And so it begins...

Thursday’s Keynote Address
Day 1 of the SABER meeting convened as biology education champions and apprentices from all across the country packed into a large lecture room on the second floor of the Bruininks Building. Jetlag and the lack of seating were no match for the engagement and enthusiasm for today’s keynote speaker, Dr Andy Anderson, from Michigan State University.  Dr Anderson specializes in training middle and high school educators in science education, and presented on learning progression – the steps of discourse, knowledge and practice that must be climbed to establish understanding. He interestingly noted that one of the confounding aspects of discourse (the first step in the learning progression) is that scientific and normal discourse can use similar language that contextually may carry entirely different meanings. I encounter the same struggle when advising my younger brothers – we use the same language and yet somehow end up with entirely different meanings. It is clear that when teaching, we must be vigilant in using words that students can comprehend and ensure that they understand the true definition of technical jargon that may be used outside the classroom.

Good Answers And Better Answers

Dr Anderson codes student responses to test questions into four categories (1, 2, 3, and 4). These categories sequentially reflect the enhancement of thinking and understanding. A level 1 response is capable of answering basic questions like the 5 w’s (who, what, where, when, why), while a level 2 response can identify constraints or theoretical ceilings. Upping the ante of sophistication would include a level 3 response, where systems and interconnections can be recognized, and a level 4 response, where the intersections and interactions of systems can be observed. One visualization that came to my mind during Dr Anderson’s explanation of the responses was that of a spider web. Imagine the following scenario: At level 1, the web itself is understood as a construct that is made but little is known about how it gets made. At level 2 there is an awareness of the limit to how large these constructs can be built because their creators have physical limitations. Level 3 responses see that webs are made up of threads that must be woven together, and level 4 responses observe the nodes that connect the threads. As these levels approach higher peaks of understanding, their sophistication enriches the appreciation for the content that is being learned and hopefully is predictive of the likelihood of retention. Another way to say this is that if students can demonstrate higher levels of understanding of a given topic, then they should remember what they’ve learned longer and be able to use that knowledge to inform future learning. Dr Anderson pointed out that a great challenge is working with students whose responses are only partially correct. The silver lining is that responses can be rescued and even evolved to higher levels through leading questions from an educator.

High School Freshmen Can Understand Better Than College Freshmen

Carbon TIME (CT) is a program for teaching biology concepts to middle and high school students. Dr Anderson presented quantitative data that, in a nutshell, indicated that the Carbon TIME program was able to increase the capability of students to generate level 4 responses (at least in the context of one of the modules of the program). Without CT, ~5% of middle school students, ~10% of high school freshmen and ~18% of college freshmen produced level 4 responses on an assessment. With CT, middle school students improved to ~14% and high school freshmen improved to ~29%. The website of the CT program is: http://carbontime.bscs.org/. Check it out.

Burning Questions

There were a few questions that lingered and were not really answered because of time, complexity of the question or answer, or both. (1) What’s the appropriate method of determining a student’s capabilities if they give lower level responses but are higher level students? In other words, what do you do when the student may be a lower level in a topic but not overall? (2) What if a student’s low-level response is an artifact of the student not being effectively/appropriately challenged because of the vagueness, poor wording or basicness of a question? Can Bloom’s taxonomy be used to fix this problem?

The Reception

After listening to Dr Anderson’s talk, we migrated to another U of M building for refreshments and informal discussions. Full disclosure: I am a carnivore. The thought of a world without meat consumption makes me want to get a hamburger. With that said, the h’orderves were vegetarian-friendly and yet so delicious. There were cheeses, grapes, some kind of rice thing with mushrooms but the biggest hit was, without a doubt, the cheesy black bean tostadas. While loading plates and scarfing down tostadas, I had the opportunity to chat with several fellow SABER-ites. The products of our discussions was quite profound. One comment on Dr Anderson’s talk was on the value of acknowledging the learning progression and reminding the education community of some barriers to learning. Hopefully those in attendance can take these obstacles home in mind and devise strategies for bringing their walls down in 2015/2016. Another comment was made about the importance of this conference in general, and becoming informed by the holes in some education research projects to strengthen and inspire new studies. I wholeheartedly agree and look forward to the comments from the round table discussion I’m participating in on Saturday. I am in round table discussion S-6. Yes, this is a plug for that!

Synesthesia

I knew a girl in college who was synesthetic (hearing certain sounds induces visualization of certain colors). I remember her explaining to me how some songs made her see and feel certain colors. I don’t understand it, but perhaps it’s because I do not possess synesthesia. Synesthesia came up during one of the discussions, and I feel that the idea that was raised from it is worth its own section in this post. Here is the question: How do we reach students with the appropriate analogies to make knowledge and level 4 responses available, particularly in non-biology majors? I think this is an interesting question with important implications. In the classroom, especially in the South, a go-to analogy for educators is usually football (could be any sport, but it’s mostly football). This may be effective for many students, but it also can alienate students who do not understand or follow American Football, particularly international students. There creates a disservice for students and we as educators must be more intentional with the examples and analogies we use, just as we are careful with the words we use.