NSF Awards: 1660557
Developing Leaders in Science Teaching (LIST) (NSF-DUE-1660557) is a transformative science teacher development program addressing the induction of STEM professionals into their early years as an inservice teacher. The program provides 15 science graduates/professionals with bachelor’s degree majors in biology, chemistry, or physics with a master’s degree, secondary science certification, and an extended induction program in LEAs where they finally locate. The aim is to fast-track participants in a strong clinically-based program with an emphasis on developing their skills in engaging diverse students. The program has the goal of moving its teachers from mentored novices to teacher leaders in the education community through long-term mentoring via Professional Learning Community teams. Some important questions for which data are collected include characteristics of successful recruits, impact of the PLCs on teacher retention and growth in leadership, and the effectiveness of in-service Fellows as science teachers compared with non-Noyce teachers. LIST will have a broad impact on the science teacher workforce, addressing a critical concern in high-needs schools. Its impact will demonstrate a transformative model constructed through a 3-way collaboration between new teachers, professionals in the university, and professionals in the field. The LIST model demonstrates the use and upgrading of existing infrastructure to enhance research-based science teacher education program development. This video showcases some virtual science teaching strategies these LIST Fellows crafted in response to changes in the classroom due to the current pandemic.
Brian Kruse
Thank you for sharing your project! It is truly a challenge to create and deliver virtual science instruction. How did you incorporate discourse into the class experiences? What strategies did you use to promote active student involvement in the lessons?
Rachael Tawbush
Graduate Assistant & NSF NOYCE LIST Scholarship Program Coordinator
Thank you for your comment. The LIST Fellows created spaces for discourse and active engagement with their virtual lessons. The activities highlighted in the video were completed with the LIST Fellows' students via a virtual platform, such as Zoom. During the Zoom presentation, the LIST Fellow would ask the students, who were zooming in real-time, questions to guide discourse. These questions could be anything ranging from, "What will happen if... to "Why did we get this result?" The secondary science students responded to the teacher's questions by unmuting themselves to answer, reflecting in the chat box, or collectively responding as a group using break out rooms. Students could also provide individual or collaborative input in other digital formats, such as the digital notebook, Google Jamboard, Nearpod, etc.
Some of the LIST Fellows also took the virtual instruction one step further by creating a "science robot" character played by the teacher. In this method, the teacher acted a "science robot" who would only perform scientific tasks provided by the students. The students worked collaboratively in breakout rooms to discuss how the experiment should be conducted, and then a group representative would tell the "science robot" how to complete the experiment and why it should be completed that way. This allowed the science teacher to conduct the experiment in 3-4 different ways with actions requested by each group and opened a space for discourse and reflection.
April Luehmann
So creative - love the "science robot" idea!! Thanks!
Paige Evans
Thank you for sharing your video. I like how you used specific examples (Nearpod, the simulations etc.). It is also wonderful that you had the materials available. If you get a chance, check out our video http://videohall.com/p/2031
Sabrina Stanley
NSF NOYCE LIST Scholars Program Graduate Research Assistant
Thank you for reviewing our video. We look forward to reciprocating.
Lawanda Cummings
Love this! We have been working with our teachers in the USVI to integrate similar strategies with the COVID-19 shifts in learning. Cudos to all the teachers who made a way for learning to occur.
Sabrina Stanley
NSF NOYCE LIST Scholars Program Graduate Research Assistant
Thank you for your comment. Not many teachers and school systems were prepared to go fully online March 2020 when the country went into lock-down. The strategies that emerged with our Fellows were due to trial & error, think tank collaborations, and necessity. During the 2020-2021 school year, they perfected the systems that worked for their classes - their students and themselves. We found there was no one-size-fits-all strategy; each school system's resources, teacher's technological expertise, and student needs were unique. In this video, we tried to capture the breadth of their success.
Cristo Leon
Lawanda Cummings
Cristo Leon
Dear Sabrina,
Thanks for sharing the list of resources this is great. Allow me to add some resources we have found useful too
Bring TED-Ed Student Talks to Your School (TED-Ed, 2021)
CK-12: Free Online Textbooks, Flashcards, Adaptive Practice, Real World Examples, Simulations (CK-12 Foundation, 2021).
Edpuzzle: Make Any Video Your Lesson (Edpuzzle, 2021)
ExploreLearning Gizmos: Math & Science Simulations (ExploreLearning, 2021)
Math Interactives (LearnAlberta.ca, 2021)
Mathigon: Textbook of the Future (Mathigon, 2021)
PhET Interactive Simulations | University of Colorado Boulder (UCB, 2021)
Poll Everywhere: Host interactive online meetings (Poll Everywhere, 2021)
Sources
CK-12 Foundation. (2021). Free Online Textbooks, Flashcards, Adaptive Practice, Real World Examples, Simulations. https://www.ck12.org/student/
Edpuzzle. (2021). Edpuzzle | Make Any Video Your Lesson. Edpuzzle. https://edpuzzle.com/
ExploreLearning. (2021). ExploreLearning Gizmos: Math & Science Simulations. ExploreLearning : Get Hands-on, Minds-on in Math and Science. https://www.explorelearning.com
LearnAlberta.ca. (2021). Math Interactives [Interactive Objects]. https://www.learnalberta.ca/content/mejhm/index...
Mathigon. (2021). Mathigon – Textbook of the Future. Mathigon. https://mathigon.org/
Poll Everywhere. (2021). Host interactive online meetings with Poll Everywhere. Poll Everywhere. https://www.polleverywhere.com
TED-Ed. (2021). Bring TED-Ed Student Talks to Your School. TED-Ed. https://ed.ted.com/educator
UCB. (2021). PhET Interactive Simulations | University of Colorado Boulder. PhET. https://phet.colorado.edu/
Cathy Lussier
Great list Cristo. We use Kahoots and Poll Everywhere and find them very useful for engagement and checking for understanding as we go. It works both with the lesson planning and with our Noyce scholar PD.
Eric Pyle
Professor
I'm looking forward to reading through the list of resources/activities. I especially enjoyed the sample presentations.
Sabrina Stanley
NSF NOYCE LIST Scholars Program Graduate Research Assistant
Thank you for your interest in our project. Below is a listing of the various resources our Fellows employed that we categorized during our analysis. Attached also is a list of websites for these resources plus others.
Collaborative digital platforms = Google Doc, Google Sheets, Jamboard, Flipgrid
Digital Formative Assessments = Kahoot, Quizziz, Nearpod
Virtual Lab Simulations = PhET, Royal Society of Chemistry, Chemcollective, Labster
Virtual Instructional Management Tools = Digital Science Notebooking, Pear Deck, Nearpod, EdPuzzle, Flipped Classroom
Learning Management System = Schoology, Google Classroom
Follow COVID Safety Guidelines = Pre-recorded Lab Demonstrations
Virtual Sessions = Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams
Cathy Lussier
Cristo Leon
Eric Pyle
Professor
This is fantastic. Would you mind me sharing this list with NSTA? There would be a suitable attribution, but just finding these resources in the first place, under the pressure of hybrid or online teaching, is the first big step. Effectively integrating them into instruction is even bigger. It seems like your Fellows have really made an impact.
Sabrina Stanley
NSF NOYCE LIST Scholars Program Graduate Research Assistant
Yes, we would be more than happy for you to share this list of resources with NSTA. The itemized lists came from work during the following conference presentations; we would appreciate if you referenced the sources. Our Fellows presented at the Alabama Science Teacher Association conference, sharing on the national level would be fantastic. Thank you for disseminating our work to a larger professional community of learning.
Stanley, D., & Tawbush, R. (2021). Think Tank Sessions During Remote Instruction. Alabama Science Teachers Association (ASTA), Virtual Conference.
Stanley, S., Tawbush, R., Sunal, D., & Sunal, C., Duong, T., Harstad VanDervoort, R., Hawkins, H., Kilic, S., Lawrence, A., McDonald, N., Millwood, H., Moon, C., Murray, C., Reed, H., Shull, A., Smith, K., Stanley, D., Walker, L., Zeier, M. (2021, April). Meeting the challenges of a pandemic: Teaching secondary science. Poster presented at Southeastern Universities Graduate Research Symposium (SUGRS), Virtual conference.
Cathy Lussier
Thank you so much for sharing your study and what a great video! I really enjoyed learning about how your program handled the challenges of teaching labs in online environments this past year. All the video clips you included gave a real sense of community and the different options. I cracked up on the balloon demonstration. I've done that demonstration myself with similar results. I particularly thought the note on building consistency in an online environment and/or when using technology, so a student knows what to expect and can refer back to it such as with your digital notebook is an important one. Also, the comment one of the presenters in the video made about not forgetting to encourage academic language usage despite being online is another good reminder. Excellent tips. Thank you!
Sabrina Stanley
NSF NOYCE LIST Scholars Program Graduate Research Assistant
Thank you for your compliments on our project. We feel our Fellows did an exceptional job as they met the challenges of COVID instruction, especially by focusing on the needs of their students. None of us were fully prepared for that shift in the educational environment. There have certainly been growing pains for many of us over the last 12+ months. We sincerely appreciate your comments.
Paige Evans
Thank you so much for this comprehensive list. Much appreciated.
Karen Mutch-Jones
Senior Researcher
Thank you for sharing your video, and kudos to the LIST fellows for their creativity and determination--it took both, along with knowledge and skill, to create engaging learning activities. I also appreciated the tools they used to keep themselves organized. I am wondering--were these strategies helpful in keeping students on track with their coursework? And if there were fewer logistical challenges, as a result, were they then able to focus more on science exploration and inquiry? The abrupt switch to a virtual environment was hard for many in-service teachers (and experienced teachers!)...and just managing the work in a new way often interfered with providing rich science activities. Thank you!
Sabrina Stanley
NSF NOYCE LIST Scholars Program Graduate Research Assistant
Our fellows have reported to us that keeping the students on track was a universal struggle. There was a lot of trial-and-error before they found what worked in their own classroom; each was different. The abrupt switch to virtual you mention was hard for all our Fellows and their colleagues. However, they managed to be very intentional to incorporate exploration and inquiry in their virtual and hybrid lessons. We strongly encouraged our Fellows to persist with science lessons that required critical thinking and other NGSS science skills. With regular communication and collaboration, we worked with them, and they with each other too, to manage.
April Luehmann
You know what I love most about your project? How it honors the expertise and creativity of your teachers. This pandemic has been SO challenging for them, and so many teachers met those challenges with increased passion and creativity. Thank you for sharing this work!
Bess Caplan
Thank you for sharing. Can you comment more on how these particular virtual teaching tools were chosen? Were the fellows encouraged to select different ones to try out? Did certain schools have subscriptions to certain tools that then made those tools more accessible?