21st Century Magic 8 Ball: Knowledgeable Networkers Part III

For the past week I have been living vicariously through the twitter feeds of those attending SXSWedu in Austin, TX.  Today, Melissa Greenwood wrote about What's Changing in Education for Smart Blog.  The first item in her list was Teach Students to Find the Answers.  Alan November told attendees in his session entitled Creating a New Culture of Teaching and Learning that 100% of questions that students ask teachers are Google-able.  He goes on to say that educators must become learning facilitators, teaching students, among other things, how to create solid queries for online research and use the technology and tools available to them. 

We can no longer function as the Magic 8 Ball for our students.  It is time to throw out the standard responses, and change our Magic 8 Ball rhetoric that we use with students.   ​

Last night I received a message from a former student who is taking a biology course at the moment. ​

Student:  Ms. Newcomb at the end of the ETC why does oxygen have to be the final acceptor of electrons?​  (Definitely Google-able)

Me:  (answered a question with a question) 

Student:​ (continuing to bombard me with Google-able questions, then has a thought) Maybe that's why evolutionary oxygen was the most efficient option.

Me:  It would be interesting is to look into the evolution of the ETC. If you think about it, when life began, theoretically there was only anaerobic bacteria. How did those organisms transform energy? Then the photosynthetic bacteria evolved and started to produce O2…which lead to the oxygen catastrophe. So theoretically, it could have been somewhere in this time period when eukaroytic organisms evolved alongside of the increased production of O2 that these mechanisms would have come about. Look it up and let me know what you find!​

Student:  That's awesome and makes so much sense and I definitely will.  One site is saying that it is only because oxygen has a great electronegativity. The only substance with a greater electronegativity is fluorine which is poisonous.

This conversation would have gone differently had I simply answered his question.  Instead, my magic 8 ball response was, "Better not tell you now".  This approach helped him to refocus his questions and pointed him in the direction of other research possibilities. 

I woke up this morning to a message containing a series of links that attempt to answer the evolutionary origins of aerobic respiration.  One peaked my interest.  ​In the article, Evolution of energetic metabolism: the respiration-early hypothesis, the abstract states: 

Other molecular data predict that this ancestor was unlikely to perform oxygenic photosynthesis. This evidence, that aerobic respiration has a single origin and may have evolved before oxygen was released to the atmosphere by photosynthetic organisms, is contrary to the textbook viewpoint.​

Textbooks can be wrong???​  :-)

21st Century Magic 8 Ball response suggestion #1:  I don't know.  Why don't you find out and share what you learn with the class? 

I do this frequently in class even if I know the answer.  The other day, we were discussing the mechanisms of movement at a molecular level.  ​

Student:  Your heart is a muscle that is constantly contracting.  Why doesn't it ever get tired?  ​(Google-able question)

21st Century Magic 8 Ball response: I don't know.  Why don't you find out and share what you learn with the class?  ​

Student post to class Facebook group:  ​

In case you are curious, here is the link.  Which brings me to my question for you.  What suggestions do you have for the revised 21st Century Magic 8 Ball?   While you ponder that, I am off to research this obscure hypothesis from 1995 that could very well turn everything that we think we know about the evolution of aerobic respiration upside down...or not.

Knowledgeable Networkers Part I​                Knowledgeable Networkers Part II ​              

Knowledgeable Networker Part II: It Takes One to Know One

Image credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/75279887@N05/6914441342/

The other day, a colleague of mine asked me how to insert a hyperlink with text into a Google spreadsheet.  I remembered doing this once before, but I had forgotten how to do it because I don't practice it on a regular basis.  I immediately searched for a solution and within 30 seconds, I solved her problem. In case you are wondering, you simply enter the following code:  =HYPERLINK ("URL","visible text"). Though I instinctively search out a solution on the Internet when I don't know the answer to something, I am not confident that this is everyone's instinct.  In fact I suspect that many people would give up on finding an answer before venturing down that rabbit hole.

My IB students just completed their photosynthesis design labs.  Since they have to take a minimum of five trials for each of their five independent variables, there is no way that they could have used one probe for all of their trials due to the time investment that would require.  As a result most of them ended up with data that was not aligned because the different probes were calibrated to a different starting point.  In order to take the mean and standard deviation of their five trials, they first have to calculate the cumulative change in their data.  As surprising as this might be, this is not instinctive for most students :-)  So today a student asked me how to do this on Excel.  After I explained the method to the class, Shiva the Destroyer had a look of exasperation on his face.  When I asked him if he was confused, he confessed that he had individually calculated each and every cell of his data rather than using the Excel functions to program a couple of cells and then dragging through the rest of his column.  Now, I don't know how many of you have used Vernier probes to collect data before, but imagine 25 trials with data points collected every 15 seconds for 10-20 minutes.  He might as well have just used a single probe to collect his data!  Just a few weeks ago, I posted about how resourceful Shiva was at finding information on the Internet.  Yet, when he encountered an issue with Excel, he did not think to use that same skill to solve his problem.  Nor did he think to come and ask me for a solution.  There are two other pieces of information that you need to consider when you reflect on this.  Shiva is taking two higher level science courses, and this was at least the third design lab in biology that we have done in a year and a half where he has had to process his data in this manner.  He had been shown this method before as had the rest of my students.

What are my takeaways?  ​

1. We as teachers in the 21st century need to be knowledgeable networkers.  If you are not sure what this is, check out the links in my previous post, Old Habits...Don't Seem to Die.  If you rely on textbooks for the majority of your information, how will you prepare your students for what awaits them once they graduate?  Check out this provocative video called Infowhelm and Information Fluency.
   
2. I am responsible for the fact that my students did not remember how to process their data using Excel.  ​Practicing this skill on three isolated assessments over a year and a half was not sufficient to make this stick.  However, in this day and age, that is not my failure.  My failure is that they did not take the initiative to find a solution to their problem on their own.
   
3. It is not good enough to just model these practices.  We need to embed these skills into our lessons across disciplines on a regular basis so that our kids can not only practice these skills but also transfer them to new situations. 
   

​On a positive note, Shiva did redeem himself.  I posted a link to Kottke's blog on our Facebook group and asked the kids to identify the specific enzymes used to produce the sugars mentioned.  The Destroyer had an answer for me within minutes.  :-)

Oh, and if you are ever wondering how to customize error bars using the 2008 version of Excel for a Mac, here is a video tutorial for you :-) 

March Madness and How I Learned to Love Physics

It has been a rough week, and it is only Monday.  March Madness has an entirely different connotation for IB teachers.  While basketball fans all over enjoy the frenzy of NCAA fever, IB teachers are similarly overcome with a frenzy of panic.  Will I finish the syllabus before mocks or better yet, exams in May?  Will they manage to submit an internal assessment that will give them the points that they need to achieve their goal?  Have I done all that I can do to combat the senioritis that is invariably picking my students off one by one? This is my March Madness, and it happens every year like clockwork. It is times like these that I need to remind myself why I teach in the first place.

I have been teaching biology for the past 16 years.  It is my first love and my passion.  Naturally, chemistry fits right into my passion, so by default, I love chemistry as well.  If I could spend my days exploring the mysteries of these two disciplines in depth with my students, I would be a happy girl.  However, when you teach in a high school with only 200 students, you need to be a jack of all trades.  This means that physics has to enter into the equation.  For 13 of my 16 years of teaching, physics has been a part of my repertoire.  Every year, I converted countless students to the biology and chemistry fan clubs through my enthusiasm for these two subjects alone...and then I taught them physics.  A large percentage of the population share my former apathy for physics, and an even larger percentage of the population break out into a cold sweat and curl up into the fetal position at the mere mention of kinematics and energy conversions.  Imagine how hard it is to convince students to embrace physics when you yourself are counting the days until the trimester of torture will end.  I realized last year that I had two choices: learn to embrace physics and find my passion for teaching it, or move to a school with 2000 students where I could avoid it altogether.  

I decided that I could no longer let physics control my major life decisions, and I began my search for the magic that was missing from my relationship with Isaac Newton and James Joule.  It just so happened that I was researching games-based learning for my task force with the Research and Development Team.  To borrow from Dr. Strangelove, this is my story about “how I learned to stop hating and love physics” through gamification.

A couple of years ago, Jason Roy, a friend of mine who teaches Math, described a Newton's Law activity that he used to do with his physics students called "Save Kelly".  Essentially he would give the students a survival kit filled with random stuff.  It doesn't matter what you put in it, but you need to include ​materials that could be used to propel a vehicle of coins across the room on a string.  He would give them the period to design a vehicle and then hold a competition at the end.  He then had them write up their lab in a creative way.  One student actually wrote an obituary for Kelly.  You can imagine how that vehicle turned out.

Anyway, I thought the idea was genius, so I shamelessly stole it (with his permission of course) and transformed it into a week long project to introduce my physics game that takes the kids through the concepts of work, energy and power.  ​Since he frequently reads my blog (mostly to find ways to mock me), I am hoping that he will write a counter post (success...check it out) on his blog and share some of the work that the students produced. 

You can find all of the instructions and the rubric for Save Earth! under the Integrated Science Lessons ​tab.  Each year this project gets bigger and more fantastic.  Tomorrow as a faculty we are supposed to share ways that we address the following 21st century skills in our classes:  creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and information fluency.  This activity hits the three c's right out of the park.  I cannot tell you how much I love watching these kids struggle with epic fail after epic fail as they collaborate on creative ways to design their vehicles.  By allowing them three days to create, test, fail, destroy and repeat over and over, the learning that takes place is out of this world (pun intended... you will understand when you check out the assignment). 

Here is a video of my students working on this project this year.  Thanks Jason Roy for planting the seed. There is certainly something to be said for stealing like an artist.  It is hard not to love physics after you see this project in action.

http://bit.ly/14k981K

To GMO or not to GMO? That is the question.

Yesterday, I came across this image in my Facebook feed. ​

My 12th grade IB students recently completed their unit on biotechnology, including genetically modified organisms.  So I decided to post this image on our Facebook group with the question, "Thoughts? This is clearly a con, what about the pros? Good time to review your GMO for biotech. Can someone tell me why the bees are dying in response to GM crops?"  23 comments later (on a Saturday night of a four day weekend mind you) two key articles jumped out at me.  The first, a letter to the USDA asking them not to deregulate GMO alfalfa due to its potential harm to the environment, and the second, an article in the Wall Street Journal that touts the benefits of GM crops and insists on the proliferation of GMO particularly in developing countries like India. 

I digress but as a faculty we have been discussing ways to infuse information fluency across grade levels and disciplines as part of our 21st century skills initiative.  This is a perfect example of why it is crucial for our students to develop this skill.  First, consider the source.  The first article comes from the GMO Journal, a liberal journal clearly against genetically modified anything.   The second article comes from the Wall Street Journal, one that refers to the monetary benefits of GMO first and foremost.  These two articles contradict each other on many fronts.  ​When you do a Google search for GMO + honey bees, the first page of links are all anti-GMO.  Ironically, if you do a Google search of the benefits of GMO, you will come up with a page with headings like, "Harmful or helpful?", "Risks and Benefits of...",  and "Weighing the GMO argument".  ​

Though clearly a cautionary tale, the problem is that there is not sufficient scientific evidence to PROVE that GMO crops are a SIGNIFICANT health risk to the honey bees or humans for that matter (the direct link has not been shown as there are too many other variables at play).  This lack of evidence could be attributed to insufficient funding for research, the lack of available data on long term impact of GMO (time sensitive), or to the big pockets of pro GMO lobbyists such as Monsanto (who by the way funded the research study quoted in the Wall Street Journal), which divert spending away from this issue among other things.  Regardless, we have to wonder if the use of genetically modified organisms ​warrants the invoking of the precautionary principle (also an IB topic...SCORE!). 

The article from the Yucatan Times that accompanied the image on Facebook posed this as a possibility:  ​

In this regard, Rosset said that since Mexico is a country that consumes more  corn than any other country, and because of the risks that have been observed in several studies for years, recommended that Mexico does not expose the public to GM Maize. He said the risk is greater for children who will be most affected. He considers it urgent to apply the precautionary principle, and cancel the transgenic, for future generations.​

This brings us back to our original question, "To GMO or not to GMO?".  I am going to let my students answer this question as this provides me with great fodder for an authentic exploration in information fluency, not to mention a lively discussion in class! ​Whenever there are grey areas in science and there is money to be made, politics will come through for us science teachers without fail!  Just remember to consider your source.  Sometimes it is not as easy as you might think! 

The assignment that I created based on these articles can be found under the IB Biology Lessons tab at this link.