Class 16: 10/20/11-Legacy Cycle Project

Agenda:

1. Brief View of the Road Ahead
2. Legacy Cycle Groups
3. Krajcik, McNeill, and Reiser

Dr. Petrosino began class by going over the agenda for the day. The road ahead includes starting on our Legacy cycle projects within groups (which are to be discussed later in the class) and doing more extensive reading on PBI. As we finish the semester, we will also be reading critiques and counterarguments to PBI; this is important so that we can continue to improve the PBI method and compare the benefits of various teaching methods.

Dr. Petrosino then began giving us information about our Legacy cycle projects that are due in approximately a month. Individuals may choose to work alone if preferred. Otherwise, groups should have two to three members. It is not required that all members of a group be of the same discipline (e.g. a chemist and a mathematician may create an lesson together). In addition, lessons could be on any subject desired (within the secondary and middle school scope). There is a curriculum model provided in the reading which is useful for thinking about the legacy project. Feedback and revision is important in PBI but we will not have sufficient time for that. Therefore, we may redesign an older legacy cycle from the web page if desired.

Dr. Petrosino then began a lecture on the reading of Krajcik, McNeill, and Reiser. This reading is assigned for us to read by October 27^th, 2011 (one week), but Dr. Petrosino decided that he would give a previewing lecture on the reading.

There is a constant tension between the state and federal government on the debate as to who has power over education. The states feel they hold the ultimate power on their state’s education since they provide the funding for it. In terms of curriculum and instruction, the state writes the curriculum and teachers must be certified through the state.

Standards tell us what to teach but not how to teach it. With numerous standards and limited time, we tend to go back to direct instruction in order to cover anything.

How do we move from content standards to learning goals? The reading discusses this and common Design Issues with curriculum. The Atlas of Scientific Literacy is very helpful to see how content is related to better plan and explain the sequence/structure used in the classroom.

Each day in PBI a different student takes responsibility for blogging about what goes on in class. Today’s blog is brought to you by Cassandra.

Class 14: 10/13/11-"Back of the Envelope" problems

Dr. Petrosino began class today by asking, “What do you know about pi?” and “Who can give me a value?” Student responses were the usual 3.1459 with some students carrying the decimal out farther than others. A few minutes of discussion then occurred centered around those two questions and the idea of estimation. The discussion concluded with Dr. Petrosino stating estimation is closely related to guessing. The class was then challenged to consider if grading estimations is possible, and if so, how it could be done fairly for students in their classrooms. This question remained the central theme throughout the duration of the class.

The majority of class time was activity based. Dr. Petrosino introduced the students to their activity by showing them some ““back of the envelope” problems (also know as Fermi Questions). Some examples shown were those that Bill Gates would ask in his interviews for Microsoft. The class was then divided up into groups of three and had ten minutes to solve one of the three Fermi Questions presented. The three questions presented are the following.
1.  What is the total weight of all the leaves in New England (in Kg)?
2.  How many crossings of the Atlantic Ocean have occurred since 1492?
3.  How many hairs on the average 20 year olds head?

Students were required to use assumptions and estimations to perform the calculations required. Their assumptions came from their own background knowledge, and collaborating with their groups. This element of collaboration was crucial in making their answers more precise. After the ten minutes were over each group presented their findings on the board in front of the class. These presentations allowed other students to see what each group discovered and compare answers. After the students were comfortable with the process of trying to solve one of these problems Dr. Petrosino presented more challenging Fermi Questions.

The activity did a wonderful job of demonstrating some of the elements of a Legacy Cycle. It consisted of a challenge, multiple perspectives and going public (Klein & Harris, 2007). The class ended with Dr. Petrosino explaining the difficulty of putting these questions on standardized test. The students agreed that these “back of the envelope” problems would be extremely frustrating to solve on without collaboration and under the pressure of a test. In response to the challenge question, estimations problems, like the Fermi Questions, allow students to use problem solving and critical thinking skills, but should be solved through collaboration in groups instead of individual. For more information on Fermi problems and the solutions follow this link!

Each day in PBI a different student takes responsibility for blogging about what goes on in class. Today’s blog is brought to you by ­­Casey.

Class 13: 10/06/11-Petrosino/Lehrer/ and Schauble

Tomorrow, Friday, is the first day the PBI students will be in the field, teaching day one of their 3-day teach at Manor New Tech High School. Our TA Sara started class by reminding the class of expectations during our teaching experience, including: appropriate professional attire, early arrival to classes, and having confidence and enthusiasm while teaching! Prudie handed out rubric for the field trip teaching experience happening Saturday at McKinney Falls, and there was a reminder that the rubric for Friday and Tuesday’s teaching experiences were in the Course Documents on Blackboard.

Dr. Petrosino encouraged the students to not burden themselves with the burden of being perfect because the high school students are the true audience – not the observer. The average teacher makes an instructional modification every minute, so expect at least a couple during your 75 minutes with the students. There will be moments where accommodation and “just-in-time decisions” will be needed. Take time to listen. Quiet isn’t a bad thing. Flexibility is key. Give the students time to talk and think and yourself time to listen, react, and interact. Keep in mind what things are important – what the ultimate goal is. It’s not your rubric so much saying you did a great job. The goal is engagement and thoughtful learning. There is great value in the cycle of reflection, interaction, and ability to make modification.

About ten minutes was given to teaching teams to gather and address last-minute issues, such as “Who is bringing what materials,” and “Who is taking the reins during the lesson at different points?” before the class discussion turned to the paper that had been assigned as the reading homework for the class.

For class today, we read “Paper structuring error and experimental variation as distribution in fourth grade.” (Petrosino et al., 2003) PBI student groups spent five minutes discussing the reading amongst themselves in order to determine if the experiment discussed therein was “big P” or “little p” and then to find points to defend their position. Groups wrote their ideas of “big P” and “little P” reflected in the paper on large sheets of paper distributed to each table with markers.

On a previous day, after reading two complimentary papers on Project-based Instruction, the class had defined “little p” as a project as many have come to know it. In general, it refers to projects in class that are more about making sure the students are doing something with their hands than being as much purpose-driven or problem-solving. Often, in a “little p” scenario, students are not sure of their purpose or goal or the connections the activity has to anything else. In contrast, a “big P” project is informed by theory, involves scaffolding, is learner-centered, driven by a problem or question, is relevant to the students in the place they are in, and builds community and discourse.

Something to consider is that the existence of a “big P” or a “little p” does not imply that one is inherently bad while the other is perfectly good. In reference to the paper, we discussed that perhaps one “little p” aspect was that although the project was taught over an 8-week timespan, a few days each week direct instruction was the mode of instruction. It was acknowledged that this particular paper did not necessarily emphasize Project-based Instruction. There were certainly “big P” attributes, such as the cycle of the first couple of activities of measuring the flagpole and the pencil and seeing the differences in experimental error building up scaffolding for the students before they attempt the largest challenge of the rocket launch. Their culminating challenge was to determine if rockets with rounded or pointed noses will go higher. The projects helped the students reflect on comparison of attributes, manipulation of variables, models of a situation to real world implications and in current work: measure and distribution. The trajectory of the project offered scaffolding by emphasizing standard deviation and distribution in a generative way for the students, who were also allowed many opportunities to present their data in their own way.

Teachers are Vygotsky’s bridge – the learned other – the archway between the child’s world and the scientific world. This project sequence explored: “When is a difference really a difference, and when is it simply within normal variance?” How we start launching rockets and want to make educated guesses about which design makes the highest height? We are almost intellectually dishonest with kids when we give them simplified situations with big effects and the data is not problematic. This project in the paper tries to give the students tools to use to decide when can you say with confidence that differences in results are due to the design difference.

At the end of class, the question arose from math majors who study the Moore Method how does that method compares to what is being taught in PBI. Dr. Petrosino shared that while he has not observed the Moore Method in practice, based on what he knows, the Moore method does not have the pronounced scaffolding discussed in PBI. In PBI, the instructor is obliged to be thoughtful of the scaffolds and collaboration supporting the learning goals.

Each day in PBI a different student takes responsibility for blogging about what goes on in class. Today’s blog is brought to you by Laura.

Class 12: 10/04/11-Peer Feedback on Lessons

For the first ten minutes of class Prudie, our UTeach master teacher, went over the logistics for the weekend field experience, and then we were split into groups. Each group had three teaching pairs, and each teaching pair had 15 minutes to present part of their lesson and seek advice from the other two pairs.

In my group, the first group was teaching a 10th grade geometry class a lesson about similarity and congruence using the side-angle-side and angle-angle-angle postulates.

For their warm-up, they plan on reviewing the distance formula, and classifications of triangles. Their driving question is, “How can you use mathematics to design a zip line at McKinney Falls”. The hypotenuse of the triangle would be the zip cable. On the first day of teaching they plan to introduce the question and have the students begin to design their zip line using what they know about triangles. At McKinney falls, they plan to show the students the location at which the park had decided to build the zip line. Students are to scale up their models, and determine if they fit the specified location. If they did not, they were to make adjustments to their calculations to make it work at this location. They would also use the GPS to take points and use that to help with their calculations. On the final class day, students will make any personalized changes to their design using the GPS coordinates, and create a model of final design with poster board, dowels and string to present to the class.

The second group is teaching a 9th grade biology class. Their objectives are ecology, food webs, and the effects of invasive species. Their challenge is to find a new organism to introduce into the ecosystem in hopes of helping it recover from the devastating drought. The first day they planned to review the concepts of trophic levels and food webs, and introduce the challenge to the students. Out at McKinney falls, the students would observe and take notes on the life they saw, and its relationship to other forms of life. The teaching group expressed concern about what to do at McKinney Falls and how to keep the students on track, and one person suggested they limit their students to the aquatic environment. On the last day, this group planned to have their students discuss the effects of the new species interacting with the preexisting species, and create a food web.

The third group was teaching a 6th grade math class about graphing, latitude and longitude, and the Cartesian coordinate system. The first day they planned to make the students experts at the GPS probes. Out at McKinney falls the students would participate in a treasure hunt and find “buried treasure” using layered transparencies making a map that they could then scale up to the park using GPS coordinates.

Each day in PBI a different student takes responsibility for blogging about what goes on in class. Today’s blog is brought to you by Anne.

Class 11.5: 09/29/11-Planning Session with Mentor Teachers

The purpose of today’s planning session was to meet with mentor teachers and discuss lesson plans for our upcoming teach.  It was in a relatively relaxed environment, which created a great setting for students and teachers to voice their ideas and concerns regarding lesson drafts.

The actual event was set to occur from 6-8PM, but the room (SZB 312) was opened early for groups to get a head start.  It was required that every group bring some form of rough draft of their legacy cycle.  Dr. Petrosino was relaxed in how we presented our rough draft; word documents, Google docs, and notes on notebook paper were all acceptable forms of a rough draft.  We primarily needed to have written evidence of an outline for our legacy cycle, proof that we had a basic structure; simply explaining lesson ideas to your mentor teacher without any documentation was not acceptable.  There was no required structure of the lesson draft, contrary to the norm for 5E lesson plan drafts. 

At approximately 6PM, when most students and teachers had arrived, dinner was served.  The provided meal helped contribute to the relaxed atmosphere; there were several types of pizza, salad, cookies and brownies, and various sodas.  Some groups took their meals upstairs to a vacant room on the fifth floor for a quieter working environment due to the congestion of the room.  After about 20 minutes, every group had finished dining and was hard at work.

As mentioned earlier, groups needed to create an outline of their lesson prior to the evening planning session.  Groups have had several collaboration periods during class, and many made significant progress on their legacy cycles during the field trip to McKinney Falls on the 26^th.  Meeting with mentor teachers during the evening planning session served as a time to review the progress made between the field trip and our most recent class period.  A large portion of the discussion revolved around smaller lesson details, such as supplies, trouble shooting, and the order of activities.

Personally, my fellow group members discussed worst case scenarios with our mentor teacher.  We predicted a maximum and minimum number of student attendees for each class to allow us to better predict the amount of supplies we would need and how groups would be formed for the lesson challenges.  We made an extensive list of all the needed supplies; it contained approximately fifteen items.  Within those needed items we determined which would be easily accessible through the UTeach supply room and which our mentor teacher could supply (such as scissors and sidewalk chalk).  We plan to use Labquests in our challenge, so we planned how many we would potentially need and what we would do if we didn’t have access to them and/or they ran out of batteries.  The solution to this issue was to collect GPS coordinates beforehand (we are using the Labquests for GPS purposes) or use a simple GPS app on a smart phone. 

Another significant issue we discussed with our mentor teacher was how weather conditions would affect our activities.  One of our activities involves measuring the height of an object by looking at its shadow.  We visited McKinney Falls in the morning on our field trip, and we came to realize that shadows would likely be in a different location in the afternoon, when we are planning to teach.  We thought of an alternative was to present the activity so it was not reliant on shadows; after all, even if we were teaching in the morning, there is always a chance it will be a cloudy day. 

Our group ended the session by exchanging contact information with our mentor teacher; we also linked her in to our Google doc with our current lesson outline.  We left the evening with clear ideas of what we needed to change in our legacy cycle in order to make it the best possible activity for our students. 

Class 11: 09/29/11-Big "P" v. Little "p"-Rivet&Krajcik 2004

“It breaks your heart.  It is designed to break your heart.  The game begins in spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.”  ~A. Bartlett Giamatti

Dr. Petrosino is a big sports fan and last night was a big night in baseball. Four key games meant the whole season to some teams.  Tampa Bay Rays down 7 - 0 and then in the last minutes of the game, they won.  This unsuspecting turn around shows the importance of perseverance, a great reminder before we go to our practice teach. 

Dr. Petrosino next addresses comments about the class submitted by students, specifically comments concerning how the class needs to have better organization of time during lectures.  The class discussed these comments and Dr. Petrosino explained that he will do his best to keep this feedback in mind during future planning.

For today’s class, we read “Achieving standards in urban systemic reform: An example of a sixth grade project-based science curriculum.” (Rivet & Krajcik, 2004)

Dr. Ann Rivit  is a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University.  Her research focuses on PBI, science reform, content area literacy.  Dr. Joe Krajcik is a professor at Michigan State University.  He won a prestigious science education award. His background is in chemistry.  He was the graduate advisor of Anne Rivet and our very own Dr. Cesar Delgado!

The following PBI Science Features are given in the presentation:

Active Construction (refers to engaging students with a  the task in thought-demanding ways such as explaining, gathering evidence, generalizing, representing, and applying ideas)

Situated Cognition (students make meaning through interaction with the world and their interpretation)

Community of Practitioners (students learn ways of knowing, what counts as evidence, how ideas are shared within the culture of the discipline)

Discourse (Participation brings students into the language of the community of practice)

Cognitive Tools (extend what students can do and learn in that they provide opportunities for students to visualize and explore phenomena that would not otherwise be possible in classrooms through manipulating multiple dynamic representations).  Students can report findings, gather, analyzing, and interpreting information and data.  Also discussed is the importance of providing opportunities for students to construct knowledge through designing and constructing investigations or drawing conclusions.

Dr. Petrosino goes on to discuss Big “P” v. Little “P”  He gives the example, that a local New Technology Network school, Manor New Tech High School, is mostly using Big “P” on their campus.  Big “P” incorporates ALL of the aspects of the PBI Science Features, (listed above). This is no easy task to achieve, however, good project based instructors will incorporate as much as they can, in a fashion that is most comfortable and effective for them.

Little “P” on the other hand can be fun, entertaining, and hands on, but are usually done at the end of instruction as a summative assignment, and often do not meet the requirements listed above.  Many of us have only experience Little “p” in our schooling. 

The study done by Rivet and Krajcik (2004) consisted of 24 teachers that taught over 2,500 students in Detroit over a 4 year period.  The purpose of this research was to address science learning goals of balanced and unbalanced forces, simple and complex machines, and mechanical advantage.  Achievement outcomes as measured by pre/post test, show significant and consistently high learning gains, even as participation in the project include greater numbers of teachers and students in successive enactments, and leadership of the professional development support for this project transitioned from university researchers to district teacher leaders.

These results illustrate that materials that contextualize learning and support student inquiry as part of an urban systematic reform effort can promote learning of important and meaningful science content aligned with standards. 

The rest of class was spent working with our teaching teams on our rough drafts for Lesson Plans due in the evening.

 Each day in PBI different student(s) takes responsibility for blogging about what goes on in class.  Today’s blog is brought to you through the collaboration of Claire, Lauren, and our TA Tara.

Class 9.5: 09/24/11-McKinney Falls Planning Trip

PBI-McKinney Falls Planning Trip - free slideshow

Today the UTeach PBI students from both sections of the class went to McKinney Falls State Park to get lesson ideas and practice with equipment.  The mentor teachers from local schools joined them in order to give feedback and assist with lesson planning, and UTeach master teachers helped to lead the day’s activities and give expert instruction on how to use the technology and other equipment. 

Students started the morning with a hike from the upper falls area to the lower falls, noting various landscape features like Old Baldy (a large Cypress tree) and a rocky natural overhang.  During their field experience, UTeach students will take high school students down this same trail and relate some of this same information to them. 

After the hike, UTeachers collected their equipment and practiced carrying out field experiments that they may decide to use in their lessons.  Some groups knew right away what they wanted to use, while others tried out a few different kits and tools before finding one they felt fit their lesson.  

Each day in PBI a different student takes responsibility for blogging about what goes on in class.  Today’s blog is brought to you by our TA Sara.

Class 9 & 10: 09/22/11-Expert Blindspot/Petrosino

After a few weeks without Dr. Petrosino, class began with an air of anticipation. Dr. Petrosino would speak to us in a matter of moments. A classmate remarked, “I don’t even know what he sounds like.”  Class, however, began as usual with the previous nights’ reading being introduced to us by Dr. Petrosino.  He asked the class, if any, what made this reading relevant to the course.  After a few haphazard answers, the class seemed to give up.  “Because your Professor is some narcissist, egotistical, self-absorbed jerk!” said Dr. Petrosino.  From there the basic tenets of the article were covered in depth.  The results from this study performed by Dr. Petrosino revealed interesting data from which a pattern began to arise.  Having expert knowledge in any given field, does not necessarily confer one the ability to teach within that field. 

As a result, a so-called ‘blind-spot’ exists.  Blind spot refers to the phenomena where by experts fail to realize the shortcomings of novices. Dr. Petrosino surmised the point that experts think of information in their field in an implicit fashion and construct schemas of information and recognize only patterns in their fields.  Their ability to innovate in their field is hindered by how experts process information.

Of interest, a student asked a question that had to do with how reliable was the information that stated students in the study ranked math problems in that level of difficulty. To which Dr. Petrosino responded that many studies had been conducted over such knowledge, so much so that it was almost considered a fact or a kind of “truth”. This segued into an interesting analogy brought up by Dr. Petrosino.  His analogy invoked some ideas brought up by Vygotsky.  He drew on the board one world in which the novice lives in the world of the student, child, learner or beginner. There is an element of not knowing and almost allowing for magical thinking to pervade because of the ignorance of the beginner.  In another world, there lies the scientific world a world of hard facts, patterns, ‘the ivory tower’ and hard logic.  In order to cross over from the world of the student to the scientific world, the beginner/novice must cross a bridge. Being that bridge, the teacher must fluidly traverse both worlds in recognizing the needs of the students and the structure of the expert world.

Another interesting issue that came up had to do with the act of teaching in a classroom that stemmed from the apparent problem presented in the previous analogy. Why is being a teacher so hard? More importantly to some of the class, what did PBI attempt to do that could be practical in a classroom setting? Many of the classes that we take in the UTeach program seem to deal with theory and how they might apply inside the classroom.  It seemed as if the class was beginning to question the point of PBI.   One not only need to be an expert in their content knowledge, but also in child development, classroom management, interpersonal relations, public relations, pedagogical expertise and etc…

From that point, a student argued that maybe this article has the wrong approach and a better approach might look at what kinds of things work in helping people arrive at the ‘right’ conclusions.  Dr. Petrosino commented that the current research is exploring something similar called learning progressions.  In these studies, researchers are looking at “what it means to move over time toward a more expert understanding.” (Pearson, 2010)

(Expert Blindspot discussion continued on 09/27/11)

Continuing from the previous class meeting, the first order of business was to address our weekend visit to McKinney Falls State Park.  “Did you get your lesson plans worked out?” asked one of the TAs. The class seemed to squirm in their chairs because the big day is fast approaching. We will have to teach! Logistics aside, Dr Petrosino continued to explore the tenets of the article.  One of the results that really stood out from the study seemed almost unbelievable. The result said that high school teachers with high context knowledge predicted that symbolic math problems are easier than verbal math problems.  In fact, the opposite holds true and students to do better at verbal math problems rather than symbolic math problems. Expert blind spot in a nut shell. Just because someone is considered an expert in a field, they may not know how others will approach that given field as a novice.

From there an interesting point came up.  How is it that high school and college instruction vary so vastly.  Why are the ideas researched at the university level in education not applied at the university level?  To which Dr. Petrosino answered, that he didn’t really know.  It could be personal preference, legal obligations on the state level, more freedom is allowed at the college level hence not as structured, and other external factors that influence each respective arena.   

At the end of his lecture, the class was left to work on their lesson plans. Having met Dr. Petrosino and experiencing his lecture, he is not to quote him “narcissist, egotistical, self-absorbed jerk”.  He’s funny and really likes what he does.  He only teaches two days out of the week, but the work that he does influences people all over the world.  It’s this far-reaching effect that others may not understand at first glance.  Despite his loss, Dr. Petrosino is a self-deprecating, funny guy.  Glad to have him as my prof!

For a quick look at learning progressions and an idea of what they entail, go to:

http://www.pearsonassessments.com/NR/rdonlyres/6C8F4D6F-EFB1-47CE-9247-3712D274190F/0/Bulletin_12.pdf

or for a look at different definitions of learning progressions, go to:

http://www.cpre.org/ccii/images/stories/ccii_pdfs/learning%20progressions_heritage.pdf

Works Cited

Pearson. (2010). Test, Measurement, & Research Services. Bulletin , Issue 12.

Expert Blindspot Presentation

Each day in PBI a different student takes responsibility for blogging about what goes on in class.  Today’s blog is brought to you by ­­­Jose.