By the time I graduated from college, I had sat through hundreds of lectures and worked multiple book problems. When I became a science teacher, I only knew how to lecture and assign problems from the textbook. Most of my students knew what to do, but a few students did nothing—unless you consider shooting spitballs as physics research. I called students' homes, I wrote referrals, I scolded, I assigned detentions, I changed seats, and if those tactics didn't work—I went to the teachers' lounge and whined. Of course, whining couldn't solve the real problem, which was a lack of effective teaching methods.
Something needed to change, so I decided to try a new approach that required each student to select an organism to dissect. The rationale was that the element of choice would inspire each student with a personal interest in the subject, and students would then enthusiastically share information. By the end of the week, everyone would learn more than I could teach in a month of lecturing and assigning book problems. Although I was unnerved by the prospect of allowing students out of their seats, I liked the approach to cooperative learning and decided to try it. Unfortunately, the students had never been involved in an independent activity before, so they quickly became frustrated. Frustration turned to anger, anger translated into discipline problems, the classroom descended into chaos, and no one learned anything. I gave up and returned to the safety of lecturing and assigning book problems.
The problem wasn't with the instructor, the students, or even the activity. The problem was that I didn't know where my students had already been, so I could not possibly take them where I wanted them to go. Standards help solve this problem. With standards as guidelines, a teacher can work from the ground up—knowing where the students have been and the steps necessary to advance their skills and understanding.
For standards-based education to work, teachers need to make some revolutionary changes. Before teachers can change, however, they need helpful professional development—not the competent educator lecturing for an hour about why a classroom teacher should not lecture, but professional development that gets teachers' hands dirty and feet wet. If teachers continue to teach as they were taught, students will learn a bundle of disjointed facts without knowing how to apply those facts or even why they should want to learn them.
Standards as a Starting Point
I began to understand the role that standards can play in improving instruction and professional development when I became involved with the Career Connection to Teaching with Technology Challenge Grant Project (www.cctt.org). Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the project aims to help teachers develop Web-based curriculum units that align with national content standards, such as the National Science Education Standards, as well as with standards for literacy in technology and relevant state standards. To create these lessons and to integrate technology into the teaching and learning process, I use these standards as my starting point. Even before I decide what to teach, I go to the standards to learn what my students are expected to know at their grade level.
The standards build on the learning at the previous grade level so that students can keep moving ahead. Education should be something that students do, not something done to them; they should be swimming with the flow and having a great time doing it, not rushing to the other side only to find that next year's teacher wants them to use completely different strokes. Standards promote continuity in the learning process.
In developing lesson plans for my classroom, I first select the standards that will guide my lesson plan and then determine what the students have already done and what they need to know or be able to do. If students have never made presentations to their peers, for example, I don't make lengthy presentations a requirement for the first lesson. I begin each unit with a formative assessment designed to determine what students already know about a given topic, and I include questions that ask the students what they would like to know. Before I plan an activity, I also need to know whether my students feel comfortable interacting, are confident enough to present in front of the class, and can work independently; I assess these qualities through careful observation.
Learning to write units for the Career Connection to Teaching with Technology project was not difficult, but I wanted to develop innovative ideas for presenting the material. As I sought new ways to engage students and meet standards, I was no longer as professionally isolated as I had been for most of my teaching career because a site manager for my area was always available for support. To successfully move into performance-based assessments and inquiry-driven learning that involves cooperation and technology skills, teachers need encouragement from experienced teachers.
Teaching Tools and the Internet
To teach effectively, we also need every tool in the teaching toolbox. Traditional teaching tools, including lectures, are still useful. My lectures now, though, are nothing like the lectures that I gave during my first year of teaching. Before I talk about rocks, I make sure that I have a rock in my hand. If I'm going to talk about chemical reactions, I blow something up—that usually gets everyone's attention. And nothing teaches the magic of science better than a magic trick.
For some units, students go to the Internet to find their own information—on black holes, stars, and planets during our study of space, for example. In one follow-up activity, small groups of students try to convince classmates to buy real estate on a particular planet, using accurate information and yet trying to put a positive spin on such activities as rock climbing on Mars or ice skating on Pluto.
We study weather during the spring, when Nebraska experiences many thunderstorms and some tornadoes. Students pull up weather maps on the Internet to check current conditions or to track nearby storms. Internet sites also provide valuable storm safety information that may save a life. As a follow-up activity, students pose as meteorologists and try to predict the next day's weather—what matters is the rationale used in the predictions, not whether their predictions are correct.
For students to use the Internet effectively to conduct a search, they must learn how to check the credibility of their sources, lest they become hopelessly confused by the contradictory information placed on the Internet. Nevertheless, much information that they can find on the Internet may be more current than material in textbooks that are just a few years old. In these units, students develop technological literacy and communication skills. Each time I use these approaches, I find out something new about science from the students.
Instead of using a multiple-choice test to assess instructional effectiveness, I try to find a way that students can demonstrate that they have successfully mastered a topic. When I covered Newton's Laws of Motion, for example, I had students create their own toy and then explain to their classmates how the laws applied to the motion of the toy. Nothing engages students in learning quite like toys. The students enjoy playing with them, and by the end of the presentations, students can state Newton's Laws and apply them to any moving object. Instead of committing the information to short-term memory until the test is over, these students understand—and are unlikely to forget—Newton's Laws. Performance-based assessment makes sense; after all, how often will an employer administer a multiple-choice test to determine whether an employee has mastered a skill? Performance-based assessment prepares students for the future.
My teaching techniques aren't always traditional; in fact, a teacher once accused me of entertaining my students, an accusation I accepted with great pride. My students are often noisy—not one student in a seat—and many are smiling as they engage in inquiry-based activities that lead to fascinating discoveries.
To meet the standards for literacy in new technologies and to prepare students for the future workplace, we have to revolutionize instruction. Book problems, lectures, and multiple-choice tests won't get students where they need to go—they won't even get the students' attention. Implementing standards effectively will require creating not only hands-on activities at every grade level and in every subject but also minds-on activities that demand collaborative and critical thinking skills. Revolutionizing education means allowing students to ask their own questions and search for their own solutions. Why should education change? Because it isn't meeting the needs of today's students—and even if it were, we should change because there might be something better just over the horizon, if only we dare to lift ourselves high enough to see it.
