Why We Opted IN

In Ohio we have landed in the lull between rounds of PARCC standardized tests.  As of March 19, 2015, almost 1,000,000 PARCC performance-based tests had been given in math and ELA; over 500,000 similar AIR tests had been administered in science and social studies.  Later this month we will begin round 2, the End-of-Course tests.  Much has been written about why parents have decided or should decide to opt their students out of the tests.  To the surprise of almost everyone we know - family, friends, colleagues, my students - we decided instead to opt our children in.

My children, ages 11 and 9, attend an independent school.  It's the ultimate in local control, one of the main refrains of opponents of these assessments and the Common Core State Standards, because the learning experiences are dictated by a specific educational pedagogy.  The focus of the school is truly on learning; assessment is ongoing and never a single data point.  That's assessment, not assessments because tests don't bookend units of instruction the way they do in many traditional schools.  There aren't grades; a report card is a biannual narrative report.  In many ways, the school is a modern-day educational reformers dream come true.  

I don't know if it's the teacher in me or the scientist in me, but I do crave a little more data than I see in their educational experience.  I can't always put my finger right on what they know and are able to do.  When grades are absent and there isn't a steady stream of work that comes home, what's left, for me, is a semi-constant wondering about whether or not these educational years are proceeding the way they should.  Plus, I believe in the Common Core State Standards, the Next Generation Science Standards, and the movement to raise the achievement levels of all U.S. students.  Though critics of the CCSS and the PARCC assessments rail against any federal standards, the fact that these standards were written by a multi-state coalition strengthens my belief that they will move us all toward better educational outcomes.  I know that sounds naive.  I know that strength in numbers can quickly devolve into crazy mob mentality.  Yet comparing these standards and assessments to their predecessors in Ohio, they are better on both counts.

Opting in wasn't easy.  For one child, it meant scheduling many evening appointments so that a professional could administer the tests using paper and pencil.  For the other, it meant contacting our local school district and arranging for our child to join a class for a few hours on a couple of days to take the tests on a chromebook.  [An aside: Though this district initially found my request to be unusual, the principal, teacher, and kids at this school made those days a great experience!]  With little standardized testing experience, I am not sure our kids really knew what to make of our decision to opt in.  We did some practice in the days leading up to the tests and they both expressed frustration at how challenging the questions could be.  Still, after they finished the tests, they seemed pretty neutral about it.  They weren't scarred for life; they weren't begging for more.  

Now we wait.  We wait for round 2 later this month.  We wait for the results of both rounds.  We wait to see if opting in was better than sitting out.

The Lighter Molar Mass Lab

OK.  First things first.  You get some very funny looks when you buy this many lighters at Giant Eagle.  But, if you can push past that, and the occasional derogatory remarks, you have the beginnings of one of the very first inquiry labs I ever tried.

I teach a lesson on the Ideal Gas Law, followed by a lesson on Dalton's Law of Partial pressures.  As part of my Dalton's lesson, I do a demo where I collect the CO2 from a diet coke by water displacement so that kids see why we need to learn about Dalton's Law.  Both lessons are followed by your standard practice problems, including one where we calculate molar mass of a gas.

The next day in the lab I talk briefly about lighters and butane.  I suggest that if we collect a sample of the butane, by taking it out of the lighter, we can make some measurements and calculate its molar mass.  With just that short intro, I send them into the lab to develop a plan.  I won't give them the lighter until they tell me how they will measure all the data they will need.

What I know about kids, having done this lab for many years, is that they don't really know what they need.  And, given the chance, they would just grab the lighter and start collecting gas, only to find out later that they missed a step or a measurement.  They pretty quickly realize that they will apply Dalton's Law and the Ideal Gas Law, use the barometer for the room pressure, a thermometer for the temperature, a flask or something to collect the gas and measure the volume.  The question I ask over and over the day we do this, though, is "how will you measure the mass of the gas?"

Often students say that they will measure the mass of the flask with the water in it and then measure it at the end when it is full with gas.  This idea of massing before and after is pretty standard at this point in the year, but it is tricky when you're dealing with a gas.  Gas goes into the flask and water comes out of the flask, so subtracting the two masses doesn't work.  It's a head scratcher for them.

It's hard to see the lighters in these pictures I am including, but they are there, under the water, beneath the mouth of the flask.  While in this position, students ask great questions:  

• How much gas should we collect?  
• Do we need to empty the lighter?  
• How will we know when its empty?  
• Do we take the temperature of the air or the water?  

My answers are usually more questions:  

• How much do you think is a good-sized sample?  
• Do you need to empty the lighter?  
• Which temperature is the one that more closely approximates the temperature of the gas you collected?  
• Isn't it great when you get to make all the decisions about the experiment? 

The results of the experiment come out ok.  Most students calculate the mass to be somewhere between 45 and 80 g/mol; the real value is 58 g/mol.  I like that they have some error because then they also get the opportunity to scrutinize their procedures to consider where they they could make improvements.  The reports are usually easy to write because the students had to do so much thinking BEFORE and DURING the lab.  Sometimes students even race to calculate the molar mass while they are still in class to see if they got close.  Any day where students are anxious to see if their results are good feels like a good day to me. 

I am adding this description to my page of inquiry-based chemistry labs.  If you like this one, check out some of the others.    

A Research Task Template

Last week I attended OETC and presented two sessions.  The first session was about three ways to use technology in high school science classrooms in order to meet the increased demands of Ohio's new learning standards.  I presented the second session with my friend and colleague Tracy Coleman.  We showcased a template we created for teachers to use to make tasks that mirror the types of things students will need to do on the PARCC (math and ELA) and OCBA (science and social studies) tests.

The template is a very simple Google Slides presentation.  The first slide contains the task and links to the other slides on the presentation.  The subsequent slides contain critical components of the task - readings or video or simulations - and are all linked back to the original task slide.  Teachers can drop in a couple of articles and a video to create a research synthesis task.  Here is what the template looks like:



We showed some examples of ways to use the template too.  Tracy created an example where students must read articles and watch a video and write an essay about how we know that Shakespeare authored his works.  She also created an example with opposing viewpoints and asked students to conclude whether or not teachers should be armed.  I created a science example that includes a reading, an atomic structure simulation, and a video about the creation of new elements.  In this example, students answer questions in a Google Form instead of writing an essay. 

We hope that creating the template with an easy and free tool like Google Slides offers few barriers for teachers.  With a little research and a few clicks, teachers can create tasks that they weave into instruction to give students needed practice for these next generation assessments.  Teachers received the template enthusiastically.  Several started creating sample tasks during our session.  What do you think?  Is this something you would use to prepare your students for the upcoming tests?

3 Easy Steps to Higher Quality

This week I presented a session at OETC on behalf of the Ohio Department of Education as a Network Regional Leader in Science and Technology.  My session was to focus on ways to meet the demands of Ohio's 2010 standards and next generation assessments.  ODE has provided a tool to help teachers evaluate their practice called the Quality Review Rubric.  At first glance, the QRR can be overwhelming, so I copied the language from the rubric into a word cloud generator and came up with the image at the top of this post.  The words that stand out for me are Students (right in the center where they should be), Reading, Writing, Research, Text, Investigations, Scientific, Build, Practices, Appropriate, and Level.  I showcased three tools as ways to incorporate technology while working toward improved instruction in these areas.

Tool #1:  Using ActivelyLearn to meet the Literacy Standards

I wrote about ActivelyLearn earlier this year.  There are so many things to love about this easy to use, free web tool.  Here is the video I played during my session:

Tool #2:  Using Simulations like 123D Circuits to Ready Students for Online Assessments

123D Circuits is a great circuit simulator that is free to use and includes a large toolbox of circuit components.  Many people enjoyed seeing this overview video for a fantastic tool:

Tool #3:   Using Google Forms to Differentiate Instruction

I was surprised that the greatest amount of interest in the session seemed to focus on the way I use Google Forms to differentiate instruction in my classroom.  Here is the video that I created to give a brief overview to how I use this free tool:



Several people asked if I have a template for this.  I don't.  I think it would be hard to use a template because different lessons would have different needs.  I would be happy to share one of my forms with someone, though.

Here are the slides I used during this presentation.  



Though I showcased three tools, I included slides with several other options to improve science literacy, practice using simulations, and differentiate instruction.  The images on the slides are linked to the tools they represent if you want to check some of them out.
 
I had a great couple of days at OETC and enjoyed meeting many science teachers at this session.  Later this week I will share the slides from my second session too.  

Drawing on the Gas Laws

I recently wrote about a quiz question that asked students to solve limiting reactant problem that depended on a picture, including they needed to draw their solution.  Most of my students had mastered the math and sailed through the calculation part of my quiz but then struggled with the drawing task.  We have moved on now to gas laws, so, when it was again quiz time, I included another drawing item.  This time used a box of dots to represent the particles in a sample of gas.  I asked students to draw me a picture that would represent the particles in a sample with twice as much pressure.  I was checking to see if they understood the model and also if they understood the relationship between gas pressure and the other properties of volume, temperature and number of particles.  

Here are some sample student responses:

These two are essentially the same, but I like them both for different reasons.  The first with its solid demonstration of the model and the math, the second with its lovely conceptual simplicity.

This one is interesting.  The right idea, but I am looking forward to talking about how half the volume - which this student clearly knows is a good answer - and this picture are not the same.  Actually, a lot of students drew this same picture.

These two show the misconception that pressure and volume are the same.  Or that gases don't really fill an entire container like we know they do.  Good to know this misconception is still in the room.

Changing volume and number of particles were the most popular answers, but some kids addressed temperature nicely too.

Overall, the students did much better on this task.  I liked the open-ended nature of this one.  With at least three different answers, students had many opportunities to demonstrate mastery.  I awarded full credit for any picture that would show an increase in pressure; I didn't hold them strictly to double the pressure since I was really checking for the conceptual relationship more than the mathematical one.  The misconception uncovered here seems to be one that several students hold, so I hope it will be easy to dispel.  In another week or so we tackle gas stoichiometry, so I am already thinking about the drawing question I put on that quiz to see if we make improvements over the limiting reactant question.  Hopefully this confidence-building question will rub off on that one!

The Great Squid Challenge

One of the things I love about gas laws is the possibility for inquiry labs.  I start with the conceptual understanding of the relationships between gas pressure, volume, temperature and number of gas particles.  Kids can usually predict the relationships between any two of these four properties; I use this PheT simulation to help them see these relationships after they make predictions.  Then we are ready for a lab.

Students bring a plastic bottle to class on the day of lab.  I save bottles at my house and dig through the school trash and recycling bins for kids who forget.  The Great Squid Challenge has two parts.  First students must use a kit to create a working cartesian diver.  I show them a sample, but give them no extra instructions.  I tell them that instead I will give them the pleasure of figuring it out.  Once everyone in the lab group has a working squid, they have a slightly harder task.  Given a bottle and 5 numbered and weighted dropper bulbs, the students must make the droppers fall to the bottom of the bottle in numerical order.

It's great fun to watch the students tackle these two jobs.  They begin with doubt about how they will create the squid.  Some quickly assemble the parts but squeeze with all their might and still can't get the squid to dive.  Then they have to tinker until they get it right.  Eventually, the pieces all fall into place because once they get the five numbered droppers, they usually achieve that task fairly quickly.

In this picture at the left, you can see this group is systematically filling the droppers and laying them on the table before they test them in the bottle.  Many groups cheer and high-five when they succeed.  Only one group out of 30 did not finish during class this year.  

The day after this lab, I ask them to explain how the squid works on a quiz.  The students have to tell me which gas properties are constant, which properties change, and which gas law can be used to explain the experiment.  Most students did an excellent job at explaining this, demonstrating a solid understanding of the concept.

We buy our squid kits from Steve Spangler Science.  They also sell a kit where one squid hooks a second one. I have never tried that one, but it looks like big fun.  I bought some brass hardware and plastic droppers to make the numbered dropper sets that I reuse every year.

When I compare this to other gas law labs - like the one where you stack books on top of a syringe to increase pressure and measure volume - the payoff here is much greater.  Students really like this experiment.  The risk is low because the materials are very safe and the success rate is very high.  The materials are not very expensive.  Best of all, students understand and can explain the concept the next day, so they are still applying the relationship between two gas properties and the law that defines it.

The Best Place to Find PD and Community

 When I wrote my nominations for the 2014 edublog awards, I knew my choice for Most Influential Blog Post would be a piece by Audrey Watters.  I read her blogs with intense interest.  She has a point-of-view that is not duplicated anywhere else I have seen on the web and she writes with cynicism tempered by hope.  My favorite combination.  I nominated this post, but I mentioned it could have been any number of other posts she crafted last year.  Then, just about the time the awards were announced, she published this one, a post that questions whether or not Twitter is the best option for online professional development, something I have been asking myself and others for years.  Instead of elaborating on my opinions here, especially since she did it so succinctly in her post, I'd like to focus on her conclusion:

I’d wager the best place to find both remain on educators' blogs. I wonder if, in fact, "the future of professional development" might be a "return to blogging."

Though I am new to blogging, I have been regularly reading tremendous blogs for almost five years.  Every day someone asks me where I learn about all the things I have tried, how I keep up with our changing profession.  I follow 40 or 50 blogs, on education, edtech, and a number of other subjects, using feedly.  Feedly is an RSS aggregator - usually I get about that far in a description to a colleague or group when the huh?s start.  I like feedly a lot, but there are lots of ways to follow blogs.  For people who are just getting started and want a simple, clean platform for following blogs they like, I recommend bloglovin'.  It has the tiled, familiar look of Pinterest and is very easy and intuitive to get started.  Looking for some great blogs to check out and follow?  Try starting with Edtech magazine's Honor Roll of IT blogs.  There are many great ones listed, including Watters' Hack Education.  Looking to start blogging or start your students blogging?  Check out these resources from the Goodwill Community Foundation.  With just a few clicks, you will be on your way! 

I wholeheartedly agree that educator blogs are the best place to find community and professional development.  Meaningful professional development is always going to take more than 140 characters.  When I am looking for a new idea, the right tool for the job, or education rejuvenation, I will always "return to blogging."