I'm so glad that someone is on the same plane with me.

At School of the Future where I teach, portfolio assessment has always been a big deal. Students need to complete four research projects in each discipline as part of a graduation requirement. Originally, these four research projects were deemed "portfolio" projects, but rather than have students defend pieces of work which is what a portfolio defense is, SOF made the process more rigorous by having students do research projects, much like college dissertations based on topics of their own choice.

In the past, when students do science exhibitions, they usually select questions that they really want to research on base on own interest. However, we ended up having products that are encyclopedic versions of what you can find on webMD: "What are the different cures to cancer? What is heart disease? What is the electromagnetic spectrum?" Not much for high school level work.

For the past few years, we've been pushing for exhibitions that are more experimental based. I best describe it to the students as a very long term "lab" where they come up with the problem, design the set up, gather their own data, and write up the results and conclusion using research. While I think its important that students do inquiry on those basic questions they have about cancer, or heart disease, I think that having students conduct their own experiments can help them learn to solve problems and really experience science (the research, the frustrations, the thinking process) that our regular classrooms can't offer.

I have push for this at the start, and have been supporting students for three years. Honestly, the process as a science exhibition sponsor is so much harder than just supporting basic research projects. Keeping track of 20 different projects is tough - I really have no problem with students who can really go on their own, but with kids who need constant reminding, discussion about the validity of their ideas ... it gets tiring. I get especially frustrated with most of the students who really can't do independent work on their own, they still need things to be laid out - where to look for background info, how to approach a problem when plans fail... argh! The issue here is that I am teaching in an inclusion setting. A project like this is usually for the "gifted" in a traditional school.

I think what keeps me going here is the very same deal - that it IS an inclusion setting, and that EVERYONE has the chance to experience being a scientist. The quality of the final products of students who succeed exceeds from those of previous years - the skills and higher ordered thinking that is evident in these projects is obvious (the final products are judged by a committee of teachers, students, parents and administrators). Even with experiments that weren't successful, you can really tell that the students reflected on the process of doing science and solving problems. Its pretty inte
Annie Chien | Email | Homepage | 01.22.05 - 10:47 pm | #

Annie - I think you are right to focus on controlled experiments, especially if students are new to the whole process. The concepts they learn in controlled experiments are the foundation for the other types of projects. In a sense, it is the concrete experience where students can reach an understanding of variables and controls and data collection and hypotheses and so on that is essential to conducting other investigations in a more rigorous way - looking for correlations in a secondary research project, conducting field studies, even doing a design project that can be tested for effectiveness. Unfortunately we are doing a pretty poor job in middle school (and elementary school for that matter) of teaching these concepts, this process. I believe that is in part the rationale behind the Urban Advantage focusing on the middle school exit project.
Michael Gatton | Email | Homepage | 01.23.05 - 8:51 pm | #