Sacha Norris
Grade 5
Hudson, NH
December, 2010

How Teacher Collaboration & Viewing Student Work Has Changed My Teaching

Since the start of my teaching career, six years ago, I have changed my science teaching practices significantly. I have especially noticed a change this year. It has become my priority to teach science through inquiry-based instruction as much as possible. This has been accomplished through the use of science journals and video documentation of student learning. Making this change has been one of the best things I have done, so far, as an educator. In recognizing this change, it is clear that the use of reviewing and reflecting on student work has taught me a thing or two about my students and teaching. I started the school year with the incorporation of science journals in my daily lessons. The use of these journals has been highly effective. My fifth grade classroom consists of twenty students, ten boys and ten girls, with a range of academic abilities. All students have their own science journal, which is a spiral one-subject notebook. In their journal, students take notes, draw diagrams, and write reflections and/or explanations based on daily lessons. For example, the first entry each student wrote was his or her own perspective of a scientist. One student wrote, "A scientist is a man or woman who studies things like weather, energy, and plants to discover things about them", while another wrote, "A scientist is a person who experiments with natural things on and in the earth to find out what they can be used for."

Beginning the year with this assignment provided an immediate understanding of each child's prior knowledge on this subject. This helped shape my future lessons and lead me in a different direction than in the past. I had always assumed that students thought of scientists as individuals with beakers, lab coats, and crazy hair. It was obvious that I was mistaken. My current students have a decent understanding of what scientists do and why they do them. It was refreshing to start the year off one a step ahead.

At the start of the year, I made a conscious decision to create new and exciting science lessons that would support student exploration and inquiry-based instruction. In order to do this effectively, I reflected on the time I spent with other teachers from southern New Hampshire at Rivier College. Through my personal reflections and the time I spent with those teachers, it was clear to me that I needed to lead lessons less and allow students to explore more on their own.

I decided to let go of my old practices after my students' first experiment with potential and kinetic energy. The experiment was to determine if the distance a rubber band was pulled back affected the distance it traveled. After completing the experiment I asked students to return to their groups to develop two to three questions, based on their discoveries, which they would like to investigate further. As they did this, students wrote their questions in their science journals and then later shared them with the whole class. The following day, I wrote their questions on chart paper and asked groups to meet back together to choose one question to experiment with. As groups made their choices, I circled around the room using a Flip video camera to document their thought process and reasoning. I later used this video to reflect upon their understanding of potential and kinetic energy and to decide if future lessons were necessary on these concepts.

I continued this process with other lessons. For example, students explored simple circuits, series circuits, and parallel circuits through a variety of materials. They were asked to use the materials to build each type of circuit without guided instruction or the use of a diagram. Students were only allowed to use their past knowledge of each circuit, the corresponding characteristics, and group collaboration. Throughout this process I again used the Flip camera. While viewing the documented footage, I was surprised by the ways students were engaged with one another and used trial and error to create their circuits. I also used the footage to view how groups discussed why things were not working and how they experimented with different materials to produce a functioning circuit. It was interesting to see how each group had a working understanding of how a simple circuit functioned by the end of the lesson. Based on these observations, I was able to easily target specific points to discuss at our next lesson.

In conclusion, through the use of science journals and video documentation I have encountered discoveries from my students reflections, small group collaboration, and overall lesson engagement. These discoveries have lead me to a new way of teaching. Instead of following the typical timeline of lessons and lesson planning, I find myself using each lesson as a springboard for the next. At the same time, the information I gather from students' lesson reflections, in their science journals, provides me with necessary insight into their true understanding of concepts. In turn, I have the ability to adapt or modify any upcoming lesson in order to truly meet my students' academic needs.