Today’s Plan: Toolkits & Strategies

Today’s Plan: Toolkits & Strategies • Intro activity • Talking about the field • Unpacking funds of knowledge • Kid quotes & handout • Readings • Pigeon case study • Digistory & Lesson Plan Connections

Who are we? • Take a look at our class results for the “who are we” survey. • In your groups, talk about where you grew up and how that shapes that resources you bring to science teaching and learning. • Talk about what strengths and challenges that presents you with as you think about the possibility of becoming a an urban teacher (or suburban, or rural). • How do your own experiences position you as a new teacher in an urban setting • Think about your teaching identity • Think about how your experiences shape what you can ‘see’ in the classroom and what might be hard to see. • Think about how your experiences shape your views on, approaches and desire to teach science 2

Talk about the field

With a partner in a different school placement, discuss the following: • Where is your placement? School, grade, teacher • What are your goals for your placement? List as many specific goals as possible. Goals should be concrete and specific (stated in a way which allows you to know when you have accomplished them). • As you made your first observations, what caught your attention about your classroom (in terms of anything – from its layout, to the teacher, the students, the resources, etc.)? • In terms of science teaching and learning, what did you expect to see? Did you see it? What surprised you? Why? • What are your specific concerns or fears as you approach this placement? What specifically could you do to address your fears or concerns?

With a new partner in the same placement: • What are your goals for your placement? List as many specific goals as possible. Goals should be concrete and specific (stated in a way which allows you to know when you have accomplished them). • As you made your first observations, what caught your attention about your classroom (in terms of anything – from its layout, to the teacher, the students, the resources, etc.)? • In terms of science teaching and learning, what did you expect to see? Did you see it? What surprised you? Why? • What are your specific concerns or fears as you approach this placement? What specifically could you do to address your fears or concerns? • And….

Field Discussion How is your classroom set up? What are the rules and routines for your classroom? Please draw a diagram of your classroom, and include a description of the rules and routines. Be sure to be clear about how the teacher makes the rules and routines known to her/his students. How do the classroom set up and rules: • Make science more or less accessible to all students? (i.e., an open science center can make science available during free periods such as before and after school) • Have an influence on how science is taught/learned? • Give students both explicit and implicit messages about what science is, who science is for, and what it means to be a good science learner?

After you have created your poster with a depiction of your classroom and description of classroom norms and routines, discuss the following questions: • Given your classroom set up and norms and routines, • What makes science more or less accessible to all students? (i.e., an open science center can make science available during free periods such as before and after school) • What has an influence on how science is taught/learned? • What are the explicit and implicit messages about what science is, who science is for, and what it means to be a good science learner? • Then….

Then…. • Come to the front and take a Science for All handout • Complete the “school science” circle based on your own experiences and your current observations • Complete the kid circle based on the stories in the NSTA book • Talk about the similarities and differences between “school science” and “kids science”

What words would you use to describe “kids science” and “school science” (as many kids experience school science)? • If you think about what ideas kids bring to science, and what the readings say, what words could you use to describe “science for all” (and ideally what you want science in YOUR classroom to be)? • Science • Literacy • For All • O • O • O Everyday Kids Science O O O O • School Science • O • O • O

Lesson Planning Guide • Main Components • Curriculum and Goals • Knowing your students: Resources for Learning • Activity sequence • Assessment Lesson planning handout

Lesson Planning Guide • Main Components • Curriculum and Goals • Knowing your students: Resources for Learning • Activity sequence • Assessment

Planning Part 1 • Selecting Learning Goals • Designing objectives connected to learning goals • Unpacking your learning goals • Deeper understandings • Connections

Planning Part 2 • Making sense of “knowing your students” • Conceptions • Everyday connections • Funds of knowledge • Special needs Cultural resources for learning

Planning for Instruction from the perspective of students • Conceptions in Science: The understandings that children have about the big ideas in science. • What conceptions do they have about science? • What conceptions do they have about themselves in science? Children’s Science Toolkits o Knowing o Doing o Talking • Cultural resources for Learning: The personal and cultural resources children draw upon in learning science. • Youth ways of knowing, talking • Funds of Knowledge • Getting to Know Students • Planning instruction means that you have to know a lot about the learners you are teaching, especially if you want to help build bridges between their lives and science. Special Needs: o ELL o Dis/Abilities

Funds of knowledge • Funds of knowledge (or “FOK”) refers to those historically developed and accumulated strategies (e.g., skills, abilities, ideas, practices) or bodies of knowledge that are essential to a household's functioning and well-being. These funds of knowledge can be drawn upon in the science classroom to help build bridges between the knowledge/experiences that youth have at home or in their communities and what they are to learn and do in school. • Think, Pair, Share: Looking at the FOK table (FOK handout, on next slide) pick one example of FOK and reflect on how that has helped you learn science. What is your experience?

Youth genres

Useful strategies Finding out about children’s funds of knowledge and youth ways of knowing, talking, and doing • Observing • Careful observation in the classroom, especially during times when kids are self directed, working in small groups, and having “free time”. • Who do they chose to work with? What kinds of things do they do? Do they talk about? How do they talk about it? etc. • Careful observation on the playground, before and after school, and during other informal times • Listening • Science Talks • Other types of classroom discussions where teacher solicits student stories, experiences, and ideas. • Reading • Student blogs or journals (as appropriate) • Reading local papers and newsletters • Reading books and journal articles • Community Participation • Participation in community events • Interviews and conversations with children • and their family members (Open house, • parent teacher conferences, before and after school, home visits)

Reflecting on Funds of Knowledge What are some examples of Funds of Knowledge that you have? Choice 1 • Benchmark: Compare and contrast food, energy, and environmental needs of selected organisms (SCI.111.2.E.4). • Benchmark Clarification: All plants and animals have life requirements. Plants and animals obtain and use energy (sunlight and food) from their environment (water, air, minerals, space, and habitat) in a variety of ways. A basic understanding of photosynthesis (link to Glossary) is essential Choice 2 • BenchmarkConstruct simple, useful electrical circuits (3-5) (SCI.IV.1.E.4). • Benchmark Clarification It is important for students to understand that an electrical charge can move in a complete circuital path. Students frequently have the misconception that charge is used up as it moves through a circuit. A circuit includes a pathway from the battery to the wire to the bulb or bell to the wire and then back to the battery. An electrical circuit may include a switch. See Materials that conduct electricity, (SCI.IV.1.E.2).

Looking at 2 culture cases • Learning & Engagement • To what extent do you think the student in this episode makes gains in developing understandings of the science learning goals for the lesson? • To what extent do you think this student, and perhaps others, develop a positive attitude towards science and/or a positive identity in science (felt like they could “do” science)? • Science for All: What’s culture got to do with it? • What kinds of cultural experiences and knowledge (funds of knowledge and everyday connections) play a role in this episode? • How does this episode support or not support children’s out of school culture and experiences? • What role did the teacher play?

Culture Case #1The Bone Song L.OL.M.4 Animal Systems- Multicellular organisms may have specialized systems that perform functions which serve the needs of the organism. L.OL.05.41 Identify the general purpose of selected animal systems (digestive, circulatory, respiratory, skeletal, muscular, nervous, excretory, and reproductive). L.OL.05.42 Explain how animal systems (digestive, circulatory, respiratory, skeletal, muscular, nervous, excretory, and reproductive) work together to perform selected activities

Culture Case #1The Bone Song • Preparation for test on skeletal system • Students to prepare teacher endorsed method of flash cards • In addition to flash cards, Ginny “wrote” a bone song, using the tune of a popular song • Taught bone song to a few peers • Bone song acknowledged by teacher and made available as learning resource to rest of class • Copy of bone song also posted on common corridor Ginny’s bone song.doc

Ginny’s bone song A little bit of cranium on my head A little bit of mandible on my jaw A little bit of scapula on my back A little bit of humerus on this bone A little bit of radius on the back A little bit of ulna on the front A little bit of carpals just like that A little bit of meta carpals on my hand A little bit of phalanges on the end A little bit of tibia on the front A little bit of fibia on the back A little bit of torso just like that A little bit of metatarsals on my foot A little bit of phalanges on the end Just wave your phalanges, yeah yeah yeah Just wave your phalanges, yeah.

Culture Case #2Pigeon Project • 6th grade science • Environmental Statistics and taxonomy • Inquiry- and “place-based” approach

KWL An instructional technique known as K-W-L, created by Ogle (1986),allows teachers to activate students' prior knowledge by asking them what they already Know; then students (collaborating as a classroom unit or within small groups) set goals specifying what they Want to learn; and after reading students discuss what they have Learned. Students apply higher-order thinking strategies which help them construct meaning from what they read and help them monitor their progress toward their goals. A worksheet is given to every student that includes columns for each of these activities.

If we were about to start a unit on classification (taxonomy)… and we were going to do a pigeon study to help us to do that.. Then…

Curriculum Context

Pigeon KWL Chart • What we know • All pigeons are alike • Rats with wings • They are dirty • Eat leftovers • Tend to fly in groups • They are ugly • Carry diseases like rabies

Student observation: Eat then poop • Teacher: See how they follow each other • Student observation: Alpha male • Teacher explaining pigeon morphs

Student observation: I could get encephalitis! • Teacher’s aid: see their necks?

Pigeon KWL Chart • What we know • All pigeons are alike • Rats with wings • They are dirty • Eat leftovers • Tend to fly in groups • They are ugly • Carry diseases like rabies • What we have learned • Follow each other • Many types or morphs • Majorities are bluebars and checkers • They get along together although they are different types • Pigeons don’t attack (not aggressive) • They fly fast

Jameer Resisting and challenging the pigeon study unit Jameer: I wouldn’t have studied pigeons in the first place. Researcher: What would you study instead? Jameer: Neighborhoods or something, not pigeons. It doesn’t affect, what we are going to do? Change the way pigeons look or something. It really didn’t help me with anything. I didn’t really like it. Researcher: Did you learn anything? Jameer: I learned the different types of pigeons, I learned what attracts them like if they see one pigeon after that a whole lot of them are going to come, and a lot of them are dying. I see a lot of dead pigeons on the street… rats are everywhere, they’re in people houses. I’m dead serious. I’d choose garbage. It don’t even have to be an animal because you see garbage all over the street on Amsterdam like they don’t pick up the garbage or something, and then on Broadway it’s just not there. Researcher: What do you think the point of the study was? Jameer : Trust me I have no clue. It didn’t have any point to me. I don’t know where you guys got it from. It had no point. Do it at a point like, … I would go to other neighborhoods, not just where we are. Let’s say to a cleaner neighborhood to see how many are there because pigeons don’t really do anything they just eat and that’s it. To see where pigeons like to live, in dirty neighborhoods or clean neighborhoods.

Class objective:biology of pigeons • Andre raises a question • Leading to a class discussion, which develops due to Mr. N’s support. Transcript: One of the tools we used… [interrupted] Which brings up an interesting issue. I will just make a quick comment and move on. What’s the difference between animals like pigeons and other animals and animals like humans? [He explains that we need to think about the differences and similarities between pigeons and humans] That was an excellent question. What tool… We are going to leave it open though. I don’t think we can answer it easily. What tool… or what tools.. • Internal tension for the teacher between staying with a plan and venturing out with new opportunities of science teaching and learning

Reflection Questions: • 1. What are the teacher’s learning goals? • 2. What funds of knowledge and goals did the students bring to the pigeon project? How does this shape the “composite culture of the classroom”? • What did the students know about pigeons? • How does this knowledge shape what their goals might be for the pigeon project? • How was this knowledge about pigeons useful in science class? In other words, how did the teacher draw upon the students' funds of knowledge to help them engage in the pigeon project? • How does Mr. Nader try to balance his goals versus his students’ goals? How does he draw upon his students ideas and experiences in ways that go beyond “tokenism”? Do you think he should have done more? • 3. What strategies did Mr. Nader use to elicit students’ funds of knowledge? Can you think of other strategies (you experienced as a learner, that you have seen your CT use, that you’ve read about or thought about) that would be useful to elementary school teachers? • In groups, read the handout describing the Pigeon Project. • Discuss the following questions (also on last page of the handout): • In your group, summarize your discussion by creating a poster that documents the relationship between funds of knowledge and science learning.

In your placement, look for and think about … • patterns and influences in your students’ ideas and ways of interacting with each other and with the CT. • examples of your CT’s/school’s attempts to recognize students’ (cultural) diversity. • possibilities for you to learn more about students’ lives outside of school and connect to these in the classroom. • ways in which the curriculum materials make room to get to know students and/or (mis)represent student diversity.

What is science?What does it mean to learn science? • MI Learning goals • The role of curricular materials • Drawing upon authentic experience • How do kids learn science • Resources for Learning • Models of Teaching and Learning • Starting in the Field • Classroom culture • Teaching • Instructional Models • Lesson Planning • Instructional Sequence • Teaching

Classroom/ School Family/ Community Resources for Learning What kinds of “resources” can we, as teachers, draw upon to support student learning? • Material/Physical Resources • Social/Cultural Resources • Human Resources

Lesson Planning - Lesson Plan Format Part 1: Background • Prepared by: Your name, the lesson plan author • Name of CT: • Date (lesson planned): • Date(To be taught): • Curriculum material sources: • Title: Title of the curriculum material upon which the unit is based • Author: • Publisher: • Unit Title: • Title of the unit in the curriculum material on which the unit is based • Lesson Title: • Give your lesson an informative title • Grade Level: For what grade are you planning and teaching this lesson?

Part 2: Goals & Objectives Learning Goals to be addressed in the lesson from the Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations (GLCEs) and the related main ideas and practices within those learning goals • GLCE science process standards and related main ideas (cite sources) • GLCE • Related main ideas • Related practices (what students need to be able to do to learn the main ideas in this standard and apply those main ideas to something meaningful) • GLCE discipline standards and related main ideas (cite sources) • GLCE • Related main ideas • Related practices (what students need to be able to do to learn the main ideas in this standard and apply those main ideas to something meaningful) Central Question For Your Lesson: Lesson Objective(s): • What should the students accomplish in this lesson? • (Example: The students investigate what happens when they bring different poles of magnets near each other and form a rule indicating that like poles repel each other and unlike poles attract.)

Part 3: Connecting to your students Commonly Held Ideas: • List commonly held ideas relevant to this lesson. Cite the sources of your information. How have these ideas influenced your lesson? (Where might you get this information?) Previous Experiences and Funds of Knowledge: • What relevant experiences and knowledge have these particular students had in and out of school related to this lesson? How have these experiences been taken into account in this lesson? What is your evidence? (Where might you get this information?) Linguistic, social and academic challenges, resources and supports: • What specific student challenges and resources have been taken into account in this lesson? What linguistic, social or academic supports have been provided in this lesson to address these challenges?What is your evidence? (Where might you get this information?)

Part 4: Lesson ProceduresTotal time for lesson: _____ minutesMaterials Needed:List both teacher and student materials

Digistory & Me • Example Storyboards for Digistory & Me • A few examples & class discussion (using feedback form) • Lesson Plan: Work on Parts 2 – 3 • Complete GLCE selection and learning goals statement & Objectives (part 2) • Complete “knowing students” (part 3) • Peer review of Parts 2-3

Today’s Plan: Toolkits & Strategies