AN ACTIVE APPROACH TO RE-ENGINEERING SCIENCE and MATH Ann Kaiser, SEPT 2011

1. SEPT/NEST 2014 McNAMARA WORKSHOPS AN ACTIVE APPROACH TO RE-ENGINEERING SCIENCE and MATH Ann Kaiser, SEPT 2011 Fulbright Distinguished Teacher 2012-13 STEM Program Coordinator LaSalle Academy April Lanotte, SEPT 2008 Einstein Fellow 2011-2013 UCCSTeach Senior Instructor

2. DO YOU EDUCATE TO INNOVATE? • Can your students use what they have learned to develop solutions? • Do students make connections or are they continually dealing with “new” information? • Are they big picture, systems thinkers? • Are they willing to fail? • Do they learn from their “mistakes”?

3. IF WE CONTINUE TO TEACH THIS WAY… …we will continue to get this. We need to teach like this… If we hope to get this.

4. SUCCESSFUL STEM EDUCATION • Information is exploding at an ever-increasing exponential rate. • Students will never be able to keep up if we continue to teach with an “information for information’s sake” approach. • Currently, many learn about places, names, events, and dates • Order of Operations is not math…just as grammar is not literature. • More traditional STEM education consists of unconnected bits and pieces that the learner is supposed to make sense of. • Students are now correct in asking “When am I going to use this?” and they deserve an answer from us. • They need understanding and knowledge that is based on experience and application.

5. “Too often students are given answers to remember, rather than problems to solve” Roger Lewin • If we don’t focus on re-defining our approach to teaching technical concepts, we will continue to lose the very students that we need to succeed. • Creativity needs connections, open-mindedness, synthesis, discussion, and the time and freedom to make mistakes. • If we insist on one right answer, the memorization of isolated facts and the rote application of skills we will lose the innovators of the future.

6. It Should Always be About Learning, not Teaching If most teachers are honest, most day-to-day planning focuses on What to teach (for coverage)? …when what we need to focus on is How to teach (for understanding)? All learning can be summed up in two steps: • information transfer and • assimilation. We often focus on the first, but the second is where true understanding begins. Countless studies indicate that an active learning approach, grounded in inquiry, model-making and application, facilitates true understanding.

7. Are we really teaching science and math? • Scientific Theories vs. Inquiry • Arithmetic vs. Math • Cookie-cutter activities vs. Exploration and Application Can you teach about inquiry without using inquiry?

8. Active Approaches to Science and Math • Best approach is the one that works in your classroom. • Key factors to keep in mind in terms of how students learn science: - learn by assimilation/integration - learn by explanation/argumentation - learn by application/extension • Obviously, the best learning experience takes advantage of all three. “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Albert Einstein

9. DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE ?? Literal translation: With theory only, you have nothing

10. Roadblocks to Understanding • Existing ideas of how it all works • Inability to make sense of an idea and how it fits in with what is already known • No chance to put in a meaningful context, to try it out • No opportunity to see patternsor to extend ideas to new situations; no time to work with concepts

11. SCIENCE ENGINEERING • Ask a Question • Do Background Research • Construct a Hypothesis • Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment • Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion • Re-test • Communicate Your Results • Define the Problem • Do Background Research • Develop Criteria/identify Constraints • Create Alternative Solutions/Choose the Best Solution • Model/Build a Prototype • Test and Redesign • Communicate Your Results

12. BIG PICTURE • Students need time to process information in order to understand. Let them engineer their knowledge. They need to do the work of developing and applying knowledge in order to understand. • Active does not mean “activity” for its own sake. • Whatever approach you use is part of the applied component of active learning in SCIENCE class. Students are good at “hands on,” need coaching to keep “minds on”. • Do not try to do everything at once. • If you are learning – they are learning!!

13. From “Cookbook” to Inquiry • Switch things up • Emphasize application and relevance • Allow students freedom to explore… don’t explain it to death • Project-Based Instruction • 5E Format • Engage • Explore • Explain • Elaborate • Evaluate

14. “Patient Zero” Epidemiology Activity Background Engage http://www.tubechop.com/watch/3089510 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sYSyuuLk5g List 5 things you know about viruses * 1-3-5 Protocol Share-Out CDC alert: There has been a viral outbreak in the building. Exchange fluids with three different people…wait for instructions. Can your team find “Patient Zero?” Warm-Up Lab Analysis

15. A Sampling of Other Successful Inquiry Activities • Menu Items • Building a Better World • Use fluid mechanics to design appropriate housing for flood and wind-prone regions • Low Cost Prosthetic Hand • Apply the principles of biomechanics to construct a low-cost, low-tech hand • Over-Fishing and the “Tragedy of the Commons” • “Fish” for M&Ms using a variety of fishing gear over several fishing seasonsin order to establish a sustainable rate of fishing.

16. Menu Items, ctd. • Water Footprint • Estimate the water footprints of various products. • Heat Shield • NASA Technology Demonstration Mission activity: create a heat shield to protect your “payload” (aka, a miniature chocolate bar) from the heat of entry to Mars’s surface. Can your payload survive? • Jet Engine Chevron Design and Testing • Help Beta-Test a new NASA activity: design and test an engine chevron in an attempt to alter/dampen sound coming from simulated engines.

17. FULBRIGHT PROGRAMhttp://www.fulbrightteacherexchange.org/ • The Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program seeks to improve mutual understanding among teachers, their schools and communities in the U.S. and abroad. This program allows teachers to go abroad for three or four months to take classes at an international university, observe classes and offer seminars in local schools and complete a project of their own design. • Countries: Finland, Israel, Chile, India, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Palestinian Territories, UK, South Korea • Application usually due in December; 5 years teaching experience; some leadership and outreach experience

18. Fulbright Project:Re-Engineering High School Science • Active learning; specifically project-based learning in a content-driven assessment environment • Replacing verification labs with Engineering Design projects • Implementation in terms of teacher background, time, environment, resources • Project methods: literature survey, in-class project, observations, discussions • End result; teacher friendly “how-to” guide

19. introduction fulbrightteacherexchange.org

20. PROJECT FINDINGS Physics related: 2/3 felt they understood energy, forces, moments and rotation better Quantifiable increase in understanding of the following: • Existence of vertical forces when dealing with horizontal motion ( 31%  65%) • Link between torque and rotation (75%  90%) • Student understanding that an object can be moving in the absence of net forces (37%  83%) • Variables effecting Kinetic Energy (38%  64%)

21. Einstein Fellowship • 11-month STEM education fellowship in Washington, DC • Work with NSF, NASA, NOAA, or DOE • Help design and implement national STEM ed. programs • Advise STEM ed. policies and legislation in the US • 2015-16 fellowship application opens in the fall—deadline in Dec. of 2014.