...and Times are Getting Better!

How could we do multiple dissections?

So summarizing from my most recent blog:

• science is more interesting when you are "doing" science
• even when doing labs, most students do not really learn more

One point of view might be to abolish labs given the above phrases. Another perspective though is to understand how to get what we want out of the lab experience. Let's go back to the gym for a moment.

Basketball players learn to play by repeating complex body motions many times. Shooting, dribbling and passing in different situations require different actions from the body to be performed quickly. Thinking about these as one might in a game of chess would doom one to failure - reaction rules the day. The only way that this is possible is after each action is rehearsed and practiced. Here is the key: It is practiced, and feedback is provided. Feedback! This feedback allows for correction of faulty motions, and improivement of behavior during a game. In other words: learning!

Now, back to the lab. Think back to your lab experiences and ask yourself how many were experiences that were repeated. I suspect not many! Maybe you dissected a frog. When you did this, most likely, you and your lab partner made a mistake. It may have been a small one, or a catastrophic one! In either case, you recieved feedback, perhaps in the form of a grade on your lab report, and then scurried along to new content and another lab. Master did not occur. It was a "cool" experience, and memorable. Yet, were you able to see the impressive leg muscles, or the interesting structure of the frog heart? It is doubtful. What if you had the chance to do the experiment many times, recieving feedback each time? How might this occur?

As technology improves, there are many ways to "skin a cat" (or a lab, or a frog). Suffice it to say that a scientific concept is not something that should be practiced once and only once. After all, that first attempt at a lab is usually awkward at best! Students need opportunities to practice labs, and parts of the scientific process until mastered. That usually means MORE THAN ONCE! Let me leave you dear reader with this thought: "If the labs you did were so much fun that you still remember them, would they not have been far more fun to do several times!"

How this can be practically accomplished without killing many many frogs or depleating stressed school funding will be something that we touch upon together in my next post. I still want to hear about your favorite labs and how they may have been made even more fun, or hear about your least favorite labs!

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.