When I was a brand-new teacher, I knew it was important to have my lessons planned carefully, and to learn my students’ names. Like most new teachers, I worked hard my first year developing curriculum and figuring out my classroom management strategies. I loved teaching biology to teenagers, I was fired up about inquiry teaching methods, and I felt I did a pretty good job — even earning praise from my administrators as an excellent teacher. But I was the only one in my department trying to develop lessons with a learning-cycle, inquiry approach. Sitting in my classroom after school every day, I was kind of on an island with my own thoughts. This work was kind of hard: engineering those magical days where students are thoroughly engaged and plans come together just right turned out to be really complex.
Jumping ahead two decades, after countless hours interacting with my beloved students, attending professional development, working with colleagues, studying formally and informally and so much reflecting all with the goal of doing better, I guess I figured a few things out. Effective teaching is all about connections and community. One of the reasons I believe student-centered, inquiry education methods have been shown to be so effective at helping kids learn is that they are grounded in both. How do we encourage students to pose questions, to discuss their ideas with peers, to apply their prior experiences and knowledge to new situations — to engage actively in our learning community? I gradually came to realize that setting up curriculum with this focus not only increases understanding and retention, but makes our classrooms lively and interesting places to be.
Asking students to share their thoughts, to discuss big ideas and build knowledge together is a big lift unless the classroom community has been developed as a welcoming, encouraging, supportive space. A “safe space,” or as some prefer, a “brave space.” This work is complex, intentional, continuous, and collaborative with the collection of individuals in the room. The most important factor for success is our recognition of its importance, and commitment to devoting class time for nurturing this community. Helpful strategies can include time for community check-ins, clearly defined norms, structured discourse opportunities and learning activities designed to include student inquiry and sensemaking with authentic science practices. Here are some resources I have found to be helpful:
Monte Syrie’s ideas about building connections into his curriculum, using techniques such as Smiles and Frowns and Kindness Cards, as explained in his blog Project 180
Learning for Justice – (formerly Teaching Tolerance) For resources and ideas to help with managing tough discussions and addressing issues that may come up in your class community. See especially the Social Justice Standards document, which has grade-specific learning outcomes that can be helpful for goal-setting.
STEM Teaching Tools: Promoting Student Science Talk in the Classroom – A free 50-minute professional development unit for teachers with resources, video examples and specific strategies to use with students. For more useful ideas about community-building from this terrific website, check out a collection of brief articles around the theme of equity.
Question Formulation Technique – for a simple, effective routine that gets all students involved in generating questions and then analyzing them for quality, check out the resources here from the Right Question Institute. Check out this video especially for a science classroom example.
For a look at some great strategies for encouraging all voices in your classroom and helping students to express and refine their thinking about scientific phenomena, check out the Ambitious Science Teaching ideas about Eliciting Students’ Ideas during science instruction. The AST website has a trove of other resources for organizing large curriculum units around intriguing phenomena, with the goal of supporting students of all backgrounds to deeply understand science ideas, participate in science activities, and solve authentic problems. But even if you’re not quite ready for major reorganization of your curriculum around anchoring phenomena, the ideas here are useful for individual lessons and smaller units.
One final thought about the importance of a caring classroom community, and one that is unique to a science classroom: safety. Establishing a climate of trust, with full and caring participation, will go a long way toward ensuring that this mindset will be carried forward into laboratory experiences with attention to required safety protocols.
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