In
another third-grade classroom, student groups are given copies of this bat data (Figure 1). The teacher asks, “What do you notice?” and “What do you
wonder?” They’re immediately engaged in number sense and mathematical
thinking. In science, small groups become experts on different challenges bat
populations are facing and share those with the class, comparing the impact of
each. In social studies, they learn to make sense of maps as they see where the
white nose fungus has spread across the country and within their state. For
social studies and ELA they write a letter to a local government official
talking about why bats are important and why white nose syndrome is a problem
(which also builds on science learning about ecosystems). Overall in this unit,
students are asked to collaboratively make
sense of this phenomenon of bat population change from science, mathematics,
social studies, and ELA lenses.
This sense-making approach is
central to the NGSS and inquiry-based
instruction. It has been discussed for years, but professional learning rarely
supports teachers in seeing how it connects across all subject areas. It’s no
wonder that elementary educators are overwhelmed, when they feel their modes of
instruction have to be completely different in every subject. Inquiry-based
approaches could meaningfully form the core of every subject, connecting schoolwork
and better mirroring real-life endeavors. Inquiry allows for teachers to connect
to students’ lives and interests, making learning more engaging and more
equitable.
To further
illustrate how a phenomenon-based inquiry approach works across subject areas, it’s
useful to elaborate on how it connects to the standards and unique goals in
each core subject.
The national C3 Framework emphasizes that “inquiry is at the heart of social studies.” My daughter,
however, memorized every president, every country, and every country capital in
her middle school social studies classes. That’s information she could find in
under five seconds on her phone. She didn’t learn skills to find information.
She rarely, if ever, had opportunities to make sense of historic and societal
events with a group of her peers. Instead, student learning about a topic such
as supply and demand should be more than memorizing definitions; it should
include speculating why a student’s favorite new game is sold out at a store (the
phenomenon) and welcoming a store owner to the classroom to discuss stocking
and pricing decisions. Students in fifth grade should not simply read a chapter
about slavery within a heavy book and answer some comprehension questions. They
could come to understand some horrors of slavery through reading and comparing aseries of slave narratives from the past and present–delving into a phenomenon of oppression throughout
history and continuing today. They don’t recreate a sugar and slave trade
triangle; they problematize events, dig into them from multiple perspectives,
and connect them to their world now.
Math might be the most difficult
core subject for teachers to conceptualize as making sense of a phenomenon.
Instructionally, it is well entrenched as a worksheet or a listing of many
similar practice problems. Students largely replicate a skill their teacher
shows them, having to be shown how to do a problem if it varies in any
significant way from the examples. Math can, however, be practical and
beautiful as students learn how to make sense of the world mathematically. In
particular, the Standards for Mathematical Practice of the Common Core
encourage creating opportunities for students to think about and solve novel problems
mathematically, not simply repeat a standard algorithm. Generally, mathematics
instruction and textbooks start with a skill and practice problems that vary a
little bit from what’s been learned before. Students then do a long series of
practice problems and probably a couple word problems, which really only ask
students to plug new numbers into previously practiced ways of doing. Conceptual
understanding may or may not be emphasized. The math section doesn’t start with
an interesting problem, based on a phenomenon that relates to the students. Instead
of having students replicate an area model for 5x4, we might start by saying, “We
need a new rug that will fit all 20 students in this area of the classroom.”
Or, instead of adding decimals, we might say, “I run a store and need to figure
out if my assistant did a review of sales correctly.” The goal is not to learn
isolated mathematics skills, but rather how to approach problems. An example of
this type of work is the “3 Act Tasks” from Dan Meyer, where students are asked
to use mathematics to make sense of a particular situation, such as how long it
will take an octagonal tank to fill up.
In a practical sense, the phenomena
used for ELA can be anything that is going to meaningfully engage students and
allow for standards connections, such as a recent polar vortex weather event, a
school shooting, or the opioid epidemic. Students read, research, interview,
write, and argue about the phenomenon as they consider various viewpoints and
formulate their own. They dig into related fiction and nonfiction texts, and/or
develop and share their own related stories. The phenomenon itself could even
be the writing, the media, the “text” (slides 24-30 here).
Why did the person write or create this piece? How would you create a text to
convey the same tone and message? Why did the character within the text act a
certain way? Students collaboratively ask questions of this phenomenon (this text),
seek more information about it, and connect it to their lives in order to make
sense of it.
In science, a group of students
likewise begins by engaging with a meaningful phenomenon—by meaningful, I’d say
it prompts students’ curiosity and links to standards-based goals. Students use
their background knowledge, figure out what they can about what they’re
observing, and ask questions. They collaboratively create, share, and reflect
on an initial model that shows their thinking about the phenomenon. This
process is not “one and done.” They keep coming back to the phenomenon and
their models as they do experiments and research, have peer discussions, and
investigate related phenomena. They build up evidence and understanding,
leading to an explanation that ties their evidence and scientific learning
together.
The NGSS also emphasize an engineering
approach within science. A science, tech ed, or STEM class should similarly
move beyond activity-doing (e.g., building the tallest spaghetti tower) and
have students using background knowledge to solve meaningful problems.
Considering our earlier bat example, students might design bat houses to
address habitat loss, drawing them out with proper measurements so they’re the
right size for bats and bat groups in their region.
Summary
If we value teaching that connects
to authentic thinking and doing, we must provide students opportunities across
subjects to make sense of their world. The challenges we face cannot be solved
from one disciplinary lens; students must learn how to bring varying
epistemologies and diverse perspectives together to effect change.
The beginning elementary apple unit example could
be redesigned. Students might start in science by observing an apple tree with
a branch of a different type of apples on it. They learn about, and observe,
the structure and function of apples and apple trees, delving into comparative
structure and function of plant life. They connect that to learning about
heredity and reproduction. In social studies, their phenomenon might be simplified data on the amounts of different types of apples that are bought along with their cost, where students use that to build a basic discussion of supply and demand. They further look at apple consumption per region on a map, considering about their own region, geography connections to apple growing, and their cultural connections to apples. In mathematics, students would investigate
apple production numbers, per area and per tree per year. They’d connect that
to learning about geometric area and multiplication, continuing their work by
investigating production numbers within a faltering orchard and determining whether
it makes sense to plant new trees considering long term yield vs. short term
loss. In ELA, their first text—their phenomenon—is an apple cookbook. Students
build from there to write out clear directions for how to make and cook a
certain type of dish, using apples or another type of vegetable or fruit used
at home. They collaboratively revise their directions and create and publish a
class recipe book, comparing that to recipe books of other classes across the
country.
Of course, teachers need
instructional materials that support this type of learning, and they need time
for collaborative professional learning to put it into practice and reflect on
how it goes. As teachers note, this type of instruction takes more time. It’s
worth it for student learning.
