Week 5 Reflection: Blogs and Wikis...and Moodle?

I have been thinking a lot this week about how I want to set up the online component of my biology courses this fall.  Should I use a blog, a wiki, Moodle, or a combination of all three?  The Science 2.0 articles on blogs and wikis make good cases for both.  All of these platforms allow students to be active participants both inside and outside the classroom.  But after reading Eric's reply to a question I asked him... (http://teachingsscience20.pbworks.com/w/page/42245268/onlinediscussion), I decided to keep Moodle as my class page (teachers at our school are supposed to do so anyway) and maybe link a blog and/or wikis to that.  I just haven't figured out yet how best to utilize those in my courses, or if I even need to since we use Moodle.  One of the things I thought I could do with a blog was to have a different student responsible each day for posting a summary of what we did in class.  Those posts, along with comments from classmates, would give us a complete record of the entire year.  As for wikis, maybe they could be used for projects since students can be collaborating on them at any time from any location.

Week 4 Reflection: Using Online Data and Generating an Argument

Using Online Data:

Chapter 6 of our textbook has encouraged me to use online data in my biology classes.  I have never really done so, at least not to that extent.  The text makes a good point that online data sets “extend the possibilities of inquiry beyond the limitations and constraints of available equipment and geographical locations.”  I think this is particularly true in biology since labs involving living things are quite restricted.  I was happy to read that research shows all levels of students “increased their science content knowledge and improved their inquiry performance” because this is a major concern of mine.  I still think it is valuable for students to generate their own data in the laboratory, but I recognize the benefits of using online data sets as well.  Each type of lab experience has its own advantages and I would think a course that utilizes a combination would be “the best of both worlds.”

I was not aware prior to reading the text that there were so many data sets available for teachers and students to use.  I appreciate the list of websites in the Life Science section at the end of the chapter.  They will be a great place to start!  I also found the Guidelines for Best Practice helpful.  Some of the topics I found particularly suitable for my students to analyze are migratory routes, tap water, population trends, and water monitoring.

I looked at some of the online data sets linked to the wiki.  The Atlas of the Biosphere maps and data sets through iteachSTEM would be excellent resources.  I especially liked the Human Impacts and Ecosystems sets. 

Generate an Argument instructional model:

I can definitely see the value in the Sampson and Grooms model to support scientific argumentation.  I agree that it is important for students to learn to think more like scientists and this model does a great job of encouraging that.  The four steps flow logically from one to the next and students are held accountable for their progress, both as groups (steps 2 and 3) and as individuals (step 4).

Putting this model into practice by designing my own classroom activity will be challenging, not only because it seems like it will take a long time to do so, but also because I might have to modify it to make it less daunting for many of my students who are very concrete learners.  I am curious to know if any research has been done concerning using this model with different levels of students.  I do think that this model will be easier for students of any level to follow than the Argument-Driven Inquiry model since the data is already provided for them.  The other concern I have is the amount of class time it will require for full implementation, especially as this same procedure should be used often to allow students to improve on these scientific and communicative skills.  I might be able to spend the time in one of my courses since I am the only teacher of that course, but in the other course I teach I am restricted by a curriculum and schedule that all the teachers of that course must follow.

I like the "Backward Faded Scaffolding" approach mentioned in the wiki.  I can envision designing the first lab experience of this method using the Generate an Argument model and then gradually leading the students through less teacher-centered and more student-centered activities.  I would think this tactic would make the students feel more comfortable as they participate in what might be their first inquiry-based course.

Week 3 Reflection: “In Plain English”, Creative Commons, and Digital Storytelling

“In Plain English”: I enjoy the videos from Common Craft that Eric has put on the wiki.  They simplify web concepts and illustrate them in an easy to follow style.  Lee Kolbert’s students did a nice job of using that style to tell their own “stories”.  I can see how this could be an effective way to help students understand science concepts since they must physically make their own pictures, graphs, etc. first before putting them together into a video.  We know that the best way to learn something is to teach it and that is exactly what these students are doing.

Creative Commons: I hate to admit that I am not very knowledgeable about copyright laws.  Skimming through “The Educator's Guide to Copyright and Fair Use” made me nervous!  I will definitely have to look this over and talk to school administrators to get a handle on all the regulations governing creative commons.

Digital Storytelling: I have always been a fan of storytelling because I think it is a wonderfully engaging and more personal way to learn about a topic.  Why not do so in a tech-savvy way?  Chapter two of our textbook, Technology in the Secondary Science Classroom, gives some compelling reasons for using digital images and video in our classrooms.  I agree with the cited research that visuals help students comprehend and recall the text better.  I can say from personal experience that pictures, diagrams, and graphs help me understand difficult concepts much better than words alone.  Attending to different modalities is an important component of effective teaching. 

The text does a nice job of outlining four guidelines for using digital images and video such that the experience will benefit the students educationally.  I agree with all four.  They must be appropriate to the content and instructional goal; they must be accompanied by effective discussion that promotes meaningful interaction; they must not replace the teacher; they must follow copyright laws.  I like the examples of questioning strategies mentioned in the chapter.  The statement on p. 13 is so true: “The difference between good and bad class discussion is often questioning versus telling.”   That fits in quite well with an inquiry-based classroom.

Although I have used images and videos in my classroom all along, I have not taken advantage of the many digital means of “storytelling.”  The idea of students making their own video recordings intrigues me, but I am unsure of the time commitment this would require in an already cram-packed curriculum.  But I am willing to investigate this further and I look forward to seeing how others are using digital storytelling in their science classes.

Science and Literacy Reflection

After reading the article “Science and Literacy Tools for Life” by Marlene Their, I thought about the various strategies we have tried in our lowest level classes in all disciplines to bring up our students’ reading levels.  For a while we used a computer reading program which seemed to build their reading fluency and comprehension skills within that context, but failed to transfer over to reading in the various content areas.  Last year we began using a program that has students read short passages (in a book, not on the computer) related to each specific content area (science, history, etc.) and answer different types of questions about the readings. The jury is still out as to whether or not this program has made a difference.  We might have burned the students out, though, because many of them were spending one day a week in each of possibly three classes just focusing on reading passages.  I lost an entire day each week of science content time.  Next year we are using the same program, but less frequently.  We will see what happens.

I agree with the article that my “primary task as a science educator is to help students master science concepts, and processes” and that my “secondary task is to help students improve their language skills within the context of science.”  I can see how the three strategies the article discusses, performance expectations for students, explicit teaching strategies that support inquiry-based learning, and student metacognition strategies support these tasks.  I feel like I employ such strategies or similar ones intuitively without putting a name on them, but I do benefit from seeing it in writing.

One repeated point the article makes resonates well with my own philosophy on education: students need to “take charge of their own learning.”  I agree that we as educators need to guide students to do just that.