4th Graders vs. Worms

4th Graders and Worms

This past Wednesday I went a 4th grade class in nearby Elementary school, along with the rest of my EDCI 55 class. We were tasked with finding out what the 4th graders knew about a certain science topic. Being a biologist I wanted something alive. Worms were both easily available and had the EWWWW factor which I was hoping to use to engage the students.

It worked better than I could ever imagine. I brought in three types of worms, meal worms, superworms (giant sized hormonally treated mealworms), and the familiar earthworms. I started by asking where the students had seen worms before. He had mentioned that he had seen worms where there was nothing growing and in cow poop. I asked him to explain the cow poop part and he told me of a field trip of when he went to a farm. Upon seeing the mealworms he immediately mentioned that they looked like cockroaches. Time was soon flying by and nearly every students in the class was gathered around the worms and making observations and asking questions faster than I could possibly answer them.

As a class we were tasked with using process skills to evaluate student understanding. I found that the students almost immediately latched some of them, while others took more effort to incorporate. Observations were almost immediate. As soon as they saw the worms they were describing how they moved and what the were doing. Soon after the observations predications came tumbling out. Some of the more memorable ones were “I that that they are going to fight” and “think that the little one is going to grow up as big as its mother (meaning the superworm which is actually sterile and wont undergo metamorphosis into the adult stage)” Communication was more difficult between student and teacher than it was between students. I think that this was because the students either did not know what to say or wanted to say the correct answers. Once they realized that almost anything went they opened up. Measuring did not come innately, although the use of the rulers and magnifying glasses did. (they used the rulers to move the worms around, because they could not pick the mealworms of the desk with their fingers.)

I was shock by some of the questions that the students asked. One particular question was “is the superworm actually an adult mealworm?” At this point it was almost universally excepted that the superworms were adult mealworms and this question showed that the student was questioning one of his original assumptions. This is a skill that is CRITICAL in science. I was shocked that this came naturally to him. Also I was surprised at how quickly students turned to the encyclopedia for more information. They wanted to know if the worms were insects so I asked them if there was anything they could use. They initially tried to use a dictionary but soon turned to the encyclopedia because the dictionary did not have the information they were looking for.

All in all this was an enormous success. Not only was it fun to go back to a 4th grade but it showed me where my current high school students are coming from. I was also surprised by how innate some of the process skills were. Some came out naturally throughout the course of the activity while others required some coaxing. What I really hope is that the students learned as much as I did from the experience.

Yes We Can

Yes We Can

Since I am working in a school composed of entirely minority students, this article was very pertinent to my current situation. The school I am working in has nearly every problem mentioned in the article. There are low graduation rates, an incredible achievement gap, and low standards. The section of the article "Losing Our Children" was particularly powerful to me, especially the section comparing the number of students reaching grade 12 and the number of students receiving their high school diploma. During my student teaching year I had one of my students drop out during his senior year. To think that the educational system managed to get the student that far only to fail a few months short of its cumulation, is tremendously disheartening. It is an experience I don't want to go through again.

Luckily this article focused on solutions to these problems. I was surprised to learn that on average black students are better readers at the start of kindergarden. This is tremendously encouraging. This shows that with equivalent teaching there should be no reason why minorities should perform any different from white students. The idea that my skills as a teacher are the biggest factor in the success of my students is incredibly motivating. From my experience in minority schools there seems to be a unwritten belief that their school will not be among the top performing schools. To a certain degree I think that this is a healthy attitude. There are certainly more obstacles to overcome and identifying them is the first step in avoiding them. However resigning the this belief only perpetuates the problem.

One of my biggest goals as a teacher is to remain in the zone where I am optimistic about the ability of minorities without resigning to mediocrity and pessimism. Going either way causes disaster. Putting on the rose colored glasses will result in ineffective teaching. it is obvious that ignoring the problem is not the solution, without action nothing will change. However resigning to the belief that minority students will not preform as high as white students is potentially worse. It permanently places the expectations of minority students below their potential stifling their growth? If I ever find myself shifted too far in either direction it is time for me to rethink my beliefs or resign as a teacher.

High Tech Inquiry

Frequently hackers, (Used in the traditional sense as someone who solves tech problems using creative and unconventional methods.) or nerds if you prefer, encounter complex puzzles which don't have immediate solutions. They are given a problem and need to have some sort of structured process to go about solving it. I have been in this situation several times and usually found a way to make sense of the puzzle. To give a current example I stumbled across a program the other day called "xplanet". What this program does is generate an image of the earth (or other planet) according to a specified date. Why is this important? Well this program would be particularly useful in generating images for a lesson on the phases of the moon. All you have to do is specify a couple of parameters and hit enter. Then out pops an image of the earth and moon. Or you can use the program to generate an up to date rendition of the earth and use it as a constantly changing desktop wallpaper. There are even options to include externally generated weathermaps and planet images. However there is only one hitch. The person who created this program only bothered to create a command line version. All you have is a limited how to file. It is up to you as the user to figure out how to get the program to generate the image you want.

So how do you figure this out? How would you even approach this problem? I have found that the best way is to confront such a problem is to treat it like a scientific investigation. One of the first things I do is read whatever I can find on the topic. This includes any documentation I can find, and any other bits of information I can find. In particular I pay close attention to the problems other people have had dealing with similar situations. This is not a one time event I frequently go back to look over anything I might have missed. Once I have some working idea as to how I should go about solving the problems I start a process of investigation and inquiry.

Trying to understand how a program works is not always a straight forward process. There is a lot of guess work and testing. For example the command -output might change the size of image or specify the output file. Usually the only way to figure this out is through experimentation. Sometimes the function of a command is clear for example in the case of -center. This command changes where the earth is in the drawn in the final picture. However does this work with all types of maps? Does a mercator projection work the same as a globe? Also what is used as the center? Is it the center of the map? Or is everything centered according to where the 0,0 coordinate is on the drawn image. Inorder to make any progress the hacker needs to have some sort of model of how the program works. This is based off of predicting what ceratain commands do, creating tests to clarify variables, interperting results of these tests and communicating with others who are also working through the same problems you are. Often times these programs are never fully understood by the majority of the users. Sometimes they are communally written and no one knows the full extent of the programs capabilities. Or the original developer may have given up on the project and no longer provides any support. Users usually have a "good enough" understanding to get the program to do what and that is all.

While most users don't go to the rigor typical of scientific investigations. They do use many of the same steps present in scientific inquiry. Granted each Hacker goes about sloving the process in there own way. The real question is why? Why would a hacker go through all of these steps purely of there own free will. There is no peer review board looking into what the hacker does. The Hacker does not need to stand up to a level of rigor or scrutiny. All the hacker has to do is figure out how the program works good enough to use it. The answer is a rather straightforward and simple one. This process is the best and most straightforward way of generating useful and reliable information. And that is primary goal of scientific inquiry.