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The trouble with notebooks (and some solutions)

12/29/2020

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I have tried science notebooks before, always with good intentions, but I never achieved all of those good intentions. One of my big issues was control. (All teachers have some control issues, right?) When I’ve used science notebooks in the past, I struggled with kids who “weren’t doing it right.” Students who would write on random pages seeming to lack the understanding that books are read (and created) from front to back, one page at a time. I also struggled with helping students record science knowledge in a meaningful way in the notebook. I think that Mary has answered both of these issues for me in Write, Think, Learn. 

On page 22, Mary introduces an idea that I used to view as somewhat of a waste of time, but now I see that it’s the key to avoiding some of the madness mentioned above. Mary has each student number every page in the notebook before ever using it.  Some of you may be thinking, “but I’ll still have students who don’t put the correct stuff on page 8 with the rest of us.” That’s the beauty of Mary’s index system. Throughout the year, maybe near the end of units, Mary has students index their notebooks, recording all of the page numbers that belong to a specific topic. I can imagine myself saying, “Okay, now I need to you find every page that relates to our Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy storyline. Write DMD in your index and list all of those page numbers there.” While it’s more inconvenient if the student has entries scattered throughout the notebook, he/she can still index all of those entries. I can also imagine adding lines in the index for specific scientific practices or even crosscutting concepts. The easiest of these would be models. You could have students index every page on which they have created a model and periodically add to this line in the index. 

On page 91, Mary makes a key distinction between note taking and note making. She asserts that note taking is a record of the teacher’s thinking while note making is a record of the student’s thinking. There are several natural places where this idea fits into the storyline approach. The most obvious is in the Incremental Modeling Tracker (IMT) which contains a summary of what is learned in each lesson. In a recent blog post, I discuss using Mary’s What? So What? Now What? format to reflect on each lesson/activity. By having students record their thoughts before discussing them with the group, each student gets a chance to note make before the group offers additional ideas that can be added as note taking (since not everyone will have reached the same conclusions from any given activity or lesson). 

Even in cases where some Disciplinary Core Idea elements need to be presented via direct instruction, students can use the What? So What? Now What? format to note take in the What? section and note make in the other two sections. We can explain to students that “Systems of specialized cells within organisms help them perform the essential functions of life.” (from LS1.A for high school) and then have students consider “So what does this mean for the phenomenon we are figuring out?” It seems that note taking leads to memorization while note making leads to sense making (the goal of the storyline approach and the vision of the Framework).

Mary expands on the theory behind the practice. . .

Indexing is a method students can use to take charge of ordering and classifying learning.  It should be useful to the student for locating all the ideas around one concept, perhaps for writing a paper or drawing conclusions in the future.  I generally reserve several pages at the back of my notebooks for list making of all sorts, generally a recording of ideas which serve my curiosity.  This includes listings of books and movies I hear about and want to remember later, or ideas I want to follow up on when I have the time. Encouraging students to do the same honors their individual curiosity, so important in the science classroom.  These lists could be used for independent projects initiated by students on a classroom “something cool I learned” sharing day, or to review and explain in a reflection to the teacher about what kind of thinker/scientist they are.

About Mary. . . 

Mary K. Tedrow, NBCT, taught in the high school English classroom beginning in 1978, ending her career as the Porterfield Endowed English Chair at John Handley High School in 2016. She was named the 2000 Frederick County Teacher of the Year and served as a commissioner on the 2010 Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching for the NEA. She is currently the Director of the Shenandoah Valley Writing Project at Shenandoah University in Winchester VA and a DA candidate in English Pedagogy with Murray State University, KY
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Writing initial ideas in the classroom

12/29/2020

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In my last post, I began addressing the connections that can be made between Mary Tedrow’s book, Write, Think, Learn: Tapping the Power of Daily Student Writing Across the Content Areas with the storyline approach to science instruction that many of us are using. This post continues that line of thinking. 

Classroom discourse plays a huge role in the storyline classroom (and in many other classrooms not using this approach). For years, I have been using TERC’s Talk Moves to help guide classroom discourse, but I haven’t used writing as an intentional and ongoing scaffold for these discussions. Mary addresses this idea starting on page 49 of her book where she suggests we move from turn and talk (think, pair, share) to write, turn, and talk. In doing so, we allow (force) all students to wrestle with the topic and commit some thinking to paper. We also give them time to write to figure out what they think. 

I’ve often done things in the classroom to get students to commit to a way of thinking. Sometimes I use 4 corners or an activity like commit and toss, but rarely have I had students do their initial writing in a notebook that they write in daily. This type of writing builds a pattern of thinking and can show students how their thinking develops over time. It can also help them build more solid arguments, as they will be called on to defend their ideas in class.  Those whose initial ideas already included evidence and reasoning will be at an advantage and will serve as examples to those who didn’t include evidence. As the year advances and these kinds of discussions occur regularly, more and more students will start including evidence in their initial writing. 

Another benefit of having students record their initial thoughts in a notebook is that it can help normalize the notion of changing one’s thinking when presented with convincing evidence. This can be achieved by having students return to their before discussion writing and adding a follow-up statement that explains how their thinking changed through the classroom discussion.  They may be more convinced of their initial idea through the addition of evidence or they may no longer support their initial idea, having been dismayed by ample evidence. 

This writing doesn’t have to be graded.  It serves to advance the understanding of science content and science as a self-correcting enterprise. A teacher could ask students to lift evidence from the daily notebook to show how their thinking has deepened through the year, if assessment is desired. Otherwise, the evidence of this practice will show up on classroom assessments of the content and in places where students are asked to think like a scientist. 

Is there a place in your plan for the week that would allow for a little more initial writing before a class discussion?

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Mary expands on the theory behind the practice. . . 

Writing before talking honors the introverts in the room.  Some process in their heads (introverts). Some process out loud (extroverts).  Most classrooms privilege the extroverts and our introverts get lost when they are run over by the extroverts. By writing first, everyone gets time to generate ideas.  Even if an extremely shy student chooses not to share, he can still compare and adjust his ideas against others as they talk.

If you think you don’t have enough time in the classroom for writing, see how this middle school teacher uses writing in science to get her students engaged in an earth science unit. (There are other great literacy sources at this Annenberg Learner website for reading and writing in the disciplines.)

Writing after a discussion is equally important since committing words to paper supports memory.  You can prompt this with a simple question: “How has our talking affected you today? Summarize your thinking here.”  Collecting this writing for a quick read through will provide you with lots of instructional information but, as David says, it can go ungraded.  When students see how writing is used immediately in the classroom, they stop asking about grades.  (If you don’t believe me, try it.)

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About Mary

Mary K. Tedrow, NBCT, taught in the high school English classroom beginning in 1978, ending her career as the Porterfield Endowed English Chair at John Handley High School in 2016. She was named the 2000 Frederick County Teacher of the Year and served as a commissioner on the 2010 Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching for the NEA. She is currently the Director of the Shenandoah Valley Writing Project at Shenandoah University in Winchester VA and a DA candidate in English Pedagogy with Murray State University, KY.
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Writing in the science classroom

12/29/2020

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2020 is ending on a high note for me (not just because it’s ending) because I’m participating in the Morehead Writing Project’s Winter Online Institute in an effort to improve as a writer and to improve my pedagogy by sprinkling in more deliberate writing. As part of my research during the Institute, I discovered Mary Tedrow’s book, Write, Think, Learn: Tapping the Power of Daily Student Writing Across the Content Areas. The more I read, the more excited I became. In collaboration with Mary, I decided to take some of the ideas from the book and apply them to the “storyline” approach to teaching science that I am currently using in my classroom. You can read more about this approach in this Teacher’s Manual and can find examples of it on this website. While this type of instruction is a paradigm shift for science educators as we switch from “teaching about” to having students “figure out,” the results are worth it. It’s also based on years of research into how students best learn science. (Check out A Framework for K12 Science Education, Taking Science to School, or Ready, Set, Science for more on the research.)  What follows (in this blog and more to come) are specific suggestions I have for combining storylines and Mary's text into a unified pedagogy in my science classroom.

One major component of storylines in my classroom is an initial model. Once students are introduced to the unit phenomenon (the thing we’re going to spend the unit trying to figure out), they are asked to create a model that shows their initial thinking. Typically, I have had students do this in groups, creating large models to share with the class in a gallery walk. What I realized as I read Mary’s book is that there is a benefit in having students create this model in a notebook that they will use daily to capture their thinking. This will allow them later to reflect on their initial ideas and see how their thinking has developed. Their individual models can be shared in small groups, and the groups can develop ideas together that all may choose to add to their own initial models. 

I have typically asked students to create their model using images and arrows, adding text to clarify things that are not easily apparent in the visuals. What I’ve now realized is that there’s power in having students do some expressive writing (see this blog post for reference of expressive writing) to discover what they think either before or during the model creation. Going forward, I plan to encourage students to use both text and images to create their initial models. 

Another feature of the storyline approach is the Incremental Modeling Tracker (IMT). This is a tool that helps students track their learning across the unit and apply that learning by modifying their models.  I have not yet been successful in implementing this. At the end of a lesson, I’m usually rushing to wrap things up before class ends. I’ve also been using the IMT as a digital document which makes it hard for students to add sketches of the additions they want to make to their model. After reading Mary’s Reflective Question Framework for Adaptation (starts on page 70 if you’re following along at home), I’m convinced I can make the IMT work by making it a ​What? So What? Now What? writing assignment in the notebook that students will use daily. Taking it from the digital world into the students’ notebooks is key, I think. Students can reflect on what they learned, what implications it has on their model (so what), and then, in true storyline fashion, answer "Now what?" to help decide where the investigation goes next. They also have their modified IMT in the same notebook as their initial model. They can use the IMT to make incremental improvements to their actual initial model, or just keep a record of the changes they need to make when they create their final model.

Mary expands on the theory behind the practice. . . 

Writing is a great way to record one’s thoughts and initial ideas (or hypotheses, as the scientists would say).  There are many ways to accommodate this into classroom work.  In any course, one can write a Position Paper at the beginning of a unit or course of study.  The paper, or entry into the notebook, should be the student’s initial thoughts around the topic, what they think they know, what they think they might learn, and even how they have felt in the past.  This acts as a benchmark to weigh further learning against.  Students should write it in their own voice and teachers should make it low risk. I explained this writing as “you are talking to your future self since you are the one who will be learning.” This entry can be revisited later to write a Final Position. In some classes I called this a Change paper.  Here the student is able to express what has changed in their thinking.  The language used in these writings would sound something like this:  “At the beginning of this experiment/unit/class I thought….. But when we…..I changed my view.  I thought…. Later, I decided that…..Now I think…..”  Of course, some of our students may already know a great deal about a topic and they should explain where their thoughts and ideas were confirmed throughout the lessons if little knowledge was advanced.

About Mary. . . 

Mary K. Tedrow, NBCT, taught in the high school English classroom beginning in 1978, ending her career as the Porterfield Endowed English Chair at John Handley High School in 2016. She was named the 2000 Frederick County Teacher of the Year and served as a commissioner on the 2010 Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching for the NEA. She is currently the Director of the Shenandoah Valley Writing Project at Shenandoah University in Winchester, VA and a DA candidate in English Pedagogy with Murray State University, KY.
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Just Write

12/21/2020

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​2020 has been a crazy year for everyone. Almost daily, I find myself thinking, “This isn’t what I signed up for.” Then I remind myself that this isn't what any of us signed up for. The rounds of virtual and hybrid instruction make it hard for us to connect with our students. Staring into a computer monitor filled with blank boxes because no one wants to turn on the camera in the norm for many high school settings across the country. At the beginning of the year, I found myself taking notes about what students said during virtual class sessions so that I could remember details about students I hadn’t yet met. I printed out their pictures from our student information system to have a face with which to associate their comments. It was hard, and it was not fun.

When we finally began in person hybrid instruction, the tension eased a bit. This is “what I signed up for,” students in the classroom working together to create meaning. It was somewhat successful, but it was also draining. At the end of every day, we went home exhausted. We were still chasing assignments from the at-home learning that students were assigned when they were not in school. This time was short-lived as we returned to virtual learning on Friday, November 13, 2020. Ironic because Friday, March 13, 2020 was when K12 education in Kentucky first shifted to virtual instruction.
With the return to virtual learning came the distance between us again. Although I had met all of my students, the longer virtual schooling continued, the more my focus drifted to trying to get work turned in from students, which left me less time to focus on the actual students. . . until the Morehead Writing Project’s Winter Institute.
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Just as we were winding down for the semester, I started the four-week Winter Institute, and it inspired me to try something. I posted this writing prompt for my students during one of their at-home learning days. 

​"Take 10-15 minutes to write about anything you choose.  It can be about school or not. If you need something to write about, you could choose to write about this question: “What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned from COVID so far?”  You could also choose to write about a Christmas memory.  There are no wrong answers, and I won’t share your words with anyone else. "


​The responses I received amazed me. One student who rarely turned in work wrote half a page about his favorite pastime. Other students wrote about the anxiety that they live with regarding COVID-19. Still other students wrote about loved ones who have passed and how Christmas is not the same without them.

While this didn’t solve all of my problems, it did help me see my students as human again. There was little “academic” merit to the writing that the students did. It lacked proper punctuation and capitalization. There were no neat paragraphs, and no tidy dialogue with punctuation. However, that was never the goal. The goal was for my students to express themselves freely and for me to get a glimpse into their lives again. And this goal was achieved (at least for those who did the assignment). This kind of writing is what James Britton calls expressive writing in his book, The Development of Writing Abilities. I came across this in the text Write, Think, Learn by Mary Tedrow. Expressive writing is unpolished writing that results from thinking and results in thinking. It’s getting what’s in our heads onto paper. This is the kind of writing that I’m planning to do more of in the future (both during and after the pandemic). And I plan to use it not only to connect with students but also to develop content knowledge.
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More ideas for linking expressive writing and the NGSS are coming soon. In the meantime, how are you using writing in your classroom? How might you expand that as we move into 2021? 
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The end of 2020: What remains and what's changed

12/20/2020

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As 2020 draws to a close, I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on my journey with the NGSS and as a science teacher. A lot has changed since 2013 when Kentucky adopted the NGSS and I began this journey. Let's begin by looking at what remains.

When I entered the science classroom again in 2013 after a few years hiatus as a middle school librarian, I was passionate about being in the classroom with students, doing stuff every day.  Science happened to be my area of certification (and an available opening at my school), but it wasn't quite the passion then that it is today. Along with the teaching position came the opportunity to be PLC lead and to work to bring NGSS to our school and our district as part of a regional and state level rollout.  This is where my passion for high-quality science education was ignited. I saw glimpses of the vision of the Framework and the NGSS. To me, they looked difficult to reach, but we owed it to our kids to strive to reach that vision. 

That passion both for high-quality science instruction for all students, and the passion for being in the classroom teaching students every day remain with me even at the end of a very trying calendar year.  

Now let's talk about what's changed.  In 2013, I was teaching at a small middle-school in a small suburban district in Kentucky. Although I wasn't the longest-tenured teacher in the science department, I was leading the department.  After about 6 years in that role, I moved up to the high school to teach biology and freshman science (an introductory course in chemistry and physics). I was no longer leading the department, but I was trying to influence colleagues to dive deeper into the vision of the NGSS.  (See my Small Steps project for more info on this.) At the same time, I was learning and developing new curricula while teaching former students again. 

At the end of last year, I made the decision to leave the district that had nurtured my teaching career for 20 years to try something new.  I moved to a new, much larger district, to teach science at an alternative high school (during a pandemic).  You'll notice that there haven't been any posts on teaching during a pandemic because I, like most of us, have struggled with teaching students in a virtual or hybrid environment. 

So, as 2020 draws to a close, even though I'm in a still-new position in a still-new district, I'm as committed as ever to high-quality science instruction for all students. I believe that the vision of the NGSS still leads us on this path. 

What has changed for you? What are you still committed to? How will that influence your 2021? 
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Setting up a classroom (NGSS or otherwise)

8/9/2019

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Note: This blog has been focused solely on NGSS since its inception, but we know that standards are not the only important thing in the classroom. So, I'm going to take one post to talk about starting off the year building the classroom culture.

At the beginning of each of the past several school years, I have spent one class period having students define expectations, developing a vision for the classroom. As I told my students this year, this day is the most important  of the year.  

Last year I decided to organize my classroom around two precepts: 1) respect everyone and 2) focus on the learning.  This week, we spent time diving deep into these ideas to determine what they are going to look like in our classroom.  When I asked my students to help me define what it looks like when a teacher respects students, some were very quiet. Perhaps it was the first time they had been asked this question. Perhaps they weren't sure I was serious. Perhaps they thought it was some sort of trick. However, after a few minutes of wait time, students begin to seriously consider the question. One student said, "You need to listen to me when I'm talking to you." Diving deeper into this, students said they wanted eye contact. One student even suggested a "verbal and visual response" when she was talking to me. I hear variations of this every year. It's simple really;  students want to be heard--they want to know that we are listening. 

The idea of being heard and seen came up in another, more tentative, comment from a student: "Maybe you could ask us how we're doing?" This was confirmation of what we've heard about how much relationships matter.  This was a student, speaking for his peers, asking for that relationship.

We continued the day by defining what it looks like when students respect others, when teachers focus on learning, and when students focus on learning. Through it all, I added very little to the list because it is my goal to ensure that my students realize that we're building the classroom culture together. They were the ones defining the expectations for the class--our class.  

If you're not already having your students contribute to building the classroom culture from the beginning, you might consider starting with an activity like this.  This culture building sets the stage for the cooperative knowledge building and problem solving that the NGSS requires throughout the rest of the year.  
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Small Steps

6/27/2019

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This past school year was a long one, but it was a productive one. In addition to my moving to the high school and teaching biology storylines for the first time, I worked diligently on a project to support teachers who want easy(ish) steps to help them move a little closer to the vision of the NGSS. (See previous post.) 

The project has finally reached the publishing stage. I've compiled these "small steps," with resources to support their implementation, at a new website.  

https://smallstepsngss.weebly.com/smallstepsngss.weebly.com/

When you visit the site, choose one of the small steps that you feel comfortable trying in your classroom.  Try it this upcoming school year.  See if it doesn't increase the engagement of your students. See if it doesn't increase the mental work that your students are doing. 

Many of my readers have been with me for a while and are pretty far along on the NGSS journey.  I designed the small steps website for teachers who may not be as far along.  If it's not a good fit for you, please share it with colleagues who may find it useful.  

It is not in its completed form yet.  There are more small steps coming soon.  Keep checking back for more.  Enjoy your summer and don't forget about these small steps when you start planning for 2019-2020.  
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Paralyzing Fears

5/25/2019

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I've been thinking recently about why people don't start important projects, why they don't jump on the bandwagon, or why they flame out before they finish the project. 

One reason could be a lack of vision--they can't see the glory of the final product. At the beginning of this school year, I assumed most people who were not implementing the NGSS in their classrooms fell into this category.  I thought that if I could just help them see the vision, they'd jump on board and become amazing NGSS educators.  My goal, then, was to help people see the value of the NGSS and  understand the shifts in content and pedagogy it required.

But what if that wasn't the case?  What if others, like me, avoid projects that seem insurmountable? What if the real reason  some teachers haven't embraced the NGSS is not the lack of vision, but the enormity of what the vision requires--a paralyzing fear? I didn't come to this question on my own; I was helped along the way by conversations with university professors. When Achieve, Inc., the national non-profit that led the writing of the NGSS, recently held a two-day workshop on NGSS implementation, the term "re-novicing" was introduced. The term captures the idea that shifting from traditional science instruction to the NGSS may take experienced teachers and put them back in the role of the novice teacher in some areas.  This can be an uncomfortable place for experienced teachers to be. 

This whole idea hit home with me in February as I realized the enormity of the task to which I had committed myself.  I wanted to provide a resource to teachers to help them implement the NGSS; I wanted to help my district develop a better NGSS implementation plan; and I wanted to do all of this with no budget and no additional time for staff PD. "I'm not equipped to handle this," I thought. "I can't do all that and teach well at the same time." 

The enormity of this task paralyzed me.  It wasn't that I didn't see the vision or the need for the project; I was overwhelmed by what I was trying to accomplish. I threw up my hands in desperation (figuratively) and tried to ignore the feelings of inadequacy that washed over me. Time passed, and I put some distance between the project and me. I realized that this was the feelings that some teachers might have as they looked toward the NGSS.  

Still feeling overwhelmed, I broke the task down into meaningful chunks, just as I plan to do with NGSS implementation for teachers who need it.  

If you're a little intimidated by the vision of the NGSS, where can you start?  You can start by checking out this presentation that a colleague and I made to a group of science teachers and administrators to offer them "small steps" toward NGSS implementation. 

If you're in Kentucky, you can join the same colleague and me at the Let's TALK conference in June where we will present an extended version of that presentation.  

You can also keep watching this space because I'm going to launch a new website to gather these high impact small steps into one location so you can move confidently in the direction of the vision of the NGSS. The launch of the new website should happen sometime this summer, and it will be announced here when it goes live. 
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Lab Fears and the NGSS

11/18/2018

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For many teachers, the NGSS brings fears of lab investigations that are chaotic because they are planned and carried out solely by students.  After all, the NGSS says that students need to "plan and carry out investigations." When I taught middle school, I was quick to jump into this practice and have students developing procedures to test hypotheses while also trying to help them understand how to control variables. That's not super difficult at the middle school when we're still working with very concrete phenomena. However, high school teachers work with phenomena that have causes that are often invisible to the naked eye (e.g. electron configuration).  They may also work with specialized equipment that required specific operating procedures. Teachers, including this one, may balk at the idea of having students plan and carry out investigations using this specialized equipment.  

I completely understand this feeling. Even in middle school, we performed investigations that had to be carried out in a specific way--students had to follow given directions. In these kinds of labs, I worked hard to make some part of the lab open for student planning, but I was not always successful.  

This weekend, though, I had an epiphany.  What if the investigation went something like this. . . 

In the course of a phenomena-based unit, as students are working to gather information to figure out a phenomenon, there arises a need for a specific kind of data.  For example, in the Next Generation Storyline unit I'm using, students are currently trying to figure out what happens to glucose when it leaves the chloroplast. The next investigation has students analyze various parts of the plant/tree for sugar, starch, and cellulose. These tests use specific reagents and have specific procedures. Students cannot be expected to design the procedures for these tests. However, when students realize that they need this data, the teacher can provide a procedure that will give the students the data that they have requested.  It's a very simple switch. Instead of saying, "Here's the next activity we're going to do." Students drive the learning and make suggestions about what to do next or what they want to learn next. These suggestions should eventually circle around to something like, "I wonder if we would find glucose in certain parts of plants/trees?" I can then follow up with, "Well, I have some specific tests that show the presence of simple sugars, starch, and cellulose. Would those help you in trying to figure this out?"  

In this method, students aren't designing a classic science fair investigation from start to finish, but they are providing the need for data, deciding how to use the specific procedure to acquire that data, and deciding what to do with the data that they gather.  In doing this, they are "doing what scientists do" and "thinking like scientists." 

This can't be the only kind of planning and carrying out investigations that students do. The details of the practice (found in Appendix F) provide more information on everything students are expected to do with regards to planning and carrying out investigations in each grade band. However, this is one more way that we can move a little closer towards the vision of the NGSS in our classrooms.  Is there a lab in your future that you could try this approach with? 
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Another week in high school NGSS

11/16/2018

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The past couple of weeks have been difficult for building momentum due to school breaks due to weather and election day; however, I've seen some progress with my students as we move towards a NGSS-designed curriculum.  I've also seen some struggles. 

First the struggles.  I've seen students seeking "right" answers. Students grow accustomed to a model where the teacher provides knowledge and students memorize it.  Then they follow that up with a regurgitation of the knowledge, providing correct answers.  This process doesn't work with the NGSS, as students are expected to reason and create their own understanding.  This difference was highlighted before our most recent assessment.  Students knew that they were going to have to create a model showing everything we'd learned about photosynthesis.  We had brainstormed the criteria for a complete model (based on our understanding). Students trained on the knowledge regurgitation model asked, "Can you just give us a model to study from?"  While this would have ensured that students' models contained all of the necessary information, it would have reduced the cognitive load for them. Instead of having to assemble the pieces into a coherent model, all they would have to do was memorize and replicate my model.  Needless to say, I did not provide them with a sample model to study. 

Now for some success. The results of this particular assessment helped me to see that students were in different stages of concept attainment. Some students had a thorough understanding of what happened in the chloroplasts (minus the biochemistry, per the standards) and knew how each piece of the equation entered or left the chloroplast, leaf, and the tree.  Other students had an understanding of the process, but they had not yet made the connection between the subsystems that make photosynthesis possible (e.g. xylem/phloem, leaves, and roots) and the chloroplast. Still other students had somehow evaded their responsibility for building their own understanding, providing me with a "model" showing a tree releasing oxygen while taking in carbon dioxide.  

So, now it's time to regroup and figure out how to help the students who didn't get it, move from that to "got it." I'm not sure how exactly to do that, but I'm thinking of having them trace one of the reactants or products of photosynthesis on it's journey through the tree, to or from the chloroplast. 

Stay tuned for more updates as we press on, helping students move from vessels to contain knowledge to active participants in constructing their own understanding using the same kind of practices that scientists do.  
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