Great Teaching

Steven Farr of Teach for America has just published a new book called Teaching as Leadership which is profiled an The Atlantic Monthly article, What Makes a Great Teacher by Amanda Ripley. For ten years, Teach for America has been tracking data on hundreds of thousands of students, mostly in poor urban districts, taught by its currently 7,300 teachers. During that time they have found that some teachers are far more effective than the norm in raising student achievement as measured by standardized test scores. Teaching as Leadership tried to highlight and explain the specific traits and practices of the high performing teachers.

Far identifies five success factors:

1. Set big goals for your students
2. Recruit students and families into the process
3. Maintain the focus on learning and tie all activities to your goals
4. Plan exhaustively, working backwards from your goals
5. Work relentlessly to overcome the barriers to your goals.

The finding that some teachers are much more effective than others links very well to the general findings on expertise in any domain from brain surgery and rocket science to sales and sports. The focus on goals, planning, and communication tie well to the general research on leadership. Now if we can only implement these precepts on a wide basis.

Starting Early

We start Science in the early childhood years to channel and build on children’s natural predilection for discovery and their indescribable joy in finding out about how the world works. Today an earthworm; tomorrow, perhaps, a cosmic wormhole.

Smart Children Left Behind

A recent article in the NY Times, Smart Child Left Behind, discusses an recent study by the Brookings Institute disputing the glowing news that No Child Left Behind has not stultified gifted education in the US.

It All Started Here

Today, as I was sitting in my empty-for-the-summer lab, getting ready for the return of my students in a week or so, I heard a voice from outside my door.

"I've just got to go in here!" she exclaimed. A young woman popped through the door, looked around and spotted me about to ask her how I could help her. "I used to go to school here," she explained. "I can't believe how much it looks the same."

I've been teaching science at this school for ten years now and I knew she wasn't one of my former students. "You must have had Molly for Science class," I offered, knowing this was a safe bet since Molly had taught here for more than thirty years.

"Yes," she brightened. "How is Molly?"

"She's retired to Oregon and spending lots of time with her grandchildren."

"You know, it all started here," she marveled, spinning around and looking intensely, trying to take in the whole room. "I remember learning about trees and flowers, studying crayfish, working with colored solutions and rocks in this room. Now I'm studying for my Ph.D. in biotechnology at Penn!"

We talked some more about what was the same and what was different, and what she remembered the most. She happily agreed to come back when she was in town to talk to my current students about her path from sitting in this lab doing many of the same hands-on investigations my students do now to working at the highest levels of science in a scalding hot area of research and development at one of the world's premier universities.

The room seemed even quieter and emptier when this dynamic young alumna, our own nascent scientist left and I was left again to my thoughts. Most school days in my lab are filled with enthusiastic kids and the wonder of finding things out through hands-on inquiry. Day to day progress is difficult to judge, however, and some days seem especially slow. Social chatter and just plain messing around sometimes seem to drive out deep scientific thinking.

But, after all, they are teens and tweens who come through my lab. Who can tell what learning will stick and what will fall away, which seminal ideas land on sand, which on rocky soil, and which on fertile ground?

Most of my students will never be scientists, but all of them will be consumers of the products of science and technology, as well as citizens dealing with the impacts of biotechnology in medicine and food production, the impacts of information technology on nearly everything, and the impacts of humans on the environment and global climate change on absolutely everything and everyone. Everyone needs a toolkit of basic science knowledge and the tools to think critically about the scientific questions and research that permeate our lives.

What teachers do, does make a difference, I mused. It all starts here.

In a Digital Future, Textbooks are History

While buying a science textbook for my daughter's high school physics class, I noticed that this $180 textbook now comes in a relatively cheaper electronic version. My wife, who loves her Kindle, had suggested that we solve the problem of lugging too many heavy textbooks and save some money by buying digital textbooks. This is emblematic of a fundamental change in educational technology.

The web and digital media disintermediate knowledge and shatter historical monopolies on information, communication, and learning. They are a classic example of what Clayton Christensen termed "disruptive technology" in his prescient first book, The Innovator's Dilemma.

First the web profoundly changed the way business is done and the way we live our daily lives. Now schools are moving online. The New York Times reports of the move of some schools and some teachers to creating their own instructional materials from PowerPoint presentations, podcasts, and YouTube videos. Neeru Khosla's CK-12 Foundation, which creates digital textbooks from free, digital media, has submitted several of its "flexbooks" for adoption by the state of California, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger hopes might save millions of dollars.

My school, the Nueva School, has never used textbooks, but instead relied on the creativity and passion of its teachers to develop instructional materials from both original content and from a synthesis of available content. Distance learning and online instruction are not new but have received new boosts from the imprimatur of elite schools like Standford and M.I.T. Christensen's latest effort, Disrupting Class, also makes the case for new digital learning in this brave new digital world.

Very Cool Astronomy Tool

The World Wide Telescope (WWT) is a virtual astronomy tool developed by Microsoft. It allows viewers to view the universe via a vast database of astronomical images. A teacher with a computer and projector can take a class on a tour of the universe. For example, you can move through the solar system looking at the planets, the sun, comets, and asteroids. You can move to a distant star or look at nebulae.

You can "record" a tour ahead of time to show student or even better, let students create their own tours. My colleague, Lisa Dettloff, who helped Microsoft develop a set of tools for educators to use with WWT, has created a tour for teachers to learn more about this amazing resource. Just clink on the link and select "Educator's Tour." Her web site also provides key links to WWT.

Southwest Archaeology with Kids

Our 5th graders study the archaeology of the Southwest during the spring semester as part of our integrated studies. As the science teacher, I work along with my colleagues in Humanities, Math, Art, and Technology to help kids learn about the history and culture of the ancestral Puebloan people. In addition to learning about the daily life and history, the 5th graders learn about the geology of the Southwest and the science of archaeology, including dating techniques such as dendrochronology.

This recent NYT article, Scientist Tries to Connect Migration Dots of Ancient Southwest, discusses University of Colorado archaeologist Steve Lekson's theory of the linkage between Chaco Canyon and Puebloan sites in Mexico as part of his unified theory of Native American population movements. I will use this article to help students get a bigger picture of the Puebloan migrations, and some historical context, as well as one of the current controversial ideas in the science of archaeology.