It
was the first day of my practicum and the supervising professor, Dr. Miles
Nelson, accompanied me to a well-established urban high school. Because of its
proximity, many students were offspring of University of Wisconsin professors, including
some that were my instructors during my undergraduate years, majoring in
biology and chemistry. I subsequently received a National Institute of Health
stipend to do research in the medical school for two years. To fulfill the
license requirement to teach in Wisconsin I began the eight-week student teaching
requirement.
After
surviving challenging classes and labs at UW, I was nevertheless anxious about
my first experience as a 'high school teacher' yet exhilarated to start the
process. Dr. Nelson and I walked to the first class that afternoon in late
September where Dale Wesenberg, a veteran physical science teacher, was engaged
with his students. Their semester started three weeks earlier and he was in the
middle of explaining how to do a lab exercise. We tried to be inconspicuous, but
all eyes were distracted by our presence as we walked into the classroom. We
stood motionless as Wesenberg regained his students' attention to introduce
their new teacher. Dr. Nelson wished me well and went back to the campus, and I
took a position off to the side so that the lesson could be continued.
Wesenberg carefully explained how to manipulate the apparatus for the heat
transfer investigation and how data was to be entered on their handout. It was
clear that he understood the subject, its significance in the curriculum, and
how to keep the students engaged.
Carrie,
a 10th grader, cut him off in a middle of a sentence: “What is the relevance of
all this? Why are we doing this?”
The
Laboratory Approach
Yes,
it was rude, but I chuckled because that was the code phrase that rang out in
many colleges during the Vietnam War a decade earlier but was blurted by a high
school kid in a science classroom. She was wrong. The content was particularly
relevant for that course and grade level. After a week I recognized that Carrie
was not mean-spirited but rather a rambunctious, ill-informed teen, interjecting
her dissatisfaction with school in general without comprehending the enormous
investment by educators to create such a meaningful educational opportunity,
including this physical science course. It was not a boring class, but rather a
highly structured nationally devised curriculum that emphasized laboratory excursions
to stimulate the analytical thinking associated with scientific methodology veersus
the facts centered format employed for many years in American schools.
Wesenberg and I were now teaching a contemporary post-Sputnik era curriculum
that revised the American science education scene significantly in the early
1960s, a monumental effort by educators and scientists to formulate a program
that would be truly relevant, that is (a) have greater appeal to
students, (b) inspire enrollment in more science courses, and (c) build a
stronger technological community in the United States.
Furthermore,
Wesenberg was particularly skilled in facilitating the syllabus, its textbook,
and the many well-scripted laboratories covering diverse subject areas: heat,
electricity, light, sound, and chemistry. He would introduce topics, brief students
on the do's and don'ts of the procedure, and then let the class go back to the
stations and perform. All of the laboratory items were labeled and shelved
neatly in his stock room, ready for use when the topic was covered. He
role-modeled the organization a science teacher needed to excel in their
career.
The
Hands-On Approach
I
liked being a teacher. They were nice kids with only minor discipline issues,
who respected Dale, and eventually me. I was now in front of a room and
explaining rather than taking notes in a lecture hall. Looking back on that
period in my career, I would validate what was being accomplished both by the
developers of the program as well as Dale. Science is different from the other
traditional subject areas because it includes laboratory experiences. The hand-eye coordination coupled with
analytical thinking is a crucial element in mental development. Moreover, the
touching and manipulating of laboratory items along with writing summary
reports incorporated different areas of the brain, affecting executive functions
such as reasoning and planning. The fact that they had two or three lab
sessions per week was an unusual bonus for any child during their time in
school.
The
students clearly enjoyed doing the investigations witnessed by their chatter as
they communicated on how the items were to be manipulated as per Mr.
Wesenberg's instructions and the manual's step by step procedures. It was a
meaningful scientific excursion because they were handling an assortment of
apparatus, moving them around to best utilize their capacity to be accurate,
and then collected data in their notebooks. The understanding of how to
manipulate Bunsen burners, electrical meters, thermometers, and other items to
generate data stimulated hand-eye coordination. They were talking, reasoning,
and helping one another understand the relevance of observation with theory.
In
their lifetimes they had plenty of hand-eye coordination experiences from
holding their bottles, tying their shoes, using eating utensils, getting
dressed, and much more. Physical Science was another perspective in this
development. It was human brain development in the context of academic subject
mastery. Like scientists, they wrote in
notebooks as they collected data. Furthermore, we coordinated teacher-mediated
class discussions at the chalkboard or on the overhead projector. Students drew
conclusions and generalizations about the phenomena they investigated – a mini
version of the lab experiences I partook in college.
Being
Relevant
My
student teaching experience was also important to me for personal reasons. I
found the science part easy as it should for a person that took advanced
courses in chemistry, biology, and physics at a major university along with
crafting many experiments as an NIH researcher. As an intern teacher, however, being
relevant and liked by the students was a significant concern. I wanted to win
them over. In a sense I had an advantage over Wesenberg, the tie-wearing middle
age gentleman versus my casual manner that approximated their dress. They
respected him because he was a veteran teacher and was decorated after serving
in the US Air Force in World War II, achieving the rank of Lt. Colonel.
Carrie's 'relevance' remark did not bother him at all. Undaunted he responded:
“Carrie, I think you'll find the lab we are about to do quite interesting.
Okay?”
Nevertheless,
she did say “What is the relevance of all this?” I think she at least had a
notion about the ramifications of that phrase. She heard it from someone – a
peer, sibling, or television. I came to
see Carrie as an intelligent and free-spirited individual with a personality
that set her apart from her classmates. I could tell that she liked doing the
experiments. Her perspective may have come from the great scrutiny of our
society, its involvement in a war would see 58,220 Americans killed, and had
not yet ended.
Consider,
too, that every element of the adult-run society was looked upon with
skepticism, including the President, Congress, corporate leaders, and basically
all adults. Even when it may have seemed inappropriate, Carrie's comment was
representative of the attack the young generation placed on just about
everything our society did, particularly in the education communities, where
test tubes and Bunsen burners did not seem so relevant. Colleges, in
particular, echoed that phrase because they saw their presence on campus as not
just a degree-giver but a place to gain an understanding of the relevance of
the world around them – a forerunner to the contemporary global economy we live
in today. Protesting the Vietnam War, civil rights, and environmental issues on
campus was a purposeful break from our chemistry and literature classes. As an
undergraduate a co-ed screamed as a cluster of us walked to a football game one
Saturday afternoon: “Don't you realize that your brothers are being killed in
Southeast Asia? Why are you going to that stupid game?”
Though
a stretch, declaring a lack relevance in Carrie's mind in her physical science
class paled compare to helping feed the poor around the world. A science class
in a Midwest classroom did not do that. Her sentiment was felt by many, and you
have to applaud the righteous indignation. Nevertheless, it was one excellent
course and relevant because it met the needs of a science curriculum as well as
cognitive development concerns. It was well-structured, wonderfully taught by
an experienced teacher, and allowed the students to perform psychomotor tasks
regularly, and derive conclusions about what they accomplished.
For
me it was the start of a career and I genuinely liked children, particularly
the high school age group. Teaching was a good fit. Though I missed the
intensity level and significance of research with talented scientists at the
medical center, I hooked up with scientists at various venues during my summers
to take on interesting research projects.
The
mentoring of a young teacher – another level of relevance
During
my practicum I discovered some interesting facts about my supervising teacher,
Dr. Miles Nelson, the man that took me to the school in September. He was
well-regarded by my peers in the science education department. He did not force
ideas down our throats but rather organized readings and other exercises to ponder
the importance of various facets of teaching: homework, tests, lesson plan
development, and class discipline. They were straight forward and incredibly
relevant in my formulation of lessons during the entirety of my career.
In
addition, he videotaped his visits and played them back immediately after the
lesson in an unoccupied classroom. Nelson did not say a word but enlisted my
opinion. I never saw myself on video and to be honest I was embarrassed. For
one, it was the ninth-grade biology class, and my handwriting on the board was
tiny. I noticed, too, that I was visibly nervous as I talked to the class and
had a silly grin on my face as I looked at that videotape machine more than the
students. I accidentally nudged a ruler off the teacher desk and clumsily
picked it up and said something about how it could be used to keep kids in
line. A comedian I was not. The organization of the content was okay, but it
was clear that I had to gain more confidence in my style in front of students.
I gave a few presentations to other graduate students and professors during my
time at the university but one friend of mine said I was boring. Ouch.
However,
what was so significant about my relationship with Dr. Nelson was the
opportunity to talk with him one on one about so many education issues. He
respected me because of my NIH research experiences and understood that I had
science capacities beyond those of most students he encountered. He was
annoyed, though, when I first came to his office a year earlier and said: “I
want to be a teacher and with my advanced background want to get into a school
to teach advanced concepts in biology to smart kids”. He told me with a sober
look “so does everyone else”. I realized my arrogance in posturing myself in
that manner and did a paradigm shift right away.
Doing
the Impossible in the Poorest Side of Town
The
best conversations were the anecdotes he confided about his amazing experiences
when getting a Ph.D. working in a central city Philadelphia school. He, too,
felt that students were best served when doing hands-on activities in class.
Nelson went a step further, however. He devised modules that allowed students
to move from station to station and perform experiments. There was very little
in the way of lecturing or trying to make a long-winded class introduction to
each topic. It was almost entirely activity focused. The preparation for such
an independent lesson is time intensive maybe a bit risky to implement. Many
students, many possible experiments, and each had to be self-explanatory (with
minimal instructions to read). He worked with another graduate student and
built a science teacher's dream classroom. Nelson told me that it was embraced
by the students, many notoriously truant children before his appearance in the
school. He quipped that a number of them came to just that class and then
left school!
This
was the most relevant educational pedagogy I ever heard. Dr. Nelson apparently
reached the students where their intellects needed it most. The immediate gratification
of testing items through controlled experimentation turned them on. He
essentially did in the 1960s what our current video game generation is doing
all the time: delivering immediate confirmation of success in processes with
feedback that invited you to the next step. Students saw that there was a
relationship between the processes in their modules and the real world – it was
relevant. That is very gratifying to the brain.
Dr.
Nelson must have stimulated the dopamine rush through psychomotor engagement to
sustain the motivation. His modules allowed students to touch apparatus and get
feedback on tasks. You would not think that basic lab experiments could cause
such a rush in school-turned-off students, but it did to his credit.
Based on his reflection to me, the physical science procedures were engrossing.
There was socialization as students partnered during the period, and movement
as they went from station to station and manipulated objects. There wasn't the
silly vocal and physical interactions that high school students display when in
close proximity, standing around, but rather teamwork as they cooperated when
manipulating apparatus and talking with each other to get clarification.
Because
of Nelson's organization and clear goals the experience was novel for the
students. He was encouraging as they progressed and gave the face to face
attention they needed. Dr. Nelson devised those unusually successful
instructional methods that would be validated from a neurological perspective
by educators and scientists decades later.
As
Dave and Roger Johnson reported:
"It
is an element of cooperative and collaborative learning where members of a
group who share common goals perceive that working together is individually and
collectively beneficial, and success depends on the participation of all the
members."[1][2]
"Teenagers
ascribe happiness to their moods when they are in situations of relative
freedom, in the company of age-mates, able to engage in flow activities that
stretch their skills and makes them feel alive and proud."[3]
Dr.
Nelson's methodology and enormous success in a poor demographic would be the
gold standard for my career as a science educator – providing meaningful
lessons that are activity based. I saw it in Dale Wesenberg's 10th grade
hands-on physical science class, and it was a satisfying experience for those
students. It would be a mission to duplicate my mentors' accomplishments in my
courses – to be very relevant for the hundreds of students in my charge.
References
[1]
Johnson, R.T.; Johnson, D.W.; Holubec, E.J. (1998). Cooperation in the Classroom. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. pp. 4, 7–8.
[2]
Choi, J.; Johnson, D.W.; Johnson, R.T. (2011). "Relationships Among Cooperative Learning
Experiences, Social Interdependence, Children’s Aggression, Victimization, and
Prosocial Behaviors".
Journal of Applied Social Psychology 41 (4): 976–1003.
doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2011.00744.x.
[3]
Csikszentmihalyi, M., Hunter, J., 'Happiness in Everyday Life: The Uses of
Experience Sampling',
Journal of Clinical Psychology, p. 185-199, 2003
