The atmosphere felt very different in my classroom a few weeks ago, as I began the hard work of teaching by getting out of the way.
I’ve always done inquiry science, but it has been more teacher-directed than I wanted. Over the summer I took an e-course in “Unleashing Student Passion” hoping to find a better approach. Isn’t that what summers are for? It’s the best time to look back at what worked well and what you could improve. In the summer of 2011, I went in search of ideas on how to develop more independent and critical thinkers.
The e-course, led by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach (@snbeach), was challenging for me because it exposed so many places where I want to be better. And not just a little better. A whole lot better.
Unleashing student passion for learning and specifically for science was my targeted area for improvement. I needed to stop holding students back from becoming the learners they will need to be as they grow up. I have always helped students learn the science and be curious. But I knew it was time to take another step, to help the kids in my classroom kindle their own passion for learning and become self-starting.
As school resumed in late August, I took the plunge and began implementing what I’d been studying all summer. It was hard. I wanted to roam the aisles looking for kids who needed help and encouragement. Instead (with some effort) I chose to sit back and let them do all that for themselves, using the skills we had been talking about over several weeks — how to define and build a team and be a good communicator.
We’ve begun to practice those new learning skills by making observations and doing data collection. Big yawn? Not the way we’re doing it. I decided this would be the perfect work setting to test out some of the ideas Sheryl’s been teaching. Besides, we’ve spent hours talking about teamwork and defining what it takes to be a good teammate and communicating clearly. We’ve practiced body language and put on demonstrations of how we listen to each other. So it was time for me to step back, hold my breath a little, and watch these kids put all they’ve been learning into action.
And away we go
While I’ve done inquiry-based lessons before, this time I really, really let go. I helped them with some set-up, gave them the minimum background knowledge, and then cut the strings. I left it to the student teams to pose questions that might interest them.
I also purposefully let them do it without me hovering. I told them I was strictly an observer today. I tried to empower them by not just telling but showing them that I trusted them to do the work. Although it was hard, I stayed at my desk, never strolled the aisles, asking questions or answering questions. I sat there intently concentrating on what they were doing and how they were interacting with each other.
Being present without being there
They knew I was present. That’s been a big point of the learning I’ve done this summer. I was there, watching without being depended on. Does that make any sense?
By the end of the period, I think they were shocked at how well they were capable of managing their own learning. And it was a revelation to me. I gained so much insight into what my students, individually and collectively, were capable of doing. I was able to spend almost the entire 45 minutes making observational notes: who were the leaders, who struggled, how they worked with their partner.
I ended up with an enormous new cache of information about each of them that I can use for lesson planning. This valuable data will be the basis for the next lesson I teach. I have to give many thanks to the “wayfinding” teachers who encouraged and supported me to try this. Thanks, Lani Ritter Hall and Dean Shareski—for showing me this lesson. I still have a long way to go but I think I’m getting it.
How, you might wonder, do I know they got anything out of the experience? By the questions they asked. Turned loose from teacher expectations, they investigated their own questions and then started exploring other things that were of interest to them. Here’s some of how it went.
We started with a typical observation/data collection activity: dropping water on a penny and counting the drops.
They posed questions that we captured via Twitter —
they started asking better and better questions….
They worked and worked at all these questions, some of which I was very dubious about when they proposed them. I’ll admit that some questions worked out and others ran into the troubles that I would have predicted. But here’s the big ah-ha: they’ve learned it for themselves now. It wasn’t the teacher telling them “no” and here’s why. Instead, they tried it, it didn’t work, they re-grouped and formulated another question to test. It wasn’t a big deal. It became routine scientific investigation, rudimentary though it certainly was.
I’m hoping this experience builds up their learning muscles so when we get to bigger topics they’ll feel the same way about roadblocks they encounter. Those roadblocks will be higher and wider, but maybe they’ll remember the value of persistence, something they’ve now had a taste of — dripping water onto pennies. Beginning steps. Simple activity. Experience gathered under our belts.
Unexpected pleasures are usually the best ones
My biggest joy today came from one of those goofy boy groups — the guys you love and who stress you out all at the same time. They finished and sat there just seeing what would happen if…. They mostly made a mess until
discovered you could get a drop of water to “stick” to the penny
… even if you turned it upside down
Then everyone had to try and replicate the results. With that accomplished, they starting firing off amazing questions. It was contagious. Success was breeding success everywhere in our classroom that hour. They measured the bulge of the water bubble over the side of the penny, concocting amazing ways of using rulers. They conferred and shared and suggested alternative ways of doing everything. And all the while they were engaged.
I wish you could have seen their faces beaming and shouting across the room. “Hey Mrs. R, look at this!” Jumping to the next thing and then the next. I sent a big air high five across the room to congratulate them. These were their questions, their experiments and they owned it. Big time.
And it all happened because I got out of their way — and let them struggle a bit — so they could find their passion for learning science.
Photo credits (Creative Commons)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68134711@N00/3172441452
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7327560@N06/4307378745/
Marsha Ratzel
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Wow… Marsha, this was so exciting to read! Building their “learning muscles” and learning how to work through roadblocks is HUGE. It’s amazing that left to their own devices (without being able to lean on you), how successful they were and how they were able to follow their own curiosity and construct their own learning. Simply fantastic. I really want to flip a penny with a drop of water on it now… Thanks so much for sharing this story!
Thanks Patti for your kind words.
I’m working on it and feel like I’m doing parallel learning in different dimension. They’re learning about pennies and I’m learning PBL!!!! Pretty funny if you think about it.
Awesome bit, Marsha.
You’ve challenged me here to do more getting out of the way.
That’s hard for me simply because I’ve always been the assertive leader type of guy.
Now, I’ll be honest: What I’m most afraid of isn’t whether or not my kids can guide their own learning in meaningful ways.
I’m most afraid of how much more time these kinds of activities will take and how much more trouble I’ll get in for falling off the county pacing guide.
I shouldn’t care about that simply because I know that the lessons learned are so much more important than anything covered in standardized tests, but the fact of the matter is that I do care.
Any of this make sense?
Bill
Oh Bill…..I totally understand the fear of not knowing if kids can guide their own learning. But then I asked myself this question: How will they ever learn? How will they ever get better? If I never let go and let them try.
I think my key was realizing that I had to tell them that it would be hard and that it would feel a little uncomfortable. and that we’d figure it out as we go along. That I would need their consultation and honesty….so we could figure it out as we went along.
It forced me into building even more feedback moments than normal. That was a biggie….I had formatives built in. But I had to morph the formatives to include loads more meta-cognitive stuff than I had designed before. Before the formatives were all focused on learning targets.
Now they had to expand to include time management and organization and teamwork and ……??????????
As for falling off the pacing guide. Well, I think there’s room in any pacing guide. That’s because I think many of them spend way too much time worrying about the bottom end of Bloom’s….and so if we can learn the boring stuff faster, I can make time. I’ll know for sure after Tuesday….but my hypothesis was that I could transfer all that drill/practice time into higher level skills time which would be ok because the “missed” time would be embedded in the higher skill time.
Does that make sense….I swapped it believing if I taught for the deeper learning, the lower level learning that I gave up would be taken care of. I finished my scientific inquiry unit at the same time as other teachers….we just weighted our time in the unit differently.
Bill….I totally understand the hesitation that kids won’t know how to do this kind of learning. Why would they? It’s not how they’ve been doing it.
But if not now, then when? How long can we continue to wait until we have waited too long to build them up and strong and into thinkers?
I just don’t think we can wait any longer.
And we’ll have to do it together. They’ll have to teach me what they can do….I’ll have to respond….design new lessons/interventions….and then move forward.
I believe in them and their abilities to adapt and expand their capabilities.
Marsha — this is very cool.
But let me start by empathizing with what Bill wrote when he worried “how much more time these kinds of activities will take and how much more trouble I’ll get in for falling off the county pacing guide.”
We are stuck in the factory model that says we all have to get to the same place at the same time. If you had to justify to an administrator WHY this is a good use of time, what would you say? (Hopefully admin types would be on board and supportive, but just play along here for a moment and imagine a non-receptive administrator)
Bill suggests that he knows “that the lessons learned are so much more important than anything covered in standardized tests” — but can we find language to describe what students learn from being allowed to experiment on their own?
And just for context sake, can you share what class this was? How many students were in the room? You mentioned that you learned lots about them from observing that will help you in the future — you learned “who were the leaders, who struggled, how they worked with their partner.”
You also made learning fun for them — they were engaged (as pushback, were a few folks not engaged?) and that means the environment in the class will be a great one for learning down the road.
It seems to me that the time you took to sit back and observe while they had time to investigate on their own is time extremely well spent. If we don’t take time at the beginning of the year to do that sort of work and to get to know our students as people, it won’t matter how far we get in the pacing guide, because we’ll be doing superficial spit-back “coverage” rather than diving deep into something that excited students and that they will remember. They’re learning about pennies and water here, but they will be doing something larger later on I presume.
What are your goals for the class? Are they the same as your students’ goals? What is this lesson building towards? What will these students look like at the end of this course and how will this course change them?
Just a few things to ponder on a Saturday morning… thanks for a great post that pushed my thinking about PBL.
-Steve
Marsha,
Thanks for an excellent post. I will be looking forward to more from you about this topic. I teach science to 7th graders, too, and you hooked me in the first paragraphs. I would love to get my students more independent and thinking critically. I long for them to care about science. Thanks for sharing this. I will be reading more from you and others.
Thanks,
Denise
Dear Denise,
I think helping students become more independent is a critical piece we’ve been overlooking. Sometimes I wonder if we don’t resemble “helicopter teachers” a little more than we would like to admit.
I think the trick is finding that balance.
I don’t want anyone to become so frustrated that they want to quit. But I don’t want anyone to be so dependent that they can’t find their own creativity and abilities to find their own path. I guess it’s where I see the masterful blend of teaching come into play…and that definitely takes a lifetime to learn how to do well.
Let’s stay in touch and help each other. Thanks Denise.