Behind the Scenes with Presenting Inquiry 2.0

I just presented on Inquiry 2.0 for the first time, and I wanted to share that presentation with you. I thought this might be especially useful to those of you looking to develop a presentation on the NGSS. Here's the Prezi I used, and it's set so you can copy and recycle it as you on. And here's a behind-the-scenes walkthrough of that Prezi in which I explain how I used it to help teachers understand how the Next Generation Science Standards require us to teach by inquiry and also ramp inquiry up to the next level.

Please, steal this Prezi!

Understanding, not Belief, in the NGSS Evolution Standards for High School

Image from here

Finally got some time, thanks to Snowmageddon '14 here in Birmingham, to dedicate some time to examining how the Next Generation Science Standards approach the teaching of evolution. I had looked briefly several times before, but I needed some think time before putting an analysis for your review and reaction. (I definitely got that think time when my whole city shut down for 2 days.) I look forward to your feedback, especially if you see the NGSS differently than I do.

Bottom line: The NGSS do not require belief in evolution. And that's really good news for teaching evolution in the South and other areas of the country where students resist learning about evolution. It's also really good news for public school parents, science teachers, and anyone developing curriculum documents. The NGSS keep public school classrooms safe for students who see a conflict between evolution and their faith.

Let's look first at the high school evolution standards from the NGSS. I'll analyze them standard-by-standard below, but I suggest that you first take a couple of minutes to review the standards as they are presented together. As you probably know, the NGSS are purposely written to fit many, many features together in each standard set.  At the bare minimum, they intertwine content and process so that science teaching in America can no longer divorce the two. If you haven't seen it already, also make sure to see how the clarification statements and assessment boundaries help science teachers see the level of rigor NGSS is targeting for teaching evolution.

Now, looking standard-by-standard for belief versus understanding:

HS-LS4-1 Communicate scientific information that common ancestry and biological evolution are supported by multiple lines of empirical evidence. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on a conceptual understanding of the role each line of evidence has relating to common ancestry and biological evolution. Examples of evidence could include similarities in DNA sequences, anatomical structures, and order of appearance of structures in embryological development.]

Clearly, this standard makes no requirement students believe in evolution. As I have advocated for years, this standard grounds students' work strongly in evidence by having them look at multiple lines. Then, they are to be able from that to "communicate scientific information" about evolution, and I hear in that portion of the standard a clear focus on students' understanding and communicating key science ideas without requiring any kind of belief from them.

HS-LS4-2 Construct an explanation based on evidence that the process of evolution primarily results from four factors: (1) the potential for a species to increase in number, (2) the heritable genetic variation of individuals in a species due to mutation and sexual reproduction, (3) competition for limited resources, and (4) the proliferation of those organisms that are better able to survive and reproduce in the environment. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on using evidence to explain the influence each of the four factors has on number of organisms, behaviors, morphology, or physiology in terms of ability to compete for limited resources and subsequent survival of individuals and adaptation of species. Examples of evidence could include mathematical models such as simple distribution graphs and proportional reasoning.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include other mechanisms of evolution, such as genetic drift, gene flow through migration, and co-evolution.]

I've summarized inquiry for many groups of science teachers as a cycle of evidence and explanation. This standard solidly directs students toward understanding evolutionary processes in an inquiry approach. They build explanations out of evidence, and teachers can guide these explanations away from belief controversies by keeping them focused on scientific explanations and how those are limited to natural processes. The standard clearly supports this with its four factors, all of which are natural processes.

HS-LS4-3 Apply concepts of statistics and probability to support explanations that organisms with an advantageous heritable trait tend to increase in proportion to organisms lacking this trait. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on analyzing shifts in numerical distribution of traits and using these shifts as evidence to support explanations.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment is limited to basic statistical and graphical analysis. Assessment does not include allele frequency calculations.]

A focus on natural selection, as in this standard, typically doesn't cause resistant students nearly the problems they face when they are asked to look at evolution across millions of years. So belief shouldn't be an issue with this standard.

HS-LS4-4 Construct an explanation based on evidence for how natural selection leads to adaptation of populations. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on using data to provide evidence for how specific biotic and abiotic differences in ecosystems (such as ranges of seasonal temperature, long-term climate change, acidity, light, geographic barriers, or evolution of other organisms) contribute to a change in gene frequency over time, leading to adaptation of populations.]

Same as the Standard 3 above--natural selection typically doesn't raise belief issues.

HS-LS4-5 Evaluate the evidence supporting claims that changes in environmental conditions may result in: (1) increases in the number of individuals of some species, (2) the emergence of new species over time, and (3) the extinction of other species. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on determining cause and effect relationships for how changes to the environment such as deforestation, fishing, application of fertilizers, drought, flood, and the rate of change of the environment affect distribution or disappearance of traits in species.]

With a focus on "emergence of new species," this standard will probably be the most difficult of the six for resistant students. Typically, they resist evolution because they simply do not believe new species can emerge on their own without supernatural influence. (I actually agree with them, and many practicing scientists agree as well.) But, clearly, this standard does not focus on changing students' beliefs. They are not to "accept the evidence supporting claims..." Instead, they are to "evaluate the evidence." Interestingly, I actually think this standard left a door wide open for a Teach the Controversy approach, which I am quite sure the NGSS authors did not attend.

Create or revise a simulation to test a solution to mitigate adverse impacts of human activity on biodiversity.* [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on designing solutions for a proposed problem related to threatened or endangered species, or to genetic variation of organisms for multiple species.]

Again, clearly a focus on natural selection, since it's limited within the short time frame of human activity, and not one raising the specter of belief change.

Coming soon

... the behind the scenes on Coevolution on Prezi.

Tweaking Inquiry

When I was in the classroom, the break around Christmas was always a time when I retooled what was going on in my classroom. It was my half-time for the year, a time to step back and make important changes so that my students would learn better. Half of my time with them was gone, and I wanted the rest of the time with them to be as good as it could be.

If you're new to teaching science by inquiry, you've got a chance to make some key tweaks to teaching and learning in your classroom now. You probably don't need to make huge changes, even if you're frustrated with inquiry. Inquiry is a great approach for teaching! Don't doubt that. Instead, step back and think about small changes that you can make that can give big benefits.

I constantly use the five essential features of inquiry from Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards as my diagnostic for how well I'm doing with guiding learning. Here, I've flipped those around into questions you can use for diagnosing how well inquiry is going in your classroom:

1. How engaged are your students in scientific questions?
2. How do your students give a priority to evidence when they are learning science?
3. How adept are your students at developing explanations based on the evidence they're seeing?
4. How adept are you at guiding your students to consider alternative explanations for the evidence they're seeing?
5. How are your students constantly communicating and justifying their explanations?

I've found that if I think through the five essential features, I can usually figure out what's not working well in the inquiries I'm leading and how I can improve my students learning. 

I'll be tweeting out tips based on each of these questions in the next few days. I hope these help you as you teach with inquiry. Please let me know with a comment here or a reply on twitter if you have any questions. I'm happy to help.

Teaching Evolution Resources

A big thanks to all of you who attended my sessions at NSTA in New Orleans. I posted resources from both sessions on the Facebook page for The Missing Link (since I was having trouble with uploading to the NSTA site). If you have any questions, feel free to write them on the wall there or as a comment here. 

See You in New Orleans?

It's almost time for NSTA's Regional Convention in the Big Easy, and I'm getting excited. Please let me know if you're coming so we can connect up. I'll be speaking twice on teaching evolution, and the image here gives the times and locations.

• My Thursday session is workshop-styled, and we'll be focusing on specifics in the classroom. You'll walk away with a lesson plan for teaching whale evolution and an overview of the evolution unit I created in The Missing Link. If you've been to one of my sessions before on teaching evolution to resistant students, this is a good follow up.
• My Friday session is a big picture look at the issues involved in teaching. Do you have students afraid of evolution, maybe even hostile to it? I'll give you some good traction on the issue and show how you can be faithful to the science without attacking any faith-full students in your class. 

Both sessions feature inquiry as the heart of science teaching. 

Mirror Inquiry Ideas

I got inspired this week to move an inquiry I've been doing for years onto Prezi. Here's my vlog entry on what I learned in the process, including the following thoughts.

• Here's a link to the Mirror Inquiry on Prezi.
• The original concept for the inquiry came from Video #1 of the Minds of Our Own series.
• Transitioning from a hard copy to Prezi. An image of the old Word file is below.
• Starting to implement web-based video for bursts of instruction. Find all of the videos I researched at my mirror inquiry Delicious tag collection.
• Aha! I could use these videos from my iPad when working with small groups.
• Kids can go back to this Prezi whenever they want.
• Teacher's corners & Facilitator's corners.

Inquiry is the missing link

(A little caffeine can be too much!)

When I presenting on teaching evolution in Nashville, I was on a huge caffeine buzz. (When the sign on the gas station coffee says, "extra caffeine," they mean it!) I realize now that I might have left out my most important point in my presentation: Inquiry is the missing link in evolution education. Inquiry is what best allows students who resist learning about evolution to engage in looking at the evidence and how scientists explain the evidence because inquiry doesn't rely on authoritative pressure.

In typical evolution education, conflict can easily boil down to, "I'm the teacher. That settles it." Or to, "That's what scientists say. Case closed." That may not be what the teacher is saying, but it's too often what resistant students are hearing. They hear an appeal to authority, and they are ready to counter with the authorities they trust more, whether those be God, the Bible, or what their preacher or parents say. Inquiry turns the discussion away from conflicting authorities to the evidence at hand. Inquiry frees the teacher to say to resistant students, "What do you think?" about the evidence at hand or how to explain it sticking to the rules of science.

Authentic Work for Authentic Audiences

I've been teaching Classroom Management at UAB for about a year now, and I just received from that class what is probably the most authentic set of student work I've ever received. I've been working on implementing authentic work for authentic audience for about a year now, and with this set, I see that the work really paying off.

I gave my students this as their final course question, "How will I solve the authentic problem I face of having no opportunity now for practicing the skills necessary for effectively managing student misbehavior?" As any experienced teacher knows, it's impossible to learn how to manage secondary students' misbehavior while sitting in a university classroom. So, I basically told my classroom management students, "Go find a misbehaving group of secondary students and figure how what to do with them?"

I'm so impressed with what they came up with, and what really struck me was the range of their products. Here's a list of the kind of products they used to show what they've learned:

• A brochure for future art teachers
• An image gallery of students taught and lesson learned presented in PowerPoint
• Blogs of lesson learned
• A hand-written journal of reflections
• A technical paper for future English teachers
• Memos from school officials stating their abilities
• A compelling narrative of growth based on the stories of prior experience
• A revision of prior work submitted, revised based on new lessons learned

I think it's the most authentic set of student work I've ever received, and I'm really excited about the power of this kind of work.

Objections to Inquiry

Really, really like how deftly Tyler Rice handles objections to inquiry in 10 Reasons NOT to Do Inquiry.

Modeling vs. Simulation

For awhile I've been skeptical about simulations. I've seen teachers struggling to implement inquiry reach for simulations when they can't do actual data collection, but I'm skeptical because of the lack of real data. Today, though, I saw how modeling can fit well with inquiry.

The picture shows my son David participating in an activity at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. The students' challenge was to design with Silly Putty a shape that fell very slowly in water. They were simulating zooplankton and how it's adapted to fall slowly through the water. I realized just a change in view could take this non-inquiry activity to an inquiry investigation. If the students are modeling, and the model is a good one, then they can actually collect data from their model's behavior.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Learning about Whale Evolution from National Geographic

In The Missing Link, I laid out an inquiry on whale evolution that uses data from a written article. This is a different style of inquiry than many people think of, since the students don't collect the data themselves. That would be kind of hard for them to do, right, since they're not paleontologists! So, this style of inquiry has them looking at, thinking through, and explaining data that other scientists have collected and published.

The article is "The Evolution of Whales" from November, 2001, of National Geographic. I could not find an electronic version of the article anywhere, however. Probably, it's easily accessible to teachers, though, since most school media centers carry National Geographic. A work-around is Edward Babinski's web-based summary of the article, which also includes some nice drawings.

I like the article because of how it traces whale evolution in a broad sweep, rather than bogging down in the details. Although this 50,000-feet level will be helpful to middle- and high-schoolers who read the article, it will also probably cause them to trip up over some of the details. That's why I've created the graphic organizer that appears here for students' use when reading the article. The graphic organizer scaffolds the students' reading of the article by focusing them on the most important information. In The Missing Link, I proposed a fairly generic graphic organizer. I've been looking for this opportunity to develop one that is more specific, in case teachers need tighter scaffolding for the article.

Teachers can use this graphic organizer as a base for thinking about how much scaffolding their student need. Older students, or those who are adept at inquiry, need less scaffolding as they approach a complex data source. Teachers can remove some of the scaffolding by taking away the species names in the left-most column and thereby require students to decide as they read the article which species of the ones mentioned are the most important. By keeping the scientists' names in the graphic organizer, as shown in the version here, the students still have some guidance as they work. To remove almost all of the scaffolding, teachers would remove the scientist names as well.

Teachers can also scaffold the activity more tightly for younger students and students new to inquiry by filling in more information and thereby providing more guidance for the students as they work. The image shows a version I created by leaving the text for the cell on each line that I thought was the most difficult to extract from the article. This is the least obvious information, and by providing it to the students, I prevent frustration from impeding their process on the inquiry.

I created the last graphic organizer from a completely filled out one that is my version which I completed as I dug into the article. As I teach the inquiry, I'll have that version with me for my own reference if students get stuck. Since it was already filled out, removing information from some of the cells made creating the most structured version of the graphic organizer a 3-minute process.

Resources for a Lesson on the Evolution of HIV

In writing the Missing Link, I put together an outline for a lesson on using HIV resistance to help students better understand evolution. I'm starting now to flesh out that outline and find resources that teachers can tap in using an inquiry-based approach to teaching evolution.

In developing an inquiry, I always have to keep in mind my purpose. Maybe it's just me, but I always have to fight the tendency to drift to related science or to get lost in the evidence, forgetting my overall goal. So, I kept the following in mind as I worked:

• Lesson Purpose: Students examine evidence of the evolution of HIV in response to antiviral drugs as an example of evolution occurring in their lives right now
• Focus Question: What does the theory of evolution say?

In understanding the evidence, you and your students will probably need a big-picture understanding of HIV's genetic sequence. This one that I found is from the HIV database mentioned below, and it was a rosetta stone for me in understanding the rest of the evidence.

The source of evidence I worked with while writing the Missing Link was the research article "Mutations in Retroviral Genes Associated with Drug Resistance." The article summarizes the actual research detailing the evidence of HIV evolution at the codon level, but it is pretty technical, especially for use by secondary students. The site on which the article is posted gives other potentially good sources of evidence and resources that can be tapped for helping students understand the summary of mutations in the article.

I'm interested in the HIV Drug Resistance Database housed at Stanford University, and I'm focusing now on the portion of the site giving summaries of drug resistance. There, you and your students will find a section giving "Antiretriviral drug summaries." This seems to be a productive source for giving your students access to a high-level understanding of the clear evidence for HIV's constant and rapid mutation when it encounters drug therapy. Each of the links under that section takes you to a table giving the key mutations associated with a specific class of drug, and students can clearly see below the table the list of scientific publications from which the tables are constructed.

In the process, I stumbled on some other possibilities:

• The Geography Search Interface from HIV Databases Site gives a pretty amazing tool by which students can examine the evidence for geographical distribution of different strains of HIV worldwide. Great for visual and kinetic learners!
• If you or your students need to brush up on understanding HIV's basic structure or life cycle, a simple Google Images search gives a lot of quality images. I searched "HIV structure" and then looked at the web addresses for a sense of which ones were coming from reputable science sources. (Ok, I'll admit. Sometimes I also went for the easy stuff.)
• I just started playing with the TRIP database. I've been working at UAB's medical school for a couple of years now, and they are focusing students on evidence-based medicine (the science behind good practice). TRIP is a database of evidence-based medicine, and I got several good hits when I initially searched on HIV there. An interesting feature is that it give patient information leaflets, which might help students who are asking, "Why do we need to know this?"

My next step is to address how I would scaffold these resources differently for middle schoolers in a life science course and high schoolers in general biology. That may have to wait a couple of weeks, however. Next week looks pretty busy.

Enjoying Lesson Development

I'm realizing how much I enjoy developing inquiry lessons. That's much of the work that I did in writing The Missing Link, but now that I'm developing other inquiries since then, I'm realizing how rewarding and meaningful the process itself is.

I think this realization began to hit when I was working on the HIV lessons that I did in July and August. Several things about the process were really good for me:

• Learning science: Inquiry often puts me in the learner mode because I'm having to think deeply about my understanding of the science involved as I try to represent it for my learners.
• Reflecting on standards: I have to often circle back to meaningful standards to make sure that I'm focusing my students on science that is meaningful to them. (Atlas for Science Literacy is my go-to set of standards.)
• Creative teaching: I love the creativity in developing good lessons. Don't all good teachers? I'm now working at a new level of creativity because I'm working to engage & sustain my students in rigorous inquiry.
• Lots of reflection: I'm always having to think deeply, either in lesson development or in teaching the lesson, about, "How is this going? Is it working? How do I know?" I enjoy that process.

Theory Supporting Inquiry

I'm leading a session this week on the topic of learning tools for a group of UAB faculty who are interested in teaching better. I wanted to refer them to some of the big ideas that support modern approaches to teaching, and as I was thinking about that, I realized that lining these approaches out for inquiry teachers would be a good as well.

(GEC Participants: Please see some comments I'm starting to post that will give you resources for specific learning tools we discussed.)

Resource	For Inquiry Teachers	For GEC Participants
How People Learn	Key Research Supporting Inquiry’s Focus on addressing student misconceptions, facts aligned with big ideas, and use of conceptual change strategies.	This is the research that framed our face-to-face session. Start at the page linked here for the key research findings, but back up to the entire document (especially chapters 2 & 5) if you want to know more.
The Private Universe and Minds of Our Own	Private Universe is a seminal video in science education because of how it communicated the prevalence and persistence of scientific misconceptions. Minds of Our Own took the same methodology and presentation style to content other than astronomy.	Assessing prior knowledge is the first step in authentic teaching and learning. These resources help you see more the power of student misconceptions by examining the blocks K-12 students face.
The 5 Elements of Cooperative Learning	Inquiry is difficult, if not impossible to accomplish, if teachers can’t manage effectively student work in small groups. Cooperative Learning, as described by the 5 Elements, defines true cooperative learning, which is very different from typical group work.	A first move many teachers make when beginning to implement authentic teaching is breaking large classes into small groups. The 5 Elements of Cooperative Learning give you a powerful way to think about how to do this successfully..
Atlas of Science Literacy (Original Version and Complete Version)	Why spend hours and hours trying to find the big ideas of science when this stellar work from Project 2061 has already done that. These maps show 100 grand ideas of science and how they should be developed across a students’ K-12 learning.	These big ideas from K-12 education give you strong examples of how big ideas can be used as a conceptual framework for learning the facts. For a different example, you may want to review UAB School of Education’s Conceptual Framework to see how we structured assessment of professional program around 11 big ideas (click the links there for rubrics).
Educating the Net Generation	Today’s K-12 students grew up with the Internet. They have no idea what life and learning are without it. This resource helps teachers understand how today’s students are different, not deficient.	Traditional-age undergrads and grads are used to learning with the WWW at their fingertips. The Introduction from this resources gives you powerful ways to understand these students, the challenges they face, and the strengths they bring to the learning environment.
Other Inquiry Resources	I’m always collecting inquiry resources and posting them to this page. The first part of the page gives curriculum resources; the second give more general resources.	Inquiry is a model of authentic learning specific to science instruction. If you’re interested in learning more, start with the 5 Essential Features of Inquiry.

My Sabbatical Story

I sometimes have teachers ask me about the year I spent back in the classroom learning to teach inquiry first-hand. I had the privilege of writing the lead-off chapter in a new book from NSTA Press entitled Reforming Secondary Science Instruction, and the chapter itself is currently available from NSTA free of charge. Clicking the title of the post should take you to the chapter download, or go to the NSTA store and search "reforming secondary science". The title of my chapter is "Change in Secondary Science Settings: A Voice from the Field." Please let me know what you think.

Orlando High School Follow-Up

Orlando High School Science Teachers:

It was great being with you on Wednesday, and I hope the What and the Why of Inquiry was helpful to you as you think about how to strengthen the use of inquiry in your classes. Many of you seemed to be interested in the connections between inquiry and improved ACT scores. Click the title of this post to see the ACT's College Readiness Standards; you'll see the document that I popped up on the LCD.

Use the comment button below to let me know any questions or comments you have about our time together, and I look forward to the next time we get a chance to work on inquiry again.

plm

ASTA Inquiry Follow-Up

Thanks to all of you who attended Inquiry: What & Why. I look forward to hearing from you any questions or comments you have on the session. To reply, just click on the word "comments" directly below. 

ASTA

I'm looking forward to seeing the Alabama crew at ASTA this week. I'll be there on Wednesday, and I'll be presenting 2 sessions:

• At 10:30, I'll be presenting on teaching evolution to religious kids. This is the session I've done in the past on the topic, but I've updated it some to include the big ideas that I'm covering in the book.
  
• At 2:00, I'll present on the what and the why of inquiry. This is the same session on inquiry I've done several times, and if you heard it before, there's not a lot that's new. Feel free to come, though, especially if you want to share what's working on inquiry in your classroom.

Other than that, I'll just be hanging out and looking forward to catching up with you.  

Science Notebook Tips, á la Susie Q

Susie Quillan is a science teacher extraordinaire in the Orlando area, and she has posted some really top-notch tips about science notebooking. She's new to blogging, but I betcha her blog is one to watch. (Thanks, Leyla, for the lead on Susie's blog.)