Teaching Science 2.0

<Cross Posted at Edutopia>

Connecting your students with scientists and engineers is one way to enage them in science. It also provides sudents with mentors and positive role models. National Lab Day is a national inititive and classroom “matchmaker” launched last year to help facilitate these connections. A National Lab Day project can serve as a cornerstone to project-based learning in your classroom.

As you start the new school year, I hope the following interview with Samantha Israel, National Lab Day Coordinator, inspires you and your students to engage in an authentic science project. I would also like to extend a special thanks to NLD’s Lew Esses, Abraham Faham, and Miro Sutton for their assistance with this interview.

EB: Why NLD (and what is it)?

SI: America is falling behind in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education. NLD aims to reverse this downward trend and inspire students in order to increase general science-based literacy, as well as to stay competitive in the global market.

National Lab Day is more than just a day; it is a nationwide initiative to build local communities of support that will foster ongoing collaborations among volunteers, students, and educators. NLD does this primarily through our online platform (www.nationallabday.org) that connects teachers with STEM professionals, community volunteers, and a variety of other resources - all there to support and help teachers strengthen their STEM programs.

National Lab Day is not just about “labs” as we normally think of them – cookie cutter labs are a major part of the decline in STEM interest. NLD promotes a hands-on learning approach to STEM learning. It is about kids building robots and bridges and learning physics and engineering in those projects; kids testing the water in their schools and the local streams and learning chemistry and biology in the process. Real life application to STEM subjects is essential in stimulating interest.

We encourage teachers to consider hands-on learning projects for their classrooms, and to use our site to connect these projects with local professionals who would like work with them to see the projects come to fruition.

National Lab Day, the day itself, is a capstone day to celebrate the yearlong efforts and collaborations between students, teachers, STEM professionals and community volunteers - all supporting and pursuing fun hands-on learning. National Lab Day was celebrated this year on May 12th, 2010 (for pictures and video from the first annual NLD please see www.nationallabday.org). We will continue to celebrate NLD each year in May.

EB: How does NLD work?

SI: NLD is the ultimate educational matchmaker - think of it as the e-Harmony of STEM education. Teachers can post projects on our website (www.nationallabday.org) that they think would benefit from the help of a STEM professional or community volunteer. Our site will then automatically provide suggestions of local professionals or volunteers who have created accounts on NLD and may be able to help. Teachers can then message suggested “matches” in order to follow up and make an arrangement to work together. Likewise, our system also presents STEM professionals and community volunteers with suggestions for projects they may be able to help with. They too can then message teachers responsible for projects they are interested in, and offer to assist.

Aside from using the automatically generated match suggestions that our system provides, teachers can manually search for their own matches by keyword, state, and location in the “community” tab at nationallabday.org/scientists. STEM professionals can also browse and search all projects in the “projects” tab at nationallabday.org/projects/live.

NLD also features an organization portal to further help teachers and projects. Organizations can post resources, host events, and adopt projects (to help galvanize activity and strengthen results). These organizations are provided with a customizable “MyNLD” page (including a unique co-branded URL) that allows them to showcase all of the work their organization has done to strengthen STEM learning. For a great example of an organization MyNLD page please visit http://my.nationallabday.org/OSLN.

Lastly, teachers can also request financial support for their projects on NLD. This is enabled by our partnership with Donors Choose (www.donorschoose.org).

EB: What is the difference between the “NLD event” in May and what happens during the rest of the year?

SI: As mentioned above, the National Lab Day “Event” simply celebrates all of the work that is ongoing throughout the year, and it also encourages future involvement in our initiative. However, at any time during the year a teacher can post and complete a project through our website.

EB: NLD has been in place for 7-8 months now, what would you say are some of your biggest successes?

SI: In the few months since President Obama launched NLD, thousands of teachers have joined the NLD community and have posted over 1,800 projects. More than 3,500 STEM-based professionals and volunteers have joined the NLD community to date. These individuals are ready to support teachers as well as students in their communities. For example, in the Fort Bend Independent School District 70,000+ students participated in National Lab Day. There are over 200 professional organizations, companies, and foundations that have joined the NLD effort, with a combined membership of over 6 million.

To view some of the press we have received please visit: www.nationallabday.org/press.

EB: What do you hope to see during the 2010-2011 school year?

SI: In the upcoming year, National Lab Day will build on our current success. We want to see the same activity we witnessed last year, but on a larger scale. Our goal is for NLD to continue to expand and become an everyday learning resource. We will also be working on a series of improvements internally on our website to make it an increasingly useful tool for our users.

EB: One of Edutopia’s “core concepts” is to promote project-based learning opportunities. How do you see NLD supporting this approach to teaching?

SI: Project based learning is the heart of the NLD program. In the U.S., STEM education is very textbook-centric. This is problematic in that it can lead to significant disconnect between STEM subjects and real world application. Teachers often want to teach these subjects more dynamically, but many lack the tools or experience to do so.

There are numerous STEM professionals out there who are ready and willing to help spread their knowledge and expertise - all that is needed is a network. The core of the NLD program focuses on bringing together professionals that want to help teachers and serve as a resource that can strengthen their various STEM programs.

In April 2009, President Obama made a nationwide request to STEM professionals: “I want to persuade you to spend time in the classroom, talking and showing young people what it is that your work can mean, and what it means to you … [to] encourage young people to be makers of things, not just consumers of things.” NLD’s primary goal is to meet the president’s challenge.

EB: I heard that there was a goal of forging 10,000 scientist - teacher partnerships last year. Can you give a few examples of what some of these partnerships looked like?

SI: For every completed project on the NLD site, at least one scientist-teacher partnership was created. Each scientist-teacher partnership formed through NLD looked different, simply because the NLD program is designed to match the unique and specific needs of teachers and their classrooms. For example, some of the partnerships were in the form of weekly phone calls to provide advice on science fair projects, while others were class visits to help teachers and students learn how to adapt solar energy in their classrooms.

Here is an expanded example of one particular partnership:

From the “Adopt a Class” project, the teacher writes:

“I posted my sophomore physics Alternative Energy Project on National Lab Day in the fall. I was contacted by a mechanical engineer, Mr. G., who lives in the area. He contributed to our project in several ways. He began by giving a presentation to our students about engineering as a career, which was great exposure for those interested in pursuing engineering. His presentation was extremely engaging for the students, and emphasized many different applications of engineering from bridges to energy efficiency to music video production. He left quite a few very helpful alternative energy books and engineering magazines in our library for the duration of the project which students used in their research. He met with student teams to check in about their research and help to identify areas to work on. He also collaborated with the students in an ongoing way on our class blog. Alternative energy is an area I’m just beginning to learn more about, so it was very helpful for all of us to have Mr. G. as a resource. The students presented their research all this week in class, and Mr. G attended all their presentations, gave feedback, and asked questions about their work. He then gave a presentation of his own for the class about energy efficiency and left us with resources we can use to make our school more energy efficient.”

EB: Many current scientists and engineers cite the Apollo program as their inspiration for pursuing STEM careers. What do you think will be the inspiration for the next generation?

SI: Inspiration is what is missing in the science classroom today. Our hope is that the STEM professionals who have been lucky enough to develop a passion for their subject area will become increasingly driven to share this enthusiasm with the next generation. Therefore we seek to encourage scientists and other STEM professionals everywhere to become the inspiration for future generations.

EB: How can one get involved in NLD?

SI: Getting involved is easy. Simply go to www.nationallabday.org and click “Join now!” you will be led through a quick sign-up process and have the option to choose your role (teacher, STEM professional, volunteer . . .).

Once an account has been created, users have full access to the site. Teachers are encouraged to post as my projects as they would like, and to use the NLD site to connect with local professionals and community volunteers. The site can also be used to find financial support. STEM professionals and volunteers are encouraged to browse current projects and find teachers looking for help. We encourage our users to actively use our platform, and take advantage of this powerful resource.

As a final note, throughout this interview I have differentiated between STEM professionals and community volunteers. The reason for this is that we encourage community members who do not necessarily feel confident referring to themselves as STEM professionals, but still have an interest in supporting STEM learning, to play a role in our initiative. Community volunteers can provide an extra set of hands on a fieldtrip, or help judge a science fair, and much more.

The bottom line: NLD encourages collaboration and excitement towards STEM learning – regardless of your role. If you want to help revive STEM subjects for future generations, join the movement!

Last week, I observed a discussion on Twitter related to Dan Pink’s new book, Driven: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. In this book, Pink reviews the psychological research related to motivation and applies it to business. On one side of the discussion, educators were excited about what we can learn about education from this book. On the other side was a strong critique of using business books to inform educational practice.

Pink’s Drive isn’t released (on Amazon, at least) yet, but this Ted Talk should give you a taste. (UPDATE: You can also read an interview with Public School Insights here.)

Pink states, “There is a mismatch between what science knows, and what business does.” The reward and punishment approach works for mechanistic “20^th Century tasks.” However, it doesn’t work for cognitively intense “21^st Century tasks.” This same statement is true in the classroom too. Extrinsic motivators and incentives may work to keep kids quiet, to keep them in their seats, and to compel them to memorize spelling lists and fact tables, but it builds a culture that trivializes learning. However, do we really need to wait for Dan Pink’s business book to tell us this?

Dan Pink is an engaging communicator and can present a well-crafted argument.  He is adept at “popularizing” research.  It is OK to read his book, but don’t forget - there are folks in education, experts even, that have already compellingly made this argument.

For example-

Alfie Kohn wrote about this nearly 20 years ago in the book Punished by Rewards.

In this groundbreaking book, Alfie Kohn shows that while manipulating people with incentives seems to work in the short run, it is a strategy that ultimately fails and even does lasting harm.  Our workplaces and classrooms will continue to decline, he argues, until we begin to question our reliance on a theory of motivation derived from laboratory animals.

Drawing from hundreds of studies, Kohn demonstrates that people actually do inferior work when they are enticed with money, grades, or other incentives. Programs that use rewards to change people’s behavior are similarly ineffective over the long run. Promising goodies to children for good behavior can never produce anything more than temporary obedience. In fact, the more we use artificial inducements to motivate people, the more they lose interest in what we’re bribing them to do. Rewards turn play into work, and work into drudgery.

Here is one of many examples from the research literature of mastery versus performance orientations and the impact on learning in science:

Pintrich and Sinatra (2003) state that a classroom environment that focuses on promoting mastery goals and dialogue for understanding is critical for learning to occur. The authors found that students hold one of two goals related to school achievement. Students that hold mastery goals focus on learning and understanding content. Students with performance goals focus on demonstrating their ability in comparison to other students. The researchers conclude that students who reported a focus on understanding as their primary goal orientation showed the greatest gains in conceptual understanding.

The students were actively engaged in activities and had an improved understanding of the concepts after the lessons. Students at the University of Michigan who endorsed mastery goal orientations showed a greater gain in their understanding of Newtonian physics than those students who did not endorse mastery goals. Students who espouse performance goals and do not endorse mastery goals show little or no improvement in conceptual understanding. In fact, performance goals without mastery goals have at best no effect on conceptual change, or may even hinder conceptual change. Mastery goals are promoted in contexts where the teachers emphasize learning and create situations where students can make choices and feel autonomous. Recognizing students for improvement can also help promote the adoption of mastery goals. Performance goals are promoted in contexts where teachers use normative grading and recognize students for their performance relative to others.

Dan Pink’s book is based on a wide body of research that has already been published. The premise of the book is that extrinsic motivators do not work for cognitively demanding tasks. That conclusion should be a ‘no-brainer’ for educators as it has been one of the pillars of progressive thinking for decades. But, instead of saying, “Well, duh!” educators will rush out (or online) to spend $20 to read how this applies to business.  What is the allure of books like A Whole New Mind, and Drive? Why do we need business “experts” to tell us what we should already know?

—

Pintrich, P. R. & Sinatra, G.M. (2003) The role of Intentions in conceptual change learning. In G. M. Sinatra & P. R. Pintrich (Eds.), Intentional Conceptual Change. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Tinkering as a Mode of Knowledge Production in a Digital Age: John Seely Brown from carnegie commons on Vimeo.

http://commons.carnegiefoundation.org/views/?p=3

A few weeks ago, I attended a conference attended by hundreds of inspiring teachers.  During a panel on “The Purpose of Schoola,” Steven Squyres made a fantastic comment.  He said that one purpose of schooling should be to “open students eyes to what is possible.”

Tonight’s NBC Nightly News had a great story about a teacher who is doing just that.  It is a story about a teacher, kids, and a great bulletin board.  

Watch the story here.

Brian Williams writes a short post on his blog about the story, but it is the first commenter that really rings true-

At the end of the story, Brian Williams said, “the magic of a mirror”.  This is true.  However, in my opinion, it is the magic of a GREAT TEACHER!!!  – Wendy Thomas