FCAT Science

Just back from con­duct­ing 10 days of teacher train­ing work­shops through­out the state of Florida. As always it’s a plea­sure to share my exper­tise and enthu­si­asm for sci­ence with the teach­ers I meet. The 2011–2012 school year is no dif­fer­ent than the pre­vi­ous years, school dis­tricts and schools want for their stu­dents to do well on the FCAT. For stu­dents to do well on the sci­ence com­po­nent of the FCAT it’s essen­tial that the stu­dents have had the oppor­tu­nity to con­duct hands-on-minds-on, inquiry-based sci­ence inves­ti­ga­tions through­out the school year. The stu­dents must be able to com­pre­hend sci­ence con­cepts. If they have been taught sci­ence con­cepts through route mem­o­riza­tion and paper and pen­cil activ­i­ties, they are sure to do poorly on the FCAT. The FCAT requires stu­dents to be able to think crit­i­cally, includ­ing extrap­o­lat­ing infor­ma­tion from extended ques­tions, as well as inter­pret­ing data from graphs. Dur­ing two recent FCAT sci­ence teacher train­ing work­shops teach­ers explored a wide-array of sci­ence con­cepts from the Next Gen­er­a­tion Sun­shine State Stan­dards. Teach­ers con­ducted hands-on inves­ti­ga­tions to explore Nature of Sci­ence, Earth and Space Sci­ence, Phys­i­cal Sci­ence, and Life Sci­ence con­cepts. Con­duct­ing inves­ti­ga­tions that allow the stu­dent to see the con­nec­tions to the Big Ideas is essen­tial. The fol­low­ing pho­tos are from recent FCAT sci­ence teacher train­ing work­shops. I’m wish­ing all the Florida stu­dents and teach­ers a great year ahead, to ask ques­tions, develop crit­i­cal think­ing skills, as they actively explore all the won­ders of science.

Stu­dents across the state of Florida are tak­ing the FCAT 2.0 this week. The FCAT 2.0 will help to assess stu­dents under the Next Gen­er­a­tion Sun­shine State Stan­dards (NGSS) which were imple­mented in 2007. The FCAT 2.0 will include NGSS in read­ing and math. New sci­ence stan­dards will be tested in 2012. The FCAT test­ing was sched­uled later in the school year com­pared to pre­vi­ous years, which allows for more time to cover con­tent. More impor­tant, more time to actu­ally com­pre­hend the con­tent ver­sus drilling irrel­e­vant and frag­mented facts into stu­dents heads. The Next Gen­er­a­tion Sun­shine State Stan­dards are designed to make con­nec­tions, favor qual­ity over quan­tity. Stu­dents will cover fewer con­cepts in math, read­ing, and sci­ence but the con­cepts will be cov­ered in greater depth. There is a lot of pres­sure on teach­ers this year because begin­ning next year, FCAT scores will affect teacher pay. Half of the teacher eval­u­a­tions will be based on how their stu­dents per­formed in the FCAT and other exams over a three-year period. I’m def­i­nitely one for teacher account­able but not based pri­mar­ily on test scores. There is no ques­tion that teacher eval­u­a­tion and con­tin­ued con­tracts need to be re-evaluated and revamped nation­wide. In any pri­vate busi­ness or gov­ern­ment posi­tion indi­vid­u­als are assessed yearly. If you are not per­form­ing up to stan­dards, you are out. It’s quite dif­fi­cult with the power of unions to fire a teacher who is incom­pe­tent. And unfor­tu­nately, it is the stu­dents who suf­fer. Long-term our nation suf­fers when stu­dents are not being given the oppor­tu­nity for a qual­ity K-12 edu­ca­tion. I’d be in favor of teacher eval­u­a­tion based on the teacher as a whole. Look at the ded­i­ca­tion of the teacher, moti­va­tion, class­room envi­ron­ment, the rela­tion­ship the teacher has with their stu­dents and their par­ents. Lastly, look at test scores over a sev­eral year period. Wish­ing all the Florida stu­dents and teach­ers a pos­i­tive FCAT test­ing expe­ri­ence this week.

I recently had the plea­sure of con­duct­ing a full-day teacher train­ing work­shop for a char­ter school in Florida. Thir­teen teach­ers were actively engaged in inquiry-based inves­ti­ga­tions that tie directly to the Next Gen­er­a­tion Sun­shine State Sci­ence Stan­dards. Teach­ers con­ducted numer­ous hands-on-minds-on explo­rations to investigate:

• Nature of Science;
• Earth and Space Science;
• Phys­i­cal Sci­ence; and
• Life Sci­ence concepts.

The admin­is­tra­tor of the school requested that I rein­force the impor­tance of writ­ing and jour­nals within the sci­ence class­room, as well as across the dis­ci­plines. Thus, a major focus of the teacher train­ing work­shop involved the teach­ers main­tain­ing a jour­nal through­out the ses­sion. We spent the early part of the morn­ing explor­ing the school yard. Mak­ing obser­va­tions, col­lect­ing leaves, seeds, soil sam­ples, insect exoskele­tons, and more… While out­side the teach­ers recorded their obser­va­tions in their stu­dent note­books. When we returned to the class­rooms teach­ers were given time to reflect on their obser­va­tions within their jour­nals, observe spec­i­mens with eye loupes and micro­scopes. Teach­ers then attached spec­i­mens inside of their jour­nals. Addi­tion­ally, were introduced:

•  To effec­tive strate­gies to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between weath­er­ing and erosion;
• How liv­ing things inter­act with their envi­ron­ment via design­ing and con­struct­ing a bot­tle biol­ogy ecosystem;
• Botan­i­cal concepts;
• States of Matter;
• Dif­fer­ences between chem­i­cal and phys­i­cal changes; and
• Dif­fer­ences between mix­tures and solutions.

At the end of the teacher train­ing ses­sion, the teach­ers left the ses­sion with their arms filled with mod­els they had con­structed, ref­er­ences, man­u­als, and an inter­ac­tive stu­dent notebook/ jour­nal from the ses­sion. I’m quite cer­tain that these teach­ers will incor­po­rate many of the strate­gies they were intro­duced to as they imple­ment the Next Gen­er­a­tion Sun­shine State Sci­ence Stan­dards  (NGSSS) in their classrooms.

The Dis­trict of Colum­bia, Florida and eight other states were announced win­ners in the sec­ond round of Race to the Top Grants on August 24th, 2010. Race to the Top state  com­pe­ti­tion is designed to reward states that are lead­ing the way in com­pre­hen­sive, coher­ent, statewide edu­ca­tion reform. Winning states receive funds to be used in four key areas:

1. Adopt­ing stan­dards and assess­ments that pre­pare stu­dents to suc­ceed in col­lege and the workplace;
2. Build­ing data sys­tems that mea­sure stu­dent growth and suc­cess, and inform teach­ers and prin­ci­pals how to improve instruction;
3. Recruit­ing, devel­op­ing, reward­ing, and retain­ing effec­tive teach­ers and prin­ci­pals, espe­cially where they are needed most; and
4. Turn­ing around their low­est per­form­ing schools.

As a sci­ence edu­ca­tion con­sul­tant that pro­vides hands-on-minds-on inquiry-based sci­ence pro­fes­sional staff devel­op­ment teacher train­ing work­shops, I’m hop­ing that Florida school dis­tricts will seek out qual­ity and effec­tive pro­fes­sional staff devel­op­ment teacher train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for their teach­ers. Not “one shot in the arm” train­ing, but long-term train­ing where teach­ers receive con­tin­ual train­ing and advice when needed through­out the year from a des­ig­nated provider who has been proven to pro­vide qual­ity and effec­tive pro­fes­sional staff devel­op­ment teacher train­ing work­shops. The train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties should be directly con­nected with the Next Gen­er­a­tion Sun­shine State Stan­dards, hands-on-minds-on, and inquiry-based. Dr. Diana Wehrell-Grabowski has been pro­vid­ing qual­ity and effec­tive pro­fes­sional staff devel­op­ment teacher train­ing work­shops since 1987 through­out the entire state of Florida and nation. Check out the teacher train­ing work­shops Dr. Diana Wehrell-Grabowski offers here. Dr. Diana Wehrell-Grabowski looks for­ward to work­ing with Florida school dis­trict in their efforts to imple­ment edu­ca­tion reform.

 For fur­ther details of Gov­er­nor Crist announce­ment see the fol­low­ing press release.