This year, our middle school has taken part in an amazing opportunity to pilot a new, web-based science curriculum that incorporates digital simulations and hands-on learning experiences in an immersive learning environment. As a school, we are teaching the curriculum with as much fidelity as possible in order to be able to provide useful feedback to teachers around the district and to the curriculum developers.
In my Individual Project lesson, I stuck close to the original plan in our curriculum, with the exception of two technology additions: 1.) an online collaborative element using Nearpod and 2.) a feedback poll asking students to reflect on the modeling tools used throughout the unit.
The lesson is part of a unit about chemical reactions in which students experience chemical reactions in the context of a fictional town where people discover an unknown substance in their water, and through three different methods: 1.) an online simulation of a laboratory where students can choose chemicals from a stockroom to virtually mix together and then watch animated groups of atoms interact with each other, 2.) a traditional, hands-on chemical reaction demonstration in class and 3.) rearranging color tokens to represent groups of atoms in chemical reactions.
Wiggins and McTighe (2005) present six facets of understanding, in which students who understand 1.) can explain, 2.) can interpret, 3.) can apply, 4.) have perspective, 5.) can empathize and 6.) have self-knowledge.
The chemical reactions unit offers students plenty of opportunities to explain what they understand, but usually only with one partner or directly with the teacher in written form. Nearpod’s “Collaborate” feature allowed our students to explain chemical reactions to each other in a low-pressure, social format. The students were presented with a question and a virtual board on which to post their answers. This also allowed my students to practice responsible digital citizenship skills while posting something that would be made immediately visible to everyone in the class.
Screenshot from Nearpod.com‘s collaborate feature.
Two aspects of this collaborative activity proved to encourage student engagement and participation. First, students can see each other’s responses as they come in, and can see how I respond to those posts in real time. Peer responses offer a helpful scaffold for students who need help getting started. Secondly, students can give each other “likes” in the form of small heart icons under each post, which brings a fun and positive social aspect to the activity.
In order to provide students an opportunity to show metacognitive awareness, or self-knowledge, I asked them a survey question using Nearpod’s polling feature. I wondered out of the three forms of modeling and demonstrating chemical reactions, which activity helped students the most in understanding how chemical reactions work. I posed the question to two class groups and received surprisingly balanced results:
Nearpod poll for Group 1 (top) and Group 2 (bottom).
While Group 2 showed a preference for the online simulation as the most helpful activity, there was a solid balance between the three activities overall, which shows that our efforts to differentiate instruction modalities are not in vain. Students were receptive and aware of the pros and cons of the different activities they participated in.
In general, the fictional scenario of the town with polluted water keeps students engaged, but I think that making a connection to students’ own communities and even giving them a chance to test their own water or interact with water utility or water treatment officials would help students develop a broader perspective and to develop further empathy. If I could do this project again, I would focus on ways to use the fictional scenario presented in the unit as a springboard to engage students with own community around the topics of chemistry and water resources.
References
Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005) Understanding by design: Expanded 2nd edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ. Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.
