If you are a teacher, then you know that anything can and does come out of the mouths of our students. I often chuckle under my breath thinking about what each student's parents would do knowing what our students tell us on a daily basis. It also makes me a little leery for when my own children go to school. For I know that once they feel comfortable in a classroom, they are going to let the words flow.
When sitting back and thinking about it, those words that come out of the mouth of our babes, our students that is, completely guide what we do everyday in class. A child coming in and venting about how awful his morning was may change the tone I set for the day in my morning agenda. The child that catches each and every mistake I make might make me more deliberate and thoughtful before I open my own mouth. But more importantly, it's the "facts" and questions that come out of the mouths of my students that take me down a thousand different paths during any given lesson. You will note that I acknowledged "facts" in special way. On some occasions it's the statements that students share that they think are facts guide my lessons even more. For, if I don't listen to my students and what they are trying to show me with their words, there is no sense in me opening my mouth in the first place.
Recently I tried out a new instructional strategy in science. It is called the P-E-O Technique and I learned about it in an article titled "Using the P-E-O Technique" written by Page Keeley (Keeley, 2013). The letters stand for prediction, explanation and observation. The central focus of this instructional technique is that the students are given several opportunities to reflect back on their own understanding after observing a given experiment. Lessons start off with a scenario in which students make a prediction. Not only do they make a prediction, but they have to explain specific reasoning that backs their prediction. Then, the students observe a lab or experiment that tests the original question. But the P-E-O Technique doesn't stop there. The essential element is that students are then directed back to their prediction and are asked to explain again. If the original prediction did not match the outcome of the experiment, students are challenged to change their prediction with something that matches the observed experiment. They need to explain why they were wrong and why they think the results were different. Basically, they are showing growth as a learner. If a student's prediction was accurate, they can still go back to further support their opinion with evidence from the experiment.
The characteristics of this technique that stuck out to me most were the deliberate attention to going back and revising what was predicted in order to show growth. Often I have my students correct work in math to show growth, they revise in writing, but rarely is it done in science. I was also amazed at how student-centered the technique is. Yes, there is mention of the teacher facilitating the three steps of the process and overseeing the experiment, but it is all about the students.
So my challenge was to try it out. A science understanding that my students continue to struggle with and usually support with "facts" is the ability to explain phenomena in their everyday lives. This is most evident for me in my Sun, Moon, Earth (SME) Walk To. I can talk until I am blue in my face and what I consider to be the basic understandings of life on earth are very difficult for students to comprehend accurately. Then why not put it in the hands of babes and see what happens?
I pulled three students that are currently in my Walk To rotation and had them participate in lesson designed with the P-E-O Technique in mind. I posed the questions "What causes day on earth? What causes night on earth?" and asked each child to write down what they thought was the correct answer. They eagerly participated and then waited for the next step. My experiment wasn't necessarily an experiment, but it did involve some hands-on resources-a globe to represent the earth and a lamp (with out a lamp shade) to represent the sun. I asked one of the three students to use the two objects, letting them move the earth anyway they wanted to show day in our current city (DeWitt, MI). Immediately the student turned the globe so DeWitt was facing the sun. I asked the other students if they agreed and they all came to the consensus that the movement was accurate. They expressed that the sun's rays needed to be shining on "our part of the world" to have day. I complimented them on the way that they articulated themselves and moved on. The next step was to manipulate the globe in any way to show that DeWitt was having night. This is when it really got interesting.
Prior to this, I had only talked about the sun and the earth. There was no mention of the moon. Yet, the moon was what it was all about when the students started to talk about what would have to happen to have night in DeWitt. I was taken aback. I could see where it made sense to mention the moon because that body had a place in the name of my class. But, really, the moon causes night in DeWitt? The information I got was telling me a lot about the strengths and weaknesses of my learners.
I had to think really fast on my feel in order to not go into lecture mode (see comment about being blue in face-paragraph five) and just use the information the students were giving me with their words to question them further. I had to work really hard to make sure it wasn't about me, but it was about listening to the words they were saying and using that to guide my questions that would hopefully lead them to accurate science understanding. The students were giving me all the information I needed to guide their learning, all I had to do was listen.
I have to say, they had an amazing conversation. I used the knowledge and the signs they were giving me in order to respond with a question that would make them challenge themselves. For example, when the moon was stated as an essential element in order to have night on earth, I asked if the students had ever seen a night when the moon can't be seen. They all nodded emphatically and then I restated what they told me. "If the moon is the reason we have night on earth, then how can we have night if there are times when we don't see the moon in the night sky?"
Then I stepped back and let the learning occur without me or my words. The three scientists worked through their thoughts together, questioning, debating, going back to their predictions, moving the globe around and finally, without any interaction from me, came up with a step towards scientific understanding. "The moon doesn't have anything to do with night. We just can't be on that side [student pointed toward opposite side of the globe] where they sun is." Jackpot! We were on our way. So I repeated the accurate information they told me and kept going with the information. I asked, "If in order to be day DeWitt has to be facing the sun and in order to be night DeWitt has to be facing away from the sun, how does that happen?" And then I stepped back again and let the students take the reins. They talked about the earth moving back and forth on its axis in a pendulum type movement until one of the three students noticed that one side of the earth would never have day. Then they started to spin/rotate the earth on the axis and decided that was the best method of going from day to night for all places on earth. It was then that I realized I was holding my breath. I was witnessing, documenting and assessing this thoughtful, intelligent and investigative conversation and all I had done was ask a question.
The conversation and the evolution it took became a wonderful resource and assessment tool for me to see where each student began with his/her thinking and understand how his/her learning occurred. I then gave the students ample time to go back to their original predications and revise them based on the conversation and manipulation of resources. I found it very intriguing that the learning continued. I inferred that in order for the students to articulate in writing what they learned, they had to share it verbally again. More conversation ensued and then each came out with a revised and accurate understanding of how to explain the daily phenomena of day and night on earth.
Overall, I was very pleased with the use of the P-E-O Technique in order to get my students to explain phenomena in their daily lives. I am anxious and excited to see if this technique will enhance other lessons I have in my SME unit and give my students an opportunity to control their own learning. From the mouth of babes came a greater sense of the world around them and I was really thankful that I shut my mouth and let their words flow.
When sitting back and thinking about it, those words that come out of the mouth of our babes, our students that is, completely guide what we do everyday in class. A child coming in and venting about how awful his morning was may change the tone I set for the day in my morning agenda. The child that catches each and every mistake I make might make me more deliberate and thoughtful before I open my own mouth. But more importantly, it's the "facts" and questions that come out of the mouths of my students that take me down a thousand different paths during any given lesson. You will note that I acknowledged "facts" in special way. On some occasions it's the statements that students share that they think are facts guide my lessons even more. For, if I don't listen to my students and what they are trying to show me with their words, there is no sense in me opening my mouth in the first place.
Recently I tried out a new instructional strategy in science. It is called the P-E-O Technique and I learned about it in an article titled "Using the P-E-O Technique" written by Page Keeley (Keeley, 2013). The letters stand for prediction, explanation and observation. The central focus of this instructional technique is that the students are given several opportunities to reflect back on their own understanding after observing a given experiment. Lessons start off with a scenario in which students make a prediction. Not only do they make a prediction, but they have to explain specific reasoning that backs their prediction. Then, the students observe a lab or experiment that tests the original question. But the P-E-O Technique doesn't stop there. The essential element is that students are then directed back to their prediction and are asked to explain again. If the original prediction did not match the outcome of the experiment, students are challenged to change their prediction with something that matches the observed experiment. They need to explain why they were wrong and why they think the results were different. Basically, they are showing growth as a learner. If a student's prediction was accurate, they can still go back to further support their opinion with evidence from the experiment.
The characteristics of this technique that stuck out to me most were the deliberate attention to going back and revising what was predicted in order to show growth. Often I have my students correct work in math to show growth, they revise in writing, but rarely is it done in science. I was also amazed at how student-centered the technique is. Yes, there is mention of the teacher facilitating the three steps of the process and overseeing the experiment, but it is all about the students.
So my challenge was to try it out. A science understanding that my students continue to struggle with and usually support with "facts" is the ability to explain phenomena in their everyday lives. This is most evident for me in my Sun, Moon, Earth (SME) Walk To. I can talk until I am blue in my face and what I consider to be the basic understandings of life on earth are very difficult for students to comprehend accurately. Then why not put it in the hands of babes and see what happens?
I pulled three students that are currently in my Walk To rotation and had them participate in lesson designed with the P-E-O Technique in mind. I posed the questions "What causes day on earth? What causes night on earth?" and asked each child to write down what they thought was the correct answer. They eagerly participated and then waited for the next step. My experiment wasn't necessarily an experiment, but it did involve some hands-on resources-a globe to represent the earth and a lamp (with out a lamp shade) to represent the sun. I asked one of the three students to use the two objects, letting them move the earth anyway they wanted to show day in our current city (DeWitt, MI). Immediately the student turned the globe so DeWitt was facing the sun. I asked the other students if they agreed and they all came to the consensus that the movement was accurate. They expressed that the sun's rays needed to be shining on "our part of the world" to have day. I complimented them on the way that they articulated themselves and moved on. The next step was to manipulate the globe in any way to show that DeWitt was having night. This is when it really got interesting.
Prior to this, I had only talked about the sun and the earth. There was no mention of the moon. Yet, the moon was what it was all about when the students started to talk about what would have to happen to have night in DeWitt. I was taken aback. I could see where it made sense to mention the moon because that body had a place in the name of my class. But, really, the moon causes night in DeWitt? The information I got was telling me a lot about the strengths and weaknesses of my learners.
I had to think really fast on my feel in order to not go into lecture mode (see comment about being blue in face-paragraph five) and just use the information the students were giving me with their words to question them further. I had to work really hard to make sure it wasn't about me, but it was about listening to the words they were saying and using that to guide my questions that would hopefully lead them to accurate science understanding. The students were giving me all the information I needed to guide their learning, all I had to do was listen.
I have to say, they had an amazing conversation. I used the knowledge and the signs they were giving me in order to respond with a question that would make them challenge themselves. For example, when the moon was stated as an essential element in order to have night on earth, I asked if the students had ever seen a night when the moon can't be seen. They all nodded emphatically and then I restated what they told me. "If the moon is the reason we have night on earth, then how can we have night if there are times when we don't see the moon in the night sky?"
Then I stepped back and let the learning occur without me or my words. The three scientists worked through their thoughts together, questioning, debating, going back to their predictions, moving the globe around and finally, without any interaction from me, came up with a step towards scientific understanding. "The moon doesn't have anything to do with night. We just can't be on that side [student pointed toward opposite side of the globe] where they sun is." Jackpot! We were on our way. So I repeated the accurate information they told me and kept going with the information. I asked, "If in order to be day DeWitt has to be facing the sun and in order to be night DeWitt has to be facing away from the sun, how does that happen?" And then I stepped back again and let the students take the reins. They talked about the earth moving back and forth on its axis in a pendulum type movement until one of the three students noticed that one side of the earth would never have day. Then they started to spin/rotate the earth on the axis and decided that was the best method of going from day to night for all places on earth. It was then that I realized I was holding my breath. I was witnessing, documenting and assessing this thoughtful, intelligent and investigative conversation and all I had done was ask a question.
The conversation and the evolution it took became a wonderful resource and assessment tool for me to see where each student began with his/her thinking and understand how his/her learning occurred. I then gave the students ample time to go back to their original predications and revise them based on the conversation and manipulation of resources. I found it very intriguing that the learning continued. I inferred that in order for the students to articulate in writing what they learned, they had to share it verbally again. More conversation ensued and then each came out with a revised and accurate understanding of how to explain the daily phenomena of day and night on earth.
Overall, I was very pleased with the use of the P-E-O Technique in order to get my students to explain phenomena in their daily lives. I am anxious and excited to see if this technique will enhance other lessons I have in my SME unit and give my students an opportunity to control their own learning. From the mouth of babes came a greater sense of the world around them and I was really thankful that I shut my mouth and let their words flow.
861_week_10.pdf |