FCAT Science

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.

Thirty ele­men­tary teach­ers attended a full-day hands-on-minds-on, inquiry-based teacher train­ing work­shop enti­tled Teach­ing Sci­ence Through Children’s Lit­er­a­ture. Teach­ers were intro­duced to a wide-array of children’s lit­er­a­ture that can be incor­po­rated into the sci­ence class­room to teach inter­me­di­ate level sci­ence con­cepts cov­er­ing the New World-Class Sun­shine State Sci­ence Stan­dards. Teach­ers con­ducted a wide-array of hands-on-minds-on inves­ti­ga­tions to explore nature of sci­ence, earth and space, phys­i­cal sci­ence, and life sci­ence con­cepts. Inves­ti­ga­tions under­taken by the teach­ers were directly con­nected to the Big Ideas within the New World-Class Sun­shine State Sci­ence Stan­dards. Teach­ers explored the states of mat­ter with a unique non-Newtonian sub­stance called  . They also were intro­duced to how to use Oobleck to teach numer­ous earth and space sci­ence con­cepts. Teach­ers designed and con­structed bot­tle biol­ogy ecosys­tems to rein­force a wide-array of life sci­ence con­cepts includ­ing: food chains, food webs, inter­de­pen­dence, lim­it­ing fac­tors, oxy­gen cycle, nitro­gen cycle, carbon-dioxide cycle, pho­to­syn­the­sis, and the water cycle. Teach­ers were intro­duced to many of Leonardo daVinci’s inno­va­tions and inven­tions by explor­ing the book Who Was Leonardo daVinci by Roberta Edwards. Teach­ers con­structed sim­ple para­chutes and heli­copters, and com­pared bird feath­ers to air­plane wing design to explore force, motion, and energy con­cepts as well as make con­nec­tions to the con­tri­bu­tions of Leonardo daVinci to soci­ety. Teach­ers explored weath­er­ing and ero­sion con­cepts and the rock cycle by con­duct­ing hands-on inves­ti­ga­tions with Coquina Rock. Lastly, teach­ers observed and stud­ied man­grove seedlings to rein­force numer­ous life sci­ence con­cepts. Each hands-on-minds-on inves­ti­ga­tion was directly related to selected children’s lit­er­a­ture. All inves­ti­ga­tions under­taken dur­ing the teacher train­ing work­shop are directly related to FCAT Sci­ence annu­ally assessed bench­marks. A sam­ple of children’s authors included: Lynn Cherry, John Him­mel­man, Dr. Seuss, Ellen Prager, Kris­tine and Robert Thorson,Cherie Mason, Jean Craig­head George, Carl Hiassen, and many oth­ers. All of the children’s lit­er­a­ture intro­duced to the teach­ers and used within the teacher train­ing work­shop can be found and ordered from the fol­low­ing site.

The num­ber of Florida stu­dents tak­ing Advanced Place­ment tests hit a record high in 2009, how­ever the num­ber of stu­dents who fail the exams is ris­ing, par­tic­u­larly in the South. No longer are AP classes for an elite group of stu­dents, there has been a major push in the state of Florida to get more stu­dents enrolled in Advanced Place­ment classes. The new Florida high school grade sys­tem will take into account par­tic­i­pa­tion and per­for­mance on the AP exams, adding another incen­tive for schools to encour­age par­tic­i­pa­tion in AP classes. Florida was fifth in the list of states with the great­est per­cent­age of high school seniors doing well on AP exams. In 2009 21.3 per­cent of Florida stu­dents did well on the AP exams, up from 16.3 per­cent in 2004. How­ever, data shows that Florida stu­dents did not do well when com­pared to their national coun­ter­parts on some AP exams, specif­i­cally those in math and sci­ence. On the AP Biol­ogy exam only 32 per­cent of Florida stu­dents did well, earn­ing at least a 3 on the five-level test, com­pared to about 49 per­cent nation­ally. Kris­ten Klopfen­stein, a senior researcher at the Texas Schools Project and a pro­fes­sor on leave from Texas Chris­t­ian Uni­ver­sity, who con­ducts research on AP has found that stu­dents who take AP often do well in col­lege. How­ever, Klopfenstein’s research shows that it’s other rig­or­ous courses, espe­cially in math and sci­ence that lead to that suc­cess. To see view­points of par­ents and admin­is­tra­tors in regards to the push to take AP courses see the fol­low­ing arti­cle by Leslie Postal in Orlando Sen­tinel on Feb­ru­ary 10, 2010.