McREL Blog

Summer program rockets students into NASA science

Summer school is a challenge—for students, who’d rather be doing just about anything else, and for teachers, who must find ways to get them interested anyway. While we know effective summer programs can lead to higher attendance and achievement during the school year, increased motivation, and increased skill development, none of that happens unless the students are into it.

For the past two summers, students at Union Intermediate High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, have been engaged in chemistry with an astronomical twist through a two-week program called Cosmic Chemistry. Developed by McREL through a grant from the Institute of Education Sciences (Grant R305A090344), Cosmic Chemistry uses real-world science from NASA’s Genesis mission to engage 9^th and 10^th graders in science and prepare them for high school chemistry.

Through interactive activities and hands-on projects, students learned about sun and solar wind, how elements are made, and planetary diversity. They met NASA scientists, tried on the clean room suits scientists wear when they handle samples gathered in outer space, and held artifacts collected from the Genesis mission. They developed final projects that invited them to explore different presentation styles (like Prezi) to show what they had learned.

  

The level of interactivity and personal empowerment, combined with standards-based content and research-based instructional strategies that work with students and teachers at all levels of knowledge, had real academic results. Data collected from surveys, focus groups, classroom observations, teacher logs, and pre- and post-tests showed students increased their background knowledge as well as their motivation level and self-confidence in science. Also, teachers had a higher level of expectation for student success. Of the students in the program, 82 percent went on to take pre-AP (honors) chemistry.

Most of what students said they liked best about Cosmic Chemistry can be applied to any science classroom: flexibility in choosing projects that were personally interesting; developing both the skills and the confidence to present in front of people; doing science instead of just reading about it; learning things that are relevant to the classes they will be taking; and believing they could understand an authentic science endeavor.  

How do you bring science to life in your classroom? How do you engage students in science during the summer?

 

What the American Dream could cost you

Ask anyone who graduated college in the last 20 years why they went to college, and they’ll repeat the message they were always given: College = job = American Dream.

But recent college graduates are quickly experiencing one of two things:

1. There seems to be more college graduates than there are college-level jobs available. According to one analysis of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, 35 percent of the 49 million college graduates in the workforce have jobs that require less than a college degree. For example, 33 percent of flight attendants, 16 percent of bartenders, and 13 percent of waiters or waitresses are college graduates.
2. Those lucky enough to have a college-level job have debilitating student loans. According to The Huffington Post, 2010 graduates left college with, on average, about $25,000 in student loans. But, in the same article, they interviewed a recent Ithaca College graduate, who earned a communications degree and also acquired $120,000 in school debt. She’s now an intern making $12.50 an hour.

So, while 40 years ago, the American dream was to graduate from high school, get a good job, and retire comfortably, and 20 years ago, the American Dream was to go to college, earn a degree (or two), get a good job (or two or three), and retire comfortably, the new American Dream could be somewhere in the middle.

Middle-skill jobs, that is. Two-year degrees, occupational licenses, and certifications are becoming more appealing to recent high school graduates. Two-year degree holders, especially in high-demand occupations, can earn salaries that surpass those of college graduates. For example, according to the Center on Education and the Workforce, the lifetime earnings of computer software engineers ($3million), aircraft mechanics ($2.3 million), and electricians ($2.1 million) all exceed the lifetime earnings of writers and editors ($2.0 million) and teachers ($1.8 million).

Two-year degree holders also graduate with a lot less student debt. According to the Institute of Education Sciences, the average tuition of a four-year degree in 2009–2010 was $20, 986 compared to $8,451 for two-year degree tuition.  

With high unemployment rates and tuition costs for four-year degree holders and the opposite for two-year degree holders, what do we tell our current high school graduates about college?

For more information, read Bryan Goodwin’s article in Educational Leadership, “Don’t Overlook Middle-Skill Jobs.”

Quiet in the classroom

Imagine being 13 years old and having a social studies class in which you and your classmates learn cooperatively 100 percent of the time, and no one ever works alone . . . ever. Depending on your personality, this could be your favorite class or your worst nightmare.

This was the learning environment one teacher created for his students after attending a professional development seminar on the benefits of cooperative learning. Upon returning to the school, he physically made over his classroom, creating stations for small groups of students to work together every single day.

Perhaps he was so inspired by a dynamic instructor that he couldn’t resist converting to a new teaching approach; perhaps he viewed it as a way not to have to deal with the time-consuming planning that good teaching often requires; or he may have viewed it simply as a fail-proof way for students to learn. Whatever his instructional motivations, it most likely was the way he himself preferred to learn. However, it was not the preference of at least one of his students, who began to dread attending his class and, as a result, learned very little social studies that year.

An insight as to why and how some students choose to opt out of cooperative learning is revealed in Susan Cain’s book Quiet, which posits that our culture, in general, and our schools, in particular, undervalue certain types of individuals, specifically, introverts. She contends that the focus on group learning in schools ignores the needs of students who not only dislike working in group settings but actually don’t learn in them. Instead, they learn best when they work individually, usually through reading, writing, and reflecting. 

In McREL's Classroom Instruction That Works, Second Edition, the authors write that learning to collaborate and cooperate is a good foundation for future success in a world that demands high levels of social interaction. When used consistently (but not daily) and systematically (but not rigidly), cooperative learning structures provide opportunities for students to interact, take on specific roles, and listen actively to others’ ideas. But cooperative learning is not necessarily the basis for thinking or problem solving; that level of understanding often occurs when students are allowed to think and wonder on their own. 

Cain writes that introverts represent one-third to one-half of all Americans; naturally, the same percentage exists in classrooms. For students possessing this personality trait, a steady stream of external stimuli is exactly the opposite of their ideal learning environment. And taken to the extreme—where students even take tests with a partner, possibly because teachers think it will reduce student anxiety (and new brain research suggests it sometimes does)—the practice gets in the way of learning.

More than two years ago, McREL Senior Researcher Charles Igel wrote on this blog that, while group learning had become as ubiquitous to modern instruction as rote recitation was during the last century,  many teachers were still confused about how to use it effectively. In a recent article, he explains that the early researchers of cooperative learning realized that just putting people into groups and having them learn together was not enough to improve learning. Cooperative learning is a subset of collaborative learning, and is different because it is highly structured and contains certain identifiable elements to foster the upside of social learning (i.e., engagement and high achievement) while avoiding the downside (i.e., uneven effort and outcomes). The research supports that when teachers use cooperative learning properly, they are more likely to reengage students who have become marginalized while preparing all students to be successful in their future endeavors.

Which brings us back to the over-zealous middle-school teacher, who, had he not taken his efforts to the extreme, might have created an environment where students learn to think on their own. We must acknowledge the possibility that when students seek solitude to “do their own thing,” they aren’t necessarily refusing to play well with others; rather, they may be following their natural tendencies to seek out an environment that frees them to learn their way.

Listen to Susan Cain’s TED Talk, “The Power of Introverts.”

What I Wish I Had Known about Student Motivation

“You’re a smart kid; I just wish you’d apply yourself in my class.”

Most teachers have uttered a similar phrase. I know I did. I remember one student particularly well; we’ll call him Jerry. His quick answers and witty insights—when he paid attention—told me he was smart enough to be doing better than he was.

My pep talks with Jerry never did much good, though. Sometimes, the more I goaded, the less he tried, which frustrated my ambitions of channeling Robin Williams’ character in Dead Poet’s Society, inspiring students to hang on every word of Nathaniel Hawthorne or Emily Dickinson. It felt like even if I stood on my desk dramatically reciting “O Captain! My Captain!” Jerry’s response would’ve been the same: meh.

Sending students the wrong message

Years later, while digging into research on student motivation, I realized what I had gotten wrong. Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck has shown that telling students they are smart actually lowers their motivation and achievement. In an experiment, Dweck and her colleagues treated two groups of students quite differently. They consistently praised one group for its ability, saying things like, “Wow. You got eight right; you must be really smart.” They praised the second group for effort: “Wow. You got eight right; you must have worked really hard.”

The students hearing continual praise for their ability developed a “fixed-mindset” and came to believe that achievement or “smarts” was innate, not developed through effort. Consequently, they began to avoid challenging tasks, fearing that if they tried and failed, they no longer would appear smart. On the other hand, 90 percent of the students hearing praise for their effort took on more challenging tasks and found they actually enjoyed the work.

My first mistake, then, was telling Jerry he was smart.

My second was trying to guilt trip him. I played on the fact that Jerry seemed to like me, saying, “Come on, you really should read The Scarlet Letter. Do it for me.”

The right kind of teacher talk

Edward Deci, who spent his career researching intrinsic motivation, found that motivation stems from two deep psychological needs: competence and self-determination. We enjoy challenging activities if we choose them. Even positive feedback from teachers can undermine motivation if it comes across as coercing students (“You should keep up the good work.”). What’s more effective is providing feedback on how students measure up to a defined standard.

What I realized, too late, was that teacher talk is incredibly important. When teachers aren’t thoughtful about what they say in classrooms or write on papers, they can chip away at students’ intrinsic motivation to learn.

Here are a couple of examples I’ve drawn from research showing “should” and “should nots” when it comes to teacher talk.

Say this (growth mindset) . . . "Your practice is really paying off. You're getting your math facts down."

Not this (fixed mindset) . . . "Wow, that was quick! You blazed right through those problems! You’re a math whiz."

Say this (growth mindset) . . . "You seem frustrated and tired right now. That means your brain is working hard. We’ll keep at it, and I know you’re going to get it."

Not this (fixed mindset) . . . "Not everyone is a natural at this. Let’s do a few more problems and then move on to something you’re better at."

If I could do it over again with the benefit of hindsight, I’d tell Jerry something like this: “You’ve got a lot of potential. Right now, it’s going to waste. I’d like to help you unleash it, but that’s up to you.”

What kind of teacher talk did you hear when you were a student?

Read about Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset.

Learn more about Edward Deci and self-determination theory.

Written by Bryan Goodwin, author of “Simply Better: Doing What Matters Most to Change the Odds for Student Success.”

Learning Uninterrupted

A growing trend in education over the last two decades has been exploring ways to use educational technology to maximize classroom time and extend learning opportunities beyond the classroom. The idea of a “ubiquitous learning environment,” where students can learn at any time and in any place, has long been a dream of many educators and goes back over one hundred years—correspondence courses, phonographs, radio, filmstrips, and television have all been re-purposed for learning.

Today, with high-speed Internet and devices like smart phones and tablet computers more commonly in the hands of students, educators are closer than ever to realizing the dream of the anytime/anyplace classroom. Despite the (very real) digital divide, schools increasingly are providing students with mobile computing devices to take learning from the school into the home.

Many teachers already take advantage of free online services that provide rich and engaging educational opportunities. For example, the Khan Academy provides video vignettes on a plethora of educational topics, and MIT hosts a wide selection of online courses. But today’s educators are not just looking to capitalize on these types of resources, but also to transform homework time into an extended classroom experience. McREL’s own research in the areas of Homework and Practice supports the idea that learning outside of the classroom has a high (and measurable) impact on student learning and achievement.

Most recently, the ubiquitous classroom has been getting attention due to the “flipped classroom” movement started by two Colorado teachers, Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams, from Woodland Park High School in Woodland Park, Colorado. Their flipped classroom began by first recording live lectures for students who missed their classes, but it evolved to recording lectures for homework use, and then for class-time projects and group discussions. While their version (http://www.flippedclassroom.com) is predominantly vodcasting, it also incorporates using Nonlinguistic Representation, an instructional strategy that research has shown to increase student understanding of concepts and processes.  

The new expectation is that teachers with access to rich educational technology resources are using valuable face-to-face class time to expand learning opportunities, and that homework is truly becoming an extension of school work. While parents and teachers might need convincing that flipping the traditional classroom is valid, students won’t. This way of learning capitalizes on the 21^st Century skills that students are already using (with or without us), which allows them to not only be along for the journey, but able to give input and guide the process, too.

What have you done in the area of ubiquitous learning? Tell us your story about moving your classroom into anytime/anyplace learning.

To read more about what research and ubiquitous classrooms have in common, check out the new McREL-ASCD publication, Classroom Instruction that Works, Second Edition.

Written by Andy Kerr, Lead Consultant