the necessity of exposing kids to content multiple times, as research has shown over and over that they need 28 or 41 or more exposures to really retain and deeply understand content (I'm sure we are ALL familiar with the never learning or crammed-for-test-and-then-forgot learning that goes on in classrooms across the country). In order to do that - to achieve what PEAK calls 28/3 (28 exposures over 3 weeks) - you need to use both pre-instruction and post-instruction. The pre-instruction primes the kids for the main content instruction, while the post-instruction reinforces the information and helps deepen their understanding. The terms are as follows (exposure is deeper each time):

Cloud - this involves having content posters up at least a few weeks ahead
Sprinkle - ex: point out posters & have kids discuss what they notice, choral repetition from visuals, brainstorming around big ideas
Shower - deeper than sprinkle, ex: content songs, choral repetition of important content, and various other strategies where kids become familiar with the basic foundational ideas for the future unit
Soak - this is the actual unit of focused instruction (this is where labs and the like would fall for science)
drip, Drip, DRIP - post-instruction of increasing depth where you intentionally revisit a topic at deeper and broader levels (they call this incremental development)...this includes a great variety of active learning, notebooking, and reflective strategies, among other things

I don't think I've really encompassed how amazing the idea is, as the training just totally opens your eyes and changes how you think about planning, but I think I've got the basics at least. I am not diving all the way into the deepest levels of planning using the PEAK ideas, as it is a bit much to do the first year, particularly with the FOSS and STC modules to juggle as well.

I think I will post more about my ideas for implementation later this weekend. I am trying to pare down my ideas so that it will be realistic. There are a great many techniques I want to try, as well as different strategies and tools, but I also need to ensure that I don't overwhelm myself. The idea is to pick just a few things to try and make sure you get down well, so I want to prioritize. Luckily, there are some things I had already started with last school year, as one of the teachers I work with had shared some of the ideas with me, so those just need to be tweaked a bit, and then I can pick out the new (to me) things that I want to implement.

Article: Do We Need a Hero?

This article was in Teacher Magazine. It really articulated an issue I've always had with movies about teachers (as much as I usually enjoy inspirational films), especially Freedom Writers. They ignore the reality of most school systems in favor of cliches (bright new teacher triumphs in spite of all the lazy/stubborn/prejudiced long-term teachers). Plus they're not often sustainable - Erin Gruwell only taught in public schools for four years, after all.

Article below (and online here):

Do We Need Another Hero?

By Patrick Ledesma

You’ve seen them: the education movies about a driven principal who goes to a school to shake things up. Some teachers and parents are portrayed as resistant, but thanks to his charisma and force, the principal endures and makes changes. People eventually buy into the new culture and test scores improve.

If the movie was anything like Lean on Me with Morgan Freeman, the test results would be announced in some dramatic fashion in front of a large, energetic, and supportive crowd of students with the small group of detractors watching quietly from the sidelines. When it’s learned that the test scores have shot through the roof, just about everyone cheers, and it’s a happy ending as the music plays and credits roll.

Unfortunately, real life is never as conclusive. There's always another side to the story—although sometimes it has less immediate appeal.

On July 6, The Washington Post published two interesting articles about education reform. The front page piece, originally published under the headline “Sousa’s Middle March of Progress,” portrayed Principal Dwan Jordon’s “hands-on, data driven tack (as) transforming a D.C. school but also ruffling feathers.” Another piece in the editorial section highlighted the significant role played by Michelle Rhee, Chancellor of D.C. Public Schools, in the D.C. mayoral race. The piece argued that the upcoming election could be about her “100 miles an hour, the children can’t wait” approach to school reform, characterized by “school closings, teacher layoffs, spending decisions, and principal reassignments,” versus the approach of a mayoral opponent who favors a more cautious and sensitive strategy that emphasizes “community collaboration and buy in.”

Ultimately, we learn, the mayoral race will be about opponents with a “different sense of urgency in reform.” This ongoing story unfolds, according to this editorial, in the context of a city with a long history of troubles with officials who lack the political will to implement and sustain school improvements. Contrast that with the Time magazine cover in December 2008 that featured Rhee with a big broom, ready to sweep the D.C. schools clean—and her quote featured in the Waiting for Superman trailer: “You wake up every morning and you know that kids are getting a really crappy education right now.”

Leading Change

In a movie like Lean on Me, the audience hopes for the principal to be successful. Morgan Freeman just has that voice and aura that’s too powerful to resist (even if he is condescending and rude to the educators in the film). From the point of view of most people in the audience, the improvements in student achievement validate the “reform can’t wait” urgency and negate any ill effects caused by the ruffling of teacher feathers.

The Post story about Sousa Middle School echoes movies like Lean on Me. The article describes how Principal Jordon fired many of his staff, micromanaged classroom teaching, handpicked teacher replacements, and emphasized the rigid use of test data for instructional planning. Like in the movie, test scores rose. Unlike the movie, the story isn’t over.

Critics of Jordon’s leadership style continue to highlight the high turnover of teachers and a feeling of “humiliation” the reporter describes this way:

If students are improving at Sousa, teachers from Jordon's first year—almost none of whom kept their jobs this year—seem almost traumatized. One teacher accustomed to getting good evaluations said she felt "humiliated" by Jordon's constant scrutiny. Others said they'd come in at 5 a.m., trying to meet his demands, but still left school in tears.

Critics of Jordan's approach would argue that lasting change only results from consensus building and the development of organizational capacity. They could cite school leadership experts like Michael Fullan and describe the importance of relationships, knowledge building within an organization, and establishment of a learning culture. As Fullan argues in his book Leading in a Culture of Change:

Charismatic leaders inadvertently often do more harm than good because, at best, they provide episodic improvement followed by frustrated or despondent dependency. Superhuman leaders also do us another disservice: They are role models who can never be emulated by large numbers. Deep and sustained reform depends on many of us, not just on the very few who are destined to be extraordinary.

Critics of Jordan's style would also emphasize the importance of treating teachers as professionals whose expertise and energies would be required for steady and sustained improvement in all areas of learning, not just what’s measured on the tests. Recently, Post education writer Jay Matthews, in a column titled “Hero or Bully?,” commented on Mr. Jordon’s assertive tactics, noting that “his second year scores, soon to be released, better be good, or any powerful enemies he makes will have more than enough witnesses for their case against him.”

There are other interesting factors that could be discussed in connection with the Sousa Middle School's recent success—specifically, the school’s new renovation and very low student-to-teacher ratio (56 adults for 230 students). What if the renovation and additional resources had been carried out in concert with a consensus building approach? What if the previous faculty had received more professional development and guidance? Would these school-strengthening efforts be enough to produce results similar to those being hailed by the “reform can’t wait” proponents? More importantly, would the change last?

There are other unknowns. What if Mr. Jordon gets promoted and leaves Sousa? Will the success go with him, or, will the improvements endure since he largely handpicked staff who share his philosophy?

Powerful Stories and Numbers

Whatever might have been done or might happen in the future, one thing is certain, and it’s something educators need to understand in the public debate. The “reform can’t wait” movement has powerful stories involving emotional charismatic leaders who save kids. They have the “hard numbers” that test data provide to justify their bold actions. It’s a simple, direct, convincing story that is compelling and easy to understand and doesn’t require supporters to have any knowledge of education pedagogy, statistics, leadership philosophy, or policy. Results are more immediate, and don’t require years of building consensus while resistant or “burned out teachers” decide if they want to get on board. And the cultural references—like Morgan Freeman’s charisma, documentaries about charters, or Michelle Rhee’s magazine cover stare-down—are easily at hand.

From the public’s perspective, for better or worse, the expectation for story-telling has been set. Educators and policymakers who argue for the slower consensus-building approach will need equally convincing stories to sway the public. They will need to publicize or create movies of real examples of schools where change occurred internally, within a school, with the same staff, demonstrating that test scores increased and the improvement lasted. Some compelling examples like this would advance the discussions on how to improve schools.

Without this alternate storytelling, the public may not find teacher accounts of feeling humiliated or unprofessionally treated very compelling. That’s unfortunate, because lost along these hardened battle lines are hard working and dedicated educators who strive daily to make a difference. But in the public debate, they get lumped together with the resistant, burnt out, or ineffective teachers.

So does the public portrayal of urgency for school reform trump teachers’ defense of professionalism? Maybe the answer depends on which character you identify with in the movie.

Patrick Ledesma is a school based technology specialist and Special Education Department Chair with Fairfax County Public Schools. He is a National Board-certified teacher and a doctoral student at George Mason University, where he is focusing on teacher education, technology, and education policy. He has been a member of the Teacher Leaders Network since 2003.

Equity Activity

I found this on another blog. A teacher was using it as an example to explain the difference between equity and equality. Full credit given to the blog author, one Lara David.

She says:

There's this activity I do in my class. All the students sit in a circle, and I ask everyone to take off his or her left shoe and throw it into a pile in the center. Once the shoes are all piled up, I begin re-distributing them, one to each student, completely at random. Then I tell everyone to put on the new shoes. And inevitably, there begin the complaints.

"This isn't my shoe!"

"It's too big!"

"It's too small!"

"This doesn't fit me!"

Whatever the specific complaints are, very few students are actually happy with their newly mismatched pair of shoes. "What's wrong?" I ask. "I did everything fairly. You all have two shoes - one for your right foot and one for your left."

"But Miss David," they say, "they aren't the correct shoes!"

"Oh," I say. "You want the shoes that are best for each of you individually? Not just any shoe I find?"

"Yes!" they all say.

"But," I say, with furrowed brow, "that doesn't seem fair. I wanted to treat you all EQUALLY." I point to a boy with somewhat large feet, and a nearby girl with smallish feet. "He'll have more shoe than you will," I note. And without a doubt, someone unknowingly gets right to the heart of the issue:

"It doesn't matter who has more shoe, Miss David. It matters that we all have the right shoes for us."

And THAT, my friends, is the difference between equity and equality. Equality means everyone gets exactly the same outcome - two shoes - without regard to individual differences - large or small feet, for example. Equity means everyone gets the same quality of outcome - shoes that fit their individual needs.

Wal-Mart Kids

Every year in late fall/early winter I send out an email requesting help for my students. Each winter, from our population of 80% low-income students, we choose students from every team to take on a shopping spree. These are our neediest students, those who come to school every day in the same pair of uniform clothes, who wear a rope to hold up a pair of pants three sizes too big because they have nothing else, who don't have gloves and hats to wear when winter comes. They shiver in the classroom without sweatshirts and get soaked in rainstorms because they don't have umbrellas or raincoats. I have girls with last year's too small shirts and boys with pant legs too short as they shoot up in height. One day V told me she loves purses and dressing pretty, but everyday she comes in a grubby white polo shirt too large for her and pants sagging down, both of which were passed down from her older brother. Oh, the indignity for a middle school girl – a BOY's hand-me-downs! (And no purse.)

The school is filled with students like V, who would love to look nice but whose parents can't even afford to pay for food, utilities, and rent, leaving many kids dependent on free breakfast and lunch since that might be all they get to eat that day and moving from apartment to apartment when their parents can't afford to stay in one place.

Despite this, the students have the great ability to be compassionate and accepting. They step out of the way when a kid in a wheelchair comes down the hall or fight over who gets to help them. They don't even look twice when one of the autistic students starts squealing or banging on a table, even if they're right there at the table with them. How many of us could say we would do the same?

Last year the generosity of all of you allowed me to raise $2214.16 in addition to the $1000 raised by the rest of the school; you all provided twice what the rest of the community brought in! I will be forever thankful for this. This meant that Brandon, who came to our attention at the last minute, was able to be added to our list the week before our shopping trip. All 3 of his younger siblings were Angel Tree children through the Salvation Army, but he had been rejected as "too old." Eighth grade, 13-years-old, and too old for a Christmas present. Thanks to you, though, he was able to get a gift beyond his wildest dreams. He had been teaching himself how to play guitar from a library book, practicing the finger movements with nothing in his hands. That early December morning he cast a longing gaze at a $90 guitar; even the teacher with him didn't believe we could afford it. But with that extra money from you, we could. When Brandon was told he could get the guitar, he couldn't contain his excitement and began jumping up and down, crying in excitement. His parents did the same when he walked past the cashier and said, "Mom! Dad! Guess what I got?" Tears and hugs over an inexpensive guitar from Wal-Mart.

I know finances might be tighter than normal this year, but I think the holiday season is a time to remember that there are those who have ALWAYS been a lot less fortunate than us (and still are). If you can spare even a dollar, send the money to my kids. Cash or a check; American, Canadian, or Australian dollars, pounds, euros, whatever - we can use your money. Checks can be made out to Lassiter Middle School, and any funds can be sent to me (Ms. Rachel Davis) courtesy of:
Lassiter Middle School
8200 Candleworth Drive
Louisville, KY 40214

Write in the note on your check or in a note in the envelope that the funds are for the "Wal-Mart Kids." My kids - Lassiter's kids - need your help. (I also accept donations via PayPal to racheldavis7 [at] gmail [dot] com.) Tell your family, tell your friends, tell whoever you want. Give them my name and the school address (give them the story and this whole email if you want). My kids need your help. Money will be accepted until the shopping spree on December 13th.

Please, please, please help my kids. Can't you imagine just how amazing it will be for these poverty-stricken kids to be able to just go into a store and buy whatever they need and also things that they just want?

Such. A. Procrastinator.

So I am always thinking of interesting things to blog about, but the life of a teacher is always so busy that I forget to do so. So here's some highlights of the past while:

1) This past year I ran a buddy program between my students and the students at my alma mater (high school, not college), Berwick Academy. The kids exchanged letters (and mine got the occasional prezzie), and it was a really great experience for all. Since the alma mater is a private school, it was definitely a different crop of kids, and the school credited me with opening a lot of their kids' eyes to the issues that other students (like mine) face in this country. Every summer they do one or more service trips, and they asked if they could do something for us. This coincided perfectly with the need to get work done in our outdoor classroom, as we'd gotten a $10,000 grant from Lowe's (as well as $5000 from our local councilwoman), and we were able to host 10 students from Maine to work with about 8-10 of mine in the outdoor classroom. It was an amazing experience. The students built benches and wagons, a patio, raised garden beds, and a pond, and refurbed the memorial garden we have for teachers, staff, and students that have passed away. I also spent the evenings taking the visiting students around town, introducing them to our fair city of Louisville: the Lakeside Swim Club, Lynn's Paradise Cafe, Glassworks, the Louisville Slugger Museum, Bearno's, Buckhead Mountain Grill (and fried green tomatoes), Falls of the Ohio, and a Louisville Bats game. We even took the visiting students and mine on a canoe trip on the Salt River - the canoes were replicas of the ones Lewis and Clark used, which was pretty cool. We ended up in the local paper both here in Louisville as well as in the local papers back in NH/ME. We even ended up on TV. The buddy program is continuing this year. I hope they'll be able to make it down to us again.

2) I am now sharing a classroom with the Environmental Ed (aka Career Choices) teacher at school. It's an old art room, so we each have our own half. It's actually working pretty well, and I'm really enjoying it. I have room to put the desks in pods, so that the students can easily work in groups of 4, and I've got space to walk about the classroom. I'm learning a lot from observing him - it's interesting to see how someone's class runs every day. This is especially important, as they seem to be grooming me as his replacement. We talk a lot about issues with students, teaching, and environmental education.

3) Environmental education in general is a burgeoning issue for me. I'm taking Introduction to Environmental Education at UofL, and if the EE endorsement gets off the ground I think I'll get my Rank I with EE as the focus. I attended the KAEE conference again this year, and it was great. I got a lot of resources, and it was great to be able to see more of the state. Additionally, it was one of those moment where my eyes were opened about environmental issues. For example, while the vegetables we have obviously came from somewhere, it never occurred to me that there would be wild grapes in Kentucky. They apparently make muskadine wine out of them. Another amazing thing was the ecojustice tour we took around the city - the stories I have to tell. Once I get closer to the writing pieces I have my students do for their state portfolios, I'll elaborate on that further.

I also took a tour of the 21st Century Parks system in development here in easter Jefferson County. Between this non-profit group and the Metro Parks system, they are buying up all the land along Floyds Fork, and they'll be creating this amazing 21st century park. It will include the typical sports fields and the like in the northern half, but it will be more natural in the southern section. They're revitalizing the river, ponds, and wetlands. They will be bringing back sections of old growth forest, as well as potentially including sections so that you can see various stages of succession, as well as what functioning Kentucky farmland looks like. There will be hiking trails, sections of the 100-mile bike loop, and a whole river to canoe. I had no idea that there was that much free land left in Jefferson County, and that it could be that rural. I was so amazed. The whole idea of it is mindblowing, and the knowledge I learned about the local geology, archaelogy, and ecology was just...wow. Wow.

Hopefully I can continue to be more up-to-date, posting more often. We'll see, at least.

The wonders of small class size

Now districts are always trying to say that studies don't conclusively prove that class size makes a difference, but anyone who has struggled to control a full class of students in a room that really isn't big enough and then seen them miraculously change when a few kids are absent/in ISAP and 5 more are in a special reward knows how smaller classes do make a difference. We had 20 kids in AAA on Friday, rewarding them for acheiving the triple threat of good academics (As and Bs), good attitude (all S's), and good attendance. And my 4th period, which is usually loud as anything comes in and sits straight down and there's no more than a low murmur. And the worst, loudest kid is even there! Coming in with all her friends! I was in shock! I was confused! I was ecstatic! They were amazing, and I was so proud of them and really glad I'd happened to bring in dum-dums that day as a reward for the fastest runners in the races we had between measuring shadows the day before (we're studying the Sun-Earth-Moon system at the moment). I really could not believe the difference. Because it wasn't the worst kids missing - it was the best kids. And yet they were still SO much better.

It's the kind of thing that makes me wish I taught at a private school. I covet small class sizes. And large class rooms. An area of desks in the front and lab tables in the back! It would be oh so lovely. I don't even have room to set up the desks in pods. Or rows. Yep, no one considered the size of the classrooms when they ordered the new lab desks for the science classrooms.

Of course, on the other hand, I really do enjoy working with the kids I have. They frustrate me. A lot. But I'd miss working with them if I was gone. It just would not be the same if I were elsewhere. I just wish that I could teach them in a better situation. One where there we had small class sizes, and we had enough room for setting up the tables for easy group work. Where there were enough computers for us to use them without having to book WAY in advance. Where I had more than one computer in my classroom for easy access.

Ah, the dreams of an inner-city public school teacher.

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In other news, though, there is apparently something written about me in the latest edition of my high school alma mater's magazine, BA Today, or so The Mom says. Inquiring minds want to know. What does it say? And where is my copy? I will be mightily annoyed if it is not in the mailbox come Monday.

Edited to Add (3/26/08): This USA Today article cites several studies that show that "size alone makes small classes better for kids," whether the teacher makes changes in her teaching or not. Of course, it makes more of a difference for high achievers than low achievers. The gap is just so frustrating, and it seems so difficult to bridge it.