How do you get third graders shrieking with excitement over the solar system? By up-ending the traditional ways of teaching it, throwing out old lesson plans and taking advantage of our school-wide mentoring program. Since I was directly involved, I have a lot of skin in this game and was hoping that this could happen. But there is always risk in doing something new.
I’m working with the two teachers, Alicia Palmeri and Carla Christiana, of Bogert Elementary in Upper Saddle River, NJ and their students via videoconferencing as part of our schoolwide pilot project by my start-up company iNK Think Tank. We are a group of award-winning children’s nonfiction authors who are mentoring both teachers and students who are using our books as they fit into their curriculum. The iNK group doing the mentoring is Authors on Call. We are working in all disciplines in grades 3, 4, 5 and the sessions with teachers and conferences with students are timed to coordinate with what’s happening in the classroom. It is an innovative, organic approach to content and literacy that seems to infect everyone with the love of learning.
In my initial interactive videoconference with Alicia and Carla, I stressed that learning about the solar system meant thinking about how we know about it. We look at the sky and see two things: light and motion—i.e. bodies of light that move. That’s it! The stars, sun and moon rise and set. Planets, which mean “wanderers,” move over a period of time against the background pattern of stars. Sometimes they move backwards for a while but they ultimately come back to the same place in the sky where they were first observed. From this information, we have to figure out what’s actually happening.
Alicia and Carla agreed to use my approach to introduce the unit by asking the children to first think about motion. As part of our project, Bogert is using my book called What’s the BIG Idea? The introduction to the book defines “a BIG idea” as one for which there are no quick or easy answers. There are four BIG ideas in this book: motion, energy, matter, and life. Science tackles BIG ideas. How? The same way you eat an elephant: one bite at a time. Science, itself is a big idea. Every topic is broken down into a series of questions in a logical sequence. The answer that follows each question is full of simple hands-on activities that illustrate concepts. This book, by the way, meets all eight core curriculum standards for science. So to begin this unit, I asked the teachers to give their students the first question in the book, which is displayed on a double-page spread.
I suggested that they print out a pdf of the page (which I supplied) and give it to their students and ask them to think about the question and talk about it with each other and their parents for a day without giving them the answer. This is not the typical approach. Teachers often report feeling compelled to answer kids’ questions immediately so that they do well on tests. Quick answers also tend to stop further questions.) Right from the git-go asking the teachers and students to dwell on a question for twenty-four hours was outside-the-box. I was extremely gratified that Carla and Alicia grasped the importance of teaching the content as I’ve organized it in my book, although it meant writing up completely new and different lesson plans. The logical sequence of the questions in What’s the BIG Idea? ultimately gives a foundation for understanding many concepts,including the celestial mechanics of the solar system. The first question is: Why does a rolling ball stop rolling? After dancing with mystery overnight, the next day the kids were more than ready to read the text that begins to explain the First Law of Motion. They then followed up with the second question in the book: “How do we know the earth is moving when it looks like the sky is moving?” This led to an understanding of stellar parallax—the concept first put forward by Copernicus as proof the earth moved, although the tools needed to actually see it hadn’t been invented yet.
I then met the students for my first interactive video conference where I told them the story of how Galileo was sent to prison for life for suggesting that the earth was moving around the sun. That powerful story made quite an impression! The teachers were hoping that this session with me would generate questions for the kids to research.
There was no question that the students were very interested, engaged, and enthusiastic. Clearly they were motivated to learn more. And I didn’t want them to lose that. But the questions that the kids came up with weren’t really good questions for a research report. A meaningful research question depends on knowing something about the subject. These kids didn’t know enough yet to ask such questions. So I started worrying about how to get them to learn more.
I believe that elementary school science needs to focus more on HOW scientists learn. Astronomers learn a lot about the universe by studying pictures and recent technology has produced extraordinary photos of all sorts of heavenly bodies. These photos are free on the NASA website. How about asking the children to explore the site, working with partners on assigned topics within the solar system, to find something personally exciting and interesting to share with others? (The specific facts are not important.) I suggested this to the teachers through a LOT of writing on our wiki. (You can see for yourself on the page: http://bogert-authorsoncall.wikispaces.com/Carla+Christiana) After visiting the NASA website, Carla agreed but expressed some reservations:
“I’ve had some more time to think about the new research assignment. I’m thinking that I will assign partners to each one of the topics you mentioned (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) I’m excited to have the children use the NASA website because the pictures are very vivid and I agree that they will generate excitement. The only problem I am having is the level of difficulty of the text on the NASA website. I know my 8 year olds are going to experience some challenges with comprehending what they are reading. I think they will learn valuable things from the website, but I have some reservations about the site at the same time. Hopefully working in partnerships will help with this problem but let me know your thoughts.”
My response: “I agree. Some of the reading is challenging and it gave me pause. You might want to poke around in the “For Kids” section. However, I think it’s also an opportunity to expose kids to the way scientists write--it takes some skill and background knowledge to read these texts for meaning. Tell them that this is very challenging reading and you don’t expect them to understand it. It’s ok to let them know it’s a challenge. You might be surprised at how they rise to the occasion.”
The outcome? Surprising and delightful! Carla wrote: “After telling them that the site we are reading from was written by NASA and that some adults thought the text might be too hard to read, they took on the challenge and read with vigor throughout the research session. Students began to shriek with excitement at first glimpses of the photographs of their planets and were calling their partners over to their computers to show the interesting facts they discovered and pictures they found. Two groups realized that the same instrument was used to collect data on two different planets. I look forward to having more time to research tomorrow afternoon.”
When I next met with the students, they were full of questions about their discoveries. And these were the kind of questions that required further research. “Why is Neptune green? What does that tell us about the planet?” “Why doesn’t Mercury have moons?” “Why does Jupiter have so many moons?” “How did the rings form around Saturn?” One question about the Comet Lovejoy got me curious enough to go on the site myself. Apparently, this comet survived a close encounter with the sun. I checked it out and their research was correct!! Questions like “How do planets form?” led me to suggest going to the library to read a book about it. In general, the questions were far more specific and insightful than before they did some exploration.
Clearly they were motivated to learn more. I asked them how they felt about making discoveries. They said that they were confused at first but when they stumbled upon something familiar they got interested and began reading. Some of the kids asked the teachers if they were allowed to go on the website at home! Imagine that! Asking permission to learn more! Despite a couple of technology glitches where we lost the call, I felt that the children were well on their way to some meaningful learning about how to do research, how it feels to make a discovery, how scientists look at the heavens and how we know some of what we know about the solar system.
The collaborating partners are each writing reports that are going to be organized into a giant poster about the solar system with the children’s research findings in the position of their subject of interest in the solar system. Not too shabby for third grade.
Like most authors, I remember negative reviews. When the first two books of my Imagine Living Here Series were published back in the early nineties, the reviews were mostly quite positive. But one critic said that the books were “Not good for reports.” It got me thinking, what did that mean? This Place is Cold is about Alaska and This Place is Dry is about the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. The adjective that describes each place allowed me to write the books from a point of view: Why is it cold or dry? How does the climate affect the flora and fauna? How does it affect the lifestyle of people? How does it impact the culture –the art, clothing, festivals, etc? In other words, the information about these places was organized around the thesis that the climate had an overriding impact on every aspect of life in these parts of the world.
Now let’s imagine the students who have an assignment to do a research papers about Alaska. They go to online and look up the place and get the facts. They list these facts and (ta da!) they’ve produced their reports. It’s possible that many students cut and paste the facts into a report without passing any of it through their own brains. My guess is that my books weren’t deemed worthy for reports because perhaps the unique organization and my “voice” made it difficult to plagiarize as opposed to the “vanilla” writing in reference works.
The Common Core Standards for writing are more concerned with the process of researching and writing than the product. They want students from kindergarten on to: “research to build and present knowledge.” They want students to study how nonfiction authors write and they expect that by third grade, students will “Participate in shared research and writing projects (e.g., read a number of books on a single topic to produce a report; record science observations).” In other words, students will have to do close reading of a number of sources to prepare to write something in their own words. So the bar for such reports is far higher now than back when my books first came out.
As every scientist, historian, and doctoral candidate knows, you have to formulate a question that your research can answer. But in order to ask a good question, you have to KNOW something. This means that reading a lot is prelude to writing. Reading a lot is also known as research. So there are two stages to research: 1: Reading to educate yourself so you can formulate a thesis. 2. Researching to fill in the blanks so you can articulate your thesis persuasively. This research can include experiments, interviews, other media, etc.
One of the things we’ve noticed in the Authors on Call pilot program with the Bogert School this year is that the teachers are in a hurry to have the kids write reports. They want to make report assignments almost as soon as they’ve introduced a topic. My interaction with the students was to help them find subjects for reports. It was immediately clear to me that the kids didn’t know enough to ask a meaningful question. They’ve been reading my book "What’s The BIG Idea?" in their classroom work. This book is about the questions scientists ask that lead to BIG ideas about motion, energy, matter and life. In the introduction, where I define a BIG idea as one for which there is no quick or easy answer, I tell the story of Isador Isaac Rabi (1898-1988) who discovered magnetic resonance—the phenomenon behind MRIs . (He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1944.) He said that he owed his success in science to his mother. Everyday, when he came home from school, she would ask him, “So, what good question did you ask today?”
The Common Core Standards are asking for nothing less than a culture change in education. Where NCLB was focused on answers so kids could do well on high-stakes tests, now we will be focusing on process—how to get students to think critically and creatively which means asking questions and learning how to do research to get answers. Only then will students be able to speak and write in their own words.
Over the years I’ve done quite a bit of professional development for teachers. This generally takes the form of a day-long conference where I hold sway for six hours with a break for lunch. I have had as many as 200 people in attendance, but it works best with about 80 teachers sitting in groups around tables. Since I’m known for hands-on science, I direct the groups in lots of activities. We do quick fun “bets” based on science; we make paper; we make tops and spin them; we test various lipsticks; we taste and test ice cream and solve problems. There’s a lot of laughter and conversation. I get very high evaluations. People seemed pleased and satisfied and they all have at least one or two things they can show their students the next day. I am well-compensated for my time, and it is certainly an ego boost to be wanted. But, I have come to believe that this format for professional development is a BIG waste of time and money.
Why? I don’t believe that much of what I say or do trickles down into what happens in these teachers’ classrooms. Maybe a few of them will use my books and pass on some of the activities. But I don’t hold my breath. The real reason that this is a waste is that much of what I talk about is NOT about what they have to teach the next day or the next week. And I give them so much new material, it is impossible for them to even begin to process it from a one-shot exposure, let alone internalize it and make it their own. One of the most important aspects of good pedagogy is timing—taking advantage of a teachable moment, or creating one so that the student is engaged and has reason to try doing something new. As a professional development consultant for teachers, shouldn’t I also be a model for such best practices?
I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t have an innovative solution. The best instruction for professional development is mentoring where a seasoned veteran practitioner is available at critical moments to guide the learning. It also helps if the veteran can give the mentee some help in planning a sequence of lessons. Recently, I saw how this could work with two third-grade teachers, Carla Christiana and Alicia Palmeri, who have to teach a unit on the solar system as part of our Authors on Call pilot project. I first met with them via videoconferencing to plan. I used the time to get them to understand that how we know about the solar system starts with observing two things in the night sky: light (bodies of light) and motion. That’s it. So it was important they begin the unit with their students by thinking about motion. I suggested that they give their students a pdf of the first question in my book What’s the BIG Idea?, which uses inquiry to understand motion, energy, matter and life (four BIG ideas.) That question is, “Why does a rolling ball stop rolling?” I wanted their students to think about the question, discuss it with other students and take it home to share with their parents. After a day of not knowing the answer, they could then start to learn the concept. (Interestingly, I recently read that a Eric Mazur, a Harvard physics professor, is also using this technique with his classes.) Becoming invested in a question motivates students to learn more. This kind of teaching was an eye-opener for my mentees.
Both Carla and Alicia were very intent on having their students write reports. But the traditional elementary research report on the solar system reliably produces an uninspired regurgitation of facts about the planets. I wanted the students to learn enough to make personally meaningful discoveries that could inform original writing. So I suggested that they send their students, working in pairs, to the NASA website and its extraordinary library of photographs of heavenly bodies, to look up different objects in the solar system. When they made a discovery from a picture that excited them, they were to report on that. One concern was that the writing on the site is by scientists for adults, not exactly third grade material. So I said, “Tell them that you don’t expect them to understand it, but to do the best they can.”
Carla and Alicia listened to me. (I should mention that in addition to videoconferencing, we’re communicating by writing via a wiki.) Carla wrote on the wiki: “After telling them that the site we are reading from was written by NASA and that some adults thought the text might be too hard to read, they took on the challenge and read with vigor throughout the research session. Students began to shriek with excitement at first glimpses of the photographs of their planets and were calling their partners over to their computers to show the interesting facts they discovered and pictures they found. Two groups realized that the same instrument was used to collect data on two different planets. I look forward to having more time to research tomorrow afternoon.”
Carla and Alicia told me that they had completely disregarded all their previous lesson plans for this unit and were astounded at the excitement real learning produces. What did we all learn? • Scientists spend time thinking about questions and that’s where creativity lies in science. • Research requires asking good questions, close reading, concentration, and challenging language, but discoveries make it extraordinarily rewarding. • Don’t make decisions about challenging material for your students. Motivation to learn raises the bar on performance. • If you want different outcomes in learning you have to do things differently and this means taking risks. • And last, but not least, learning is not just for third graders but for teachers and this mentor as well.
Obviously, the time I spent working with Carla and Alicia was a lot less than a day. But the suggestions and coaching came at exactly the right times over a period of weeks. The results, which speak for themselves, are transformative.
A couple of weeks ago, I was in a waterfront hotel in Vancouver BC, where I received a Lifetime Achievement Award from AAAS/Subaru Science Books & Films. It was certainly a validation, a crowning moment, (here's the video)but awards are a funny thing. If one is truly engaged in life, it’s the struggles that are the focus. So right now, I’m thinking about what happened this past weekend.
We are midway through the school year and about half of the authors participating in iNK’s pilot project, where we are collaborating with both teachers and students of Bogert Elementary School, have completed their missions. Author Rosalyn Schanzer worked with two fourth grade classes. They had to learn about New Jersey’s government, a somewhat dry subject. But under Roz’s direction they produced an amazing book called The Golden Government. You can read a rave review of the project from teacher Heather Santoro here. Author Dorothy Hinshaw Patent worked with two fifth grade teachers. Read what Chris Kostenko said about that experience here. I worked with third grade teachers Carla Christiana and Alicia Palmeri on the solar system and we’re about halfway through the unit. I’ve written an article about our experience that will be the lead feature in the April edition of Science Books & Films, but you can see the effect on student learning in this video, where the kids are exclaiming over the NASA website. What we’re doing is groundbreaking because of its scale, its intimacy, and the effective timing of the conferences so that we are truly transforming the learning of the children. That’s where the rubber meets the road in education. It’s far more effective than a school visit, which generates enormous interest and excitement, very little of which is channeled into the work kids do in the classroom every day.
I may be a little impatient, but I want people to realize that using children's nonfiction authors and their books as a resource for education produces powerful results. So whenever possible, I’ve been submitting proposals to conferences to present our work. The conferences are NOT library conferences. (Librarians have their own problems trying to get classroom teachers to use nonfiction.) I’ve been sending in proposals to conferences for teachers of technology. I figure that many schools have videoconferencing equipment sitting around, gathering dust and the techies in charge of the equipment are looking for reasons to use it. It stands to reason that they’d like to find something that their classroom teacher colleagues will appreciate. Maybe this is a kind of oblique approach to marketing but hey, I have an experimental nature. I have no illusions that my reputation as an author is meaningful to technology teachers. Basically, I’m starting over, a humbling experience. So finally, after being rejected twice by the BIG conferences ISTE (international Society for Technology in Education) and NYSCATE (New York State Association for Computers and Technology in Education) I was finally accepted, for this past weekend for a little regional NYSCATE conference in Wappingers Falls, NY (about an hour from my home.)
Wow! This was exciting news. So I lined up Bogert’s media specialist, Heidi Kabot, Dorothy’s two teachers, Roz and Dorothy, to hang around their computers on a Saturday afternoon, so I could beam them in via Skype to speak at my presentation. I could not present them as a panel because the high school, where the conference was held, didn’t have the capability of providing a bridge so that several end points could be presented at the same time (so much for being "cutting edge" at a technology conference!). So I brought them each in sequentially to speak for five minutes. Our presentation time was at 1 pm, so that gave me the morning to meet people at the conference and drum up an audience. The title of our session was “Catching the Love of Learning: A School-wide Project with Teachers and Authors.” I was listed as the presenter but there was no bio, so I’m not sure if there was any name recognition or if being an author was of any significance whatsoever to this group.
So far, all peaks, right? Here comes the valley. I had to wait to get into the room. The session before mine was “Identify Effective SMART Board Use.” The room was jammed. When I was finally able to get in to set up, (with the help of a very savvy techie named Chance) I happened to have the iNK Think Tank website up on the SMART board and the instructor of the last session said, “Oh, I love that site!” as he was gathering up his stuff. The room cleared out and my attendees entered. Only three people showed up and stayed! One person I had met at lunch came in, and sat down but left before I started. Okay, this is show business. We’re in an out-of-town tryout. I hoped our three listeners felt welcome and proceeded with the presentation, which went off without a technical glitch. Everyone who presented was wonderful and articulate. The audience took copious notes. But where were all the people I had met that morning who said they would come?
We’re doing a post mortem. As I’ve said many times, “A learning experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.” There were seven other concurrent sessions. We’re trying to figure out what was the big draw. Did it have something to do with the new emphasis on Core Curriculum Standards? Did I offend people? Did I come on too strong? Are these teachers too concerned with keeping their jobs to be thinking about the “love of learning?”
In my perennially optimistic style (which some people find annoying), I can only say that failure is far more interesting than success.
When I was a young teacher, I had to “cover” modern atomic theory in my eighth grade science class. I wrote about this experience in my post “Magic in the Classroom”. Since I was hired as a science teacher, it’s clear that my mandate was to teach science. In recent years, as a result of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the focus of many elementary teachers is literacy, not content. The preponderance of the material that is being taught and read in this context is fiction and writing reports that are little more than a regurgitation of what a few sources may contain. I believe that the recent changes in the NCLB law and the emphasis on Core Curriculum Standards will have a profound and positive effect on education. It refocuses the emphasis not just in skills (literacy and math) but in content and it will allow teachers to lift their heads up from the focus on promoting reading and writing skills, which they perceive of as “easier” to teach and discover the joy of imparting knowledge through the many wonderful books in various disciplines by authors passionate about their subject matter.
The fact is that we nonfiction authors cannot be separated from our content. What we write about shapes the way we write. (See Susan E. Goodman’s insightful post) There are some old-fashioned authors who thinly disguise a message by creating characters to talk about a problem in a story setting. But trying to insert information artificially into a story format falls flat. There is no real character development and the ploy is obvious to the reader. Long ago an editor told me, “Kids do not like to have their facts sugar coated.” The function of a story is to create a structural framework for a narrative. However, a story is not the only way to create such a structural framework. Sometimes the fascination is revealed by a clever question, or a startling fact that reveals some new aspect of the familiar. I like to think that my books are about concepts, big ideas, which are decorated with carefully chosen facts that are exemplars of the ideas. Not all books are supposed to be page-turners. Some books are designed to be read closely and processed slowly. There is a subtext to my books: I want my readers to understand why I am passionate about my subject matter. I want them to come away from a science book thinking “Wow! I never thought about it that way! Cool!”
The NCLB focus on literacy has had, perhaps, the unintended consequence of emphasizing reading and writing fiction or autobiographical material. This process assumes that everyone has content based on his or her own lives. Writing personal stories gives children some ownership in what they write about. Often, teachers are uncomfortable teaching nonfiction because they feel they don’t know enough about the subject. I have always shaken my head over this. I write science for the uninitiated. I assume my reader knows nothing about the subject. I hope that reading my books raises questions that can be addressed by reading other books. Where is it written that a teacher can’t learn along with her students?
I have a sense of urgency about this. If we are to compete successfully in the world we must transition to a knowledge-based economy. And we’re in trouble in this department. While more students than ever before are applying to college, the bad news is that hundreds of thousands of high school students are not prepared to do college-level work. They are weak in literacy skills, math, and in knowledge of content—science and social studies. Almost half of entering freshmen need some form of remediation. In my opinion, that’s starting late. I think children are capable of reasoning, inquiry, and critical thinking from the time they are three. We just don’t do much to develop this talent and, in fact, we may even destroy it before it has a chance to bloom. An oft-cited study by Timothy and Cynthia Shanahan makes a distinction about literacy for different disciplines. They claim that reading in the content area is not the same as thinking like a scientist or historian or mathematician. They believe that children need to know how people in different disciplines think in order to be able to access the wealth of knowledge available in jargon-heavy books. That’s where we children’s nonfiction authors come in. We know our disciplines. We read the difficult books and distill them into works that make the disciplines we love accessible and fascinating for children. It’s time educators gave us a try.
After decades of not being in a classroom, I’m teaching again and I’m having the time of my life! It’s not your ordinary classroom. I’m teaching the staff of a new daycare center for mostly minority children. The director of the center, Raymond Thomas Jr., believes that upward mobility for disadvantaged minorities lies in education -- specifically education in finance and in science and technology. To this end, he’s been involved in founding the afterschool program Xposure, the New Hope Academy Charter School in Brooklyn and now he has added the Lanza Learning Center in Yonkers to his portfolio as a social entrepreneur. I met Ray several years ago when he was interested in using my book "We Dare You!" for his afterschool science curriculum. And now he’s pressed me into service to train his daycare staff, (who knows basically nothing about science) to enable them to shape scientific behavior and interest in science in their young charges from the ages zero up.
Sort of sounds like a pipe dream, doesn’t it? But Ray doesn’t take no for an answer. And I don’t have to come from a dead start. I’ve written four critically acclaimed picture books for children called “Science Play,” plus a series of books on hands-on investigations into all five senses that can be adapted for young children. If I teach one book per session: ta da! I’ve got a course! So I’m meeting with 20 very warm and caring women every other week to teach them how to use each book and how to watch the children and spot and reinforce scientific behavior when they see it. Children are natural scientists; they have an empirical approach to their world, constantly exhibiting intrepid and innovative manipulation of their environment, and absorbed contemplation of each discovery. Unfortunately, these behaviors are bred out of most children by the time they are 17, so, yes, daycare is a good place to begin.
I meet with my class every other week at 6 p.m. after a long workday for them. My students have varied educational backgrounds. Most have some college but those who have degrees don’t have them in education or in science. These students are not certified to teach in schools. But Ray has a knack for hiring only committed and dedicated people (including me) so my overwhelming impression is that this group is hungry to learn. And for the teacher in me, that’s all it takes.
This week we discussed my book "I Fall Down," which is about gravity for 3-year-olds. When we got into doing the hands-on experiments from the book, I got the ultimate reward as a teacher. The light went on in their eyes and they started playing and exclaiming. In effect, I tapped into the children they once were by showing them the magic they could bring to their own students. One activity from the book is to see the effect of gravity on a drop of honey or molasses as it slowly drips back into the jar. If you’ve never really looked at this you’re in for a surprise. It’s fascinating! My students were all under the impression that heavier things fall faster than lighter things (a common misconception for most people who have had no exposure to physics). Dropping races with an assortment of small objects proved to them that all objects fall at the same speed regardless of weight. We discussed the distinction between mass and weight and they learned how to measure weight with rubber bands and shoes.
I showed (not told) my students what it is like to look at something familiar and see it with fresh eyes, behavior common to both scientists and children. They got the message! What an aphrodisiac for this teacher!
Photo: Lizanne Jamison weighs two sneakers with rubber bands while Ghada Almalouf looks on.
What happens to the learning environment of a school when teachers and a team of award-winning children’s nonfiction authors collaborate in a large-scale, school-wide project where everyone is involved in sharing knowledge and skills?
Is this a way to create inspiration, motivation and the love of learning?
These are two of the questions that the interactive videoconferencing (IVC) division, Authors on Call, of my company, Ink Think Tank, is attempting to answer in a pilot study with Bogert Elementary School in Upper Saddle River, NJ. Our first results are in and they are very encouraging. Bogert is a grades 3, 4, and 5 school and our pilot project will unfold over this school year.
The Bogert teachers have selected books as they fit into their scope and sequence from each of eight nonfiction authors. The plan is to have teachers meet with the author of the book they’ve selected via IVC to brainstorm and plan how to teach that book. At some point, the author meets with the classes of the teachers. Since the devil is in the details, I’m going to quote some excerpts from the first participants in the project as entered on our wiki, that is the record of the pilot as it unfolds. Chis Kostenko and Jason Parkhurst, two fifth-grade teachers, selected Dorothy Hinshaw Patent’s book, "Shaping the Earth."
Jason and Chris first met with Dorothy via Skype (which is the only technology we have available at this school). Dorothy later said, “As we talked, we quickly agreed that a major problem is getting students engaged with learning. Jason and Chris both said that even when they ask their students what in their own lives interests them the most, what inspires their curiosity, many of them can’t come up with an answer. It seems they are detached even from their own lives. I had come into the session with that same question in a general sense -- when we introduce a subject in the curriculum that the children need to learn about, how do we get them to relate to it personally?”
Dorothy then wrote about their plan, “Jason and Chris suggested that by listening to me talk about my own life, how my passion for the natural world drove me then as it does now, might help inspire their students to think about their own lives and spark their own interests. We decided that I would do two half-hour Skype sessions with the students, one soon after Thanksgiving. I would talk about what drove me when I was a child, how I found my own writing voice that allows me to communicate clearly with my readers, how I write so that people want to read what I’ve written, and the more practical matter of how I find reliable information and how I choose which information to pass on to readers. Then, after the students have developed their own projects using my book, we would have a second Skype session together. We left the focus of that one somewhat up in the air for now, as we want to see how the project evolves.”
The first IVC with the students took place last Wednesday. Dave Kaplan, the principal observed:
“From the general learning perspective, it was awesome, truly awesome. Students were excited, taking notes, responding, etc. The two classes sat on the floor facing the smartboard and there was a chair on which one student speaker could sit front and center. The camera faced the class and seemingly captured everyone. There was a real hum coming from the students as they related to Dorothy’s experiences and laughed at some of her stories. It was interesting to hear. There was energy in the room. For this first meeting, it was a get-to-know you. I loved that; relationship building equals credibility for the kids. Next step is to dig into the learning-content area, writing, reading, etc. I am already talking to the teachers about possibilities and directions. The goal is to get the students more involved. In this introductory meeting, the kids generally listened, though they did come prepared with great questions for Dorothy.”
Chris Kostenko polled his class the next day, “The class spoke about Dorothy as someone they knew." Here are some of their comments:
“It wasn’t just about books, science, or being an author. We got to learn a lot about you.”
“I enjoyed that story about when you and your friend set off the firecracker and set the grass on fire. I would feel embarrassed just like you did. Who wouldn’t?”
“I realized that nature is a very important and fun thing to explore. You’ve also inspired me to do my best and to work hard.”
“I can’t wait to talk to you again.”
"Now when we read your book, we can hear your voice say every little word, no matter who is reading.”
“It seemed like you were right in the room with us.”
“It’s exciting to know an author who can give us tips … I can’t wait to get tips from a real pro.”
Chris’s conclusion: “What we’re doing isn’t ordinary. We’re playing with something that has extraordinary potential. Wow.”
How can you tell when people are being entertained? As a scientist, I’m always looking for a relatively objective way of measuring things. So rather than read reviews or listen to opinions, I’d look at the behavior of the audience. When an audience is engaged their eyes are open and focused. They lean forward with an intent look on their face. They respond by nodding, smiling, laughing, even weeping. By my definition, engagement = entertainment.
A bored audience, on the other hand, has a very different appearance. If you peered into a theater and saw people looking vacantly about, or resting their heads on their hands, or sleeping, and you had to guess, you could say that they were a captive audience for a presentation that was supposed to be educational. These behaviors are a common occurrence in lectures. Chances are good that members of a bored audience are required to be present. Their job or their school grade depends on it. If they had a choice, they would not buy a ticket to the event.
Interestingly, whether or not an audience is entertained or bored has very little to do with the content of the presentation. It has everything to do with the preparation of the audience. People are engaged when a presentation is about something they already know, but has a slightly different point of view. That’s why well-crafted humor or satire or even riveting theater can deliver a message. It is also explains why a group of neurosurgeons could be transfixed by a demonstration of a new technique in brain surgery -- a performance that would be of little or no interest to anyone else. People are bored when the content is difficult to grasp, is far removed from their own knowledge base, or is so old hat and repetitive that it has no value as confirmation of what they already know.
The best professional entertainers know how to bridge the communication gap to their audience. We all share knowledge of what it means to be a human being. Empathy with characters and what they must be feeling drives the best writing and performing. Shakespeare knew what he was talking about when he said “all’s the world a stage.” He took on epic themes and made us think about the motivation of the characters who bring these themes to life on the stage. Some might say that great theater can be the ultimate learning experience.
The word “education” means “to lead out.” Make no mistake: Teachers are supposed to be leaders. The best leaders speak the language of the people they want to lead. This serves to establish a connection with their followers. They are as clear with the message as where they are taking their followers while building in motivation for them to follow. They are also clear about what is required by followers to reach their goals. This requires some effort on the part of the followers, perhaps going to vote, or showing up on Sunday morning, or doing homework.
Professional entertainers connect immediately with their audience. One hundred fifty years ago, people had to leave their homes to find professional entertainment. For the past 50 or so years, with television, professional entertainment has been available in most homes with the push of a button. Today’s children know all too well how to sit back and listen without exerting much effort. Do they bring that “entertain me” mentality to the classroom? Perhaps. I think the bar is set higher today than in the past when it comes to a teacher’s performance in the classroom. But the teacher has a few more arrows in his/her quiver than television to captivate and engage children.
•A personal relationship with each student so that the student cares about the teacher’s approval.
•Interactivity -- the students can do something besides listen to the teacher during a class.
•Collaboration with other classmates in projects.
•Arranging circumstances so that students perform before others.
•The ability to select engaging instructional material as a substitute for flat and uninteresting material.
•Giving feedback to students on their performances so that they go up the learning curves.
Our goal as educators is to produce that engaged audience so that the casual observer doesn’t see bored vacant faces and conclude that “it must be educational.”
The idea of adding video to a telephone call is not new. It has an obvious downside. Most people would not want to be seen dripping wet out of the shower, or still in pajamas, or in the midst of a compromising social situation while talking on the phone. Yet video conferencing is slowly gaining traction. For almost twenty years, businesses have used it to foster collaboration between far-flung divisions and clients. And, as the technology becomes more robust, cheaper and ubiquitous, it is starting to catch on. Skype on mobile devices and home computers is free and people are downloading it and playing with it. If you’ve ever “Skyped” a friend you should know that it is qualitatively different from a phone call. You don’t feel obligated to talk all the time. You can even get up, walk out of the room, and return with a glass of wine. You can show stuff—what you’re currently knitting, photos of your kids, a new blouse. You read body language and facial expressions. It feels like a real visit and it has had an immeasurable impact on family relationships for the military stationed in war zones and their loved ones at home.
The pioneer organization on the use of interactive videoconferencing for education is the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (www.CILC.org). This not-for-profit was founded in 1994 for the purpose of distributing funds to schools in Indiana for project planning, equipment, implementation and the development of programs that involved interactive videoconferencing. Participants used a high-speed digital fiber optic network designed and built by Ameritech. Since that time CILC has been reorganized and has grown into a global hub for interactive videoconferencing programming delivered face-to-face in both real time and recorded for archives. Its website features hundreds of content providers for students, professional development for teachers, and collaborative opportunities between schools servicing all 50 states and 166 countries. Some of the most prestigious institutions in the country, The Museum of Science and Industry, the Bronx Zoo, the Smithsonian, the Manhattan School of Music, to name a few, have outreach programs through CILC.
The most obvious benefit is that students get to interact with experts from these top institutions for a fraction of the cost of importing them in person to your school. The tyranny of distance has lost its grip and personal relationships between learners and knowledgeable people across the globe are now happening. Ruth Blankenbaker, the CEO and visionary behind CILC says, “Written communication through the computer alone has a kind of anonymity that can allow meanness and cruelty to surface. An interactive video conference, where you make eye contact and can read body language fosters civility. People relate to each other’s humanity. In fact, we don’t really know how much added value there is when communication involves contact with the entire person but it seems to me to be quite significant.”
In the interest of full-disclosure, my company, Ink Think Tank, is listed as both a content provider, doing school visits for kids, and as a source of professional development programs for teachers. CILC is turning its “Spotlight” on us in a series of FREE webinars. The first one will be on November 30, 2011 from 4-5 pm, EST. Titled: Science Writing that Makes You Question What You Know , it features Dr. Myra Zarnowski, of Queens College, interviewing Alexandra Siy (Cars on Mars, Sneeze!) and yours truly about how to use our books in the classroom. Here’s the link with more information: http://www.cilc.org/search/calendar-event.aspx?id=350&categoryid=2&startdate=11%2f30%2f2011
The best way to learn was discovered by Socrates more than two thousand years ago in Ancient Greece: there’s nothing better than a private tutor. Among his many creative acts, Steve Jobs reinvented the private tutorial, giving people the ability to use his products as tools for the things they wished to do, which inspired me to start my own education company. Let me explain how that happened.
Back in 2008, I had a new book coming out, We Dare You! Hundreds of Fun Science Bets, Challenges, and Experiments You Can Do at Home (Skyhorse Publishing). It is a bind-up edition of previously published books of irresistible challenges to kids, stuff that looks impossible but is doable, and stuff that looks easy but is impossible. The truth behind the challenges is based on science. I’ve long believed that watching kids trying these tricks would make great videos but I was never successful at selling the rights to these activities to a TV or film producer. In anticipation of the book’s publication and with the advances in technology making the whole process a lot easier, I decided I’d learn how to make videos myself. So I bought my first point and shoot (i.e. no-brainer) camcorder and pressed my grandchildren into service, directing videos of them doing the activities.
As the footage mounted up, it became time to bite the bullet and face the problem of editing the videos. I had read that I-Movie, a program for Macs, was the easiest way to go. This meant that, as a PC user for all these years, I not only had to learn a new program and skill but I had to go into a whole different computer system. Undaunted, I walked into the Apple Store in the Westchester Mall where they are well-staffed to handle the neophyte buyer. I told the personable and well-informed salesman, Mike, what I wanted to do. He quickly put together exactly what I needed. I bought a MacBook Pro, with the Leopard OS X, 2 GB of memory, and a processing speed of 2.4 GHz. (I’ve upgraded since then and now have their latest OS) Best of all, for an additional $100 I could receive 52 hours of private instruction over the next year from their platoon of mavens called “One-to-One.”
At the beginning, I never missed a week. Always one to plunge intrepidly into a learning situation, I began to teach myself how to use my Mac. When I got stuck, I went online and scheduled a session with a personal tutor. The Westchester Mall is only minutes from my home and I quickly learned where to park and which elevator to take to the store for my tutorial session. At first, as I was learning to use the new computer, the tutors were all interchangeable young people, patient and knowledgeable. As I became more proficient in my editing skills, I was assigned tutors who knew about film editing. I went right up that learning curve: See for yourself: Here’s a video to my first one-minute video (with three of my grandchildren.)
And, if you like it, there are at least sixty more on my website. The brilliance of the concept—making private tutoring from experts available and affordable and allowing the learner to control the timing of the lessons for when they were needed—struck me as an extraordinary innovation. The proof of its success is its filled appointment schedule. Why not apply it to the world at large?
The model of Apple’s One-to-One is behind my Outside-the-Box proposal for Authors on Call. We are currently embarking on a pilot program to test its merits. I predict we are a harbinger of the future. We are reinventing the guild: Masters of art, literature, science, business, whatever, will band together to offer other groups of interested and motivated learners, timely and personal instruction via technology. Online learning is already happening, but much of it is without the personal interaction of a live tutorial. The effectiveness of a tutorial lies in the social contact between the teacher and the student. My company, INK Think Tank, is pioneering this concept—working with teachers, who are using our books about the real world in their classrooms, through their personal interaction with the authors themselves.
I hope Steve Jobs’ brainchild works as well for us as it did for him. Thank you, Steve.
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the questions scientists ask that lead to BIG ideas about motion, energy, matter and life. In the introduction, where I define a BIG idea as one for which there is no quick or easy answer, I tell the story of Isador Isaac Rabi (1898-1988) who discovered magnetic resonance—the phenomenon behind MRIs . (He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1944.) He said that he owed his success in science to his mother. Everyday, when he came home from school, she would ask him, “So, what good question did you ask today?” 
We do quick fun “bets” based on science; we make paper; we make tops and spin them; we test various lipsticks; we taste and test ice cream and solve problems. There’s a lot of laughter and conversation. I get very high evaluations. People seemed pleased and satisfied and they all have at least one or two things they can show their students the next day. I am well-compensated for my time, and it is certainly an ego boost to be wanted. But, I have come to believe that this format for professional development is a BIG waste of time and money.
I suggested that they give their students a pdf of the first question in my book What’s the BIG Idea?, which uses inquiry to understand motion, energy, matter and life (four BIG ideas.) That question is, “Why does a rolling ball stop rolling?” I wanted their students to think about the question, discuss it with other students and take it home to share with their parents. 
After a day of not knowing the answer, they could then start to learn the concept. (Interestingly, I recently read that a 
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