ED 690 Mod 4 DB – Liam
Breathnach
Experience with STEM
I am currently teaching in a private Catholic boys High school
in Baltimore, and there what I would consider, quite a range of classes
available in the science Department. Just in the last couple of years we have brought
in a Forensics course and are using Project Lead The Way (PLTW) to teach
Engineering. The forensics has proven to be wildly popular. The teacher has
done a great job and has been very successful in having lots of hands on
learning throughout the year. There are regular crime scenes created,
fingerprinting labs and study of how glass breaks. I feel this has been the
root of its success. The students get to play with bullet casings, experiment
with how glass break and learn how blood droplets and smears can help give
evidence. Also the teacher has had some guest speakers come and talk to the
class about their various fields of expertise in Forensics.
The engineering and PLTW has also been eagerly greeted
amongst the students body. Due to issues with resources places are limited and
competition to get in to the classes has been fierce. This is the first year
since the teachers actually went and were trained in the course but already you
can see how the content is largely based on project based learning. The
students have been competing in teams with a set of materials to complete tasks
as best they can. They are of course encouraged to work together, design and
experiment with their product in order to complete the task. There is also time
for analyzing ideas and data before making improvements and retrying designs.
All of the skills and the pedagogy are focused on getting students to learn
through doing, and force them to develop the skills we have been reading about
in our texts for most of our modules.
Since I arrived at the school there has been a focus amongst
the staff on increasing both the number and quality of the labs we have during
classes. I would thus far put the success in the general scientific subjects of
Biology, Chemistry and Physics, as limited! I think there is a great deal which
the instruction in these subjects could learn from the successes in Engineering
and Forensics. While no hard data has been taken the anecdotal evidence is
definitive and no surprise. The students like getting their hands dirty!
I have 3 classes this year of Freshman Biology and it has
not been a stellar month to be honest. The main the Metric System and the Scientific
Method. And frankly I think next year I need to teach them entirely
differently. Both should be taught through activity. The scientific method as a
concept is very simple, with people having gone through most of the steps unknowingly
many times in the lives already. However trying to teach the phrases ad name of
the variable always seems to catch people out. Having people conduct inquiries
and experiments and retroactively teaching would be better I think. Likewise
the Metric system is simple in theory, multiply or divide by ten’s, but the
students struggle. Certainly this year’s freshman seem to have little idea of how
to think something through, and how to use their prior knowledge outside the
same repetitive task.
Entering this Grad Program I felt the need to improve
primarily in the area of teaching through projects and inquiry and that is still
my wish. I do feel that this school year I need to start with some small
projects. I reflected recently that projects such as starting with a couple of
bones and getting students to research the evolution of a species , or having
students study a particular chromosome to find out it major phenotype influences
could work. However I need more. I do feel though that starting small and
learning from and building upon each year is the way to go. I have a tendency
to go for the very big goals, and then only do it once. That tactic will not
serve me in this endeavor this time.
Wish me luck
Thanks
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