In the last lecture, I talked about a number of challenges in implementing constructivist learning environments. In this lecture, I'd like to look at some research and other resources typically available online that can help us in facing those challenges. One resource of course is research. We've already had a chance to in the last assignment. For the last module we'll look at the research and particularly look at research using Google Scholar and ERIC, which are both very helpful resources for identifying research literature on particular topics. So for example, if you want to think about what is a good way to teach photosynthesis in the middle school? There are a number of resources that you could go to and examples of constructivist learning environments that can give you some really good ideas on how to go about teaching that particular topic. If you're interested in issues having to do with establishing a classroom culture, again, that's something that you can search using Google Scholar or ERIC. If you have concerns about testing students, taking of standardized tests, after going through constructivist learning environments, there's a lot of literature on that. So there's a lot of the challenges that were articulated in the last lecture. There is typically quite a bit of research that can help in thinking about those challenges more deeply, and possible ways of facing those challenges. But again, I wanted to emphasize that the research literature on constructivism often takes different perspectives. So I wanted to talk just briefly about what those perspectives might look like in terms of the kinds of models that we've been looking at. So here's the set of concentric circles that I talked about earlier with the individual in the middle, individual is embedded in the social context of the classroom, and the classroom is embedded in the wider socio-cultural context. So thinking about our model of interaction, the individual perspective would tend to look at students ideas. What are the ideas that different students have about particular topics? What are the ideas that might cause problems in terms of developing more accepted ideas? What are some ideas that can actually serve as building blocks, and can can provide grounded intuitive support for developing these ideas? The social aspects would tend to look at students expressed ideas and the media that they use, the drawings, the words, etc. The classroom contexts and how classroom consensus is reached for example on particular ideas, and these questions. The socio-cultural context would tend to look at the broader socio-cultural context of the nature of science, the nature of mathematics, what it means to do science, what it means to do mathematics, etc. Oftentimes, this research is framed again in terms of an apprenticeship metaphor. That rather than students acquiring understanding, that of developing an ability to participate in these complex practices. As a teacher, we need to pay attention to all of these. We can't decide we're just going to focus on individual ideas or just focus on what goes on socially in the classroom or just look at the nature of mathematical practice, but we need to integrate all of those into this ongoing flow of interactions in the classroom. So as teachers, we have a very difficult and very challenging job. So I wanted to talk about some existing frameworks that can be very helpful in thinking about these very complex issues of practice. One of these frameworks is a book by Mark Windschitl and an accompanying website. The book is called Ambitious Science Teaching, which Mark has talked about previously, and the website is ambitiousscienceteaching.org. So here's a screenshot. Let me just talk a little bit about what Ambitious Science Teaching means and this is from the website. The ambitious science teacher is someone who works with students ideas over time, as we've we've already heard from Mark. In ambitious science classrooms, you would see and hear are some of the following. Teachers anchoring their instruction in a complex and puzzling natural events. So an example, there might be a hole in the paper activity that we've done together, and the expectation that there would be a single spot on the bottom paper, and in fact finding that there are multiple spots, that are rectangular rather than round. Students engaging in multiple rounds of creating revising scientific models explanations and evidence-based arguments. As we saw some examples of my students doing that as they would propose different possible explanatory ideas for why there are multiple spots and why the spots are rectangular rather than round. Teachers using a variety of discourse strategies with students to get them to think deeply and to respond to each other's thinking. For example, with the spot on the paper, a student will say, "Was is that right?" Rather than say, "You're right." The teacher could say, ''Well does that model help to explain all of our observations? What could we do to explore this further?'' So there are a number of possible discourse strategies that can encourage students to think more deeply about the ideas. A student's prompting each other to engage in sense-making talked during investigations and other activities. So again, establishing a culture in which students value this engagement with ideas and sense-making talk. Students ideas being represented publicly and worked on by the class. So we saw examples of that with the hole in the paper activity where students were drawing on an iPad, and that drawing was projected to a screen at the front of the classroom so that everyone could see what was being drawn. That really helped to facilitate interaction about the drawings and the ideas represented in the drawings. Teachers using specialized tools and routines to support students who aren't willing or able to participate without help. We didn't see examples of that in the spot activity, but they are certainly going to be for example, if students are working in small groups, there might be a particular student who holds back and doesn't really get involved in. What are some ways of helping that student to get involved? Students speaking up about what information or experiences they need to move their thinking forward. I think another misperception of constructivism is that it says, "We can only have students talking about their own ideas. We can't have them using textbooks or Google or Internet or anything like that.'' That's absolutely not the case. We want students using textbooks not as an information transfer device, but as a resource that they can use in their sense-making. We want them to come up with questions and Google those questions and see what people are saying on the Internet. Not again to take it uncritically, but to say, ''How does this help us in moving forward with our ideas about this particular topic?'' In this website, here's one example of a resource and this is ambitiousscienceteaching.org/pathways. So we see here one recommended pathway for teachers interested in ambitious science teaching, and these are clickable icons, so orientation videos, discourse primer, planning for engagement etc. So there's a number of of possibilities for teachers to click on and to find some very specific advice for ways of constructing constructivist learning environments, and video examples of constructivist learning Environments that teachers can look at and hopefully discuss with colleagues. So it really provides a really nice resource for thinking about these challenging issues of creating constructivist learning environments. Another example is what Mark Windschitl calls a talk topology and here he talks about this idea of a talk topology. So I have a talk topology for example, that I gave them a little map of different talk moves. You can make, so you have to really build what I call a conversational infrastructure in your classroom. One of the four parts to that is you got to have different moves at you make. Like teachers can revoice something a student has said. They can press "Can you tell me the evidence behind that statement?'' They can do a lighter thing like probing. They can ask follow-up questions like, "Can you tell me more about what you just said?" Or they can ask a partner, "I hear what you're saying. Do you agree what your partner has just said?'' So those are all individual talk moves. Those should become, that repertoire of talk moves should become second nature to any beginning teacher. So this talk topology is just one example of the kinds of resources available on this website that can provide very specific guidance to teachers who are attempting to create constructivist learning environments, and are coming to challenges such as, How do I help students. What what can I do in order to help students really engage in sense-making activities and not just twiddle their thumbs?'' Another resource, and this is from Jo Boaler's group. Who we've seen. We haven't talked with her, but we've seen some of her work previously. This is a similar website that has a number of resources as we can see here, that teachers can access and can use to think about very specific issues involved in the teaching of mathematics. Finally, in thinking about political challenges, standards documents can provide a lot of political cover for doing things differently. So I'd just like to talk about a couple of the standards documents. One is the Common Core State Standards. These standards strongly stress these three aspects procedural fluency, conceptual understanding, and applying mathematical ideas. So in traditional classrooms, procedural fluency is often about the only thing that's stressed. Getting students good at solving sheets of sums or sheets of problems very quickly. So helping students to very quickly be able to solve exercises. Whereas the Common Core State Standards encourage conceptual understanding of ideas and applying mathematical ideas in genuine problem-solving contexts, it's not simply exercises. The Next Generation Science Standards, also stress three things disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and science and engineering practices. Again, these can provide strong rationales for doing things differently. If all we're doing is providing students with factual information, that's really not getting at any of these. So really helping students to understand disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and involving them in science and engineering practices such as modeling, constructing explanations, argumentation etc. These are obviously things that would not happen in a traditional classroom. So it can provide strong rationale for doing things differently. Both of these sets of standards rely heavily on what's called learning progressions or trajectories. Let's hear from Stella Vosniadou, and then Carol Smith about this idea. Another thing that I think is very important to understand in terms of science education is importance of learning progressions. Because as I said before, scientific explanations can be very counter-intuitive. So they presuppose that you already know something. For example in order to understand the day-night cycle, you need to understand that the earth is a sphere, you need to understand the movements of the earth,you need to understand the position of the earth, the sun and the moon. So these are all prerequisites for understanding the scientific explanation. The way I think about learning progressions, I do try to think about like a sequence of models, about matter for example, they could be progressively developed, where each model of course can account for a certain set of phenomena, and it has resources to deal with those phenomena, and can be perfectly accurate, or useful for those phenomena, rather than saying is wrong, I mean well, models are always useful, right? They can give you some purchase or insight, to predict. The thing that's so wonderful, you could think about these models as a series of stepping stones. One model can then open up a whole line of inquiry, where you're now in a new place, you've got more of the footing that, the next thing isn't such a challenge. I mean, you still have many challenges to go from one model to another, but again as I said, it's like the gap between where preschoolers are, and where we want them to be, is huge, and if you keep bridging the gap with these, what we call stepping stone models, each one again is its own intellectual achievement, and great fun to develop. Of course, teaching in this way will take time, and here is Carol Smith talking about this issue of time, and reminding us that thinking about kindergarten through 12th grade, we have a lot of time, and if we spend that time genuinely involving students in developing and understanding of ideas, as opposed to reteaching the same thing four, or five times, then we will have the time to involve students in this kind of instruction. Part of the reason they think one thing is because, they're also thinking this other thing over here, so you can't just be focusing on, hey, you got simultaneously realize there is a whole set of things that you got have to visit in a sequence, and that this will all take time. But, then we have a lot of time, because we have 12 years, and rather than keep redoing the same topic four times, like face change which kids simply get four times in elementary school, we could be actually revisiting different topics starting with something else that's not often recognized, so they don't get bored with the same topic, and really each time you're exploring new phenomena, and seeing that you're deepening a model, and the models are accounting for a wider range. So those are just a few, of the ideas that are near dear to me. Another resource available online, our graduate classes. This course, of course is available online, and is a focus on students ideas, and developing an understanding of sophisticated stem ideas, and complex practices. There are a couple of other MOOCs that are in the collection of MOOCs through the University of Illinois, department of Curriculum Instruction, another one is collaborative learning which again focuses on interactions in the classroom, and ways of organizing those interactions to enhance student learning, and technology applications for teachers that looks at kinds of technology that can be very helpful in helping students to develop ideas that can support classroom interactions, and other aspects that will be very helpful for student learning. There are also a face-to-face, or online education classes at the University of Illinois, and here are a couple of emails, or websites to go to for further information about those. So these are resources for developing particularly a deeper understanding of the conceptual issues facing teachers who are trying to implement constructivist learning environments. It also is a segue way to the next lecture, where I'd like to talk about professional collaborations. Such classes can be very very powerful, not just for the information that they present, but also, for the possibilities for interactions with professional colleagues. So in the next lecture, I'll talk about other opportunities for professional collaborations that can be very powerful in developing our abilities to create, and implement constructivist learning environments.
