Note: This article is cross-posted in the CSSA Newsletter.  Be a part of the discussion, join my personal learning network, and leave a comment on its contents here.

n March 13, 2010, the Obama Administration released its strategy for revising the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also known as No Child Left Behind.  The blueprint, in part, focuses on the development of effective teachers and leaders.  The plan requires states to define an effective teacher, effective principal, highly effective teacher, and highly effective principal. Definitions are to be developed in collaboration with teachers and leaders, based in significant part on student growth and other measures such as classroom observations of practice.

he ESEA contains expectations that district level evaluation systems

• meaningfully differentiate teachers and principals by effectiveness across at least three performance levels
• are consistent with their state’s definition of effective teacher and highly effective teacher and principal 
• provide meaningful feedback to teachers and principals to improve their practice and inform professional development
• are developed in collaboration with teachers, principals, and other education stakeholders

ow do we, as science education leaders operationalize these broad statements and translate them into meaningful methods to assist in teacher growth and improvement?  I think at times, it is necessary to step back and examine how we can compartmentalize the instructional process for the purpose of identifying an area to focus efforts to help teachers improve.  Certainly instruction is a very holistic process, but targeting specific teaching skills in the instructional toolbag can give teachers meaningful feedback to improve their craft.  My focus here is on effective oral questioning. 

uestioning in the classroom is vital to help students develop problem solving and critical thinking skills.  To frame this discussion, it is important to consider the different types of questions that a science teacher might ask students (or students might ask teachers).  I would classify them into three major categories:

Factual questions are just that:  checking facts.  Factual questions are composed of isolated information that stands alone and is generally much lower on Bloom’s Taxonomy (knowledge/comprehension).  Conceptual and analytical questions, though, would fall under higher order thinking skills questions.  Conceptual questions are ill-defined, allowing students to connect ideas together and draw on knowledge to formulate an answer, while analytical are well-defined, challenging students to interpret information or data, and make calculations. Both are more inquiry-based but a conceptual question can have multiple possibilities (i.e., the BEST answer), where a well-defined analytical question has one right answer (i.e., the CORRECT answer).  Of course, all types of questions are necessary, especially to scaffold student learning, but are a variety used effectively and judiciously?

s I observe teaching and learning, I often find myself asking many of the following questions: Who (teacher/students) are asking the questions?  Are a variety of students participating?  Does the teacher answer student questions or does the teacher turn them back to the class for a response?  Is appropriate wait time utilized?  If a HOTS question is too difficult to answer, does the teacher rephrase or scaffold to provide a structure for student success?  What types, in what frequency, and in what proportion are questions being asked by students and teachers?

 If  inquiry is learning by questioning and investigation, then effective oral questioning in a science class is critical to the development of student inquiry skills.  Helping teachers develop their classroom questioning skills is a necessary and important part of professional mentoring for growth and development. 

 Note:  This article is a cross posting from the Connecticut Science Supervisor’s Association Newsletter.

from: thotwave.com

As practicing professionals who strive for continuous lifelong learning, we often recognize that adult scholarship takes different forms.  We appreciate that our learning is not just what we read in books, view on the Internet, or hear from an expert presenter.  More importantly, we recognize that we construct our knowledge through the social-cognitive interactions that occur with our colleagues.  Many of us choose to belong to organizations like CSSA to nurture these relationships with our peers, which, in turn, promote our own individual professional growth.  We talk with each other in person, by phone, by email, or by whatever means necessary to collaborate.  This is a Personal Learning Network (PLN).  As individuals, we count on others with similar goals, visions, and ideas to validate or even challenge our conceptions so we can grow individually while also building capacity with our constituents.

So how do we develop these Networks, nurture them, and keep them thriving?  Certainly our face-to-face interactions are critical, but today’s technology offers us more options and power to communicate with others.   Many web-based tools are specifically designed with interactive features. Sometimes dubbed Web 2.0 or the read/write web, these sites allow simple production and the ability for others to provide reactions or comments. Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and discussion forums allow individuals to produce original work, publish it online, and solicit feedback from others. Knowledge flow can occur in two directions. Individuals become not only consumers but producers of information.

Those wishing to integrate Web 2.0 interactive technology into their Network do not have to be savvy at programming. Rather, the web tools are menu driven, object-oriented, and often have interfaces that look like common word processing software packages. This is important because it allows educators to focus on content, concepts, and ideas, not the distracting minutia of web coding.  It’s not about the technology, but rather the people that the technology connects.

For example, I maintain a blog (problemfinding.labanca.net).  I started the blog as part of my dissertation work, but continue to use it both for my own reflection of educational issues and as an instructional tool with graduate students with whom I work. A blog, or weblog, is a personal chronological online journal record of thoughts, beliefs, and activities that has interactive commenting features for both the writer and readers.  I personally enjoy writing, but I find that the asynchronous responses I get from other thoughtful professionals help me professionally develop more. 

Why share this?  Apart from some shameless self-promotion of my own work, I find that the interaction that takes place between my readers and me, help to challenge my own thinking.  What’s new is that these challenges and discoveries, by their own nature, caused a feedback loop of new ideas and thought that each lead to some new thought.  However, when I started reading the blog postings of other educators, and began posting responses to their writing, I began to understand the importance of the Network.  The Network consists of people I personally know, and others that are just cyberspace compatriots. My face-to-face and digital PLN partners help me do my job better, because they expand my mind, challenge my thoughts, and provide me with perspectives that I may have never considered. 

Will you become a part of and help me to continue to develop my PLN?  I will cross-post this article on my blog: http://problemfinding.labanca.net.  Please come for a visit, and more importantly, leave a comment.  That’s how the Network builds its capacity!  Collectively we can continue to develop and improve the educational enterprise by applying novel, collaborative, and innovative strategies to our own learning.

from: www.bath.ac.uk

My good friend and colleague, Krista Ritchie, recently defended her dissertation at McGill University.  I was able to attend via distance using Skype.  During her defense, I had the opportunty to hear about her research on problem finding.  She conducted her study longitudinally, observing students over the course of a year from various Connecticut high school science sites.  Each site she studied had students in a “traditional” course (e.g., biology, chemistry, physics) and an applied science research course. Both the traditional and research courses were taught by the same teacher at each site.

As she was presenting her data, one thing stood out to me as a practitioner.  She discussed the negative responses often associated with problem finding: anxiety, nervousness, fear.  These responses, she discussed, were often not found in the traditional science education classes, yet were prevalent in the applied research class.  This immediately got me thinking.

Of course, the proximate interpretation is for an applied science teacher to know that there is anxiety assocaited with the problem finding phase of research, and he or she should do whatever is in his or her power to support the students.  Yet, I wonder – what is the necessity of the anxiety to push the student forward to facing and conquering the challenges associated with creative problem finding?

For more of a holistic view of the educational enterprise, I am thinking more about the place of problem finding within educational structures.  While I am an advocate of problem finding, I am not so Pollyanna as to realize that creative behaviors like problem finding are often stifled and supressed in education.  As much as teachers say they want their students to be creative producers – so many really don’t.  I can hear the voices now . . . “Just do what I say.”    Or from the students, “Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”  There is TOO much culture of lock-step-do-as-the-teacher-says-and-don’t-push-the-creative-envelope culture prevalent in education.  I don’t even claim this to be a one-way street.  Teachers and students just want to do as told:  solve/teach well-known questions that have well-known answers.  I am often disgruntled about how few teachers and students are willing to take a risk and work with ill-defined problems.  I think that’s where really powerful learning takes place. My challenge as an instructional leader is to bring more students, parents, teachers, administrators – all the constituents – to this place.

A place where we transcend the logical and analytical processes of problem solving and challenge students to engage in creative problem finding behaviors.    And I’m not anxious about saying that one bit!

My final day at Invitrogen reinforced my appreciation for science content.  I think in educational leadership we think a great deal about pedagogy and student learning, but it always seems to be from a global perspective.  We don’t do a good enough job thinking about individual disciplines and the important qualities that each offers for teaching and learning.  This is too bad, because it suggests that there can be more of an industrial style to teaching.  We talk about differentiation for students, but I think we need to talk more about differentiation for teachers.  Professional development – which is turning more and more to building-based learning neglects the importance of collegiality within disciplines.  From a science persepctive, it is so critical that teachers participate in the professional associations and programs like CSTA, NSTA, and the JSHS.  As an instructional leader it is my job to facilitate this philosophy.

What did we do today that makes me think about this?  We ran the protein arrays and learned the techniques – very systematic.  But then the important things that happened:  eating pizza with the staff of Invitrogen and talking shop. . . looking at the protein array data and thinking about ways to share it with students. . . saying goodbyes and realizing that many scientist are interested in helping teachers.  More important – there are companies that will facilitate this as a company philosophy.