During April 15-25, VSSEC and Strathmore Secondary College hosted a six day Designing Effective Science Lessons Teacher Professional Learning Program presented by Anne Tweed from Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL).

Anne has more than 30 years experience, as a high school senior educator and science consultant for McREL in Denver, Colorado. Designing Effective Science Instruction are research-based strategies that have been positively associated with improved student achievement. You can read more about Anne, and find a link to McREL here:
http://www.mcrel.org/newsroom/tweed.asp

Equipped with her own reference library and laboratory materials, Anne delivered sessions using McREL’s effective science instruction format; providing participants with the experience of being students in an effective science lesson:

• Each session began with open-ended, probative questions designed to engage participants, identify prior knowledge and misconceptions, and introduce key concepts.
• There was no more than 10-15 minutes of teacher instruction before we broke into small groups to discuss and research, and then report back our findings for group response and analysis. As students we did the intellectual work that was focused on the learning goal.
• Each day included a simple classroom experiment, taking no more than 35 minutes and using simple, readily available and low-cost materials, aptly demonstrating that collection and interpretation of data was an integral part of the scientific process, and hands-on fun. Experiments included the effect detergent has on the movement of food colour in milk; the effect of sunlight on UV sensitive beads and the effectiveness of various sunscreens; exploring phases of matter at stations that included balloons filled with smells, copper wire to stretch, and the movement of food dye in cold and hot water.
• Sessions concluded with group reflection and sense-making that included relevance to real life experience and the dynamic nature of science and knowledge.

It would be almost impossible to cover all the material presented during the six days, but information that prompted discussion included:

• Learning is an active process undertaken by students, and novice learners don’t know what’s important and may focus on fine details rather than big picture concepts.
• To remember learning, students need 4-5 experiences over 3-4 days.
• Procedural memory, which includes concepts like how to design an experiment, takes more than 20 experiences.
• To engage with content we need to know students’ prior knowledge and real world experiences. Anne showed video clips of high school aged students explaining science concepts that they’d been taught in the classroom while their teachers watched from another room, which furthered discussion about the need to address misconceptions and prune content in order to concentrate on key concepts.
• The need to engage students in scientific and intellectual thinking, which includes an understanding of the difference between theories, laws and beliefs as well as the concept of testable hypotheses, and the collection and use of information, data and evidence.
• The learning process involves motivation, prior knowledge, intellectual engagement, use of evidence/data and sense making.
• Science is dynamic knowledge and is constantly evolving.
• The use of formative assessment to measure student progress towards understanding.
• Using inquiry based learning where students develop and test their own hypothesis, rather than experiments that demonstrate a known fact.

The week after the program finished, participants were asked reflect on their experience and the big ideas and key concepts they took away and would implement in the classroom. Responses included:

• Being clear about the key concepts to be covered in a lesson and having the information on the board.
• Spending time finding out what the students’ prior knowledge is so I begin a topic at an appropriate place.
• Pruning the content and offering several activities about the same concept to improve learning.
• Allowing for sense making at the end of the session.
• Reduce content
• Make it more inquiry passed
• Tackle misconceptions/preconceptions
• Understanding/ applying: fact/hypothesis/theory/laws
• The McREL program provided me with the framework and vocabulary to design more effective Science units, and design a whole school approach to more engaging and effective curriculum design.
• Formative assessment can be a powerful tool and has empowered me to embed it in all curriculums.
• Unless a student's preconceptions are analysed and addressed, meaningful learning can never occur for that individual.
• It reaffirmed the approaches to Teaching and Learning that we endeavour to emphasise with our preservice teachers at VU eg. 3R's Rigour, Relevance, Relationships and I especially appreciated the emphasis on teachers having high expectations of their students and a belief that they all can learn given appropriate support, stimulation and a positive learning environment.
• The emphasis on evidence from Research about the approaches to teaching and learning covered in the program.
• The emphasis on evidence from Research about the approaches to teaching and learning covered in the program. The presenter was thoroughly prepared, passionate, knowledgeable and 'practised what she preached' so that we could participate in a comfortable but challenging environment and work collegially on areas of shared concern - an excellent model for professional development of teachers which leads to professional learning for teachers.

The program covered:

The four key components of instruction and strategies include:

• Lesson Design – incorporates tasks, roles, and interactions consistent with investigative science, and encourages collaboration among students.
• Implementation – instructional strategies are consistent with investigative science, and teacher’s questioning enhances development of students’ understanding/problem solving.
• Science Content – students are intellectually engaged with important ideas, and the subject is portrayed as a dynamic body of knowledge.
• Classroom culture – respect for students’ contribution, encourages students to generate ideas and questions, and intellectual rigor and constructive criticism, i.e. focus on the work rather than personalities.

The three elements of Content, Understanding, and Environment are equally essential to improving students’ learning. Understanding this framework enables teachers to diagnose and begin to remedy areas that will benefit their students immediately, and over time constructively plan and carry out a personal professional development plan.

Identifying important CONTENT (Why am I doing this?)

• Identify ‘big ideas’, key concepts, knowledge and skills that describe what the students will understand.
• Prune extraneous sub-topics, technical vocabulary and wasteful repetition.
• Create essential questions that engage students with the content.
• Identify common preconceptions and prior knowledge.
• Develop assessments that correlate to the conceptual understanding and related knowledge and skills.
• Clarify and sequence the learning activities to focus instruction on conceptual understanding.

Developing Student UNDERSTANDING (Who’s working harder?)

• Engage students in science inquiry to develop understanding of science concepts and the nature of science.
• Make use of formative assessments throughout a unit to measure student progress towards understanding.
• Build on prior knowledge and address preconceptions instructionally.
• Provide daily opportunities for wrap-up that support student sense-making.
• Develop student understanding through collaborative science discourse.
• Teach concepts in depth by allowing students to continually refine their understanding through practice, review, and revision.

Creating a Learning ENVIRONMENT (What’s really important?)

• Show through your actions that you believe all students have the ability to learn.
• Teach students to think scientifically.
• Develop student attitudes and motivation to learn science.
• Give timely and criterion-referenced feedback.
• Keep students focused on learning by reinforcing progress and effort.
• Involve students in assessing their own progress.

Workshop participants expressed the desire to reappraise their classroom practises; including the need to pare down the content of a crowded curriculum to big ideas and key concepts, and offer several activities about the same content to ensure and improve student learning and understanding. We acquired a new vocabulary and framework to articulate and design more effective teaching units. All participants were keen to be involved in further professional learning and discussion. We learned a lot. We had fun. We talked to each other in a supportive environment about common problems and issues in the classroom and some strategies to implement new practises.