Last week I had a friend on Twitter ask how we deal with
this idea that class should be fun all the time. There are lots of times when
life is not fun, so how do we teach them perseverance and grit for these times?
My first gut thought was that science in the classroom should be fun, but still
rigorous. I had this idea that we should teach them to learn with joy. It was
quick, and not quite saying what I wanted to say, but in response she summed it
up that it's about teaching them joy in
the journey not fun in the moment. I had that Ah-hah moment! That fits so well
into how I want my science classroom to work. I want the kids to have a problem so that they can go and look
for the answer.
Science is not always fun, there are so many vocabulary
words, complicated processes, and sometimes educational gaps that keep kids
from enjoying it. In my classroom I try to tie big concepts with hands on
learning, lecture, open ended labs, and inquiry based learning. For example, I
teach and 8th grade physical science class where we work with getting kids
ready for high school science classes. I work with them to learn how to study,
make note-cards, and also great ready for a test. I also try to teach them how
to ask for help, work with others, and how to find an answer when no one is
around to help you. By looking at my classroom with this idea of helping to
prepare them, while also teaching them the desire to want to know the
information, I can tie together science and also the learning journey.
It is definitely easier to want them to love learning than
putting it into practice, but I do have a few great examples where kids love
the learning process. In that 8th grade class, students spend 8 weeks learning
about motions, forces, and buoyancy. During this unit we create student
organizations that are tasked with creating a boat that can carry a student
made only of cardboard and duct tape. They have to create websites, budget
their time and money, and also come up with a theme. The students have to make
several weekly blog posts over the design process. We have two in-class labs
that we do to prepare for the boats; an online simulation, and clay boats
demonstrating hull shape. Students them have to draft and create a working
scale model. After this small prototype they then can create the actual sized
boats. The rules are simple, and each year I am thrilled with the level of
engagement of the students. They do the work, they ask the questions, and they
work through the problems. Students are in charge of their projects and they
want to learn more so that they have the best boats.
In my environmental science class, we had a unit where the
11th and 12th graders were in charge of teaching 4th and 5th graders about
water quality in both oceans and freshwater. By putting the older students as
the teachers, they were highly invested in making sure they understood the
concepts well, and could explain them to other students. To cap the unit, we
tool all of the classes to the Oregon Coast where they high school students
walked the elementary students through water quality sampling and learning
about the ocean. The students were highly invested in the project and I thought
that they learned the concepts better. I also got a much higher percentage of
my students involved and turning in class work.
The science class is often thought of as hard and
complicated. Students check out before they even start a class. However, if we
can get students to change from this idea that a class should just be fun, but
should be about learning about our world, we change the dynamic. The learning
can be rigorous, intensive, and hard. If you can make a concept excite the
students, they will want to learn about it and then it becomes fun no matter
the work. The key lies in reaching the students and letting them ask the hard
questions.
