Planning Learning Cycles

1
Planning Learning Cycles
2
Five Principles for Teaching for Motivation and
Understanding

• WYDIWYL
• Usefulness and connectedness
• Arguments from evidence
• Learning as socialization into a community of
  practice
• Expectancy times value

3
WYDIWYL

• Content knowledge is always embedded in some kind
  of practice.
• The practices students learn are the ones they
  do, not the ones the teacher tells them about.

4
Usefulness and Connectedness

• The best science teachers find ways to make their
  students developing science knowledge useful for
  the important practices of application, which
  connect observations, patterns, and models and
  connected in several ways
• a. Students connect individual facts into
  scientific narratives.
• b. Students connect scientific observations,
  patterns, and models with their everyday
  experiences, patterns, and explanations.
• c. Students connect different representations of
  observations, patterns, and models.

5
Arguments from Evidence

• Students come to understand the essential role
  that arguments from evidence play in developing
  scientific knowledge.
• The usefulness and connectedness of scientific
  knowledge ultimately rely on its connection to
  our observations of the material world, not on
  arguments from authority of teachers, texts, or
  leaders.

6
Learning as Socialization

• The best science teachers find ways to develop
  learning communities in their classrooms whose
  norms and values respect their students senses
  of identity and build identities as science
  learners.
• They recognize that learning involves
  socialization into the language, practices,
  norms, and values of science, and that learning
  needs to fulfill students needs for community,
  respect, and knowledge.

7
Expectancy Times Value

• Motivation to learn depends on the product of
  expectancy and value.
• Expectancy is the students expectation that he
  or she can be successful.
• Value is the degree to which success will match
  the students needs, interests, or perceived
  obligations.

8
A Big Problem

• How can you apply WYDIWYL when students dont
  know how to engage in useful and connected
  practices?

9
Learning Cycles as a Way to Help Students Learn
Difficult Content

• A. Transfer of responsibility
• B. Prerequisites for a learning cycle
• C. Specific steps in learning cycles

10
Transfer of Responsibility in the Learning Cycle
11
Learning Cycle Requirements

• 1. An objective focusing on inquiry or
  application
• 2. Sets of examples (experiences), patterns, and
  explanations
• 3. Clearly defined patterns in student practice
  (scaffolding for modeling and coaching)

12
Stages in the Learning Cycle

• Establishing the problem Connecting with prior
  knowledge and establishing motivation to learn
• Modeling Exposing learners to comprehensible
  models of good practice
• Coaching Providing opportunities for practice
  with scaffolding or support
• Fading Gradually removing support until learners
  engage in the practice independently
• Maintenance Continuing practice after initial
  learning is over

13
From the Earth to the Moon

• Selecting moon rocks to bring back to earth

14
Learning Cycle Requirements

• 1. An objective focusing on inquiry or
  application
• 2. Sets of examples (experiences), patterns, and
  explanations
• 3. Clearly defined patterns in student practice
  (scaffolding for modeling and coaching)

15
Theories of the Moons Origins

• Fission theory The moon split off from the
  fast-spinning earth.
• Capture theory The moon was a wandering planet
  captured by the earths gravity.
• Coaccretion theory The moon and earth
  accumulated together from the same materials in
  space.

16
Which rocks will help to choose among these
theories?

• Pieces of moons original crust
• Not meteors or asteroids
• Not rocks that have been altered by meteor impact

17
Objectives for Astronauts

• Describing context Accurately describe where
  rocks come from and select of sites to explore
• The sweep Select a sample of rocks that
  represent the history of the site
• Survey of far side of moon from lunar orbiter
  Describe landforms in terms that are relevant to
  their history

18
2. Sets of examples (experiences), patterns, and
explanations

• Experiences
• Landscapes like the moon on earth
• Lunar highlands
• Patterns
• Clues about history of the site
• Explanations
• Tentative theories about history of site

19
3. Pattern in Astronaut Practice

• Initial Observations Visual Survey of Site
• Developing Tentative Explanation or Hypothesis
• What is the history of this site?
• What collection of rocks best represents all the
  stages in that history?
• Collecting Rocks
• Guided by hypotheses
• Geologists Develop More Complete Theories
• Explaining in ways that are consistent with all
  available data

20
Establishing the Problem

• 55 Importance of context in solving the mystery
  of the dead cat
• 57 A rock in the landscape. Where did you come
  from, my little friend? What is the story here?
• 58 The story is pretty much there in a language
  you cant understand
• 59 You have to become our eyes and ears out
  there. First, you have to learn the language of
  this little rock.
• 100 We still havent answered the big
  questionThree theories of moons origin. Maybe
  Apollo 15 will shed some light

21
Modeling and Coaching Collecting Rocks

• 104 The sweep A dozen hand-sized rocks that will
  tell the story of this place
• 106 Evaluating Dave Scotts and Jack Schmitts
  collections

22
Modeling and Coaching Surveying the Site

• 107 Apollo 18 and 19 are canceled
• 110 We are inventing the field of lunar
  geologyDescribing and drawing a site

23
Fading The Moon Mission

• 122 Take off, standup EVA (skip to next chapter)
• 130 Lunar rover
• 131 I think we found ourselves some
  anorthocite.Give my guys in the field any day.
  Now that is science
• 133 Survey
• 134 Feather and hammer. Galileo was right.

24
Theories about the Moons Origins

• All 3 original theories discredited
• Moons crust includes earth materials
• Fission theory incompatible with Newtons Laws
• New theory Giant impact hypothesis
• Collision with planet 2 or 3 times the mass of
  Mars

25
Important Points about Learning Cycles

• Assessing student thinking. Include embedded
  assessment that will help you and your students
  understand their ideas and practicesboth correct
  and incorrect.
• Keeping the objective whole. Students work
  through several examples where they see or do the
  whole task.
• Learning as transfer of responsibility. Students
  take more responsibility for doing the task.
• Scaffolding is temporary. Learning cycles are
  complete when students can enact the objective on
  their own.

26
Learning Cycles in Your Experience

• Examples of Successful and Unsuccessful Learning

27
Stages in the Learning Cycle

• Establishing the problem Connecting with prior
  knowledge and establishing motivation to learn
• Modeling Exposing learners to comprehensible
  models of good practice
• Coaching Providing opportunities for practice
  with scaffolding or support
• Fading Gradually removing support until learners
  engage in the practice independently
• Maintenance Continuing practice after initial
  learning is over

28
Developing a Learning Cycle for the Topic You Are
Teaching
29
Learning Cycle Requirements

• 1. An objective focusing on inquiry or
  application
• 2. Sets of examples (experiences), patterns, and
  explanations
• 3. Clearly defined patterns in student practice
  (scaffolding for modeling and coaching)

30
Stages in the Learning Cycle

• Establishing the problem Connecting with prior
  knowledge and establishing motivation to learn
• Modeling Exposing learners to comprehensible
  models of good practice
• Coaching Providing opportunities for practice
  with scaffolding or support
• Fading Gradually removing support until learners
  engage in the practice independently
• Maintenance Continuing practice after initial
  learning is over

31
Telling the Story Objectives
32
Using Objectives Application
33
Form of Using Objectives