Part One - NSTA Conference San Francisco 9th - 13th March

NSTA Conference Day 1

PDI – Professional Development Institutes

Inquiry into Inquiry Based Learning

Writing an Explanation

Scaffolding for writing scientific explanation demonstrated, modelled and then completed by participating teachers. Teachers had to brainstorm what they believed the components of explanation are. The teachers present were all from the United States of America, though from varying states and districts. All brainstormed components of an explanation similar to those, though differing in name, suggested in the modelled scaffold. Teachers in the USA seem very comfortable with the writing of scientific explanation in their classrooms, even at a middle school (year 5 – 8) level. In Australia explicit scaffolding of scientific explanation seems most evident in senior years and in my experience and time as a science teacher I have not witnessed explanation writing as explicit as was demonstrated at this professional development workshop.

Teachers were asked to write an explanation for the phases of the moon prior to the demonstration and modelling of the scaffold. The appropriate structure for an explanation was then introduced. A student sample of an explanation was viewed and a critique of the components of the explanation provided and read through.  Teachers then worked in groups to write an explanation for a complex question provided by the professional development providers.

Teachers were then asked to review their explanation and check the structure. Following this there was peer review of group explanations and feedback provided by peers. Teacher participants then reflected on the days process.

Participants finished by being walked through the explanation scaffolds and considered as groups the importance of ensuring students consider explanations as a whole text, not as individual sections stuck together. The need to ensure student review, descriptive feedback and that components of the explanation structure can be introduced and practiced gradually.

Scientific explanation writing not explicitly scaffolded for students explicitly in this way in Australia. As a teacher I have not witnessed scaffolding in my university studies on science education or during teacher professional development to this extent.

Invited to the NSTA President’s International Welcome where I was introduced to the Director and President of the NSTA (National Science Teachers Association). I also met the Chair for ISEC (International Science Education Committee). I was introduced to a number of influential members of the science education community.

Day 2

Met the outgoing NSTA president, Pip, on the bus on the way to the conference. I shared my project with her.

Earth Sciences Experiments

Magnetometer….. excellent activity for students to model how iron deposits are discovered using magnetism. Map on one side of a cardboard box and sticky-tape magents to the inside. Students use the magnetometer they have made to establish where the “iron” deposits are. Magnetism is used for a variety of purposes.

Test for oxygen (glowing splint) was also demonstrated. Many USA teachers were not familiar with this experiment, whereas it is very common in Australian science textbooks.

Teaching open-ended inquiry presentation

Gradually increase the degree to which investigations are open-ended.

This is rather than having the “cook book” experiments where teachers tell students the equipment, method and outcome. Investigations can become gradually more open-ended by firstly removing the result, not telling students what is going to happen. The teacher can then remove the procedure and have students develop their own methods. The final step in increasing the degree to which an investigation is open-ended is to remove the inquiry question. This is very difficult to do as teachers feel that they have little to no control over the questions that students may ask. This issue was addressed during this workshop. The way of overcoming this issue is very simple, yet will be very effective in the classroom.

Introduce topic, stimulation or content of an investigation to students (e.g. have students take their own fingerprints and classify their own fingerprints as whirl, spiral or curve) and then have students develop questions.  Ongoing use of this method is likely to result in students being able to develop questions in more and more open-ended situations.

Middle School in Arizona and Professional Development Project

Middle school teachers from a district in Arizona have all been provided with professional development and training on the use of science kits. This is to assist them with the teaching of inquiry and to ensure they are confident and competent teaching in a “science by doing” way.  Full-time, part-time and regular casual teachers are all provided with professional development. Pre-service teachers are also given this professional development during their practicums at these schools. Teachers complete this PD in the week prior to term, they also complete PD during school term, taking teachers private time is avoided. Money has been access through Indian Gaming Funds. Another individual at the presentation recommended a method used in New York where teachers work an extra half an hour throughout term on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays so that PD can be accessed every Wednesday. This is a large sacrifice of time from teachers, but the benefits of having PD every Wednesday from lunchtime onwards would be significant. I was invited to visit this district.

Day 3

USA Teacher exchange program to Russia. USA teachers and Russian teachers travel to each others schools (not at the same time) and observe difference at opportunities for change in their own schools. Teachers are given professional development on implementing action research projects in their classrooms and then do this upon their return to their schools.

Presented my short presentation on the Churchill Trust, Churchill Fellowships and my project, was invited to speak to student teachers in Washington DC by presenter of previous workshop.

Teaching inquiry to students of all levels

A very high quality scaffold was explained and provided to participants to assist students to follow and write scientific method. Particular emphasis was placed on students brainstorming variables at the beginning of the inquiry and using this brainstormed list to help them choose an independent variable (the thing they change) and to help them keep the other variables the same (constants). This scaffold ensures that the variables are explicit to students. The scaffold includes detailed instructions on writing a scientific method and clear assistance to students for selecting an appropriate graph for their tabulated results.

The presenter also suggested that students present their question, data table and graph and a conclusion (explanation) on a poster to display in the classroom for other students to display. I would suggest that this might be an ideal opportunity for teachers to hold inclass symposiums, which may gradually become across year groups, stages (NSW) and perhaps schools. Please contact me for the presentation and word documents if you are interested.

NASA

Earth from Space

Activities on modelling the height of various space vehicles in the atmosphere and in outer space. Activities in modelling the layers of the atmosphere and their distance from Earth.

Relating experiments back to the work of NASA

Film canister rockets – rocket propulsion, current research

Black/White Absorption (Radiation Prac) – Space Suits

Water Filtration Experiment – Water Filtration on shuttle

Robots for Less than a Penny

Need for students to alter their perception of robots as humanoids. Robots are any device that requires any form of programming. Presenter outlines the possibility of having students bring toys into the classroom, as many of these are robots. He also suggested students walk from one end of a classroom to the other and consider what sensors they required to move from one side to the other. They could attempt this blind-folded etc. Students could also be programmed by other students to walk from one side of the classroom to the other, doing only what they have been programmed by their group to do.

Participants created 2 different robot structures. Participants discussed how these tasks could become inquiry based tasks. Changing materials and basic patterns etc. See NASA Education website for instructions. http://robotics.nasa.gov/edu/educators.php 

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/179225main_ISS_Poster_Back.pdf
go to the 6th page

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/topnav/materials/listbytype/I_Want_to_Hold_Your_Hand.html

Dome Lab

Shown an excellent experiment for showing movement of the Earth using clear plastic hemispheres. Teachers write the degrees of a compass on the marked edges of the hemisphere. Students mark the position of the Sun on the dome by standing outside in the Sun with the cardboard base pointed north. The student passes a pen over the outside of the hemisphere until the point of the pens shadow isat the point where the North-South and East-West lines meet. Students mark a dot at this point to indicate the Sun’s position in the sky. The time of day is written next to each dot. Students are able to repeat this task over a period of a lesson and observe the movement of the Earth, they will be able to note that the Sun does not “pass directly over head” and is not directly overhead at midday.

Students are then able to use a second hemisphere with altitude marked on it to determine the altitude of each of the marked points. Students are able to graph the 2 lots of data against each other. Midday may be calculated by looking at altitude at 180degrees or by looking at the altitude when the marked dot passes the east-west line.  Data collected can be compared to an online site to check the validity of the findings.

The lady who showed me this experiment is keen to have my Science students in Australia complete this experiment and share their results via Skype with her students in the USA. This will be a great opportunity for students to communicate scientifically with students from another country and feel that they are collecting relevant data for a purpose. 

iSeismo and Quake Seeker, iPhone applications, were also demonstrated.

Met the previous NSTA president on the bus on the way to Day 3 of the conference and shared with her my project and itinerary.

Conference Day 4

NSTA Annual Presidents Banquet

Listened to a speech by and then met retired NASA astronaut and physician Dr Bernard A. Harris Jr.  His speech was very inspiring as he shared his background in a low-socio economic region, broken and drug affected home. He spoke of how his Mother always encouraged him to be the best that he could be. Dr. Harris also talked about how his teachers inspired him to follow his dream of becoming astronaut.

Another speaker from Yorkshire, in the UK spoke of the importance of having science teachers who encourage creativity in their students, through creative and innovative teaching.

Met and spoke the president of the NSTA, Alan McCormack.

NSTA Aerospace Educators Luncheon

NASA Aerospace Education Services Project

Listened to a speech by Dr. Vinton G. Cerf, VP and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. Dr Cerf spoke of technology and its impact on education. He talked about the need to teach students how to check the validity of sources and ensure that they know how to make their searches on the internet explicit. At the conclusion of his speech he had question and answer time. Mr Peter Russo, CEO of the Australian Teachers Association asked Dr. Cerf whether he felt that content or process was more important in regard to the development of new Australian science curriculum. Dr. Cerf stated that process was always going to assist students in accessing their answers.

Conference Day 5 – Sunday 13^th March

Teaching Electromagnetic Spectrum and Astrobiology in the classroom.  Please Email me for further paperwork on Electromagnetic Spectrum.