Science and Creativity - An Introduction

It goes without saying for those who experience it that science involves vast levels of creativity to be done well. The processes of design, reflection and communication are all intertwined with a need to be inventive. The science curriculum however does not allow for such an involvement of creativity when looked upon from a basic level. From an early age students are taught that to be artistic/creative and to be scientific or even logical are completely independent tasks. As both a science teacher and somebody who has loved producing   art from an early age I feel there's a possibility to engage my students on a level they may not have been reached before.

The question is how!

How do I get students to engage in the science content by delivering the required information but also allowing students to connect with their artistic and creative sides? And how do I get students to develop their creative sides by playing on their excitement of science? Both ends of the spectrum  exist, being able to develop a scientific and creative mind is vital to success in a variety of areas.

This was inspired by reading some of the articles over at https://theconversation.com/topics/maths-and-science-education




EDIT: Starting to collect links with ideas for including art into science
http://educationcloset.com/2012/04/03/science-and-visual-art-lesson-idea-starters/

Where am I heading?

I feel like at the moment to get the most from my job I need to have a good plan of what I want to achieve and how I'm going to get there. The only thing is I don't know how to plan that yet. Are there any good places to go for reading on how to get started?

Simplifying the McDonald Practical Report Format

Over the week I had a quick thought that I've run with a bit to simplify the McDonald Practical Report Format so that it could be used with primary schools or low literacy students.
The headings were simplified to 'ASK', 'PLAN', 'SEE', 'THINK' and 'SAY'. The idea being that a single word cue could help focus those scientific inquiry skills.
More on this later with a picture.

The McDonald Science Practical Format

I'm finally doing it, the long awaited blog post about the science report format that I have developed this year.
Taking advice from those wiser than me I'm putting my name on it and going to give a description of the format here.

One of the core focuses of the Australian Curriculum is the development of science inquiry skills (http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Science/Content-structure). Working closely with Joseph Hughes I designed a planning template intended to direct inquiry thinking skills in all levels of students. This format has then been used to restructure the format of science laboratory lessons from years 7 to 10. It is designed to allow students to develop inquiry skills, collaborative learning abilities and increase engagement while providing accountability for all students.

The template we designed was called the inquiry square. It has four main components with the interconnecting skill of Evaluating and Critically Analysing. The end goal of the inquiry square is to allow student to have improved communication about these skills and their learning. The four components are Questioning and Predicting, Planning and Conducting, Observing and Analysing and Concluding. These headings were taken in part from the curriculum and adjusted to fit for easy understanding by students (for example 'drawing conclusions' became 'concluding' because we found students making drawings of unrelated information!)

A discussion with Andrew Heher, a fellow science teacher and carpool buddy, brought up a common issue. Students were not participating in practicals with as much enthusiasm as we thought they should, and their reports were far below the standard we needed and expected. So this got me thinking about what needed to change. I then remembered the inquiry square and how it was designed to be directing their thinking in laboratory reports. So why not use it?

This square is the base for the McDonald Science Practical Format. Students are broken into groups of 4 in the class. Each student gets one of the roles, and evaluating and critically analysing is expected to be included in all four roles. At this point students belong to two different groups. Their lab group has somebody doing each role and their role group is comprised of all the students in the class who do that roll. The structure of the lesson is then based on students working in a combination of those groups.

I will run through the lesson structure that I use.

1. Students choose which role they will be performing that lesson.

2. Students get into role groups. This means that all the Questioning and Predicting people will get together at one station, all the Planning and Conducting at another and so on.

3. At their station students have a colour coded folder that is specific to their role. The folder contains information about the role they will be doing, guiding questions and the work required to get an A grade on the task.

4. Students begin to put their thinking and working onto A5 pieces of paper that are matched to the colour of their role. The role groups are designed to provide support for students who are unsure of what to do, or may need support in literacy and numeracy tasks before returning to their lab group.

5. Once the Planning and Conducting person from each group has read their method they then collect the needed equipment and set up a work area for their lab group. The other members then join them and help complete the lab while focusing on their own roles and supporting their group.

6. After the task is complete each member puts their coloured sheet onto a larger piece so that all the colours are represented. This becomes the writeup that the group submits as evidence of their learning.

7. Before the next lesson I then mark their work using a marking template which has the A grade descriptors of their work. These templates are used across all classes and so can be moderated easily.

8. In the next lesson I speak with each group about what they did well and allow them to select one thing that they will improve on next time. This becomes their goal and is highlighted on the marking sheet. The marking sheet remains in the classroom as a record of which roles each student has completed and what their goal is going to be.

This format has been adapted by all the teachers at my school in the Science department from years 7-10. We use a different set of A grade descriptors for the years 7 & 8 classes but otherwise the format is exactly the same. This means that students have continuity from the time they start at the school until they leave and will therefore develop skills vital to inquiry based learning.

This routine can be difficult to implement with a new class but with practice students are comfortable in using the role titles and moving from station to station when needed. Other staff I work with asssisted with developing the coloured A5 paper and folders, and have used other systems I have set up such as a list of what tasks students will be working on during the next practical.

The staff members that have helped significantly with the development and implementation were Joseph Hughes, Cattlin Hubbard, Andrew Heher, Kurt Halbauer, Rachael Nielsen, and Teegan Williamson. 

ICT in Science Class

As part of implementing the McDonald Laboratory Format I have been focusing on integrating more ICT into the lessons. The main method of getting students to use ICT in the past has either been moving the whole class to a computer lab for the lesson, or maybe using the laptop trolleys in the classroom. The issues associated with these options are:

• The computer becomes the focus of the lesson rather than a tool
• The whole class needs to be moved to use a lab
• There is limited portable abilities, even though the laptops are fairly small they are still hard to use
• They can't use the laptops to take photos and videos of their practicals
• Laptops are slow to load up and often are out of use for various reasons
• Students are limited in their ability to share information with each other through these methods

What I have trialled in my classes is using tablet computers (the ones we have access to currently are iPads, and we only have 3 of them). The tablets allowed me to get students to try things they would not have previously with the laptops. Students were able to photograph and video their experiment and then review it later to take notes or explain observations to their group and myself. Students have also used their phones to take photos and videos then shared those with friends after class. The iPads could also be used to watch selected videos to help increase learning, record information during the practical and research additional information.

To be able to achieve this I have a few plans. I think that with the increase in numbers of students with phones more and more need to learn how to use them to improve learning. Responsible use of ICT is important for our students and the more chances they get to practice this the better.

I have been introduced to a technology I was only vaguely aware of during a staff meeting earlier in the week which is a multi-touch table. These tables are designed to have multiple people work at them and collaboratively create and learn. These would be an amazing addition to our classroom and I wonder if anybody knows of some good versions? Or how to effectively add these to classes? I'm also aware of cost issues and wonder how many I could get away with or how few would be needed to be effective still. Or maybe a combination of the tables and tablets? So many questions!

Trialing a change in assessment

One of the issues I've struggled with for a while is assessment. How do I assess 120 students in a way that's fair, consistent and useful? Several times I have gotten to the end of marking a test and thought 'Well that was a waste of time'.
So I decided to start researching some better methods. A blog that I love is that of Dan Meyer and he has some great concepts surrounding assessment. A blog entry I found of his (http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=5597) along with reading from clicking links in comments lead me to trial a new style of assessment in my current unit.
The traditional assessment for the chemistry unit I am taking is to have an end of unit test with perhaps a mid-way test. The issues I see with this method are forcing students to perform in a tiny pressure filled window, it usually tests for naming skills, and it doesn't allow for students to demonstrate progress.
The method I'm using is that of a series of 'mini tests'.
Mini test 1 was a surprise so you can imagine how popular that was! But this allowed me to have a discussion about the purpose of these tests. Students were given around 10 minutes to complete the test to the best of their abilities. The then had to self mark their test in a different colour and grade their performance on the back of the sheet. These test sheets are to remain in student's books as a reference and I collect a copy of their results.
Students then have a chance to reflect on their progress and review work. They get a chance to learn based on what they struggled with. This means they can focus on areas that are specific to them, it's not a one size fits all lesson, it's designed to be functional with all levels of ability and progress.
Mini test 2 is designed to follow a few lessons later and give a chance to show development. The students can improve their scores, showing me that they understand concepts now that earlier they struggled with. This means that the pressure to perform instantly is removed and effort/progress is rewarded. It also gives me instant feedback on how my lessons are progressing.

Having only done one test so far it is a bit too early to tell if it's going to be a keeper in the long run, but it is looking promising.

Chemistry and Food

So I discovered that the way to my student's hearts is often through food. A one off snack for a lesson one day will provide a week of engagement for some reason.
As a quick example during a lesson on atoms the students were given a marshmallow to pull apart to the smallest part possible. The same could have been achieved through paper, leaves, anything really, but marshmallows seemed to get a level of engagement I wasn't expecting.
Similarly having a lesson on the structure of DNA being taught with jelly babies and toothpicks had the kids laughing, talking and asking questions about what represented what without prompting.
I wonder if this trend works with other classes?

Tackling the dry topics

So today I had to cover balancing equations with my year 9/10 Science classes. Now I understand that it's important for them to understand this concept but I also know that it's difficult and a bit dry. I don't know quite how to make it engaging enough for the types of students I have.

The way I approached it today was a very traditional technique of giving them the information, doing a couple of examples on the board and then the students worked with the people around them to do practice examples. The ways I tried to make it more engaging were:
- Allowing them to collaborate with the people around them
- Getting them to draw pictures to help with their comprehension
- Having 3 levels of difficulty so students could progress and feel accomplishment

The difficulty was that it required a huge amount of teacher instruction and wasn't as self directed as I would want it to be.
I often have this issue when approaching topics that are a bit more dull but are still important for later understanding. Is there a way to have both?

Action Research 2013

As part of my job at my current school each teacher is required to complete what is known as 'action research'. My first two years at doing this research had mixed results. In 2011 I looked into the use of practical reports in my Science classes and how to make them more accessible for students and more useful for me. I worked with another staff member and we did well, although both being first year teachers it was a low priority. 2012 was a difficult year in a number of areas of my teaching. My action research topic was not precisely of my choosing and so I did not have much of an interest in the topic. Coupled with depression which took me out of many tasks during the key part of the project my end result was less than acceptable and honestly I feel I did not succeed.

This year however is different. I finally understand what I want to gain from participating in action research, rather than feeling like it is a chore that I must complete to get my pay (a horrible feeling in teaching). I also have a committed person to work with who is willing to have discussions that help push both of our ideas beyond those that may be comfortable or easy. Finally I have a topic I'm passionate about, so I want to put in the effort to make it work. The topic actually came first, then we decided to make it our action research project. I feel that having made the choice in this order I was far more engaged in the idea.

Our topic for 2013 is based around engaging students in Science. We reviewed our results from the previous year and in one semester 33 year 9 and 10 students received a failing grade, a far higher number than the students who fail due to lack of attendance. To me this spoke of a lack of engagement and possibly a lack of understanding of the requirements of the course. I feel the solutions to the second issue are more obvious and more transferable to other subjects, so I won't go into them now. The first however is a major concern.

I have grown up loving Science so to me finding students who have absolutely no interest in the subject was a bit of a blow (clearly I had some unrealistic expectations to overcome) while also fortunately creating a way for me to improve my teaching. My teaching originally was based on the way I was taught. Lecture, questions, test. While this model is fine for engaged students in some respects I have since found it is not useful for my classes, nor even fair for the majority of my students. So my challenge for this year is to create lessons that are engaging to the widest range of students possible while also meeting curriculum requirements. The statement I use to help me achieve this is 'There is so much to Science, it should never be boring'.

The tools we are using I'll discuss in later posts, this was intended to be a brief introduction and is already a bit too long.

Getting started in blogging

Well, I thought it was time I had a go at this myself.
Blogging has never been a huge passion, nor writing in general to be honest, but it may help me start to organise some learning I'm doing, provide a base to reflect upon and maybe even open up some connections with others.
Being a Science trained teacher my main focus for this blog will be on how to make Science teaching a real success in my life. In doing this I want to look at how to make Science engaging for the widest range of students possible, how to use assessment as a tool rather than a threat, and generally reflect on traditional practice. I also want it to be a spot where I can link to other blogs, websites and articles that I feel support me in making my job not only enjoyable but meaningful.
I will try to keep this updated fairly regularly  but obviously when report time rolls around I might be finding myself otherwise engaged.
Let's see how it goes!