Professional Development: What’s Next?

By Rebecca Cummings

Pulling together the work I have done with my students in Science Inquiry in the past three years is really only half the picture. The grant work I have been doing focuses just as much on mentoring other teachers, collaborating or partnering not only with teachers in your own district, but with other teachers throughout the state. Every time I get to go to “my happy place” at Rivier College we spend the days reflecting on what we have done in our own classrooms, practicing what we can do with our students, and then learning how to be good mentors (we prefer to use “partners”). We call much of what we are doing Teacher Research and as we go forward we continue to discuss what should be next in the process.

The web site www.studentworldteacher.net is an excellent resource for other teachers who may be interested in Inquiry Methods. We have published articles, developed workshops, and continue to share information in order to improve the students’ learning process. At a time when the focus is on reading and math skills, we are striving to keep students fluent in the skills that are imbedded in the GSEs. Process skills are now tested on the Science NECAPS but I hear teachers moan that there just is no time to give students a true “hands-on” experience.

We need to change the term “hands-on” to “mindful” or “attaching meaning” to all that we expect our students to learn at every level, from elementary on up. It has been exciting to hear feedback from high school teachers that we work with during the workshops. They struggle with students having a basic understanding of how to conduct investigations. Wouldn’t it be ideal if we could expose our elementary and middle school students to these skills? I know that when I was a high school student I knew that I enjoyed science, wanting to be a veterinarian when I grew up. I was exposed to science from the time I was in kindergarten. The curriculum was layered as it is now in reading and math, but I knew how to be a scientist. A scientist’s skills come so naturally to children that this method of teaching has been easy rather than time consuming. When we empower our students with what they already know and allow them to explore, they give back when we need them to. If we are lucky this is during assessment time, but if not then, it usually pays off in the next unit of science study.

During all my reflections I think how exciting it would be for me as a fifth grade teacher to have students entering my classroom fluent in this process. If only my partnerships could extend down to first grade and work their way up through all grade levels? In the Spring I release my students to the middle school science classes and hope they can continue where we left off. The method of inquiry is not easy for some, especially those that think it involves tons of materials and chaos. There is an art to it that I have learned and it certainly takes time. At PES we have already started by conducting a workshop for teachers to expose them to what this might look like in a classroom. However, that was just the beginning. If we can now pull interested teachers together and form a “Wonder Club” we could share ideas and develop inquiry lessons that match the GSEs for each grade level.

I have been lucky to work with a fourth grade teacher this year, Laurel Plouffe. We collaborate constantly and because her curriculum is different than mine, we often consider how we will expose her students without repeating what I would do with them next year. We have recently created “Science Buddies,” a weekly session when my students share what they are doing with her students, teaching them what true observation looks like while they share science journals and notebooks. Her students get to expose mine to their investigations and discuss what they should do next. It has been obvious to me throughout the past three years of my own education and research that inquiry has no age limits. There are no boundaries to what students of any age can accomplish when we pose questions that stimulate their wonderment in units of study.

So when I think about what’s next I think of the students that bring their bean plants home and watch them flourish in a window, wondering at how they flower and then produce an actual bean. They discuss this with their families and often bring questions back to the classroom, posting them up on our “wonder board.” Why stop there? We are growing scientists, learners who are naturally inquisitive in a way that will help them grow up to be thinkers, wondering at more than just a seed.