New World of Collaboration

In my last post, Sticky Initiatives I shared my thought that one of the benefits of NGSS was that teachers and students were co-owners in the classroom. In this post I want to expand on what that collaboration looks likes, and the benefits it has to the science classroom.

What is collaboration? Here is what Merriam-Webster gives as it definition:

to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor <An international team of scientists collaborated on the study.>

This sounds real simple, but it is really much more than that.  I have a brother-in-law, Steve, who is one of those guys you turn to when you need a car repair. Over the years we have worked together to replace brakes on various cars I’ve owned.  We worked together, but we did not “work jointly,” or collaborate.  He was the one doing the thinking and repairing, while I was the one handing him the wrench, or putting the tires back on the vehicle.  I really can’t call that collaboration because he was engaged in the problem solving, I was just along for the ride.  Collaboration is an equal endeavor where both parties bring something to the table.  This is where NGSS writers didn’t just hit the bull’s eye, but also split the arrow two more times as they incorporated the 3D levels of the standards.  In those three dimensions teachers and students have the opportunity to think, plan, experiment, analyze, revise and reflect together.  The teacher and students are both learning together.  True collaboration.  My first noticeable experience with this type of collaboration was around four years ago.  I was having my students complete a lab examining how temperature effected a chemical reaction.  We tested the rate at which Alka-Seltzer tables dissolved in hot and cold water.  After we completed the two temperature trials a student asked me the following question: “Mr. Klaft, I know that hot water speeds up the reaction rate, and cold water slows it down.  If we use water temperatures that are between the two we studied, would we see a reaction rate that reflected the same percentage as the temperature difference?” My response, “I don’t know? Why don’t we look into that tomorrow.”  Over the next two days we retested and graphed the results.  After the three class periods I saw in full color what the NGSS philosophy meant for my classroom.  As the teacher I was no longer just giving my students a lab and then filling the gaps after the lab was completed.  I was now a learner along side of my students.  I went from the ring master to a member of the acrobatic troupe. It was a change that would alter every class I’ve taught since.

I am no longer a teacher, I am a facilitator.  That is a big difference in roles.  Teachers have answers, facilitators are more reactionary. Facilitators help move things along and are part of the process of learning. Facilitators have to be able to say, “I don’t know…lets find out together.”  Facilitators help set up inquiry that has no specific end.  Today’s science teacher needs to be able to adjust on the fly to allow the students to drive the path of learning.  It is in this understanding where the “co-owner” aspect of NGSS is fully seen.

I see my students as my partners, co-owners of our phenomena.  Without their thoughts and questions my class does not move forward as we study phenomena within our story lines. When I give my students a driving question at the start of a unit, I have no idea where we are going to go.  I see the lessons  to help get us there, but it is the questions and ideas of my students that drive the pacing and depth of class. My science class is an open book with blank pages.  I have the title and the ending, but the inquisitiveness of my students writes the pages in between.  This is a stark change from when I was a student, and a change from how I began teaching 25 years ago. This change has huge ramifications in my professional life.

The biggest change is in student engagement.  I refer to my students as piranhas. When we start a unit, or a question within a unit, they are piranhas that are in the midst of a feeding frenzy.  When a class session is set up properly they are in attack mode.  They really get after it! All I have to say is go and the frenzy starts.  You can see, and actually feel the energy of student learning.  That high energy engagement has helped my students dig deeper into phenomena.  This engagement has also led to another change in my classroom.

NGSS’s format has also changed my students view of what they can accomplish.  The heightened engagement has  increased their confidence in what they are capable of doing. Confident learners go farther in their academic life. With NGSS, students are guided to embrace failure.  Failure is a part of the learning process.  The more we fail, the more we learn about the phenomena.  Failure, and learning from it, makes success more concrete. The learning process, as it is outlined in NGSS, builds the confidence of students.  I have seen students not shy away from “being wrong” and continue the process.  Being more engaged and not being scared of failure, has increased the confidence of my students.  All this from being co-owners.

There are more benefits from working side by side with your students, but those are for another day.  I am convinced that the largest single impact of NGSS is how the shift has changed how teachers teach.  It has opened doors for our students that will impact them in their life as a learner.  It is not an easy shift, but one that every science teacher needs to move toward.