Science Teaching: The Research Question

This always goes wrong.

The research question in a Science experimental report, be it Internal Assessment or one of your scheduled practicals, is always poorly done by students, and tends to require the most editing to get it right. One piece of advice given to International Baccalaureate Science teachers supervising an IA is to spend more time on the research question.

Which makes sense. If you don not have your line of inquiry sorted, how can you hope to proceed on any investigative endeavour.

The issue is that  the Research Question is a very specific format. You need to include quite a lot of information into a single sentence:

• Aim of the experiment
• What variable you will change (Independent)
• What variable you will measure as a result of that change (Dependent)
• The range of the variables you will change
• The units of those variables

As an example of a typical offering for a research question:

How does temperature affect the melting times of ice cream?

What does that include? Well the aim certainly, and it mentions two variables. Whilst you can infer that temperature is the independent variable, it does not mention the range of values in which the experiment takes place, or the units of those values.

Put it this way, if you run this experiment between -15 and 0 degrees Celsius, you would get very different results to if you did it at 3000-4000 degrees. Now imagine doing either of those ranges in Kelvin.

Aside from the impressive feat of creating negative temperature in Kelvin with school equipment, being clear about the temperature range and the units they are in is more intellectually honest.

So, let’s tidy this up a bit:

How does varying the temperature between 10 and 40 degrees Celsius affect the melting time in seconds of ice cream.

Better so far, but we can be much more clear. What exactly does temperature mean, and what are the conditions for melting?

The temperature could be surface temperaure of the container, the ambient temperature of the air, or even another external source of heat like a lamp or laser. The conditions for melting could be the surface layer of the ice cream, or it could be once the initial scoop shape is lost, or even just full liquid phase of the cream.

So, being more specific (with no finesse):

How does varying the ambient temperature of a room between 10 and 40 degrees Celsius affect the time taken, in seconds, for a 50 gram spherical scoop of ice cream to melt in its entirety?

From that you can pretty much extrapolate out the whole experiment, apart from controlling the flavour ice cream (it is a well-known fact that chocolate melts faster to facilitate staining of your favourite shirt).

So… how to encourage this in the lower years before hitting the IB stage? That is a very good question, and one for a different post. For now, the band-aid solution:

A simple formula for writing down the main points of a research question. As long as the relevant information is included you can give feedback on how well it is communicated, and the flow of language.

This slots into the experiment report frame I made earlier, replacing the hypothesis section. Feel free to steal and adapt.

Happy teaching!

Are Learning Objectives SMART goals?

One of the thousands of questions that pops out of my head. This morning in the shower I was contemplating SMART goals:

• S – specific
• M -measurable
• A – actionable
• R – that you are responsible for
• T – time bounded

There are many variations, but this is the one I like the most, referenced from CCP Gray’s video on 7 Ways to Make Yourself Miserable.

To be honest I can’t find any mention in the literature of the R value standing for “being Responsible for”. I think that is a crucial factor into making the goal motivating rather than a stick to beat down hopes and dreams.

For example; you are only responsible with the preparation for the test, not the result of the test itself. You don’t set yourself the goal of getting an A in the test, as the final result is taking out of your hands at the marking stage. The marker assigns a result, not the person taking the test.

Rather it is better to set yourself the goal of completing x number of practice questions in the week before the test, perhaps even setting a time if you are conscientious enough. Then you can succeed in preparing for a test as opposed to failing to get an A, which you could never force to happen anyway.

With this in mind, are our learning objectives actually SMART?

Learning objectives often cite “Understand a concept” as one of the middling goals. Regardless of your interpretation of the difficulty of that, neither student nor teacher is responsible for that outcome. The teacher cannot for neurological change in the student’s head, nor can the student control their own brains to force the outcome.

Would the following be better: setting actions in classroom setting to be completed. The teacher would still need to know how the activities and actions lead to Understanding, but all the student needs to do is ensure they complete the action. You can, and should, tell them how this leads to understanding, but their goal for that lesson is to follow the action script laid out by the teacher.

Tangential learning, and creativity can certainly fall out of that process, depending on the skill and confidence of the teacher.

If you want to try putting this into practice, this website provides a list of action verbs for target setting:

https://hls.harvard.edu/dept/opia/job-search-toolkit/action-verbs/?redir=1

Reproduced here in case the website goes down:

accelerated accomplished achieved acquired activated adapted adjusted administered advised allocated analyzed annotated anticipated applied appraised arranged articulated assembled assessed assigned authored balanced briefed budgeted built catalogued categorized chaired clarified cleared coded collaborated compared compiled completed composed computed conducted consolidated

constructed contacted continued contracted convened conveyed coordinated corresponded counseled created critiqued decided defined delegated delivered demonstrated derived designed detected determined developed devised directed distributed drafted edited educated effected elicited encouraged established evaluated examined executed exhibited expanded expedited experienced experimented

explained explored facilitated figured financed focused forecasted formed formulated fostered founded functioned generated governed grouped guided helped identified illustrated immunized implemented improved increased informed initiated instituted instructed interpreted interviewed introduced invented investigated judged led listened maintained managed marketed mastered

measured mediated modeled modified molded monitored motivated named negotiated observed obtained operated ordered organized originated outlined oversaw perceived performed persuaded planned planted presented presided printed produced protected provided publicized questioned raised recommended recorded recruited reduced rendered repaired reported represented

reproduced researched resolved responded restored retained retrieved reviewed revised rewrote routed scheduled searched selected served shaped shared showed simplified solicited solved specified spoke stimulated structured studied supervised supported synthesized targeted taught tested trained translated tutored updated utilized verified wrote

There is guidance all over the internet about writing SMART goals, but this is the best one I could find:

https://uncw.edu/career/documents/WritingSMARTLearningObjectives.pdf

With the following examples below:

Further reading:

Bastable, S.B., & Doody, J.A. (2011). Behavioral objectives. In S.B. Bastable, P. Gramet, K. Jacobs, & D.L. Sopczyk, D. (Eds.) Health professional as educator: Principles of teaching and learning (pp. 377-418). Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Cranton, P. (2012). Planning instruction for adult learners (3rd ed.). Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Wall & Emerson, Inc.

As taken from this website:

http://www.culawschool.org/it/?p=311

With an appraisal coming up, I will make some goals for myself and post them up here.

Happy teaching!

Lesson Planning with Excel

One of the problems I face with my ridiculous work load (93 hours/week… on average), is that lesson planning time is virtually nil. For the last term and a half I have been recycling purely old lessons, adjusting for SEN and the class but generally keeping things the same.

It is boring.

Whilst I have lessons that work, because the lesson making process is not done I find myself missing certain points of information and anecdotes to explain away sticking points in learning. I also keep forgetting the “in the moment” adjustments I make on the day, and find it very easy to fall into the trap of chalk and talk… which is exhausting for everyone involved.

Rather than complain I would much rather fix the problem, so I have knocked up a very quick lesson planning template on Excel. Why Excel?

• You can move data around easily
• You can add timings faster
• You can copy and paste tables without screwing up the page
• Staging represenation is just much better
• Extra professional development columns can be added on an ad hock basis

This way I can save the lesson plan without having to lug around folders of paper, and when the mood takes me to update a lesson I have a clear format to follow.

It looks like this:

Simple and bare bones, but it’s a working document and you can tart it up all you like. The only function I have added is an automated timings counter based on the duration you put for each activity.

Feel free to download and mess around!

Lesson plans

The next step would be to make my PowerPoints and this Excel file link back to each other, but that’s for another day.

Happy teaching!