Soxteaching: Physics, Chemistry, Technology

Try as I might to be open about how students should complete and submit homework problems, I have arrived at an old conclusion: the audience matters. What exactly does this mean? The goal of practicing problems is to reinforce the taught concepts from the course. Want to try out some Newton’s Laws problems? Go to the back of the chapter and give it a go! Want to practice for the test? Ask for extra work to hone your skills. In this sense, the audience is the student, with the student alone being the audience for the work.

But what about work submitted for credit? That’s a different story, maybe. Each student expects (rightfully) to be patted on the back for the effort and success in each submission. So is the effort alone enough? What guidelines should be in place for receiving this credit? In other words, who is the audience for this work?

It is appropriate at this point to draw a parallell between science and any other academic discipline. Consider an English course, within which a student is assigned to write an essay about a written work. I suppose the conversation is the same: margins, spacing, grammar, spelling, paragraph structure all are an accepted part of the requirements. What are these elements in science? Is it the teacher’s job to prescribe such things?

One of my pet peeves about being a high-school teacher is the overwhelming attitude that it is my job to search through student work to find that which is relevant. In other words, I am grading a problem and I have to spend extra time searching for the logic and answer. This doesn’t include not writing a name or identifying the problem being attempted. Keep in mind that I do not assign a grade for correctness so all that is needed is to get an answer, assuming I can find it. (My other pet peeve is students’ leaving course materials on the desk or table without any consideration for returning them to their original locations, even though I carefully handed them out at the beginning of the period. Do I look like your cleaning guy?)

So, despite every effort to avoid this moment I am now codifying exactly what I want for homework. I hate to be “that guy” but given the length of this post I am most assuredly “that guy” in this case. Whatever – they will get over it.

HOMEWORK RULES

• Each problem has its own side of a sheet of paper
• Student name and problem are written at the top of every page
• Must use binder paper that can be turned in
• Pencil, not pen
• Each problem has a picture, centered at the top of the page
• Each calculating step must be shown, preferrably without numbers
• Units and Significant Figures matter

The short version of the post ends with this: all of my students for the coming school year will use an online blog for their lab notebook postings.

What? Have I been been so blinded by the early adoption of technology to risk coaching my students in one of the core areas of science education? What about plagiarism? How will students enter their raw data and keep a true lab record? Isn’t there a risk that this will divide the students that have ready access to computers from those that do not? My quick answer to these questions is that I do, in fact, have concerns about these topics. It is a scary leap, in some ways, and I had to convince myself that the other side of the chasm holds value beyond these valid concerns.

To start: what is my intent in making this switch? One goal is to coach students to use a skill that has benefits beyond this classroom. C’mon – the reality is that most of my students won’t need the knowledge-specific information covered in the course. While it is important to understand the underlying principles of chemistry and physics, it is – perhaps – more important to be able to navigate the digital tools needed in college and beyond. Too often high school education is trapped in the models that worked for today’s current teachers when they were in high school. Teachers tend to teach the way that they were taught because it worked, right? But this rationale makes it seems as though the major reason to change is for the sake of change and that is definitely not a valid reason to do something so different.

The real leap, however, has to do more with the grading of lab work. How do I grade work completed outside of class time? How do I provide enough incentives for students to do their work authentically without overburdening them? Besides, what is the goal of lab work anyway? I have to say that this has been the hardest part of this experiment and a mere two weeks into this venture I am showing the strains of reverting to my previous model.

What I truly wish is for students to authentically record their information and then share and collaborate inside and outside of the classroom. What I really want is to enable the freedom for students to draw incorrect conclusions and then update and learn as they move along. What I really want is for them to care about being scientists, which is more of a process than an end point.

Here is my plan. First – students will be required to use a standard lab notebook (LNB) where all lab prep (and class prep if they wish) will be stored. They will not be graded on the formatting or the contents of the LNB although they will be coached on how to use this. In other words, I give up on grading their pre-labs and their data collection but I will still work with them on efficient ways to perform these tasks. I will even add incentives (extra credit?) for using them properly (to be developed).

Next, all lab results to be graded will be posted to an individual Tumblr blog. Students will be encouraged to have “fun” with their work and expand beyond the constraints of the normal LNB and lab reporting. Lab results will appear as a series of pre and post entries that can be amended and edited as they move along. Students will be encouraged to review others’ work and give credit when using ideas that are not their own. Tumblr makes this easy with “reblogging” and “liking” (a kind of blog version of Twitter). I will follow all of my students using my Tumblr account as well as an RSS feed reader. This makes it very easy to access their work.

What about graphing? What about formal lab reports? My plan is to use Google Docs to accomplish these although we haven’t yet reached that stage. Just today, after finishing a lab, the students were required to generate a graph of their data. For homework they are manually generating these and then uploading a picture to Tumblr. Subsequently, I will be able to take them to the world of using a spreadsheet to organize and display data. This will then be shared on their blogs.

I clearly have a great deal of coaching and work to do to iron out the details of this model. I have been using my old model for so long that I find myself resisting the urge to direct students to the old method. Some deep breathing will – hopefully – keep me on this new path. Who knows how well this will work but I am committed to working this model and modifying, as needed – this year. The school-implemented tablet program is moving up through the grade levels and I am moving these courses ahead to be ready to take full advantage of this program.

You can’t imagine how excited get every year to start the school year. One of the unique joys of being a teacher is that I get to experience renewal every time I teach a course. It is the promise of new possibilities and meeting new people that gets me pumped every time. Yes, teachers are human too, and we have anxiety and fear and stress and, well, all of the emotions you have as a student. Let’s use this to our advantage – this common emotion – as a connection that helps us move ahead in this (possibly) challenging endeavor.

• I am the captain of my data!
• Nothing is stopping you from being great!
• This stapler is my favorite object
• The more you tell me that you don’t understand this the more I believe you
• It’s moving day – let’s go!
• RPN Club
• Stick figures – hold my hand
• Piece of Cake
• JTMTA

I am getting cranky in my old age, and that must be clear to the many people I encounter in my life. Maybe I have been at this teaching “thing” for too long to be as flexible as I was in my younger days. Lab reports? Gotta be just right! Problem-solving? Follow the process, show units! Lab activities? Know why you are here! And put away your materials after you are done!

OK, so I need to soften on some things.. but there are two areas where I am absolutely steadfast in my approach. Indulge me for a moment in a conversation:

• Student: Mr. Quinton, I have a question – could you come here?
• Teacher:  … and so this is where the menu is…
• Student: Oh, thanks – I don’t have a Mac so I don’t know how to do this

• Student: I read the instructions and I still don’t know how to do this
• Teacher: Have you tried doing a quick search?
• Student: ???? (dude – just answer my question)
• Teacher: ????

Time to start fishing!

This conversation, I must admit, sounds a bit mean. Certainly it is my job to help all students. Certainly it is my job to answer questions and facilitate learning. Absolutely I must show kindness and support for the people in my charge. My question lies here: what is the responsibility of the student? I get that people perceive me as “knowing” so much information that I have a wisdom about computing and information yet how did I get there? If the sum total of what is to be learned in the course resides in my tiny brain then we are all in trouble. My greatest value is in showing that I am not special and all that separates me from my students is the innate desire to find answers on my own.

What is that proverb… teach a man to fish and he can feed himself for life? Exactly! My greatest gift to you is to expect much and help you reach and achieve what you wish. My role is to support your learning and not to limit you by my attitudes. All I ask is that you believe that you can do this. Don’t limit yourself with limiting attitudes. Reach for what you wish with the knowledge that you CAN find what you need. I will provide the pole: let’s bait the hook and get fishing!