Culturally Responsive Crafting Engaging Science Environments

We aren’t teaching students to memorize facts, we are teaching our students to learn. Despite rapidly advancing technologies, little has changed in the way science is being taught in classrooms over the last 60 years. We are changing that. Scientists don’t tell you what is already known. Scientists ask questions. Scientists look at the world around them, apply knowledge from a variety of subjects, and devise a strategy to better understand the phenomenon. Scientists draw upon these findings to understand causality and correlation. And all the while modern scientists are constantly updating their technical skills by learning to generate models in with the most up to date technology available. This is the core focus of what we are teaching our students.

We develop and design curriculum materials that begin with students asking questions. Through our carefully designed professional development, teachers are taught to guide students creativity and inquisitiveness through the scientific process. Our teachers will help students ask the questions that will help them design and test their own models of everyday phenomena.

“A large percentage of the jobs that we are preparing our students for have not even been invented yet.” Due to rapidly developing technologies, all fields of science are continually evolving. As more powerful microscopes, more capable sensors, and super conductive materials improving quantum computing are being explored, science is able to reach deeper than it ever has in the past. This also means the job market is changing so rapidly there is no way to predict what our k-12 students will need to know fifteen years from now to be at the top of their chosen fields. For example, we have added a new degree program here at Michigan State University, in order to train employees to work in our Facility for Rare Isotope Beams. This extremely advanced technology places our nuclear research facilities among the top in the world, some of what is being studied is so new, it really doesn’t fall within the parameters of our existing nuclear physics research programs. By the time our students have reached the work force, these technologies will have already grown and changed. By teaching our students to ask questions, model the phenomena, and design experiments to test that model we are teaching students what they need to keep their skills and knowledge current. Teaching students to control variables and analyze the data they collect will allow them apply this knowledge to any chosen field of study.

Our research is also addressing the importance of diversity and equity in the sciences. Many groups are still underrepresented in STEM fields. The holistic nature of our research helps us to track student progress by identity, disability, location, socioeconomic status, learning environment, gender, race, ethnicity, and language. Because of this, we are able to address and understand key elements of what barriers students face during this crucial period of identity formation. Through our carefully structured curriculum, we target classrooms in under served communities and provide students with opportunities to develop identities and abilities as scientists.

Evidence supports the importance of “mastery experiences” for developing a strong connection to science. Each of our units allows students a chance to create a tangible artifact of their success. In each unit, students will successfully develop a model as they design an experiment and actually work as a scientist.

Many schools are limited in their funding for text books and support of continued professional learning experiences. By reducing the need for paper textbooks and replacing them with screencast, opensource materials, we will be able to allow our schools to reallocate funding for opportunities for teachers to keep their skill sets and knowledge up to date.

We are teaching our teachers the most up to date frameworks to scaffold student learning. Growth mindset, the belief that you can improve your science ability through practice and effort, is central to this program. Teachers learn to encourage student growth by providing students with the opportunities to genuinely engage in and master subjects that may have once seemed out of reach. Building on previous research from our PIs, teachers are trained to keep students in the optimal phase of engagement. Students learn best and stay focused just on the edge of understanding, where they have to think about what to do next but without getting frustrated.

Our continued and intensive teacher training teaches educators to find additional resources, utilize project based learning, and deeply understand how to scaffold their students as they grow. Teachers can carry this framework and apply it to future classrooms for years to come.

Our unit design begins with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) criteria for the three dimensions of learning. We align each unit and unit assessment to engage students in using scientific and engineering practices and use the cross cutting concepts to develop their core content knowledge. Students learn to ask questions about their environments, look to outside resources to understand them, and design their own experiment to test them. Our curriculum shows students how to control their variables and design valid experiments to test the phenomena presented in their driving question. The students will generate models, collect data, and learn to interpret this data using cross cutting concepts. By using this project based approach, students not only learn to better understand the core concepts of their driving questions, but to also apply the scientific practices to study others.