Learning to Teach Again: Blindspots

It is almost the end of the semester--I had my second to last class meeting for World Regional Geography today. I'm pleased, overall, at how the course has gone. Room for improvement next time around? Absolutely! But that doesn't mean this first time through was a bust.

We began the semester looking at different "tools" of geography. We spent some time looking at different types of maps. We learned about population dynamics, and the demographic transition model. We considered different economic systems, and different political systems, and what it means to be a "developed" country.

The middle part of the semester--the bulk of it, really--was spent considering different regions of the world. We began with a region that is "home" for most of my students: North America. And from there we globe-hopped through "Team West" (Western Europe, Australia & New Zealand, and Japan--strange, I know, but they are definitely "Team West") before heading to other regions to learn more about "the rest": Eastern Europe, Russia, Latin America, the Middle East and Northern Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and all of the subregions of Asia. It was a busy semester!

And now, we are near the end. Today we spent our class time examining various "hot spots of conflict" around the globe. Some of these were obvious and well-known to my students, such as Israel vs. Palestine, and the U.S.'s involvement in Afghanistan, and North Korea vs. ...the world? Others were less well known, such as the ongoing unrest in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or the long-term distrust between India and Pakistan, or Russian influence in former Soviet republics like Georgia and Ukraine.

Science as a Story: Promoting Cognitive Dissonance

I have to confess, I really like messing with my students. I mean, I really enjoy getting them to think about things in a new way, to reframe their previous thinking, to not just think-outside-the-box but knock-it-to-pieces-and-build-a-new-box.

I had one of those moments in my science methods class today, which was a joy this early in the semester. We are right at the beginning; today was our second class meeting. Science methods is a course for future teachers where they learn about how to teach science in the elementary or middle school classrooms they are preparing to enter in the near future. We are at the part of the course where we are thinking about foundational questions, such as, "What is science?" and "Who is a scientist?" and "Why do so many elementary teachers fear (or at least dislike) teaching science?" and "Why does Professor Mulder ask us to do so many weird things in this class?" (Okay, maybe not that last one...at least, not yet. They will be asking that in a couple weeks...)

As part of today's lesson, I asked them to start thinking about the story of science.

Here was part of my presentation, the part where I challenged them to remember what "science class" was like, and gave them a different way of thinking about what "science" could be.

Science Stories? - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

At the point in the presentation where I asked them to think about science as a story (the third slide here,) I had them turn to a partner and take a minute to discuss how "science as a story" fit with their experience with science in school.

It was interesting to see them turn to their partners and sort of shrug as if to say, "Yeah...so...science as a story..." I wandered around the room to eavesdrop a bit, and one pair caught my attention when they said something like, "You got us, Mulder. There's no "story" in science."

And that was the moment when I knew I had them. They were trying to find the connection, trying and failing. But I could tell from their expressions and body english that they wanted to believe it was true, even if just because I was bringing this idea up.

After their minute to discuss was up, I called the class back together, and we talked about how the idea of science as a story would change the experience of science class. What would the students' role become? How would the teacher's role shift? Would the content be experienced in the same way? What would be the same? What would look different?

From there, we turned the corner to their first major assignment for the course: writing a science autobiography--telling their own science story, or perhaps finding themselves in the story for the first time.

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It was a great class meeting, from my perspective at least. I was able to promote some cognitive dissonance for my students. Cognitive dissonance is just what it sounds like: a "clash" between two ideas in need of resolution, because they can't be held simultaneously. Sort of like playing a white key and a the adjacent black key on a keyboard simultaneously: the sound is dissonant, not harmonious, and is in need of resolution. In my students' case, some of them have negative views of science as a subject--for a variety of reasons--but after our first two class meetings, they are already starting to see that science can be playful, and intriguing, and engaging, and--dare I say it--even fun. This is a conflicting pair of ideas for them. And the idea that "science" can be explored as a story...well, let's just say that I think we are going have to keep working on resolving these ideas, because they are still clashing a bit for some students.

I'm hopeful though, seeing how my students were learning into the playful, hands-on investigations in class, and their level of discussion, and their willingness to explore new ideas--even ones that conflict with their previous experiences--gives me a lot of hope that this is going to be a semester full of learning for us all.