Practice

Hello ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls...physics is my business!

In past posts on this topic, I have referred many times to "practice". Why do we create and design lab experiences that are devoid of this component, which is almost self-evidently critical! The reasons for NOT including it amount to common laments: lack of time and lack of materials. Are these valid reasons, and are they consistent with 21st century learning?

Lack of time and materials, or rather, limits imposed by time and materials, are always a challenge. To return to the basketball analogy, a basketball "learner" has only a certain amount of time to be on the court, and even then, must practice alone until other resources (other people or bodies) are available. Other time might be spent training the body for the sport in the form of conditioning, weightlifting and pleiometrics. How does that compare to the science student's lab experience?

Their "court" is the lab itself. People or not, a multitude of apparatti and chemicals are needed to perform complex labs. While many basketball practices are 2 hours in length, most lab periods are less than an hour. So far, the lack of time and materials seems apparent. Add to this that outside of the lab, there is little apparent "training" that the student can undertake.

However, over the past 15 years we have seen the dawning of a new day in this regard. Technology has helped us with the problems above, and if properly implemented, can continue to create wildly brilliant opportunities for students. How many different ways can a student do a lab today are new in the past 20 - 30 years? Video with video analysis of data is now possible and was not back when the mad Dr. Julius Sumner Miller was starring in his classic science lab videos. Online applets and simulations have appeared that allow students to do experiments over and over again. And this is the beginning of the list.

Please add to it. How can a person experience a lab today that allows for greater practice, or even allows them to do a lab that they could not have before. To stimulate your thinking, consider telescopes that are controllable at great disctances over the internet! I would propose that there is no shortage of answers! As to how this is best implemented, we will leave that until my next post.

The Key - The Opportunity

How inspiring could something this simple be?

Based on yesterday's post, a coworker who wishes to remain anonymous emailed an anecdote to me. His Chemistry teacher used Hypercard or something similar to as a tool for the students to create a lesson of their choice, including using graphics and sounds. My coworker stayed after school to create a few more, motivated by the opportunity. This fellow is now the finest Flash designer I have ever worked with, and his skills go well beyond Flash!

There is much to be learned from this short story. In keeping with this group of posts, the teacher created an environement of doing. The doing involved practice, and feedback. I am sure that failure WAS an option, and in fact encouraged. Ultimately, both excitement and mastery were the result!

We see common elements in seeking mastery in a setting where students are doing. They are outlined above and can be concisely fingered: practice, opportunities to risk and fail, feedback, and challenge at the right level. With hands on labs, we have both the best of challenge and a risk of failure, but this mode has inherent limitations. Practice and feedback are daunting components of this important feedback loop!

Consider that most labs are not done but a singular student, but by pairs, or larger groups. Pair interaction has significant value, but you can imagine and have probably experienced that being one of four students in a lab, it is easy to "go with the flow" and allow others to do the work. Not a great setting for YOU to practice or learn what is really happening!

Also consider that lab chemicals and other materials are sometimes used up. There are limits to lab budgets, and replacing materials can be expensive. There is a practical limit to how many times a lab or other activity involving consumables may be done.

Other limitations exist as well. In my next post, we will begin to discuss some solutions to these limitations. In the mean time, what limitations do you feel are important that have not been mentioned here? There are so many settings for learning today, and I have discuused only the traditional brick and mortar classroom - in other settings what are the challenges and limitations?

They Were the Best of Times...

Lab days were usually the best of science days!

What did you enjoy most from your science education? What science memories endured from your classroom experiences? I would wager that for most people, one of the two or three things that come to mind, "labs" or "lab work" comes to mind. I loved labs. An aside...

I spent the first part of my career teaching. Coaching basketball was a second vocation. I have always believed that coaches provide far superior teaching strategies that are individualized than common classroom teachers. One key to this is "doing" time. A good coach will spend 10% of his time teaching in front of a group, and the other 90% providing practice and feedback. Practice, practice, practice. Bobby Knight, the volatile but revered former coach of Texas Tech and Indiana commented many times: "Perfect practice makes perfect."

Let's return to our science experiences. Dissections, titrations, and modeling were activities that most of us enjoyed more than the day to day lecture from a teacher. The images, interactions and stories that remain with us indicate that the learning that took place was "sticky". I even recall vividly that my lab partner spilled hot cabbage juice indicator all over my light-colored pants in 10th grade, and the explosion that resulted in my college lab when a fellow student did not quite clear all of the sodium out of a test tube before cleaning it (it ended in a bang!). Still, do we remember why we were doing these things? Did we get out of those experiences much more than good memories?

I would suggest that the answer is "no" unfortunately. I have to admit that on these days, the most memorable, enjoyable days of my science learning, I found myself lost almost all of the time. I was simply hopeful that I might get enough data to complete the lab subsequent lab report, or complete the activity without looking foolish. In my physics class, I was so lost based on the results of my lab work that I did not submit several labs! I loved labs, but I something about the experience left me feeling woefully inadequate.

Now that I have outlined a major, well understood challenge in science learning, in my next posts let's explore together some potential solutions - I am hopeful that as we do this, you might come up with some observations, suggestions and practices that I might not have thought of. That's why meeting at a "crossroads" can lead to a productive, enjoyable dialogue. Let's have a cup of coffee and chat about making labs better.