observations, experiments, and practicing

The things we talk about in class are changing the way I interact with learners.  I have been thinking about how I can do things differently in order to help students reach the class goals we created.  I have also noticed that I want students to understand the nature of science.  I leave class on Thursday and go to work that afternoon where I  get to try out ideas I had during class. Here are a couple of examples.

I was presenting a program on the human body the other day and asked what our stomach does with food.  The child in the front row told me, "it digests the food" or "digestion" something with vocabulary that didn't tell me whether the kid really knew what it meant.  Previously, I would have said, yes, good, and moved on.  However, thinking about how we can encourage students to be more reflective, be better communicators and demonstrate their understanding of content I asked the kid what "digestion" meant.  In his own words, he essentially said that the stomach made the food into tiny pieces, breaking it down.  To which I then said, ok, I understand, and moved on. Asking the kid to elaborate, provided me with more information about what he knew, and provided him with an opportunity to more effectively explain himself and demonstrate his level of understanding.  In a classroom setting I could have evaluated that response and decided whether I needed to move on or do more on the topic.  I have definitely noticed my presentations shifting from me talking a lot to me asking more questions and having the group help me to communicate my message, whether on digestion or reptiles.

I also notice myself sneaking in ideas about the nature of science to my interactions.  I do this because I now understand and believe that it's important to teach students what science is, what scientists do and how they too can participate in the process. I think that understanding the nature of science will pave a way for students to be interested in science... which I think is extremely important.  I spent Friday morning with first graders facilitating a chemistry lab.  While most of the content was developmentally over their heads (though I have not checked the sources on that yet...) I focused a lot on telling them what they could do to "be scientists".  I asked them to make a lot of predictions and observations. I explained in simple language my demonstrations and their activities, they may not have fully understood why certain reactions were happening. Even though I wasn't focusing solely on the science content, I believe they were engaged and learning about science, because they got to participate in hands on experiments and they were mentally engaged with making predictions and observations.  I validated every kind of observation and prediction that came my way. The most popular prediction being "It might blow up!".  :)  
I demonstrated a reaction that yielded a glow in the dark reaction, and on the next two experiments students did at their tables, they asked me if I could turn off the lights to see if the reaction was glowing (this had never happened before in all my times of leading this lab!).  I was thrilled by their demonstration of curiosity and research and I definitely obliged.  While no other reaction glowed, I told them that it was great that we can only find out answers to our questions like this if we try it! Experimenting! 

I am happy that I am growing as a teacher.  It is extremely rewarding when I see effects of the things (things that I believe to be effective and fun teaching practices ) I am learning in what my students do.