Learning Power

Debate around events in Ferguson and the slogan "I Can't Breathe" plus the funeral for slain NYC police officer Ramos have brought the issue of power to the forefront of our country. I'd like to bring it to the forefront of our discussion on education. The power paradigm is complex in our everyday lives and that includes the classroom. The classroom I knew in my youth revolved around a teacher with absolute power over students. She directed their thoughts and actions. These days there are teachers who still cling to this model, but most of us realize that just because our students are quiet and looking at us, they are not actually listening or learning.

For me the fun part of teaching is learning from my students. By giving them the power to make meaning out of a lesson, it opens up many more possibilities than I could have considered on my own. They can use their smart phones to zone out and text friends or I can give them the power to use that technology to find what speaks to them about genetics or DNA or whatever it is we are studying. It is not always real comfortable to teach this way, but it is more likely to engage the students. The biggest issue is where to cut off the exploration so that we can move on to the next topic and "cover" the curriculum.

Teachers are at the bottom of the power structure if you zoom out a bit and look at education from a state or national level. Take a look at what the Teacher of the Year had to say about how decisions are made in education......that was 2009. Not much has changed. I usually show the movie GATTACA this time of year. I'd love show it the first week of school and make the point that "....there is no gene for fate". What determines their success as a student is their desire & hard work. However, I'd then want the power to help them reach their dreams, not just pass a test. Not sure when education will make that transition.

Time to Inquire

We're almost through the first grading period at my school. This is our last year on the traditional 7 class period day - August to June cycle. Next year we will be offering classes on a block (a two semester) schedule. There are advantages & disadvantages according to a NC public schools publication. The most troubling is "less total class time (30 hrs. less)".

Time is on my mind at the moment. We are discussing diffusion & osmosis in my biology class right now. So in an "ideal" teaching environment we could explore this topic for at least a month - do some experiments, discuss some applications to the "real" world such as desalinization plants and nicotine patches, and come away with solid scientific knowledge in physics, chemistry and biology. We could explore what makes a good experiment and work towards something better than the demonstrations easily accessible by google. However, we don't have that kind of time with the NC State Curriculum, even on a traditional schedule.

What we do have is two weeks (and that is generous). During our time on this topic, we have the PLAN test (a precursor to the ACT) and spirit week (similar to homecoming at the college level) which focuses on celebrating school pride. Both of these are VERY worthy distractions, but they wreak havoc on student attention spans which are notoriously short anyway. So between days of test anxiety and excitement over who has the best spirit day costume, I'm using the old egg trick to get their attention and then inspire them to design an experiment of their own. The problem is they have no real experience with inquiry science. So I give them a day in the computer lab to do some research on factors that affect diffusion. Many of them come up with the factors, but fail to explain HOW they affect diffusion. After a bit more guidance, they get another day in the computer lab to come up with an experiment. Soon I'm looking at day five and the experiments they have proposed are cookie cutter copies of stuff they have found online and they can't even tell me what variable is being tested. I don't mean this to sound so grumpy because I'd love to work through this with them, except I'm out of time. We need to move on to cell structure and so many other topics. It kills me that as soon as I have them really engaged, I'm out of time.

The kicker is that I am encouraged to teach this way, BUT I am not given the time to allow my students to make it meaningful for themselves. We are continually preached to about student engagement and what brain research says works in terms of ideas sinking in deep, and then the time to do this is taken away. Regardless, I will put in the time to make sure that every single student gets feedback on their ideas; that every single group has the materials needed to do their experiment (although I have to buy it out of my own pocket) and that everyone comes away with SOME understanding of what terms like concentration gradient mean. So when my test scores come back and my students have not met expected growth, at least I know they have experienced something related to how science works. The really funny thing is that they will remember the egg experiment, but still bomb the questions on the test because they don't remember WHY it shriveled up in the syrup OR they won't care enough to take the time to seriously consider the question.

Learning Styles

How do people learn? That is the fascinating question that got me into education in the first place. For myself, my process to learn something feels a bit chaotic. Typically I go into "gatherer" mode first. I collect as much related information as I can find on a topic. When I say "related" I mean centrally, peripherally, tangentially, and any other way a topic can be connected. I need to "see" all the ways I could go before I can find a focus. I'm one of those that must get the whole before I look at the parts. So I'm in gatherer mode right now and here are a few tidbits I am trying to weave together to answer the question.

It is the forever question, how we learn. Doesn't matter how many years I've been at it, the answer is always the same: make it personal. But how does a high school student relate to cells? What personal connection can I help them make to cellular respiration? Why do they need to know how DNA and RNA work together to make proteins? As a biologist, my first instinct is to look to neuroscience to help understand how learning works in the brain. According to Dr. Caine: "Gestalt psychology suggests that everything comes together in the moment of action, and if we want to know why and how students are learning then we have to know how they are making sense of a situation – how they are relating to what is being learned."

This past year I started out by talking about diversity and I asked my students to share with me their thoughts about how they learn and what I should know about them. Of course, they are teenagers and so the responses I got varied from insightful to "I don't like school". In an article by Jay N. Giedd, what happens at this stage of life is described as "....... a changing balance between brain systems involved in emotion and regulating emotion spawns increased novelty seeking, risk taking and a shift toward peer-based interactions." So each year, in addition to finding out what makes each student tick there is the added factor of who is in the class with them and how they interact. Many of my students have known each other since grade school, but I'm new to them so I have a chance to create a bit of novelty. From the NPR series on stress:
"hormones spur action and increase fuel to the brain, helping the animal react to danger appropriately. Those hormones also flow to memory centers in the brain, to help the critter remember those notable moments and places."  The trick is to add enough newness to get them out of their comfort zone, but not so much that they shut down on me.  Humor is a great strategy to help make stress less threatening, for example this podcast is quite silly and I use it when talking about cell growth. 

To make it personal this year these tidbits begin to suggest a plan. Instead of asking them to share with me their thoughts about how they learn and what I should know about them, I'll give them the opportunity to make a profile like you do when joining an online community. It needs to be open ended, but also have categories that will provide insight like the priority list mentioned in my previous post. 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

School starts "officially" for me on Monday and YES it is the most wonderful time of the year because all kinds of things are possible. Last year I missed the first three days of school and I paid for it all year long. Sure I had a student teacher and I video-taped an introduction, but things just never felt right. One of my colleagues said the first three days are the best time to miss because "nothing happens". I could not disagree more!

So much for starting my blog off right this year........ I wrote the above paragraph back in August 2013 and it has been neglected ever since until this publication in July of 2014! It's been that kind of year. New computer system, more students, fewer resources - a hard year to be optimistic as a teacher here in North Carolina, but you have to be optimistic to continue to teach especially now.

Nevertheless, a small miracle occurs every summer.

I read, I daydream, I reflect on all of the things I love about science. It's not about daily lesson plans, managing student attitudes, dealing with administrative issues.... It becomes about why I want to teach..... why I want kids to learn to love the world around them the way I do..... how the quest for knowledge and understanding can be a beautiful part of life..... The Joy of Learning! That's what I want to communicate all year long, but it is mostly present those first few days of school when I am trying to convince students to trust me and follow me on a journey. The most wonderful time of year is when I can see these possibilities.

So, I think I am going to change the focus of this blog a bit. I am going to use this space to remind myself of the bigger picture as I read and reflect. I hope it will be more than a catalog of resources, but if that is all it becomes so be it. You who are reading this may find something useful (I hope so), but this is just my journey to become a better teacher.

There are two things I am currently struggling to put into my teaching practice. Emotion & Neuroscience. Connected, yes, but quite different. I think the neuroscience will be the easiest and I already do a bit with that. The emotion part stems from my long standing envy of language teachers. They get to read and discuss people's emotions, life purpose, personality traits..... all those things that are most important to teenagers. How do you do that in a biology classroom? I am currently reading The Priority List by David Menasche. This just reinforces my envy. The stories he tells about how he made an impact on student lives just puts me in AWE. I know the power & responsibility of my role as a teacher, but how do I leverage that into the positive outcome of empowering students to take charge of their lives and their learning? That is now my own focus for learning and hopefully this blog will help document my growth.