The Science Leadership team participated in Instructional Rounds visiting classrooms across the district with a specific focus on student engagement and learning. The goal of rounds is to find common positive trends that support deep learning and application of content and skills. The focus for this set of rounds was, “What evidence do we see of transitions between schools and grades/course in regards to how students are analyzing and interpreting data, constructing explanations, and developing and using models to apply their learning?” Teacher teams were placed in heterogeneous groups based on grade and content area taught for the visits to all four schools.
During their rounds, teachers observed students planning and making models, collecting and analyzing data, and constructing explanations for what they observed. Kindergarten students building “shade shelters” to keep ice cubes from melting in the sun explained that they chose light-colored materials because they’d learned in a previous experiment that “black paper gets more hot than white paper.” AP Biology students engaged in creating stop-motion videos of the mitotic process of cell division confirmed with each other whether they had the correct number of chromosomes and if the spindle fibers were always connected. Second-graders were using data they’d collected to compare the growth of plants that received light, water and air with plants lacking water or light, while also conducting research on the job of each part of a plant. Third-grade students were studying how the length of string changed the period of a pendulum. At SOMS, students gathered nutritional data on snack foods to determine which items were part of a healthy diet. In AP Physics, students collected data on how ramp height affects the speed of a traveling object and used their findings to derive the formula for velocity.
The Science Leadership Team analyzed the common themes, practices, and cross-cutting concepts that emerged from the classroom visits and noted that they were aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards across K-12. We highlighted the fact that students across grade levels were engaged while making models to help explain phenomena, were able to use age level scientific vocabulary in their explanations, and work collaboratively to analyze and interpret data.
The Science Leadership Team is using this data collection method to enhance teaching and learning in all of our science classes.
