Cultivating Genius: Adapting Lessons to Bring Out the Genius in All Students

I have a hard time connecting with some frameworks for equity-based teaching. Often, that’s because they don’t connect as well as I’d like to science teaching. The Cultivating Genius Framework from Dr. Gholdy Muhammad, on the other hand, provides a simple tool to reflect on lesson and unit design.

Her framework includes the following 5 elements, and I note how they’d work within science:

• Intellect: the disciplinary core ideas of science (DCIs) and ways of thinking of science (i.e., CCCs)
• Skills: the science and engineering practices (SEPs)
• Identity: connections to students’ interests and cultures, current events, and local contexts (some ideas in Appendix A of the WI Science Standards).
• Criticality: how is this science going to help change our community and the broader world?
• Joy: linking to the beauty and wonder of science, as well as the collaborative nature of it

So, what might this look like in practice to adapt existing materials? Let’s start from some high-quality and free materials, OpenSciEd, specifically the 7th grade unit on matter cycling and photosynthesis – “Where does our food come from and where does it go next?” In this unit students explore the growth of plants, creation of food, and decomposition of food materials.

Applying Dr. Muhammad’s framework:

This unit already effectively brings in the 3 dimensions of the WSS/NGSS = intellect and skills. Students develop a strong conceptual understanding of these topics and do science.

    Identity: The lesson starts out with maple syrup and students watch a video of tapping a maple tree. Instead, classes could go out and actually tap trees to connect to their local environment and native understanding of ecosystems and science, specifically noting the cultural connections. 

    Criticality: Later in the unit, students grow plants hydroponically. They could connect this work to growing healthy food for the school cafeteria (and eating it!) and consider issues such as the impact of food deserts in communities and over-consumption of processed foods.

    Joy: Students could take a walk in a local forest or other ecosystem to observe plant growth and decomposition. If the environment is a nearby local forest, they might do multiple measurements over time in the spring when plants are growing like crazy. A teacher could also add a group project related to local plants, food, decomposers, etc. that benefits a local food pantry.

There are so many possibilities for making our lessons better connect to the identity, joy, and critical perspectives of our students! The challenge, of course, is time. Like always, I’ll emphasize that it’s better to engage students deeply in their world than it is to cover more content. They will remember the ideas better and be able to better apply them to new situations. Their scientific literacy will also increase. If we want students to find joy in learning and be careful consumers of the (mis)information overload around them, some coverage must give way to more opportunities for locally-connected critical thinking.

What do we really mean by effective online learning?

In a recent regional meeting of education leaders, a district curriculum director touted their subscription to EdPuzzle and praised its usefulness as a virtual learning tool. I did not say anything, but I sat thinking that we can do better than embedding questions into videos that students watch. This type of instruction does not meet clear criteria for effectiveness: 1) It is not student-centered; 2) It does not require students to meaningfully collaborate with their peers, where different perspectives become valuable; and 3) It is not inquiry-based, which requires students to make sense of phenomena and solve problems.

First, effective online learning (like learning in an in-person classroom) is student-centered. Even if a teacher provides really thoughtful questions for that video or questions for students to answer after a reading, it is still the teacher doing the heavy lifting. The students are interpreting what the teacher wants, not doing the cognitive work of creating or charting their own path. If students are instead trying to make sense of a natural occurrence in the world around them, a historical event, or an engineering problem, their approach to a video or reading becomes their own. They delve into that resource to find answers to their own questions—answers they need to figure something out and answers that relate to their interests and identities—not answers to simply complete a virtual worksheet on a topic.

But is that approach still standards-based? Yes. Much of the school learning revolves around the idea that students need to be exposed to particular concepts or content because those are the standards. No, that’s not the goal. The goal underlying all standards is for students to be able to figure out the world around them, engaging in some content learning along the way in order to help them do that.

Second, effective online learning integrates meaningful student collaboration. “Meaningful” is not finding the one correct answer together, nor is it together replicating some near variation of the teacher’s example. Instead, students bring their own perspectives and background knowledge to bear as they make sense of something together—that can be seen in the science video on the lower left of this website. Small-group, project-based learning can happen in virtual and hybrid environments; typical structures for group projects still work.

Third, effective online learning is inquiry-based. I recently heard of a teacher dissecting a fetal pig, with the students watching virtually. I could imagine the students saying, “ewww gross,” and appearing pretty engaged. The teacher notes that this allows students to better learn and visualize body parts. Okay, but why does that matter? Why is memorizing body parts important? Instead, students might explore what causes organisms to die and connect with a wildlife parasitologist like Dr. Rebecca Cole. Student groups could use online resources to visually explore failures in particular body systems in an animal model and situation that interests them; as an example, Dr. Cole could walk them through signs of parasites in a body and how they affect various systems. Or, students might have a unit with a driving question of, “What, if anything, is wrong with plastic products?” A local DNR scientist could virtually join students and cut open a fish, together looking for plastics accumulation with students making claims for where that might happen and why. Is it in brain, liver, heart, muscles, blood, stomach, or intestines? Where and why do we find plastic and chemicals from plastics breaking down? The partner DNR or university scientist could use a gas chromatograph to test student ideas. It is true that in virtual learning students cannot personally manipulate physical scientific equipment, but they can still explore phenomena and see results of tests of their ideas (though done by a proxy scientist or a simulation).

In the end, effective online learning is not critically different from effective in-person learning.

"Essential" Standards in Science

Co-authored by Rochelle Sandrin, Science Curriculum Coordinator, Milwaukee Public Schools

As students head back to school this fall, many teachers and administrators have realized that teaching all of the topics from previous years may not be possible. There is a desire to pare down the standards into what is “essential” or “priority.” In science this process can prompt some useful conversation on a K-12 progression of learning, but it should be approached cautiously. The core phrase of the standards remains the guidepost for designing instruction--that "all students should use disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts to make sense of phenomena and solve problems.”

A definition of “power’ or “essential” standards shows that this prioritization typically happens at the local level, where administrators and teachers decide what is most important for students to learn. These teams need to carefully consider vertical alignment in this process, so that students are properly prepared for the next grade level and further education after high school. Teachers need to know what big ideas of science students are coming from and moving toward to focus their students’ learning within this progression (particularly to be more efficient by avoiding duplication of learning). Because the Wisconsin Standards for Science already represent a narrowed range of content at each grade band, educators might start by determining whether they can trim some of what they teach that is not in the standards. They might also consider bundling standards to address more within each unit. 

Even after cutting excess and bundling, a school system might decide that constrained time in a virtual or part-virtual and part in-person environment means that not all content standards can be addressed. The inquiry-based nature of science and social studies must continue, even if not all the typical content is “covered.” Notably, social studies and science learning is what engages students and makes learning come alive. These subjects should not be diminished to keep teaching literacy and mathematics with “fidelity” to a set of materials--e.g., teaching them in traditional ways with little evidence of success. Both literacy and mathematics are enhanced through deep connections to students’ lives, which is provided through social studies and science contexts. A better understanding of science and social studies does support literacy skills.

Any narrowing of the curriculum cannot mean less rigor and relevance. It cannot mean less opportunity to develop rich relationships with adults and peers. Students must be able to engage in equitable, grade-level work, not only “catch-up” from what has been missed. Further, students should be engaged in making sense of meaningful phenomena and designing solutions to locally relevant problems. This “three-dimensional” engagement is at the core of what is “essential” or “priority” work in science. 

Finally, as we move forward with schooling in the era of COVID-19, the discussion of priorities should consider current events. A unit on media literacy, connecting to grade-level content and the practice of finding and evaluating information, always makes sense, but is even more critical now. Exploring virology and vaccines might not have been a critical phenomenon for teaching a concept five years ago, but now certainly could be. 

In all current, messy deliberations, we must first consider what is best for students, keeping student well-being and equitable learning as the key lens through which we make decisions.