Making Science Relevant using the 5E's

How can a science lesson be made more student-centered?

What strategies can be used to help students be more engaged in their learning?

How can technology play a role as an important tool in the learning process?

A valuable pedagogical approach is the 5E Instructional Model.

In this posting I will explain each of the components of the 5E model along with recommendations of digital and non-digital tools that can be incorporated at each stage.

The last section includes four lesson plans that incorporates the 5E model for each of the major sciences: Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science and Physics.

The five phases of the Learning Cycle as proposed by the National Science Education Standards can be integrated into the '5E' Instructional model as follows:

ENGAGE

Students become engaged in the process of scientific inquiry. The teacher can ask questions to find out what students already know, or think they know, about the topic and concepts to be covered. These questions typically start with "how" instead of with "why.”
Digital Tools:
Exploratree: Interactive Thinking Guides
Non-Digital Tools:
Graphic Organizers

EXPLORE

Students decide what makes questions scientifically testable. Students gain a common set of experiences upon which to begin building their understanding.
Digital Tools:
PhET Simulations
Virtual Dissections, Labs, and Field Trips

Non-Digital Tools
Hands-On Labs:

Physics and Physical Science Labs

Biology Labs

Chemistry Labs

Environmental Science Labs

EXPLAIN

Students acquire opportunities to connect their previous experiences with current learning and to make conceptual sense of the main ideas of the topic being studied. This stage also allows for the introduction of formal language, scientific terms, and content information that might make students’ previous experiences easier to describe. The teacher acts as a facilitator that explains concepts and addresses misconceptions.
Online Tutorials
Hippocampus: Biology, Physics, Environmental Science
Chemistry Tutorials

ELABORATE

Students apply or extend previously introduced concepts and experiences to new situations.

Students apply their knowledge to real world applications.
Project-Based Learning
Exemplary Projects for Project-Based Learning (PBL)
Scitable
How Stuff Works
Problem-Based learning in Biology: 20 Case Examples

EVALUATE

Students, with their teachers, review and assess what they have learned and how they have learned it. Students can be given a summative assessment to demonstrate what they know and can do.
Digital and Non-Digital Resources

Demonstrating Understanding and Skill
Checking for Understanding and Encouraging Metacognition
Scientific Abilities Rubrics

MODELING THE 5E INSTRUCTIONAL PROCESS

BIOLOGY
Topic: Osmosis

Learning Objectives:
Students will understand the role of cell organelles in homeostasis and will be able to measure the rate of osmosis in cells.

CHEMISTRY
Topic: Solubility

Learning Objectives:
Students will understand that there is a dependence of solubility with temperature and will be able to design an experiment showing how the solubility of several substances depend on temperature.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
Topic: Hydrological Cycle

Learning Objectives:
Students will understand the factors affecting domestic water use, and will be able to design a system for collecting data and calculating individual, group, state and national domestic water use.

Link for the: Virtual House

PHYSICS
Topic: Refraction

Learning Objectives:
Students will understand that light refracts as it passes from air into a more dense medium such as glass, and will be able to use a convex lens, light source, and a screen to form real images.

For more information the 5E Instructional model and sample lessons visit the sites below:

http://cte.jhu.edu/techacademy/fellows/ullrich/webquest/ScienceLesson.html

http://goo.gl/7C5Dk

The World Café in a School Meeting

One of our school's principles is to: "Offer Definitive Preparation for College and Life".

Faculty and administrators are expected to provide a learning environment that allows students to:

Think Critically

Communicate cogently

Collaborate purposefully and

Create meaningfully

We refer to these skills as the four Cs.

Our Upper School faculty and administrators have been divided into four groups under each of the Cs. Each team is to develop and present a session at a faculty meeting.

I was assigned as the team leader of the ‘Creativity’ strand. The group was composed by 10 faculty members representing all subject areas and administration. We met three times prior to our presentation to brainstorm the protocol and expected outcomes of our session.

I learned about the World Café from Susie Demarest our Head of Upper Elementary and I presented it to the team as a creative way to facilitate conversations. This is how we implemented the Café Design Principles:

Set the Context
The objective of our meeting was to use the World Café process to enable conversations among faculty that related to projects and activities that demonstrate Creativity and Innovation in the classroom. 

Create a Hospitable Space

We created a Café ambiance by setting up the space with round tables. Each table was covered by a colorful plastic tablecloth and a simple but nice flower arrangement at the center.

Since we divided our faculty and administration into six interdisciplinary groups we printed place cards with their names for each table. We also designated a facilitator for each group.

Our Head of Upper School provided cake, iced tea, lemonade and coffee. As faculty arrived, they were invited to get their cake and beverage before entering the meeting room. They all smiled when they discovered that the impersonal room was transformed into a lively Café with samba music playing in the background!

 Explore Questions That Matter
Our team came up with two questions for our session:
1. What activity or project have you done in your class that has some of the attributes of creativity?

2. Is there a project that you want to implement in your class about which you would like to receive feedback from others?

Prior to the meeting we had sent an e-mail with the following information so that we all had a common ground when defining a ‘creative project’.

Attributes of a Creative Project or Activity

New or original

Stimulates curiosity

Challenging and engaging

Promotes divergence

Interdisciplinary

 

Key Terms of Creative Activities or Projects

Designing

Constructing

Planning

Producing

Inventing

Devising

Making

Encourage Everyone's Contribution
At each table a member of the team was designated as a facilitator. They were in charge of engaging everybody in the conversation. 

Connect Diverse Perspectives

Listen Together and Notice Patterns

We had a laptop available for each of the teams. We created separate pages for each team on a wiki and each facilitator entered the contributions from the members of their table.

An online timer was set up on the screen with a 20 minute countdown for each question.

Share Collective Discoveries

Because of the limited amount of time we were not able to create posters and do a Gallery Walk. However, we briefly showcased a couple of pages on the screen.  Faculty and administrators were excited to see how they could access the conversations by visiting the wiki at their own pace anytime.

Wrapping Things Up

By the end of the session we showed the video Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson.

Did it Work?

Our team felt that the session went really well!

We heard positive feedback from our colleagues and administrators about how everybody enjoyed the opportunity to share, listen and collaborate with each other.


CREATIVITY RESOURCES
This is our wiki page with the links to Creativity Resources for the classroom.

Images: Café Image Bank

The Edublog Awards

My nominations for the 2010 Edublog Awards:

Best student blog

Christopher Ponners

Chemistry and Physics Blogs

Best individual blog

Silvia Tolisano

Langwitches Blog

Best group blog

Connected Principals

Best resource sharing blog

Richard M. Byrne

Free Technology 4 Teachers

Best librarian / library blog

Buffy Hamilton

The unquiet librarian

Best school administrator blog

Jonathan E. Martin

21K12

Most influential blog post

ILLEGITIMI NON CARBORUNDUM

By Tom Withby

Best individual tweeter

Nancy Rubin

Most influential tweet / series of tweets / tweet based discussion

#edchat

Best educational tech support blog

Wesley Fryer

Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Best educational use of video / visual

Tony Vincent

Learning in Hand

Best educational webinar series

Steve Hargadon

Lifetime achievement

Will Richardson

Weblogg-ed

IP21: Taking Ownership of Professional Development

How can a Standards-based Professional Development program using and implementing 21st Century skills have an impact on teaching and learning at our school?

Most schools require that their faculty create personal and/or professional goals for the school year. Our faculty and administration used the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) NETS-T and NETS-A as a basis to select their goals. We called these goals our IP21 (Individual Plan for 21st Century).

At the beginning of the school-year, during our staff development days we held sessions to review the IP21 PD model and to allow faculty to create their own pages on their respective Division Sites.

The IP21 faculty pages are used to document:

• Plan(s) for integration of content into standards
• Pedagogical strategies
• Request for instructional technology support as needed
• Evidence: description and link(s) to activity that demonstrate standard

I have set up notifications on each of the sites so that I get an e-mail when one of my colleagues posts something on their pages. This gives me an opportunity to give them suggestions and/or arrange for sessions as needed. Moreover, since all the IP21 sites are wikis, teachers and administrators can easily collaborate with each other not only within their own department but also across divisions.

Our faculty has been very receptive to this model. They like having ownership of their professional development.

Being able to decide what they want to do based on their own subject, grade level and technology proficiency makes all the difference!

IP21 logo: I created the logo with LogoSnap. The logo represents 'student and teacher', 'faculty and administration' and 'teaching and learning'.

Leaders Among Equals

Administrators are Leaders among Equals. As teachers, educational administrators share the same goals about the students they serve: to provide the best learning environment that will allow students to grow as informed, creative and responsible adults.

How do administrators as Leaders among Equals model themselves to enrich the lives of other educational professionals in a collaborative environment?

It's all about the BE's:

1. Be Available

Leaders are available to listen and to help solve problems. Using multiple channels of communication through a blog, twitter or a social network platform makes administrators available anytime to faculty, students and parents.

2. Be Enthusiastic

Teachers will get onboard if leaders demonstrate excitement and expertise in the use of digital tools. Teachers should look up to administrators to reignite their passion for a subject and the possibilities that technology offers to facilitate teaching and learning.

3. Be Supportive

Administrators demonstrate their priorities by providing a variety of opportunities for professional growth. As leaders, they tap into resources to provide time and funds that allow their faculty to participate in educational conferences.

4. Be Gracious

Leaders do not expect instant success. They celebrate small gains and demonstrate that failure is not the end but just another opportunity for growth.

5. Be Creative

Leaders are aware that creativity is at the top of Bloom's Taxonomy. They foster and model creative thought and innovation.

6. Be Yourself

Leaders are true to their identity as educators and don't make excuses as having to wear too many hats.

Our administrators are demonstrating being Leaders among Equals at my school by joining faculty in the creation of their Individual Plans for 21st Century using the NETS for Administrators. 

It is by being a community of Leaders among Equals that we will succeed!

Scott McLeod (Call to bloggers to participate.)

Professional Development: IP21

Over the school year, a team of 5 faculty members (Michelle from UE: Emma and Sherie from MS; Dave and I from US) participated along with 200 educators in a professional cohort called Powerful Learning Practice (PLP). Through face-to-face meetings, virtual sessions and ongoing conversations we gained a deeper understanding of 21st century teaching and learning. As a team we developed a Professional Development program.

THE CONTEXT

Why are we so fervent in our desire to create and continuing to improve a rigorous, student-centered learning environment? Because we know that we must prepare our students for a future incalculably different to the past we have known.

Schools are slowly shifting from traditional teaching and learning models to dynamic models that take advantage of opportunities to energize our interaction with one another through technology. And it is already quite clear that technology will impact not only the amount but also the quality and character of that interaction. Students like to learn in the environment that is already so much a part of their lives outside of school.

The cognitive domain as illustrated by Bloom's Taxonomy has also been modified to the new behaviors and actions emerging as technology advances and becomes more ubiquitous.

Faculty and staff professional development needs to be designed taking into account these paradigms.

THE FRAMEWORKS

True technology integration can only happen in a context where subject-specific content is taught with pedagogical methodologies that include technologies that enable students to achieve their learning outcomes.

The TPACK model provides an essential context for our Professional Development plan: content and pedagogy drive the technology, not the other way around.

The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) model attempts to capture some of the essential qualities of knowledge required by teachers for technology integration in their teaching.

http://tpack.org

At the heart of the TPACK framework is the complex interplay of three primary forms of knowledge: Content (CK), Pedagogy (PK), and Technology (TK).

Content Knowledge (CK)

As faculty members we assume knowledge about our subject matter.

Pedagogical Knowledge

As faculty members we assume knowledge in pedagogies of student learning, classroom management, lesson plan development and implementation, and student evaluation. However, in the context of 21st century teaching and learning, there is a need for deeper pedagogical knowledge on a variety of instructional methodologies such as problem-based learning, inquiry instruction, critical thinking strategies, creativity, and differentiated instruction among others.

Technology Knowledge (TK)

It is essential for faculty to be knowledgeable in a variety of technological tools such as:

- Productivity tools (Office, Google Apps, etc.)

- Digital tools for communication, collaboration and creation (web 2.0)

Our Professional Development plan is standards-based. We selected the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), NETS (National Educational Technology Standards) as our criteria for 21st Century Teaching and Learning.

The standards provide a common set of expectations for faculty, administration and students.

THE ACTION PLAN

The Professional Development Action Plan consists of 4 strands. At the core of this plan is the understanding that for Professional Development to be effective, it has to be meaningful and relevant to our own teaching.

PDA1. To achieve this relevance, each of us will create an Individual Plan for 21st Century Teaching and Learning. This will referred to as the IP21.

PDA2 and PDA3. There is a minimum requirement of six training sessions to acquire and/or refine the selected competencies. Three of the sessions will occur during Staff Development days.

PDA4. It is expected that all of us will demonstrate the acquisition of such competencies. The Instructional Technology team will be available throughout the school year for individual and group training sessions.

THE INDIVIDUAL PLANS IP21

Over the past two days we have presented our PD plan to over 150 faculty and administration.

In order to facilitate the creation of the individual plans, we showed each of the standards along with relevant examples of what each standard looks like at the different levels: Early Childhood (EC)/Upper Elementary (UE), Middle School (MS) and Upper School (US).

We created a wiki IP21 with all the links to the different examples. During the summer our faculty can explore the site in more detail. When we return to school in August they will be able to modify their plan as needed. The wiki also includes proposed training sessions correlated to the TPACK model and the NETS-T,

Each individual plan has been created as surveys using Google Forms for the different divisions and the administrators. The results will be analyzed and each faculty member will receive a customized plan with suggestions for training.

So far, the response has been very positive. Our faculty feels that this plan gives them ownership and control over their PD needs instead of being forced to attend "one-size fits all" sessions.

The PLP Experience

Just about a year ago I attended an ISAS Technology Directors conference at Trinity Valley School in Fort Worth. The speaker was Will Richardson. I have to confess that I had never heard of him (in what planet did I live on, really?). His presentation was like lightning!

As soon as I got back home I googled PLP and filled the form requesting more information. I invited some colleagues to attend a virtual session with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, and at that moment we knew that we really wanted to join .

We formed a school team with Michelle from Upper Elementary, Emma and Sherie from Middle School, and Dave from Upper School. At our first face-to-face meeting we registered as members of a Ning and created our profiles. When we came back to school after the kick-off event, we were inspired to make the most of our PLP adventure.

Truth is, there was a little catch in our decision to join PLP. A year ago we had an accreditation visit, and the first item in the report concerning technology said, "The School should look into providing leadership for academic technology. This leadership can explore ways to develop and implement a school wide vision for academic technology, investigate professional development opportunities for both academic technology and all other classroom teachers." As a first step, I was appointed Academic Technology Coordinator to lead the school in addressing the accreditation report. Big task! I started gathering resources to create a LoTI survey that was completed by faculty in all divisions. After analyzing the data I knew I was going to need more guidance than just relying on my searching abilities!

PLP has opened my eyes to a world of possibilities.  All of a sudden I am supported not only by the top leaders in education, but also by a group of colleagues that are walking the same path and have the same expectations and concerns that I have.
My professional growth has been amazing to me. Through virtual sessions and ongoing conversations I now have a deeper understanding of  21st century teaching and learning. I have learned how to use several digital tools and, most importantly, I have expanded my learning network. On July 1st I joined Twitter, and as of this morning, I have over 300 followers. By the end of September I had created this blog, and in November all of my Honors Physics students had their own active blogs!

The professional development plan that I originally crafted back in November has been transformed into a well-defined program that already has had a tremendous impact in the school. All we had to do was to dig deeper into the myriad of resources received through PLP.
With creativity, passion and collegiality our team and technology instructors have been very successful in motivating and supporting our colleagues as they implement changes. After the culminating event this past Monday, we have renewed our commitment to move our school not only to address all of the accreditation report recommendations but much, much farther!

As I reflect on these past months, I'm reminded of Newton(*) when he wrote "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." I say this because one thing is clear: we wouldn't be where we are, without having joined PLP!

Here is our PLP Project Presentation:

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Online Publishing from YUDU

(*) Quote originally attributed to Bernard de Chartres