Student's Perspectives

As teachers, we put a lot of time and energy into planning lessons and units for our students. We collaborate with other teachers to expand on our ideas in the hopes of providing positive and effective experiences for our students. How often do we ask our students what they think the most important pieces are to their science education and why? Personally, this is not something that I do frequently with my students. With that being said, I recently devoted a full class period to “interview” my students about their thoughts and insights regarding our science curriculum. I was very pleased with their responses and felt a sense of satisfaction in all that we have accomplished so far this school year. After reflecting on the year thus far and using that information as our foundation, together we devised over-arching understanding goals for our class. As Tina Blythe mentions in her Teaching for Understanding Guide, I explained to the students that over-arching goals relate to what they think is most important for them to learn by the end of the year. After revising our list multiple times, we posted them in the classroom and will revisit and refer to them throughout the remainder of the school year. Each unit we cover relates to at least one of the over-arching understanding goals.

Within each unit covered, Blythe mentions choosing Generative Topics – those that are central to the discipline, interesting to the students and teacher, allow access to resources, and offer opportunities for students to make connections between themselves and their experiences in and out of school. The students were quite enthused as we listed the main topics and labs we have covered so far this year. This gave me clues as to what the students were most interested in, which will now assist me in developing generative topics.

In session five, we shifted our thinking back to the Nile River. Our focus was on the precipitation, drainage (how much water flow there is) and cloud coverage of a specific region along the Nile – Dongola. This particular location is surrounded by desert where there is zero precipitation all year and so the question remains; where does the water come from and when does it come? Each group member analyzed the data presented and put together a convincing case to answer the question. Similarities and differences existed within our thinking; however, we were all able to come to an agreement that there is a direct correlation between precipitation at Lake Victoria and Lake Tana and the drainage at Dongola.