Cultivating a Classroom of Scientists through Collaboration

Cultivating a Classroom of Scientists through Collaboration

“I want them to leave my classroom believing they are scientists.” This mantra guided my nine years as a science teacher and teacher mentor. Yet, translating this belief into practice was often challenging, especially in an era dominated by testing and factual recall where “knowing the facts” is often the driving force in the curriculum.

While teaching strategies like project-based learning and inquiry-driven instruction were at the core of my instruction, it wasn’t until the release of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) that I was able to have a clear direction in my teaching and truly consider ways to connect my students with specific content through a set of specific scientific and engineering practices. Yet, I still wondered a lot about the “how.” Questions still lingered:

• How do I get my students to move beyond memorizing the content and being comfortable taking risks?
• How can I get all of my students to believe they are all scientists in my classroom?
• How can I get them to engage in these scientific practices in authentic ways that increase access to learning opportunities?

More importantly, I wanted all of my students to have confidence as scientific thinkers and know that they all had something to contribute to the learning experience of the other students in the class, particularly in supporting my predominantly multilingual student population. When I transitioned out of the classroom to work at Knowles Teacher Initiative, I continued to have many of these questions and similarly found challenges in supporting beginning teachers as they thought through the same questions around their practice. It was after learning about the equity teaching practice, Complex Instruction, that I found an entry point. Leveraging this collaborative learning strategy, through the lens of the NGSS science and engineering practices to promote scientific reasoning and thinking, might be one avenue to support these questions. At its core, Complex Instruction (CI) is about boosting student participation and learning through collaboration. It revolves around three pillars: inclusive curriculum, actionable norms, and status. Here’s how it works:

Actionable Norms: Promoting Scientific Behavior

Let’s dive into an important part of Complex Instruction: actionable norms. These differ from the usual passive guidelines like “we all respect each other” or “come ready to learn.” Instead, actionable norms are about actively encouraging behaviors that lead to richer scientific discussions and deeper understanding.

Take, for example, the three actionable norms: communicate effectively, work persistently, and take risks (Watanabe & Evans, 2015). Focusing on these norms shifts the spotlight to actions that boost collaboration and active participation. The goal is to publicly acknowledge when students embody these norms during group activities. This is especially crucial in a classroom aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), where highlighting these behaviors promotes scientific thinking and collaboration.

Reflecting on my own experience, I realized that while I encouraged authentic scientific engagement, I often missed opportunities to publicly reinforce and praise these behaviors and often focused on students getting the “right answer.”

This kind of recognition not only reinforces the norm but also motivates other students to engage similarly, creating a classroom culture where scientific inquiry and behaviors are not just expected but celebrated. Here’s an example of how this might play out.

Students are engaging in a conversation about genetic variation and a teacher notices a student engaging in one of the practices by beginning to develop a model to help describe her thinking with the group. I might highlight this with the group by giving them a point or stamp and saying out loud to the whole group,
“I really like how you’ve used a model to illustrate the process and your thinking with the group. This provided your group with a new lens to look at this information and moved the group forward. You are really communicating productively here.”

In publicly acknowledging and valuing this student’s engagement with one of the science and engineering practices, the teacher is promoting an actionable norm that is centered around scientific thinking. Practicing classroom norms and using them as a tool to assess and promote collaborative learning are also discussed as part of our course.

Inclusive Science Curriculum: Engaging All Learners.

When I think back to the questions I had in my teaching, I recognize that while I strived to meet my goal of making my curriculum inclusive for all students and providing them with authentic science experiences, what I really needed were the tools and structures to help me better organize my lessons. At Knowles, I’ve worked closely with colleagues and teachers who frequently practice CI in their classrooms to develop several lesson planning templates and protocols to help teachers think through this idea of an inclusive curriculum and ways to authentically integrate scientific practices. In our course on equitable groupwork, teachers are provided these tools and are supported as they develop groupworthy and conversation worthy tasks with NGSS alignment to use in their classrooms.

Student Status: Building a Community of Collaborative Scientists

What really struck me about Complex Instruction (CI) and its connection to the questions I had in my teaching practice was the concept of student status. CI is all about creating a classroom environment where every student’s status is elevated through actionable norms and an inclusive curriculum.

Looking back, I realize that my teaching philosophy was always centered around raising student status in my science classroom. My goal was to ensure that every student felt valued as a member of our learning community, and to foster a culture where everyone sees themselves as a scientist. I wanted my students to leave the classroom with the belief that they are, in fact, scientists.

While I may have left the classroom with some questions still unanswered, I’m grateful for the chance to share this “aha” moment with the teaching Fellows and veteran teachers attending the academy course. It’s been a powerful realization that has only deepened my commitment to fostering equity and inclusivity in the classroom.

References

Cohen, E. & Lotan, R. (Eds.). (2014). Designing groupwork: Strategies for heterogeneous classrooms. Revised edition. New York: Teachers College Press

Cohen, E. & Lotan, R. (Eds.). (1997). Working for equity in heterogeneous classrooms: Sociological theory in practice. New York: Teachers College Press.

Watanabe, M. & Evans, L. (2015). Assessments that promote collaborative learning: Students practice classroom norms and take responsibility for one another’s learning. Mathematics Teacher. 109 (4), 298-304.