If a man’s home is his castle, then a teacher’s castle is his classroom; however his kingdom can reach much farther. Just how far the kingdom reaches is up to the resilience of the teacher. Teachers can be influential in their classroom, grade level, schools, and districts if they are passionate about something and want to spread the word.
In my case, I am passionate about elementary science instruction. I am excited about what I teach and my students recognize that, and want to be a part of it. The most integral part of spreading the virus and excitement of science instruction is networking. Over the past four years, I have taken part in year-long science academies aimed at increasing the pedagogy and content knowledge of elementary and middle school science teachers. I have taken part in Physics, Chemistry, Earth Science, and this year will begin Environmental/Life Science. The workshops are one full week the first summer, monthly meetings, coaching visits, and a full week the second summer. The best thing I have taken out of those workshops is meeting and sharing ideas with other teachers in my school district and districts immediately adjacent to mine. I am in constant contact with many of them and I will email or call them frequently to solicit ideas or feedback on lessons or topics I am covering. The tools and information I have been able to get from those other science teachers has been invaluable.
Late last year I approached my administration about starting a Science PLC in our school, and they were very much in favor of it. The goal of the PLC is for all of the science teachers to meet once a month to discuss successes, concerns, current events, and needed resources for upcoming lessons. Over the summer, I created a Wikipage (http://sciencewise.wikispaces.com/) as a central resource for all grade levels to use, updating it anytime anyone finds new information they would like to share. So far the PLC has been successful in sharing many ideas and resources across grade levels 2 through 5. The full impact of the PLC will not be recognized for a few years until all of the students in the school have had an opportunity to reap the benefits. Hopefully through this PLC, there will be more of a sense of continuity throughout the school focused on delivering meaningful, inquiry based science instruction.
Also, I help our director of science for the county every summer inventorying and restocking the science kits for the elementary schools. This relationship has led to opportunities with workshops, conferences, award nominations, and recognition as a good science teacher. Future possibilities could put me in a position to oversee the elementary school science program in our county.
In order to insure quality science instruction, first start with your classroom, then your school, then network with other teachers in other schools, then work on discussing topics with the heads of instruction in the district. From small beginnings, great things grow. Many obstacles such as lack of interest, and especially money may present problems, but when armed with information from reliable sources and making a convincing argument could go a long way to turning heads.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Sputnik, Science Education Needs You.....Again
In October of 1957 the Soviet Union launched what would become one of the most famous spacecraft ever to orbit the Earth – Sputnik. About three months later the U.S. launched its first orbiting spacecraft in response to the “Space Race” mentality, which presumably refers to the need to build better rockets to launch into space between the U.S. and Russia. The demand for better rockets also meant the demand for better rocket builders, and fueled the fire of American education to push students toward science in order to encourage them to pursue engineering careers. For the next twenty years there were multiple rockets, satellites, probes, and spacecraft of all shapes and sizes launched by both countries. The most famous of which is probably Apollo 11 in 1969 when two U.S. astronauts touched the surface of the moon for the first time. By the way, Russia had already remotely landed a spacecraft on the moon three years earlier.
Do you see a pattern here? Russia took a step in a direction, and the U.S. wanted to take a bigger step or leap just to prove we could outdo our planetary rival. Thank goodness we did. For probably the first time in U.S. history, science was placed at the forefront of education to grow and develop better engineers to “get there first.”
That was over forty years ago, and the educational landscape has changed greatly over that time. Rockets launches and excitement have been replaced with test scores and scrutiny. The Bush administration passed No Child Left Behind in 2001 to motivate schools to focus on math and reading test scores by holding each school accountable for attaining proficiency of a certain predetermined percentage of students. This has put an unimaginable amount of pressure on educators to get students to perform well on a set of standardized tests administered at the end of each school year. Unfortunately, with No Child Left Behind, our science programs are getting left behind. With increasing pressure to perform in reading and math, many schools are cutting science time in favor of supplemental reading and math programs (Griffith & Scharmann, 2008). With the U.S. trailing in test scores behind countries such as China and Japan, we need another Sputnik-type scenario to push us beyond test scores and into something tangible we can be proud to be a part of and work toward (Munson, 2011).
An article published in the New York Times in January 2010 by Thomas L. Friedman titled “What’s Our Sputnik?” he points to the fact that the U.S. is too concerned with fighting terrorism, and it is depleting our financial resources (Friedman, 2010). He also states the “greater China region always leaves me envious of the leaders of Hong Kong, Taiwan and China, who surely get to spend more of their time focusing on how to build their nations…” (2010). Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum, regarding the drive Sputnik created, said "our investments in science and education spread throughout American society, producing the Internet, more students studying math and people genuinely wanting to build the nation." We need to get back to building our nation from the inside, and the implementation of STEM curricula nationwide is a step in the right direction.
The next “Sputnik” may not be a space race aimed at getting people back to the moon, or even Mars. I think the next “Sputnik” is going to be based around efficiently and effectively using alternative fuel and energy sources mass produced to serve millions worldwide inexpensively. Americans need something tangible they can cling to and show off to prove their accomplishments.
Sputnik? Who needs a rocket when you can have a nuclear powered car, plane, train? Heated seats are still optional.
References:
Friedman, T. L. (2010, January 17). What’s our sputnik? [Op-Ed]. The New York Times [Late Edition (East Coast)], p. WK.8.
Griffith, G., & Scharmann, L. (2008). Initial impacts of no child left behind on elementary science education. Journal of Elementary Science Education. 20(3), 35-48.
Munson, L. (2011, March). “What students really need to learn.” Educational Leadership 68(6), 10-14.
Do you see a pattern here? Russia took a step in a direction, and the U.S. wanted to take a bigger step or leap just to prove we could outdo our planetary rival. Thank goodness we did. For probably the first time in U.S. history, science was placed at the forefront of education to grow and develop better engineers to “get there first.”
That was over forty years ago, and the educational landscape has changed greatly over that time. Rockets launches and excitement have been replaced with test scores and scrutiny. The Bush administration passed No Child Left Behind in 2001 to motivate schools to focus on math and reading test scores by holding each school accountable for attaining proficiency of a certain predetermined percentage of students. This has put an unimaginable amount of pressure on educators to get students to perform well on a set of standardized tests administered at the end of each school year. Unfortunately, with No Child Left Behind, our science programs are getting left behind. With increasing pressure to perform in reading and math, many schools are cutting science time in favor of supplemental reading and math programs (Griffith & Scharmann, 2008). With the U.S. trailing in test scores behind countries such as China and Japan, we need another Sputnik-type scenario to push us beyond test scores and into something tangible we can be proud to be a part of and work toward (Munson, 2011).
An article published in the New York Times in January 2010 by Thomas L. Friedman titled “What’s Our Sputnik?” he points to the fact that the U.S. is too concerned with fighting terrorism, and it is depleting our financial resources (Friedman, 2010). He also states the “greater China region always leaves me envious of the leaders of Hong Kong, Taiwan and China, who surely get to spend more of their time focusing on how to build their nations…” (2010). Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum, regarding the drive Sputnik created, said "our investments in science and education spread throughout American society, producing the Internet, more students studying math and people genuinely wanting to build the nation." We need to get back to building our nation from the inside, and the implementation of STEM curricula nationwide is a step in the right direction.
The next “Sputnik” may not be a space race aimed at getting people back to the moon, or even Mars. I think the next “Sputnik” is going to be based around efficiently and effectively using alternative fuel and energy sources mass produced to serve millions worldwide inexpensively. Americans need something tangible they can cling to and show off to prove their accomplishments.
Sputnik? Who needs a rocket when you can have a nuclear powered car, plane, train? Heated seats are still optional.
References:
Friedman, T. L. (2010, January 17). What’s our sputnik? [Op-Ed]. The New York Times [Late Edition (East Coast)], p. WK.8.
Griffith, G., & Scharmann, L. (2008). Initial impacts of no child left behind on elementary science education. Journal of Elementary Science Education. 20(3), 35-48.
Munson, L. (2011, March). “What students really need to learn.” Educational Leadership 68(6), 10-14.
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