Monday, September 24, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Teacher Attitudes Double Take
So I'm thinking it was good to be reminded (see last post) that teacher attitudes can have a profound effect on students. Wait a minute. That was the point of the first half of the story the point of the second half of the story is that reminding teachers is not enough to change their attitudes!
The thing that works is changing behaviors that is what changes attitudes. So here is my idea. In the link there is a reference "To see if teachers' beliefs would be changed by giving them a new set of teaching behaviors, Pianta and his colleagues recently did a study."
I'm going to ask my support team to find that study. I want to see how they did their observations of teachers. I have already asked Chris and he has agreed to obverse me to look for evidence of beliefs that I might not even be aware of.
If you find that reference please post it in the comments.
The thing that works is changing behaviors that is what changes attitudes. So here is my idea. In the link there is a reference "To see if teachers' beliefs would be changed by giving them a new set of teaching behaviors, Pianta and his colleagues recently did a study."
I'm going to ask my support team to find that study. I want to see how they did their observations of teachers. I have already asked Chris and he has agreed to obverse me to look for evidence of beliefs that I might not even be aware of.
If you find that reference please post it in the comments.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Wow. I loved this story on NPR this morning. Here is the link to it. The idea is not new but worth being reminded of. So now how do I change my behavior?
Thursday, September 13, 2012
A brilliant insight from my students
So I was showing Chris' class a TED Talk by Sugata Mitra titled "The child-driven education." When we got to the quote by Arther C. Clark "Any Teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be." I asked them if they agreed. At first they said "no no!" Then some started saying "well maybe yes." They concluded that if the machine is as good or better then the teacher then yes maybe the teacher should be replaced.
Later in the video Mitra shows that groups of children left alone will teach themselves things that interest them. At that point I asked them if I should be replaced? Since children that are left alone will teach themselves should I be replaced? They are very sweet and many of them tried desperately to reassured me that they did not want a machine for a science teacher. My response was that I didn't want them to have a machine for a science teacher either but I wanted to know why it was that the children that Mitra studied were teaching themselves when there was no adult present.
I have thought about this for some time. They said that it was fear of embarrassment. I was immediately struck because that is exactly what, the founder of Khan Academy, Sal Khan's younger cousins told him. They liked him better on video because they could replay anything that they did not understand. I concluded that if they are to embarrassed to learn from me than I should be replaced by a machine that does not embarrass them. Sweet as they are they didn't like that idea at all. So we started a discussion about being embarrassed. They like the idea that I have been embarrassed. So I mustered up my courage and told them an embarrassing story about myself.
At the end of the video and discussion I asked them if they thought that they could do what the students in Mitra's studies had done and they eagerly accepted the challenge. I got them into groups around computers and showed they the site goorulearing.org. There is a good introduction here. With goorulearning.org and all the other resources on the internet I asked them if they could answer the following question. "What is the science of cheese making?" We will continue to work on this next week.
Later in the video Mitra shows that groups of children left alone will teach themselves things that interest them. At that point I asked them if I should be replaced? Since children that are left alone will teach themselves should I be replaced? They are very sweet and many of them tried desperately to reassured me that they did not want a machine for a science teacher. My response was that I didn't want them to have a machine for a science teacher either but I wanted to know why it was that the children that Mitra studied were teaching themselves when there was no adult present.
I have thought about this for some time. They said that it was fear of embarrassment. I was immediately struck because that is exactly what, the founder of Khan Academy, Sal Khan's younger cousins told him. They liked him better on video because they could replay anything that they did not understand. I concluded that if they are to embarrassed to learn from me than I should be replaced by a machine that does not embarrass them. Sweet as they are they didn't like that idea at all. So we started a discussion about being embarrassed. They like the idea that I have been embarrassed. So I mustered up my courage and told them an embarrassing story about myself.
At the end of the video and discussion I asked them if they thought that they could do what the students in Mitra's studies had done and they eagerly accepted the challenge. I got them into groups around computers and showed they the site goorulearing.org. There is a good introduction here. With goorulearning.org and all the other resources on the internet I asked them if they could answer the following question. "What is the science of cheese making?" We will continue to work on this next week.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
First Week
The first week we did hands on experiments in food science as part of the Farm to Table theme.
We started our discussions about food talking about what it is made of. I wanted to see what the students think about the contents of food so I knew what to talk about.
What the students said varied depending on their age but the one universally surprising thing was how strongly their lists seemed to be influenced by advertizing. Iron and Vitamin D were surprisingly high on the list.
I started to refine my question by asking what they thought made up most of the weight of the food that they eat. They are Summers-Knoll kids so of course they are clever and they mentioned water. True but not what I was looking for. Such are the perils of playing guess what the teacher wants. We did get lots of ideas and terms flowing.
I indicated that minerals, vitamins and micro-nutrients are important out of proportion to the amount of space and weight that they contribute and that there are three types of molecules that are critical to life that make up most of the non-water weight of food. The molecules of life, protein, fats(lipids) and carbohydrates. Enough talk, on to the hands on stuff!
The kindergarteners, and first and second graders took a first stab at three tests for food content. We tested for glucose (table sugar and a small carbohydrate) , carbohydrates in general and fats/oils. For glucose they used DiaStick test strips that turn from green to brown. For carbohydrates the students prepared the sample and the teachers or I dripped iodine onto it. Iodine changes from brown/red to dark purple) in the presence of carbohydrates. For fats and oils they smeared or smashed the food samples onto pieces brown paper grocery bags. Stains that don't dry indicate fats and oils.
For the kindergarteners I prepared all of the materials so that they only had to stir and dip. For the first and second graders I gave instructions and they had to follow, collect their materials and samples from the front of class follow the procedure and evaluate the results.
After a similar discussion with the third and fourth graders about content they split into groups and followed multistage directions (recipes) to separate the proteins from whole milk and soy milk.
Their were three groups one using vinegar to coagulate whole milk, one using rennet to coagulate whole milk and the third using Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) to coagulate soy milk. Vinegar made a cheese sort of like ricotta(not a really ricotta though). The rennet made something like mozzerella. If we have any cheese making experts in the community I would love to learn more. The reading I have done about cheese making chemistry has done little more than point out the depth of my ignorance.
For many of the students reading through the instructions and understanding them before they started was a challenge. This is an important skill because it uses one of the most amazing capabilities of the human brain, the ability to model and predict the future.
The oldest students covered the molecules of life, "what is in food?" discussion and continued on to address the topic of calories in much more detail. I had them break up into small groups and look up the definition of a calorie on the internet. (I give them one computer for 3 or 4 students. This was inspired by a great TED talk by Sugata Mitra called Child Driven Education. The experiment was in part the inspiration for the movie "Slum dog Millionaire."
They found that their is both a physical calorie and a dietary calorie or kcal. The definition of a dietary calorie the the amount of heat that is needed to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius, at one atmosphere. The high point was an attempt to measure the calories in a dorito chip. We put 100gm of water into a pop can and lit the dorito on fire under the can. By measuring the increase in the temperature of the water we were able to calculate a lower estimate of the amount of kcals in the dorito.
We started our discussions about food talking about what it is made of. I wanted to see what the students think about the contents of food so I knew what to talk about.
What the students said varied depending on their age but the one universally surprising thing was how strongly their lists seemed to be influenced by advertizing. Iron and Vitamin D were surprisingly high on the list.
I started to refine my question by asking what they thought made up most of the weight of the food that they eat. They are Summers-Knoll kids so of course they are clever and they mentioned water. True but not what I was looking for. Such are the perils of playing guess what the teacher wants. We did get lots of ideas and terms flowing.
I indicated that minerals, vitamins and micro-nutrients are important out of proportion to the amount of space and weight that they contribute and that there are three types of molecules that are critical to life that make up most of the non-water weight of food. The molecules of life, protein, fats(lipids) and carbohydrates. Enough talk, on to the hands on stuff!
The kindergarteners, and first and second graders took a first stab at three tests for food content. We tested for glucose (table sugar and a small carbohydrate) , carbohydrates in general and fats/oils. For glucose they used DiaStick test strips that turn from green to brown. For carbohydrates the students prepared the sample and the teachers or I dripped iodine onto it. Iodine changes from brown/red to dark purple) in the presence of carbohydrates. For fats and oils they smeared or smashed the food samples onto pieces brown paper grocery bags. Stains that don't dry indicate fats and oils.
For the kindergarteners I prepared all of the materials so that they only had to stir and dip. For the first and second graders I gave instructions and they had to follow, collect their materials and samples from the front of class follow the procedure and evaluate the results.
After a similar discussion with the third and fourth graders about content they split into groups and followed multistage directions (recipes) to separate the proteins from whole milk and soy milk.
Their were three groups one using vinegar to coagulate whole milk, one using rennet to coagulate whole milk and the third using Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) to coagulate soy milk. Vinegar made a cheese sort of like ricotta(not a really ricotta though). The rennet made something like mozzerella. If we have any cheese making experts in the community I would love to learn more. The reading I have done about cheese making chemistry has done little more than point out the depth of my ignorance.
For many of the students reading through the instructions and understanding them before they started was a challenge. This is an important skill because it uses one of the most amazing capabilities of the human brain, the ability to model and predict the future.
The oldest students covered the molecules of life, "what is in food?" discussion and continued on to address the topic of calories in much more detail. I had them break up into small groups and look up the definition of a calorie on the internet. (I give them one computer for 3 or 4 students. This was inspired by a great TED talk by Sugata Mitra called Child Driven Education. The experiment was in part the inspiration for the movie "Slum dog Millionaire."
They found that their is both a physical calorie and a dietary calorie or kcal. The definition of a dietary calorie the the amount of heat that is needed to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius, at one atmosphere. The high point was an attempt to measure the calories in a dorito chip. We put 100gm of water into a pop can and lit the dorito on fire under the can. By measuring the increase in the temperature of the water we were able to calculate a lower estimate of the amount of kcals in the dorito.
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