Inquiry Models - in class

1. What is scientific inquiry? What does inquiry-oriented teaching and learning look like? Scientific inquiry is an approach to learning that implicitly requires students to use critical and higher-order thinking skills in order to solve a problem or answer a question. In inquiry-based science, students are the scientists rather than the recipients of teacher-oriented lectures. Students work together and individually to engage in scientifically-oriented questions, to collect evidence pertinent to the question, to explain their evidence, to evaluate their explanations using other sources, and finally to communicate those findings and evaluations to others. Scientific inquiry looks like how I described above - the teacher serving as a facilitator among freethinking and explorative students. Evidence is collected by the individuals, not handed to them on a worksheet. Students (or scientists) are at the center of this learning.

INSES Chapters 1 & 2

I loved the way the first chapter introduced scientific inquiry by providing examples of real-life scientists doing what scientists do - making observations, asking questions, drawing on prior knowledge to help answer those questions, and analyzing their results. Of course, before reading this article I was aware that the scientific process went something like that, but I never really connected inquiry-based learning with the concept that it is how scientists learn as well as elementary students. And, honestly, I'd love to provide an abridged version of Chapter 1 to a class of elementary school science students so they can see that all of the things we do in science class have real, profound value in the large world outside the scope of the classroom. If someone had told me the story of the geologist and seismologist when I was in elementary school, I would have probably approached science with a much more opened mind and would probably not detest it as much as I do (or did, before beginning this course).

That being said, the article also provided a lot of valuable information about why inquiry-based learning is so important to student success. There was one passage that stood out to me - "Humans are innately curious, as anyone knows who has watched a newborn. From birth, children employ trial-and-error techniques to learn about the world around them...We reflect on the world around us by observing, gathering, assembling, and synthesizing information. We develop and use tools to measure and observe as well as to analyze information and create models. We check and re-check what we think will happen and compare results to what we already know. We change our ideas based on what we learn" (5).

I read this passage and thought, "Wow." Life is made up of what we refer to so strictly as the 'scientific process' - which is absolutely thrilling to think about from a teacher's perspective. When learning is forced upon us as humans - when we are handed information and asked to regurgitate it - we are not reaching our full potential and are rather just prescribing to a set of rules established by an outdated educational philosophy. Children need to understand that science imitates life, and that all of that genuine learning we all experience through our own personal trials and errors is just like the scientific process we all know and love (or hate, if it's been taught the more 'traditional' route).

BB&W

After reading the BB&W stories, it seemed fairly obvious that the best approach to learning was student- and inquiry-centered. I discussed this more in-depth in a previous blog post, but reading about the differences between Ms. Stone and Ms. Travis' approaches to teaching was certainly eye-opening, and performing the lab in class helped further my understanding of how these types of labs should be approached.

In all honesty, I probably would not change very much from the student-centered version of the lab that I was fortunate enough to complete in class (I didn't get a chance to work on the direct instruction-based lab). If I were teaching this concept to elementary students, I would provide the necessary materials for creating a simple circuit (batteries, wires, light bulbs) and ask students to "play" with the materials in small groups. In groups, they will pose a question and record it in their science notebooks. (The question can be as simple as "What will happen when I connect the battery and wire?") No explicit directions as to the amount, type, or combination of the materials will be given; rather, students will be encouraged to see what happens, to find out what they can "make" with the materials given. Groups will work at their own pace, and once a group has discovered that the wire and the light bulb and battery together can light the bulb, I will encourage them to try mixing a variety of materials. Two batteries? Sure! Two light bulbs? No problem.

Students will choose a combination to experiment with and record hypotheses and observations in their science notebooks, which they will subsequently attempt to explain in their own terms. (This will hopefully have become a regular part of our science time, so students will be familiar with the process.) Once all groups have completed at least the first part of the activity, I will ask them to compare their data and science notebooks with other groups. What did they find that was the same, and likewise, what was different? What did some groups discover that others did not? After students have been given ample time to communicate and evaluate their findings with their classmates, I will introduce the concepts of simple and parallel circuits. It is vitally important to the lesson that students explore first and are then given an explanation - they will not be given any handouts that mention the concepts, just the materials. Explicit instruction will be the death of inquiry-based student exploration in science, so it is crucial that they explore and manipulate the materials in a way that is meaningful to them.

5-E Criteria	Part(s) of lesson that addresses this inquiry criterion	More teacher-directed or student-directed? Explain.
Engage	After the materials are chosen, students ask a question in their notebooks and experiment on it.	Student-directed. This falls in the first column in the continuum, as the "learner poses a question" that will be the basis for their exploration.
Evidence	The students will collect their findings in their notebook, although no explicit instruction as to what to record will be given.	Student-directed. Again, this falls into the first column in that the students determine what constitutes evidence and then collect it. This is very void of teacher instruction.
Explain	After completing the experiment and looking at their findings, students will form independent explanations about why something did or didn't happen.	Student-directed. Students formulate their own explanations after summarizing their evidence, with no guidance from the teacher.
Evaluate	Students compare their findings with other groups and hopefully will formulate new explanations and gain perspectives on different explanations.	Student-directed. The students will be independently examining other resources (other science notebooks/classmates) and forming the links to explanations without teacher instruction.
Communicate	Again, the students will be communicating their findings with their classmates when they share science notebooks.	Student-directed. As they are comparing their findings with one another, the learners will form reasonable and logical argument to communicate explanations - the teacher will not be a part of those communications of explanations.

Week 3 Day 1 - QWQOTD

1. The difference between a learning goal and a learning performance is exactly what the words imply: a learning goal is the standards a teacher sets by which the students need to perform by. In layman terms, a learning goal is what the teacher expects his or her students to understand at the end of an inquiry. A learning performance, on the other hand, is the actual participation of the students. A learning performance speaks to the learning goal in that it is the showing (not the telling) of what the students know and understand and are able to do. So for example, a learning goal could be for students to understand that the outside air temperature is determined by many weather conditions. A learning performance, then, would be the actions that these students take to prove they understand that concept (see the last blog post).

2. The 5 essential features of inquiry: -Learners are able to pose scientifically oriented questions -Learners collect evidence that answers those questions -Learners evaluate the evidence they have collected -Learners examine the other possible explanations for the evidence they have collected -Learners communicate effectively their data and findings

Formative Assessment Probe - Weather

Learning Goals
How does weather affect temperature?

Learning Performance
In order for students to understand that the temperature on any given day is not determined by any one single factor, students will need to utilize all five components of an inquiry-based experiment. Students will first need to record questions in their science notebooks after having been given the initial question (What was the weather like at the place where it was 90 degrees F?) and finding out the answer. These questions can be as simple or complex as the student conceives. This fits into row 1, column 1 in the inquiry continuum - the students engage in scientifically oriented questions and pose questions themselves.

With the questions in mind, the class will embark on a long-term investigation of weather that will take place at the same time every day. Some students may want to explore their own personal questions further, while others may simply record the temperature outside and record the weather conditions and variables (every student will do this). After a long period of time investigating, the class will meet together to confer and discuss the individual findings of each student (or group of students). What data differed from student to student? What data was the same? What do the students think are the most important pieces of information gathered in the investigation? In this way, the learner determines what constitutes evidence and collects it individually - the students are not given any data or told specifically what to collect (except the temperature). This fits in row 2, column 1 of the continuum.

The discussion will prompt a writing exercise in which the students privately record their own thoughts about the experiment - what ideas have changed and which ones have stayed the same? The activity will lead to another longer-term investigation in which the students do independently-conducted research (row 4, column 1) to determine the answers to some of their stagnant questions and to find any other perspectives that were not represented in class. Students may then choose how they want to present the information they find - a speech, a graphic, a chart, a small written piece - in any way that is meaningful to them. This correlates with row 5, column 1 (learners form reasonable and logical arguments to communicate explanations) and rounds out the student-centered focus of the learning performance.

Batteries, Bulbs, and Wires

This article was an interesting examination of the juxtaposition between "kit science" and exploration/inquiry-based science that deals with higher-level thinking within a school district. Mrs. Stone, of course, exemplified the science kit philosophy - clear definitions given before any exploration, minimal student inquiry, and teacher- and material-directed activities. The students have no say in what they experiment on and record data from. They also have a few disjointed definitions of abstract and meaningless words under their belts, words that will be reviewed later, after they've already done an experiment dealing with the concepts they define.

Ms. Travis, on the other hand, takes a different approach to the exact same lesson with the exact same science kit. Right away, the philosophical differences between Stone and Travis became apparent to me: Ms. Travis takes prior knowledge about her students and tailors the lesson in a way that will be meaningful for them by connecting it to their own schema and personal experiences. She allows students to figure out the best ways to do certain aspects of the lab or to figure out how something works. She still gives them pre-prescribed materials, but has taken time considering what parts might be difficult or tedious and plans accordingly. In addition to all of this, she continues the study past day one and incorporates students' own ponderings (What happens with two batteries in a series circuit? Is it a parallel circuit?) into her teaching of the science.

Much like Activitymania, this article dealt with the staggering differences between teaching via inquiry and exploration versus teaching from a very basal science kit, and through its examples was able to give me more insight to how to teach science effectively. We've talked about the concept of covering 20% of the material effectively rather than covering 100% of the material ineffectively in class - and this was just an affirmation of what I already believed to be true. Will Mrs. Stone's students remember their experiment on electricity in a few years? Probably not. But will Ms. Travis' students recall the experiments, the individualized problem-solving, the ongoing inquiry? They most likely will. That is my goal as an educator not only of science but in general - for my students to have high levels of understanding that last beyond the final assessment.

Cool It! Inquiry Continuum

In blue are the rows and columns that I felt matched the specific Cool It lab I used in class Thursday (blue).
Due to formatting, the chart is in list form. The first statement underneath each category involves the most learner self-direction; the last statement involves the least.

Inquiry Continuum
1. Learner engages in scientifically oriented questionsLearner poses a question
Learner selects among questions, poses new questions
Learner sharpens or clarifies question provided by teacher, materials, or other sourceLearner engages in question provided by teacher, materials, or other source

2. Learner gives priority to evidence in responding to questionsLearner determines what constitutes evidence and collects it
Learner directed to collect certain dataLearner given data and asked to analyze
Learner given data and told how to analyze

3. Learner formulates explanations from evidenceLearner formulates explanations after summarizing evidence
Learner guided in process of formulating explanations from evidence
Learner given possible ways to use evidence to formulate explanationLearner provided with evidence

4. Learner evaluate explanations when compared to other explanationsLearner independently examines other resources and forms the links to explanations
Learner directed toward areas and sources of other explanations
Learner given other possible explanations
Learner given all other explanations

5. Learner communicates and justifies explanationsLearner forms reasonable and logical argument to communicate explanations
Learner coached in development of communication
Learner provided broad guidelines to use sharpen communication
Learner given steps and procedures for communication





After examining the inquiry continuum in relation to the lab, it is quite clear that the particular version of the lab I explored fell somewhere between self-directed and teacher-directed. There was some room for exploration and for slight (if any) creativity on the students' part, although the question posed put a constraint on what the student could do to demonstrate its answer.

The first row (1) was fairly teacher-directed in that the learner "sharpens or clarifies question provided by teacher, materials, or other source." The lab described the common theory that stirring coffee cools it down, then poses the question that asks if you (the learner) could find out if that is true. It does not explicitly state that a lab must be set up that demonstrates coffee undergoing different variables (stirred, non-stirred, etc) but the learner is set up to come to that conclusion. Not much thought it involved in choosing what to test.


#2 examined the learner's priority to evidence in responding to questions, and here I felt the lab was slightly more learner-oriented than the previous row. The learner is "directed to collect certain data" as explained in the handout, but is given no data from which to bounce off of. This is a relatively open-ended area of the lab, but is still not at the maximum level of learner-centeredness.

The third row was a little fuzzy because the lab set up the explanation of evidence in its description, but did not state explicitly how evidence should be organized. It did tell the students what kind of data to collect, what broad statement (stirring cools liquid) to connect it to - but not how to organize it or any specific way to formulate that evidence into an explanation. In this sense, it was fairly material-directed, but there was some room for interpretation on the students' part as to how to present their explanations.

When it came to evaluating explanations in the 4th row, this was again slightly unclear as the only other "explanations" given in the lab were from other students/groups in the class. This lab was set up so that other explanations were not so cut-and-dry and were not dictated by the teacher to the students, so in that sense there was a great deal of inquiry among the students (particularly because other groups provided their own explanations). At the same time, students were not encouraged to independently research other explanations, so this fell somewhere in between.

The last row dealt with the learners' ability to communicate and justify these explanations. As aforementioned, there was a bit of a class forum in which each group shared their data in whatever form it took. No directions were given as to how the students could present this data, and (at the teacher's discretion) students were encouraged to share the logic behind the conclusions drawn from the evidence. It was in this sense that the learner formed "reasonable and logical argument[s] to communicate explanations."

Shifting from Activitymania

"Activitymania" was defined in Shifting from Activitymania as "an approach to teaching elementary science that involves a collection of prepackaged, hour-long (or less), hands-on activities that are often disconnected from each other" (14). This spoke so much to my own experience in elementary school science class: a menagerie of engaging, fast-paced, but ultimately meaningless activities tied specially designed to teach the science concepts on the curriculum. We learned every fact for the brief time it was relevant in class, and then out the window those concepts went.

The idea that the actual activity aspect of this activitymania isn't so terrible, but that the ideology behind it is backwards, is what engaged me as I read this essay. Working as a camp counselor for the past few years, we usually focused on one thing when teaching science to our groups: stimulation. Basically, our focus was keeping the kids busy and engaged in something that would help teach the concept. If a few of them understood what needed to be understood, we felt satisfied.

That mentality is really easy to rely on, and even we at camp had similar pre-packaged science kits. If someone had plopped me in an elementary science classroom last summer, said "Teach," and shut the door, I'd probably have relied solely on an activity-centered program to teach what I needed to teach. Kids understand better when they are engaged in relevant activities. We can hammer out the conceptual details after they do the activity. That was my philosophy. Then, I read the article's discussion of inquiry-based learning and its benefits in the classroom.

"The shift [from activitymania to inquiry-based learning] doesn't mean throwing out the kits and manuals. Instead, we ask teachers to clearly define conceptual goals and the relationships to students' lives and interests prior to selecting classroom activities...Once these overall goals are established, supporting activities that link and build understanding can be identified" (16).

Now, as someone who is in the transition from activity-happy camp counselor to a conceptually-oriented elementary teacher, I can actually use this information to help tinker with the way I plan to teach science. Even if I am in a district full of mandatory activity kits, I know now that there are ways to work around it if the teaching philosophy will support it. As a teacher I will oft tread the odd balance between behaviorist and constructionist thinking, and here is one of those times. I need to equip my students with the power to construct their own meaning from science.

Teaching for Conceptual Change: Confronting Children's Experience

I enjoyed this article because it brought insight to the actual application of teaching for conceptual change in a science classroom. Through the sweater example, I was able to see how important student inquiry is in a science environment, and how hard it is to shake even the simplest of misconceptions when they are so ingrained in learners' own minds. "Learners bring their idiosyncratic and personal experiences to most learning situations. These experiences have a profound effect on the learners' views of the world and have a startling effect on their willingness and ability to accept other, more scientifically grounded explanations for how the world works" (Watson & Konicek, 37).

Learning Performance - Magnets

There are many ways to prove that iron is attracted to magnets, or experiments students could conduct as part of their learning performance. One of these methods involves having a variety of objects on a table with a small magnet. There should be a variety of substances - wood, plastic, cotton, non-iron metals, etc. However, there should be one sample of pure iron and at least one sample of a small household object with iron in it (ex. an iron nail).

Split the students up into groups or by table and supply each table with all of these objects. Have each group or individual make predictions about which substances will be picked up by a small magnet when held over the objects. Make sure each student writes a brief explanation as to why they chose which answers they chose.

At the tables, hold the magnet over each object, one at a time. Record the results on the same sheet of paper that the predictions were written on, so that comparisons can be made. After the results have been recorded, students reflect on the experiment. What answers did they predict correctly, and which ones did they predict incorrectly? Why, in their opinion, did the magnet pick up certain objects but not others? Do the objects that the magnet picked up have something in common? Give students plenty of time to collaborate with their groups or write their responses individually. If a student reflects on the experiment and ends up with more questions or variables that could inspire another experiment, encourage him or her to go home and test the experiment, and then report back to the class with their findings.

Keely - Classroom Assessment Probes

The discussions this week have centered largely around student misconceptions and formative assessment. Before reading this article and participating in these discussions, though, I viewed formative assessment as more of a close cousin of summative assessment than a tool for teaching. The Keely article shook that philosophy from me. "Probes...'turn the spotlight from examining students' work to examining teachers' work'....In other words, they help you understand student thinking so that you can develop more effective ways of teaching" (Keely, 8).

One part of that passage stood out to me above the rest: that probes help teachers understand student thinking. These assessments do tell us as teachers what our students know and what they do not, but I had never thought of them as a tool for actually getting inside the minds of our students and attempting to understand why  students believe what they believe. This, of course, leads to decisions on future curricula and helps shape the plan of action of the teacher. What do I need to focus on specifically that will maximize student potential, that will shake away these misconceptions? What teaching practices will my students benefit from the most, based on the responses to these probes? These are questions that could be answered when a formative probe is assessed and interpreted by a teacher.

But the probes do not only help the teacher form his or her plans - they help the students as well. The article described it as such:

"Teachers need to engage students in sharing [their] ideas if students are to understand science. One way to begin this engagement is to provide a probe and ask students to write down their ideas in response to the prompt. Writing a response to the prompt is one method of making students' thinking visible and engaging them in the ideas they will be learning about. At the same time it encourages your students to pay careful attention to the reasoning they use to support their ideas" (Keely, 8).

This was so important to me as a teacher to understand because it sheds light to the function of these probes as not only a tool for thinking and learning (for both teachers and students), but as a way to encourage critical thinking and supportive reasoning skills within students. When this is put into practice frequently, students begin to mold their ways of responding to assessments. They learn how to articulate an opinion, to think about why they respond in certain ways - to support their scientific (or not-so-scientific) reasoning. This article has certainly given me insight as to how to develop my teaching in ways that can help myself and my students better understand scientific concepts.

Misconceptions Die Hard

Although we discussed misconceptions in class last Thursday, and while the Private Universe video was certainly eye-opening, I felt that the actual analysis and concrete evidence in this article were what really made this issue apparent to me.

To me, the evidence of misconceptions that remain across-the-board from elementary school through college are indicative of the culture of schooling we've grown so accustomed to. That culture is largely composed of fast memorization of facts to pass a test, and then the immediate discarding of those facts after the summative assessment has been completed. We as students are trained to quickly learn what we need to know, and we never really realize that we're supposed to be learning to understand; we're supposed to be learning to remember.

Some of the data showed that a very small (as in, 2%) of students "re-learned" these basic facts after having enrolled in a few college-level science courses - but does that 2% really mean anything? Teachers cannot hold the future educators of their current students accountable for re-teaching the most basic of facts (for example, that 1 lb = 1 lb, no matter how you manipulate it). I found it disheartening that the terminology changed from simple to complex wording as students grew older, but that understanding remained largely unchanged. It seemed as if these students just heard these words in passing, gained a very rudimentary understanding of what they meant, and then tucked them away in their own personal dictionaries. The problem is, knowing what a word means but not knowing what it means in all of its contexts is not understanding.

As a teacher, I did indeed gain a lot from this article. I found the possible solutions to be realistic, viable options for me to take in my future classroom if my own students carry their private misconceptions to school with them. I loved the discussion about the use of labs in a classroom to help combat those misconceptions because it allows students to self-discover these misconceptions, which ultimately aids in their understanding. I was always stubborn as a student - if I had a misconception about something, I didn't really believe it until I saw it. That is why I connected with the idea of labs to help correct misconceptions. It works for both the students who just need to hear the facts and for the students who need to see them first-hand.

Line of Learning

How do elementary students learn science? 
I believe elementary students typically learn science through hypothesizing, experimenting, recording data, and drawing conclusions; essentially, they learn science by being "walked through" the scientific process. At least, this is how science was taught in my elementary school. 
Of course, there is no one single way to teach science to a class of elementary students. Different methods work for different classrooms, and with science being a subject that can be daunting or scary to some students, individualized and differentiated learning is vitally important. There is no one-size-fits-all method to learning science, and I believe an effective teacher understands that and tries to facilitate learning through a variety of methods rather than just one stagnant method. 


What classroom environments facilitate elementary students’ science learning? 
This was somewhat addressed in the above response, but I will elaborate. Teachers are responsible for establishing a classroom environment that is conducive to learning at all levels. They are responsible for taking the "scary" out of science by creating collaborative, innovator-friendly classroom communities which focus on both the process of and the reflecting on science. True learning - and by this I mean learning conceptually, rather than mechanically - can only occur if both of those components are present in a classroom.
A classroom environment that encourages exploration in order to "discover" new concepts and ideas, an environment that provides ample opportunity to reflect and question and collaborate with others - this is the type of environment that facilitates learning. Science becomes less of an abstract concept when students are meaningfully engaged in activities rather than just being "walked through the process," and thereby becomes a dynamic, exciting and appropriately challenging subject. A classroom environment should encourage this kind of learning and thinking in order to effectively facilitate students' learning of science.


What should teachers know and be able to do to design and foster effective elementary science learning environments?
Teachers should know that effective learning does not come from a lecture or a slideshow, and that giving up some of the "control" is a simple part of teaching science to elementary school students. Teachers should be able to design a curriculum or environment (as aforementioned) that provides plenty of opportunities for exploration of ideas, an environment in which knowledge is shared between students as they learn and discover. These environments should be void of busywork or arbitrary worksheets that bear no conceptual significance.
Instead, they should open up spaces for children to truly gain an understanding of science. Yes, we know x+y=z, but do we know why that is true? And do we know how to prove it? These are the questions that need to be asked by both student and teacher in an elementary science classroom. And the teacher should understand that one wrong answer may not mean a student "doesn't get it" - they, too, should be asking why this may have happened. They facilitate an environment in which scientific thinking and the scientific process is natural and an integral part of the way the classroom operates, not just parts of a lab report waiting to be filled out at the last minute.
Essentially, a teacher should know how to foster effective elementary science learning environments by creating one that promotes thinking in the truest sense: learning, understanding, questioning, synthesizing, and reflecting. They should be able to create environments in which all students (eventually) feel comfortable going through that process on their own, not needing hand-holding or static lecturing along the way.

Diffendoofer Day

1. What does it mean when someone knows how to think?
I believe that knowing how to think is a deceptively simple concept - that knowing how to think includes so much more than understanding information and utilizing it. "Synthesis" is a buzz word that gets thrown around a lot, and of course, there is nothing wrong with it. It is a great measure of how well a student understands an idea, but in my opinion, knowing how to think is much deeper than that. It is taking a piece of information and picking it apart, examining it, and yes, questioning it. Knowing how to think is not blindly accepting any idea that is learned but doubting it; it is looking for more possibilities. Essentially, knowing how to think is knowing how to doubt, and how to take that doubt and turn it into something meaningful.

2. How does a teacher teach a student how to think?
A teacher implements the seed for learning how to think.
I stray away from the word "teach" in this situation because it implies that more direct instruction is involved, when in this case that direct instruction could cause more harm than benefit. How can one learn "how to think" if they are simply following the direct guidance of someone else? A teacher hands the tools to the students. A teacher allows students to explore, to challenge old perspectives, to question and to doubt. This teacher needs to relinquish some of that old-fashioned control and behaviorist thinking if he or she really wants to produce a class of thinkers - of students who understand, synthesize, question, and explore problems and ideas.

 3. Have you ever been in a class where you really had to think?
I am fortunate enough to say that a few classes in my education growing up allowed me to truly and honestly think. The first instance I can remember was in fourth grade history class, when all four classes joined together and acted out a day in the life of Civil War-era Americans. Some of us were assigned the role of soldiers; others were traders; others occupied the lower class. We all had to work closely with other classmates and utilize information we had learned about how settlements operated in order to "survive" the day.
There was very little instruction, but a great deal of strategizing and recalling information that was pertinent to our individual situations. I also really started to empathize with the people we had been learning about in history class for so long. I wondered what their lives must have been like, how they must have felt. At the same time, I worked as hard as I could to successfully complete the day. And when I left school that day, I felt like I had really accomplished something - like I had really thought.

Five Good Reasons to Use Science Notebooks

I will preface this reflection by admitting that I have never been much of a "science person." Of course, this is not exactly shocking when my areas of specialization are questioned - reading and language arts. I spent this past semester in Block A and Children's Literature writing and writing and writing about how important childhood literacy is, and how important it is to live a language-rich life throughout elementary school. What could be more important than teaching reading? was a question often on my mind.

This article brought to my attention - or perhaps reminded me of - the amazing cross-curricular possibilities of science in an elementary school classroom. Sure, reading ties to other subject areas; I knew this. But using science as a tool to enhance literacy skills was something of a foreign concept to me. This article's support of the science notebook's ability to assist reading skills allowed for a shift in thinking about teaching for me. Reading is not the road that leads to other subjects. Rather, subjects can be connected freely and harmoniously like they are using the science notebook. "...A major benefit of using science notebooks is writing practice for students...Writing frequently in science notebooks helped students feel more comfortable with the writing process--and this practice and the skills developed during it transferred to more formal writing assignments, such as book reports or creative writing exercises" (Gilbert & Kotelma, 31).

That particular passage stood out to me because it highlighted the many things science notebooks can do within just one of those five reasons, and because it forced me to take a step back and look at my own beliefs about what science was. I don't recall ever having a true science notebook like the one described - not in elementary school, or junior high school, or even high school. Perhaps that view of science as strictly numbers and figures that you can either get write or wrong, a subject without room for questions and opinion, was what pushed me away from pursuing it further.

Reading about the benefits science notebooks was a pedagogical shift for me. Not only do they aid in the teaching of reading, but they support individual learning that can be constantly tweaked and fine-tuned by the teacher; they support differentiation in the classroom. Basically, they support positive learning environments and the teaching of science as what it truly is: a discipline of freethinking, exploration, and problem-solving.

Rising to Greatness

Coming from one of the most affluent and highest-scoring school districts in Illinois and growing up assuming that was the norm, I never thought of test scores as a real problem until fairly recently when I entered the College of Education. Admittedly, I did not know much about the state of Iowa's education - or the steps that should be taken to right the wrongs - until after reading this article.

"The world has moved beyond the industrial age and information age and is now in the innovation age. Students must be armed not only with knowledge, but also with skills and insights needed to critically analyze and innovate. The pressing problems and grand opportunities the world faces require that many more people contribute as innovators and problem solvers, not order takers and implementers. Innovators will prosper. Order takers will stagnate. The days of an abundance of low-skill jobs have come to an end."

This passage was striking to me, and I felt it very closely resembled my philosophy about teaching students how to think (as I mentioned in the blog post "Diffendoofer Day"). The article, while it goes on to list a number of problems in the Iowa education system (the achievement gap between majority and minority students, the flat-lining of math scores, the stress on college preparedness), summed up what I feel is the most important problem in that paragraph. Yes, I understood that low test scores are indicative of a state whose educational focus needs to shift or whose system for assessment preparation must change.

But the world at large, with its constant and sometimes unpredictable growth and change, was by and large off my radar. I am aware that the low-skill jobs that were so common a few decades ago are slowly shifting to jobs that require specialized skills or certain degrees of education - but the way it was phrased ("innovators will prosper") really caught my attention. And, of course, it ties in with that educational philosophy of constructivism that gives knowledge to students through innovation itself.

As a pre-service teacher, this information and this way of looking at education is extremely useful to me. Understanding state goals is important - but understanding the driving forces and reasoning behind those goals is even more so. My classroom will not be a self-contained environment and the students I teach will not be confined to just school forever; I need to prepare them for the real world, a world that is experiencing a huge focal shift in this time of constant change.