Learning and Knowing

From Sam Watterson

Take a look at what Calvin has to say, and think about what we do everyday.

We decide what students need to know.

We is big, really big. It is more than me, more than the local district, Minnesota Science Standards, National Science Education Standards.......that decision includes all of those things and more.

My own subjective thoughts and how I learned biology, from home, elementary to high school, undergrad to grad school frame what happens in my classroom.

Does that help or hurt, when answering Calvin's question, "Why don't I learn what I want to know?"

I've been pushing students to master the standards, to become "proficient" or more. Most students have done a great job of figuring that out, what that looks like and what is required. Learning has been the focus, not the grade.

BUT...... I need to do a better job of providing the connection to their lives. Students are born curious, about things that interest them and more often than not, what I'm curious about is not what they are curious about.

I don't understand that.....saying sarcastically. Why aren't then curious about the same cool stuff?

We (the same WE) know that when students are asking the questions, they are primed and ready. That is the resolution for 2013: create better hooks to let questions be asked and answered by students.

What will that look like in the classroom? I'm pretty sure it will look like more PBL and inquiry and who knows...... and more student lead questions, creating the asynchronous classroom where students are doing learning at their pace and interests, within and without the frameworks of standards. The last part of the previous statement is kind of yucky, because it is still putting a box around my students. I take a little consolation in the fact it has been raised to feeling, conscious level.

Dassel Cokato biology students been on break, but I've not really ever discontinued the thoughts of my classroom and how to make this a better science experience for all students.

I'm looking forward to 2013.

"Free" Water and Do-Overs

Wall Drug Founder Ted Hustead

The topic lately has been the movement of molecules across membranes.

Students struggle with the concepts of concentration gradient, the terms hypotonic and hypertonic and the movement of water in osmosis.

Kaitlyn had scored a 3 on the summative assessment and score 23 out of 27 points to earn the 3. She felt that didn't reflect on what learning had occurred.

She sat down during our FLEX period, which is a guided study hall at the end of the day. I asked  what she found interesting and confusing about the business of biological membrane transport. Kaitlyn then proceeded to rattle off ideas and concepts about ion channels and protein pumps and how they changed shape due to ATP being used.

Here was a clear example of what the assessment had not shown. This student had a clear and genuine mastery of the concepts. It was a cool conversation for me and I think she felt proud of what had been learned and demonstrated.

The fist bump between us was a celebration of moving her grade to 4.

(Some of the students get the reference when discussing the movement of "free water" in cells and the "free ice water" you get at Wall Drug, South Dakota)....some of the students, but it makes me laugh.

One Under the Belt, Not Below

Due to details to gory to mention, I've been away from this for a couple of weeks. That doesn't mean I've not thought about this push toward "two sigma", because I think about it daily, hourly, minutely....

The biology class has one trimester under it's belt. So what did that look like?

It was a lot of work. It was a lot of work. There was a lot of work involved, and then more.

What did I get out of all this work?

1. I know my students better than at any point in my career. I had close conversation with many on a daily basis about science and what they understood and more importantly what they didn't understand.
2. The learning curve was sharp and log based for both the students and myself. Post course survey gave me clear data that they understood what SBG was about. It didn't take them long to change their brains to figure out what they needed to do for learning. (That doesn't necessarily mean they did it, but they understood what it took).
3. Students are still reluctant learners by themselves. Many still want me to "tell" them what they need to know, instead of trusting the standards and rubrics to guide them to learning. I fear that will be the case with every class, every year, unless our school moves to SBG across the board.
4. Explaining SBG got better and easier for myself, students and parents as we dove in. I had vision, but needed the doing to figure out really what it was going to look like. One of the coolest moments happened at the start of Trimester 2, when new students arrived and the experienced explained how it all work. That was reward.
5. Students are working toward mastery and beyond. In the last weeks of the trimester, I met with students before school, during passing time, over lunch, during FLEX, and after school to get things done and get to proficiency. For some it was about the grade, for many it was about the learning: post course survey showed that.
6. I still have a long way to go to get to "Flipped Mastery Classroom".
7. The work was good.
8. Students generated a lot of evidence. I don't like our grading software, with the way it is set up and the way it looks to students and parents. Since almost everything was formative, there was a lot of evidence to show growth and change over time. I included almost all of the formative work in the gradebook. It was only there for practice, but demonstrated so much learning.
9. I've learned to love spreadsheets with conditional formatting. I can make the data jump out and help students get to mastery more quickly.
10. Moodle has become my enemy and my friend. The organization is quirky and bulky, but the information that I've grabbed from using Moodle quizzes has focused learning on the things that need to be learned.

The rewards of getting to know and understand my students' learning has far exceeded what I thought would happen this year.

Good work, it has been.

Nearing the End of the First Beginning

Figure 1. Time keeps on
ticking, ticking into the
future.

Time has been running out as the end of the trimester creeps closer.

How have students reacted?

Most recognize the deadline looming and have been working hard on getting to mastery on that last assessment. Those arriving at proficiency did it a variety of way: test and retest, conversations, demonstrations of what they know with diagrams and words on a chunk o' whiteboard.

The journey has been a good one for the students and myself. The 'two sigma solution' has increased learning. I've got numbers that show just that.

I've been surprised by a number of things on this path.

Students fear conversing with me about topics, when assessment is involved. Students would rather face a paper pencil quiz than have conversations being judged on their learning. I hope to keep working on removing this anxiety, because it keeps them from demonstrating what has been truly learned.

The mastery has been achieved at different paces, but then again, students are all unique.

Students are very different from one another. They all want to look, act, talk, share music, technology, language the same.....but differences in how learning has occurred could not be more apparent.

How students think about material has been revealed through the time spent, in my catcher's crouch, at their desk side talking, querying as work is happening. More conversations than I've had....ever and it has been good.

Students care about grades (still, more than learning, even though the two are linked in this classroom). A student was concerned about her grade on a portion of a recent assessment. I responded with a comment, "I don't care about your grade". She was alarmed and pretty much shocked. My response to her response was, "I care about you learning the material". She got it.

Figure 2. Truth

You will notice that I've used the word most when referring to these people. The majority of the students have embraced the mastery idea. Many students have pushed themselves hard to get to a 3 and even harder to get to a 4....which has been inspiring to watch. There are a few students who have not moved to mastery by their choice, even with my prodding find school an uninhabitable place. With that thought, there is so much work to be done with these students.

The final assessment of the trimester will happen on the last day of the trimester. Students are already asking about retakes.

We'll see how that portion of the story unfolds.

Late for a Friday

The line in the sand had a few students pause on the way to "two sigma". They recognized that it was time to step up and learn some more.

Friday afternoon, in the media center, it was crowded with students working on science.

Friday afternoon.....cool.

Lines and Redos

The summative assessment on carbon chemistry was last week Wednesday. Students were informed they would be able to schedule retakes/redos/do-overs starting Monday. 

Many did.

How did most of the students prepare?

Well, I started the day on Wednesday by holding my hand on a hotplate....then screaming. Then again, I held my hand on the hotplate and screamed.

For most of the students who retook the assessment or portions of it, it was a lot like putting their hands back on the hotplate, BUT, expecting a different outcome. By their scores, it was obvious that students had 

spent too little time preparing for the redo.

I'm not sure what they thought would happen with the retake, if they didn't change their strategy....or better yet, prepare at all.

Many students on this assessment are yet to be proficient, in any of the benchmarks, let alone the whole standard.

Of course, some students have made attempts to improve their scores and have...which is good. Students at the B+ range that wanted to get to the A, you gotta love a push to excellence.

I drew a line in the sand today. Students had to speak with me or schedule the retake by Friday OR they were stuck with the original score. Their attention peaked at that statement on the board.

BTW, the hotplate was not armed, so no science teachers were harmed in the motivational speech.

Data and data.....

I used Moodle to give a summative assessment last week, then I disaggregated.

Who doesn't love to disaggregate data? I pulled the assessment apart and looked at each benchmark and how students performed. Then to sort and highlight numbers on the spreadsheet, that data was too much!

The scores seen above are a portion of that. Pink and red were proficient for that section about macromolecules. Those not highlighted have some work to do.

A student asked if it took a long time to get those numbers into the spreadsheet on the iPad.....I just laughed. Cut, copy and insert rows.

I took the iPad around the room and sat with every student, showing them the scores and where they were strong and where work was yet to be done to hit mastery.

Moodle gave them instant feedback of not only their percentage scores, but individual answers, as well as the overall score of 4, 3, 2, or 1. Students then have to figure out what needs to be done differently if not at a 3 for the test, but at least a 3 in the individual targets.

On to the retakes. Those will start in the next day or so.

Will they have studied at all, or differently? Will they utilize the resources available?