New Roads to Learning-for This Generation

 “The overarching goal of our framework for K-12 science education is to ensure that by the end of 12th grade, all students have some appreciation of the beauty and wonder of science; possess sufficient knowledge of science and engineering to engage in public discussions on related issues; are careful consumers of scientific and technological information related to their everyday lives; are able to continue to learn about science outside school; and have the skills to enter careers of their choice, including (but not limited to) careers in science, engineering, and technology.”

                     Next Generation Science Standards

Wow!  Doesn't that sound nice?  In fact, I am pretty sure that that is exactly what I tried to do my whole career!  Nothing new here.  Or is there?  I was so lucky to have spent my career in a place where I was either supported or encouraged to be creative and make all lessons “hands on” or at least be left alone to my own devices!

Beyond Sharing Stories-Take Them with You

I have had some amazing opportunities over the years from joining a group in the early 80’s that used something called the Electronic Information Exchange System (EIES- pre-www, now called the “internet”) to connecting teachers and students together to share data on local rivers to traveling with a team to the Rain Forest in Hawaii on a Dodge Grant to visiting classrooms in Zambia to recently being invited to watch a missile launch at NASA.  The best thing about these opportunities is that kids could come with me.  The richness of our lives always carries over into the classroom.  However, the changes in technology have allowed us to go beyond “sharing stories” – now, with simple tools like Google Hangout, you can have the kids experience it with you in real time- if not literally, than digitally.

 

Sometimes there are Bumps in the Road- 

On my most recent journey, I attended the Launch of the MMS mission and offered to connect with classrooms through Google Hangout, while we were there. How cool is it that you can carry the class around with you, allowing them to interact with professionals, other students, and actually see all the artifacts in the museum, etc?  Madelaine Travaille, from High Point Regional HS in NJ, is one of those educators that opens her classroom doors and windows wide when opportunities knock!  Despite some glitches in our first attempts at connecting, she was willing to try to make it work the following day to offer her students a unique experience.  Great learning opportunities are not always as safe as having your notes on the board or a pre-made PowerPoint, but staying in that safety zone of scripted learning does not prepare your students for the imperfection of the real world.  (Nor does it teach them persistence and problem solving!)  Check out our imperfect Google hangout video here.

Jennifer Miller, Extraordinary Educator from TX, connects kids regularly with STEAM professionals, here she  interviews Dr. Patricia Reiff, true Rocket Scientist, from Rice University

Students at High Point Regional High School listen to Troy Cline, MMS Outreach Specialist

Open the Door to Next Generation Learning

My point is…that it is now easier than ever before to reach the overarching goals of the NGSS. Technology has flattened the walls of our classrooms so that our students can witness the beauty and sometimes devastation of the world, speak directly to experts in the field, connect their learning to the real world, and have the skills and knowledge to enter the profession of their choice.  The barriers are coming down, you just have to be willing to open the door when opportunity knocks. 

Sochi Lessons for Every Classroom

Shoveling again!  Between our record breaking cold, 7 snow days and the winter Olympics approaching, tying your lessons to snow seems like a no-brainer, no matter where you are!

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) lessons of course are an excellent fit, but why not include art (STEAM) and Reading (STREAM) and Social Studies (STREAMS)…there are lots of resources and opportunities to take advantage of this global event in your classroom.

If you have snow in your backyard, there are lots of questions you can explore:  Why does it form crystals (flakes) sometimes and other times it is just ice?  How does salt help snow to melt?  Are there environmental consequences of salting the roads?  Can you design a better snow shovel?  Why does some snow make better snow balls than others?  How do ski areas make snow?  

If you don’t have snow in your backyard (hard for me to believe!), there is plenty of snow science going on in Sochi.  I recently learned from an NBC (Orlando) reporter, Stewart Moore, on his way to cover the Olympics, that Sochi was a “tropical resort” in Russia, with weather comparable to Atlanta (except for the nearby mountains!). Snow was actually saved from last year under blankets just in case they need it!  Imagine all of the logistics involved in pulling off an event like this (science, technology, engineering, math, anyone?)!

There are lots of great resources to get students engaged in relevant learning in your content area this month!

Science:    Check out these great videos on the Science and Engineering of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games including the “Science of Ice” “Science of Snow” and “Building Faster and Better Bobsleds” complete with in-depth lesson plans!  You can find more videos on the Science of the Olympic Games 2010 related to individual sports and gear.  Just for fun, check out this fascinating sound interactive which illustrates in sound the fractions of a second separating finishers in events at the Olympics.  This was found amongst the gems offered in TeachersFirst’s Resources for the Sochi Olympics.

Technology:  Yesterday, I witnessed a great Digital Day Winter Olympic Challenge going on between students in Indiana and Lousiana.  Hosted by William Krakower in NJ, students met in a Google Hangout and answered challenge questions based on the Olympics.  The questions included “How many miles from your school to Sochi?  How many kilometers? What is the time difference between your school and Sochi?” These students were totally engaged and motivated by the hot (cold?) topic of the Winter Olympics and the social capital built in.  You can easily replicate this with your own set of questions, set up game show style within your classroom, with a class across the hall, a class across town, or a class across the globe.  Kudos to those teachers who brought this cutting-edge activity to their students despite some technical difficulties and weather cancellations.

Reading:  WhyFiles.org has some great articles that feature different perspectives, ask great questions and cover ethical issues that make for great reading and persuasive writing.  Some examples include “Sports Doctors:  Conflict of Interest?” or “Too Much Training?”  Find the articles by searching for Olympics or Science Meets Sports.  Discover more ideas for Olympic-related reading and writing activities at ReadWriteThink.

Engineering:  There are lots of opportunities for engineering research from the Olympic venue to the athlete’s gear.  Check out this simple student challenge from We are Teachers which has students build their own bobsled out of Popsicle sticks.  Or use the video on Engineering Faster and Safer Bobsleds and the accompanying guide for STEAM activities related to designing the bobsled.

Math:  Have you seen Yummy Math?  This site provides “mathematics relevant to our world today.” Their most recent post was on the lighting of the Olympic Torch and one on how Olympic ski jumping is scored, both great math lessons with authentic and timely connections.    Check out the Mathletes video and lesson for another activity on scoring in the Olympic Games.   There are some very simple ideas on what you can do with results (including fake result pages) that you can use for simple math activities involving reading and building tables. 

Social Studies:  Delve into the history of the Olympics, geography of Sochi or research an athlete to discover the culture and geography of their country.   There are lots of links for the History of the Games, Olympic Games and Politics, and Ancient Olympic Games on the TeacherVision site.

Looking for more STEM Activities?

Matt Davis provides some quality links and ideas incorporating STEM into Olympics in the student engagement blog on Edutopia.  Highlights include mapping the Olympic Torch Relay, math activities from Scholastic and great hands on activities from Science Buddies.

Looking for Debate topics?  Who should host the 2022 Winter Olympics? 

The Olympic Games are an excellent opportunity to connect the interdisciplinary dots in an engaging way!  How will you take advantage?

Suddenly, I'm all a twitter!

I was talking to a class of 7th graders about sharing information in our world.  We are working on the NASA MMS challenge to determine why the mission is relevant to them and find a way to spread the word.  They had some great ideas about writing articles, editorials, youtube, facebook, blogs, etc.  But no one mentioned twitter.


Twitter for the Not So Famous
It turns out that most of these students thought that it was only for famous people.  They were shocked to hear that even people like me had followers (I am a little shocked myself sometimes).  The truth is that I’m a little slow to the bandwagon, some tools have come and gone before I even get to use them.    I have been a registered user for some time, but not an active one.  I too, did not immediately see how it could be useful. 


Hashtags meant something totally different in the 70’s
I started noticing hash tags at conferences.  At first, I was a little chagrined that people were “texting” during my presentations, then  I realized they were “tweeting” out some of my nuggets of wisdom and some of their “aha” moments.  What a great way to hear everyone’s nuggets.     Of course I had to first learn to decipher the language and determine what #@ RT’s and mentions were (just ask your kids).  I then began to see a lot of potential for using twitter as professional development tool.   Carrie Jackson summed up the key reasons why it can be a valuable tool for us in her blog “Twitter 101 for School Leaders: Four Reasons to Join the Conversation."


But what about the kids?
It was not until I saw how some students from Dublin ISD in TX were using it, that I saw the value of using twitter in the classroom.     They had used twitter as a research tool, to determine attitudes in their community, to lift school morale and improve school and community communications.    It got me to thinking.

I imagine that the benefits for leaders in education, may be the same benefits that our students can get. Imagine all of the latest science and technology information they can get by following NASA?  How great would it be for each student to post an “aha” moment to your class hash tag after reading an assigned passage?  Why not take it outside the room and share their key understandings and insights with the world?  Imagine being able to post new ideas and get feedback from their peers all over the world.  What a great way to connect kids with experts in the field!

What are the risks?
Of course, anything “out there” has some risks, but there are plenty of tools that can be kept private to teach students proper “netiquette.”  The world of twitter is a world of breaking news, it is Facebook feeds on steroids.  It is chock full of great articles and resources.  Seems like it could be a great way to engage kids in their own learning.


We are connecting our students in Texas and New Jersey, through the MMS Challenge.  Sounds like the perfect opportunity to get this whole twitter thing going with my students.   I am sure there may be some risks and challenges, but I’m diving in and taking the kids with me!  Any nuggets for me?

You can follow me @sanwoz, you can see what the kids are doing at #mmschallenge.

Great Interactive Resources for Earth Day

Looking for some great ideas and resources to help celebrate earth day?  Want to break up the testing blues, get kids thinking and writing in an engaging way?

Paper or plastic?

Start a discussion on something that is both relevant to them and authentic.  They may not be able to directly influence gas prices or oil drilling, but they can certainly make wise choices in their own lives.  Start with the simple question “paper or plastic?”


Check out this great interactive lesson “Battle of the Bags.” Videos and interactive sections provide students with different points of view on the Paper vs. Plastic debate.  Assign students a point of view to focus on, have them debate, write persuasively or use it to provide background information for a SCAN session.


Follow that up with a four perspective discussion using the simple SCAN (see the issues, clarify the issues, assess what’s important, now what should we do?) critical thinking strategy built into the SCAN discussion platform at TregoED.org.  "The Environmental Debate:  Paper or Plastic" is one of over 100 free scenarios.


Want a hands-on experiment to go with it?  Try out this free lesson to determine “Which kind of trash bag breaks down the fastest?"


Let students see where their garbage or recyclables go on collection day by selecting and following their trail at "Beyond the Barrel" site for kids.


The Story of Stuff is a 20 minute online cartoon that traces our “stuff” from its creation to its cremation.  This video definitely represents one point of view.  Can your students determine what other points of view may be?  Can they pick out the persuasive language used? Use this video to launch a discussion that goes beyond the content.


National Geographic's "Human Footprint" offers a fun interactive site that allows children to see what their human footprint is on the earth.  There is a lot of potential for math lessons here as they calculate the number of loaves of bread or eggs you eat in a year and illustrate the impact of your choices.


Looking for more?


Teachersfirst.org has a great selection of links and resources on earth day:  You can find all sorts of great links and resources using their searchable data base of reviewed activities.

You can also find a great list of links and resources for Earth Day at Edudemic.


Earth Day is a great day to integrate technology science, language arts, math and history.  What will you be doing?

Do You Walk the Walk?

What do you get when you mix ISTE and NASA resources, a select group of educators from across the globe, and a challenge to create educational artifacts for teachers and students to learn about the Magnetospheric MultiScale Mission (MMS)?

You get educators walking the walk- incorporating web 2.0 tools and networking skills to build an international learning community – starting with a base camp at the Iste-Nasa Cyber Café Wiki and branching out to use Edistorm , Skype, google docs, Voice Thread and other tools  just to begin.  What a great learning experience to explore and utilize the capacity of some of these tools.  It increased my skills, exposed me to some great new tools and ways to use some old ones.  It also taught me the power of online collaboration with like and unlike minded educators.

 The results?  A series of showcases waiting to be unveiled on March 27^th at a synchronous celebration. 

Sneak Peak

I can share a little of ours now.  I had the pleasure of working with Jennifer Miller and her students in Dublin Texas and Tom Chambers a teacher of technology applications from Houston, Texas.   We put together the “Take the MMS Challenge” which features student research, application of the scientific method and culminating in students working as engineers, physicists, artists, or journalists to help others understand why the MMS mission is relevant in our everyday lives.

Our project can be found in this livebinder  with teacher guides, student activities, resources, web 2.0 tools and enrichment activities.  Feel free to get in there and “test pilot” the project or individual activities.  We would love your feedback!

Interested in introducing your kids to the mission, the Collaborize Classroom library has custom made questions in their library ready to go with links to some great videos and current events.  Great way to get kids reading informational text and writing for an audience!  Want to go further?  Try out the new SCAN lesson designed to get students to explore the relevance of the mission from different points of view.   “Space Exploration and You: SCAN The NASA MMS Mission” is a new free SCAN scenario designed to get kids thinking from different perspectives about the relevance of the mission. 

Now what?

Needless to say, it was a wonderful experience to walk the walk and integrate all of these tools to successfully make a professional learning community that spanned across the globe.  I am wondering how educators create these wonderful communities of learning for their students but do not create the same for their colleagues? 

Keeping it Real

Terry was my mentor, my dept chair, my boss, my friend and my partner in crime (we did have a lot of fun!).  He was a master teacher.  He taught me everything I know about getting students engaged in learning.  I am not sure how he would have done up against today’s rubrics, with all the ubd’s, plc’s, and lmnop’s.  I do know that he made a difference in kid’s lives and they learned a lot from him.

Terry was all about keeping it real.  His classroom was outside.  He taught kids about all of the living things around them.  He had bee hives up on the roof of the school.  Children climbed a ladder, donned bee gear and tended those hives.  They laughed if someone got stung.  No one was sued; no one was hurt; kids were excited and amazed.  He had kids make museum collections out of the insects that died in light fixtures.  They mounted them on pins, classified them and displayed them.  He took the class fishing, “dissected” the fish, and cooked it over a fire for them.  He had students pick up rocks in the streams to find and identify the organisms that lived there.  He took them to the ocean with seining nets.   Every day was an adventure in his class.

So I have been thinking about my roots and wondering if technology had somehow led me away from my roots.  Is technology being used to replace real experiences?   Are we still rolling marbles down the ruler or are we watching simulations?  Is technology taking us away from “real science?”  I do believe some companies would love for that to happen.  I also believe that technology can be used to enrich and enhance these activities just as it does with “real” scientists.

Think of all the possibilities that technology can put in the palm of our student's hands (like the tablets now being used by the CSI on TV).    How cool is it that students can document their findings in the field with pictures?  Or record the work of the insects on video?  Or use the internet in the palm of their hands to identify species?  Even Terry Patterson would have liked to watch the blood flowing through the tail of a fish under the microscope up on the big screen!  And he probably would have been proud to have been blogged about!