Science Modeling Talks

In this episode, Mark talks with Dan Peluso, an astrophysics PhD candidate working on getting students and teachers to do citizen science in the classroom. He talks about how he became a teacher and became a part of the modeling community, and using modeling and astronomy in his physics classes. He shares his plans as he moves into working on his PhD full time this year as well as working with SETI to get telescopes into classrooms all over the world, enabling students to become part of the scientific community even at a young age.

Dan Peluso

Dan Peluso is an astrophysics PhD candidate with the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) studying/researching remotely from Vallejo, California. Dan’s PhD project is multi-disciplinary focusing on NASA TESS exoplanet follow-ups and astronomy education to develop a global exoplanet citizen science network at education centers. In addition to his PhD work, Dan has taught high school science and as the new SETI Institute Unistellar Education Associate is exploring creating an exoplanet citizen science curriculum for educators with the Modeling Instruction pedagogy combined with student/teacher gathered observations with Unistellar eVscopes. Dan also enjoys photography, music, film, and is an active singer-songwriter and musician.

Website | Instagram | Twitter

[13:20] Mark Royce reads a quote from Dan Peluso's blog: "If we replace the education system into one that encourages and develops collaborative processes, creativity, problem-solving, curiosity, and other reasoning skills for all students, regardless of color or gender from the earliest age, through high school and beyond, I claim we would transform our society into a conveyor belt of movers and shakers, innovators, free thinkers, and happy driven citizens."

[37:34] Dan Peluso: "The project that I'm really excited about is we have these telescopes they're called unistellar eVscopes. And this is a new consumer telescope. It's completely autonomous. It's controlled with your phone, takes all the guesswork out of like how to use a telescope... users of this eVscope can get an alert on their phone. And that alert will say, there's an interesting scientific target that you can go out and observe with your telescope in your backyard, in your garden such as an occulting asteroid or an asteroid flying by, or an exploding supernova star, or a transiting exoplanet, a planet that orbits around another star. And we've actually had success and this telescope can observe exoplanets, planets around other stars in our galaxy. "

[29:50] Science conference in Texas was the 47th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. Dan presented and had a published abstract with them (linked below). While there he found out he didn't get into UC Davis for a PhD program This and the gentleman he met there who inspired him like an old wise Yoda led to Dan becoming a teacher.

Transcript

Dan Transcript

Links

Global Hands-On Universe

Hands-On Universe, USA

Blog Post - How I plan to help save science education with the Unistellar eVscope!

Abstract #1789 - Abstract Dan published for the 47th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.

Yong Zhao on a podcast discussing creativity in education

Article - Yong Zhao: PBL Develops Students' Creative Confidence - [07:53] Dan reads a quote from this article

Video - The genius of science: GZA & Science Genius at TEDxTeen 2014

Video - Reality Pedagogy: Christopher Emdin at TEDxTeachersCollege

Book - For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education (Race, Education, and Democracy)

Podcast - The Science of Hip Hop with GZA (Part 1)

Podcast - The Science of Hip Hop with GZA (Part 2)

Notes for Notes - getting students in schools and Boys & Girls Clubs to write and professionally record their own music at pro studios for FREE

Video - Unistellar Overview

Unistellar

SETI Institute

University of Southern Queensland Centre for Astrophysics - Where Dan is doing his PhD

In this episode, Mark talks with Fran Poodry and Matt Greenwolfe. They talk about how each one came to find modeling instruction and how their first modeling workshop changed their teaching. They also talk about tools and resources for the modeling classroom while we are unable to share lab equipment. These tools provide both lab data students can analyze and the opportunity to upload student-created videos and analyze the data. This is a very timely discussion, as many teachers are rethinking their plans for classes this year.

Fran Poodry

Fran Poodry taught HS physics for 20 years in the Philadelphia region starting in 1993. In 1997 and 1998, she attended Modeling Instruction workshops at UW-River Falls with workshop leaders Rex Rice and David Braunshweig. She served on the AMTA board from 2010 to 2014, and as President of AMTA from 2012 to 2013. In her current position at Vernier Software & Technology, Fran interacts with instructors daily, supporting them in their use of Vernier technology.

Instagram | Twitter

Matt Greenwolfe

I have a bachelors degree in physics from Washington University in St. Louis, a PhD from The University of Michigan, and taught briefly as a college professor before taking a job teaching high school I thought as a transitional career move. My exposure to Modeling Instruction transformed my view of physics teaching and generated an interest and enthusiasm that has made high school physics teaching my career. I have been teaching at my current school, Cary Academy in Cary, North Carolina since 2000. In addition to the ongoing process of mastering modeling instruction in my own classroom, still a work in progress after 20 years, I have contributed numerous resources to the body of modeling instruction materials and knowledge, including the development of a robotic kinematics apparatus and other experiments, ideas for improving classroom dialogue, and adapting open-ended problems from the college level to high school modeling instruction. I have also taught modeling workshops in North Carolina and Ohio as well as serving on the founding board of directions and lates as the President of the American Modeling Teachers Association. Since Covid 19 forced us all into virtual or partially-virtual instruction, I have dedicated myself to attempting to match the high quality video labs available at Pivot Interactives and am helping to lead a group of modeling instructors creating modeling-friendly labs for the virtual classroom. This year, my physics team won the US International Young Physicists Tournament in our fifth attempt by presenting our solution to for difficult college-level problems after a year's worth of experimental and theoretical investigation.

[7:13] Fran Poodry, talking about lessons from her first modeling workshop: "So I had been a physics major in college and kind of had it in my mind that I was going to be a teacher, but I wasn't, you know... I did my practice teaching with someone who is just a regular traditional physics teacher. I didn't really know how to innovate. I had not had much practice with literally having students collect data and create mathematical models. It was always like, okay, this is Newton's second law. Okay, let's do this experiment in which you will find out that this stuff matches up to Newton's second law. So my first surprise when taking the modeling workshop was that I still had physics to learn, which was embarrassing, and vital. And then the second thing I learned was this whole magic of graphing data and creating mathematical models, which I don't know how I ever did physics before that. It was, it was a revolution in my mind and it was amazing. And it just made me fall in love with teaching even more."

[11:16] Matt Greenwolfe, on the change in his teaching practice when he started modeling: "And the main thing it did is it put the students at the center and got me to step off the stage. And I spend way more time listening to students now in deep, interesting ways, because I'm asking them open-ended questions and listening to them think their way through stuff and listening to their presentations. As they try to explain their own reasoning without an example from me to follow. And so I have a much better idea of what they're actually thinking, and then it's tremendously fun to create activities, to help them overcome their misconceptions and revise the way they're thinking in a creative way that allows them to do it rather than me telling them. "

[19:55] Matt Greenwolfe, talking about pivot interactives: "They're videotaping each individual data point, not just a sufficient set that you could take, but each individual data point that a student might think to take and they're organizing them. So it's easy to select and pick. And when the students say, choose their independent variables for a lab, they choose them. And they get a video of exactly how that particular data point ran. And they can take measurements from the screen and start recording their data. And so aside from actually going over and grabbing the equipment and setting it up on the table, it got as close as one could imagine to them actually doing the lab."

[31:40] Fran Poodry, talking about using Vernier video analysis "Vernier video analysis can work on any device with a browser. It's got a whole bunch of cool features, including a vector display feature and auto tracking. And we've got some replay in there. You can see that the dots appear on the video as the data appear on the graph. We've had a lot of people asking about that recently, and Vernier also is making available a sample data library where instructors can give the data from an experiment to the students, and then the students can do the analysis on the experiment. We're working on expanding that and also providing videos of experiments to go along with it,"

[45:47] Matt Greenwolfe, thinking about this year: "I think one thing is that we have to be really flexible. We have no idea what's going to happen next. It's kind of thrown out the door. The idea of having a plan for the year and detailed lesson plans. You want to make sure that what you're doing is productive and learning and that you and the students are not getting too stressed out in an already stressful time."

Transcript

Fran and Matt Transcript

Links

Pivot Interactives

Nearpod

In this episode, Mark talks with Mark Schober about his career as a physics teacher, how modeling changed his teaching, how that led him to using Standards Based Grading with Modeling Physics, and later how Mark was part of the group of experts developing the modeling materials for waves and light. Mark talks about how he loves making and sharing ideas for low-cost lab equipment. They end with talking about the importance of community for teachers.

In this episode, Mark talks with incoming AMTA president, Teresa Marx. They talk about the way Teresa's teaching looks different as a result of modeling instruction, starting the organization STEMTeachersMassBay, the recent virtual AMTA conference, and Teresa's ideas for the next year with AMTA.

Teresa Marx

Teresa is a public school parent and a public school teacher. She has been teaching chemistry for 19 years in the Boston area. Although she has taught a variety of high school sciences, including physics, biology, biotechnology, engineering, organic and biochemistry, she is a chemistry teacher at heart.

Teresa co-founded STEMteachersMassBay in 2017. She is the President-Elect of the AMTA Executive Board, and has been accepted into the Perrone-Sizer Institute for Creative Leadership's 2020-2021 cohort.

Twitter

[18:35] Teresa Marx: "So I think we're going to try to get some workgroups together as a result of what we heard in the conference, just to get teachers in Zoom rooms, at least, with people in their discipline to kind of work through... Next school year feels like a lot of question marks. So I think to the extent that AMTA as an organization can be positioned to support teachers, to provide them with the tools, the resources, and just the person-to-person support that you need sometimes to get through that. I think that's a really big one."

[33:06] Teresa Marx "[modeling] made me a better teacher in a lot of small ways, and it's made a big difference in terms of the overarching way that my classes operate. Students use our class time for thinking hard."

Transcript

Teresa Transcript

Links

STEM Teachers MassBay

Culturally Responsive Teachers and the Brain book

In this episode, Mark talks with Colleen Megowan-Romanowicz, AMTA's first executive officer and now senior fellow, and Rebecca Vieyra, who works through many channels to improve our systems of education. They talk about the value of teacher training in a workshop setting, where the instructor and participants all participate in building content knowledge. Rebecca tells us about some of the projects they have been working on, including the development of the computational modeling in physics first material and a new app that allows users to see magnetic field lines using augmented reality on a smartphone.

Rebecca Vieyra

Rebecca is a coordinator of a multilateral effort to network ministries of education and education leaders to improve the quality of STEM teaching in the Americas. Until late 2018 Rebecca was the K through 12 program manager at the American Association of Physics Teachers. She managed collaborative grants from NASA and NSF and private foundations. She also served as an Albert Einstein distinguished educator, fellow placed at NASA aeronautics research mission directorate. She was awarded the presidential award for excellence in math and science teaching. Rebecca is currently pursuing her doctorate in science education at the University of Maryland College Park.

Personal Site | Vieyra Software

Facebook | Twitter

Colleen Megowan-Romanowicz

Colleen was a long-time high school physics and mathematics teacher and Modeler in Sacramento CA. She moved to AZ in 2001 to do graduate studies in physics education research focusing on Modeling classroom discourse. In 2007 she completed her PhD under the direction of David Hestenes. In 2011 she became AMTA’s first Executive Officer. In 2014 she retired from ASU to devote her full attention to AMTA. In 2017 she “retired” from the XO position and became AMTA’s first Senior Fellow. Colleen continues to write grants, conduct research, teach occasional courses in modeling and cognition, train workshop leaders, and publish on Modeling Instruction.

[15:40] Rebecca Vieyra: "One thing that our teachers regularly talk about is the importance of representations within modeling instruction and we've got algebraic representations, graphical representations, we've got verbal representations vector and sometimes even physical three-dimensional representations. And this particular project now brings the computer program as one additional computational representation."

[23:36] Colleen, talking about the app: "I think that's the big aha for people when they use the app, that if they want to know what the magnetic field is here, they can turn on their app and they can place a dot on the phone here and they can see exactly what that magnetic field is. And if they want to know how it changes as you move through space, they can do that. And if they want to take their phone and move somewhere else and look at the magnetic field, they just put over there, they can do it, they can see what it looks like from the other side or from underneath or from above because they can move their phone around and still look at that field... And the visualization for a three-dimensional thing like a field is a very big deal."

Transcript

Rebecca and Colleen Transcript

Links

AAPT K12 Teachers Portal

AAPT - Computational Modeling in Physics First with Bootstrap

Magna AR

100k in 10 - Rebecca mentioned this organization when talking about grants

Physics Toolbox Twitter

In this episode, Mark talks with Colleen Megowan-Romanowicz, AMTA's first executive officer and now senior fellow, and Wendy Hehemann, AMTA's national workshop coordinator. They talk about the beginnings of AMTA as an organization and about workshops, both in-person and virtual. They talk about the benefits of attending each kind of workshop as well as how workshop leaders are chosen.

Wendy Hehemann

Wendy's background was in elementary education and she worked with English Language Learners. Wendy joined the second cohort of students in the Master's of Natural Sciences program at the modeling Institute at ASU. After starting training in modeling instruction, Wendy began to work for AMTA coordinating workshops. Now, Wendy promotes workshops and also coordinates AMTA's virtual events, including virtual happy hours, webinars, and courses.

Facebook

Colleen Megowan-Romanowicz

Colleen was a long-time high school physics and mathematics teacher and Modeler in Sacramento CA. She moved to AZ in 2001 to do graduate studies in physics education research focusing on Modeling classroom discourse. In 2007 she completed her PhD under the direction of David Hestenes. In 2011 she became AMTA’s first Executive Officer. In 2014 she retired from ASU to devote her full attention to AMTA. In 2017 she “retired” from the XO position and became AMTA’s first Senior Fellow. Colleen continues to write grants, conduct research, teach occasional courses in modeling and cognition, train workshop leaders, and publish on Modeling Instruction.

[28:16] Colleen Megowan-Romanowicz in response to how a virtual workshop will differ from an in-person workshop: "you don't have the lab equipment at home, so we have to figure out how to do those labs in a different way. We can coach you through doing some kitchen table chemistry or physics, but more likely we are going to have to show you a video of that lab and let you use video capture software to collect your data or send you to a PhET simulation."

[31:49] Colleen Megowan-Romanowicz: "the distance learning courses that we have been doing were during the academic year, up to now. Now that it's pandemic time, we have decided to do distance learning courses this summer for the very first time. We will do introduction to modeling instruction in physics, chemistry, biology, middle school science. This is the first time we will be offering content courses for people who have never taken a modeling workshop before. So, an exciting new initiative that is brought to you by Covid-19 and AMTA's desire to meet teacher's needs in whatever situation those needs arise. "

[34:59] Wendy Hehemann: "if you want to get excited about teaching again, take a modeling workshop. If you want to be around likeminded people, other teachers, take modeling workshop. If you want to address your own misconceptions and or your students' take a modeling workshop."

Transcript

Wendy and Colleen Transcript

Links

AMTA virtual courses Summer 2020

PhET simulations

In this conversation, Mark Royce talks with AMTA executive officer Bill Thornburgh about the challenges and ways to make the most of our time while working with students remotely. They talk in particular about how some aspects of modeling instruction are challenging in this environment, but how we can continue to do many of the things we find so valuable for our students and their learning. They also talk about connecting with others, finding resources for distance learning, summer workshops, and supporting AMTA

Bill Thornburgh taught high school environmental science, biology, and chemistry over the course of 10 years. In his 7th year of teaching, he was introduced to the Modeling pedagogy by a colleague who had attended a workshop. The following year, he attended a modeling workshop... what an experience! The transition from traditional instruction to Modeling invigorated him and he found that his students were much happier! Since leaving the classroom, he received his Ph.D. in Science Education from the University of Louisville and he has been the Executive Officer of AMTA for the past two years. Bill says, "I miss teaching, but I'm happy that I get to continue working with such passionate and dedicated teachers!"

In this conversation, Christi Medoza and George Nelson talk about modeling at the middle school level. They talk about the challenges some teachers see in the variety of topics covered in middle school science, but the wonderful way that modeling instruction lets us adjust the way things are done in class, and let the students lead the way in discovering the way various phenomena work. They each share the biggest changes to their thinking or practice that came as a result of discovering modeling instruction.

In this episode, Mark talks with Ariel Serkin and Tanea Hibler, modelers who are passionate about building equity and dismantling racism in the classroom. They share reasons that they are passionate about the work and talk about big things and little things they do in their classrooms to increase representation for all of their students, create safe spaces, and open dialogue about race within the science classroom and in their school communities.

Tanea Hibler

After having taught at international schools since 2009, Mrs. Hibler returned to teach in Phoenix in 2015. She previously taught in Bangkok, Thailand, and Shanghai, China. She earned a Bachelor of Science in biology from California State University – East Bay, a Master of Education from ASU, and a Master of Science in Teaching Earth Science from Wright State University. She advises the Brophy Culture Project, the Asian Culture Club, and the Zoology Club. Mrs. Hibler also serves as a member-at-large on the board of the American Modeling Teachers Association.

Website: https://thibseducation.wordpress.com/

Facebook: thibler

Twitter: @tanea_hibler

Instagram: @darlingtomasa

Ariel Serkin

Ariel Serkin has been a high school teacher since 2001 teaching history and then science in a variety of school settings. She attended her first modeling workshop in 2015 and has been a modeler ever since. You can find Ariel teaching distance learning and in-person workshops for AMTA, writing for ChemEdXChange, presenting at conferences, helping out as a regional representative for AACT, and an executive board member for NEACT (New England Association of Chemistry Teachers). She is a 2019 Massachusetts finalist for the Presidential Award on Excellence in Mathematics Teaching. Ariel has a slight obsession with chemistry t-shirts and other articles of clothing.

Facebook: ariel.serkin

Twitter: @aserkin

Instagram: ariel.serkin

[38:26] Ariel, talking about having a scientist of the week, "I would highlight people of color and women and people from other countries as well. So it's not just Europeans. You have people from all over and their accomplishments and their achievements need to be addressed. And so sometimes as simple as that because that representation in the classroom matters."

[50:53] Tanea: "The kids ask me great questions and the best part is I tell them, I'm not telling you what to think. I'm asking you to think about why you think, what you think. And so they're forced to kind of wrestle with their thought process. And ultimately the goal is, that I'm not producing students that are going to hold on to racist ideas and concepts and then be a part of a racist system that is going to hold groups of people back. And so, I think if all teachers were working towards that end, we could push against racism a lot better than what we're doing now."

[57:31] Ariel: "We have to be intentional about creating a safe, inclusive, and equitable place for all of our students and all of our learners and all of our teachers."

[58:01] Tanea: "I would say you have to be willing to let go of the preconceived ideas that you have in your head about what it means to be a teacher and if you give yourself the freedom to let go and you're willing to try something new in your classroom, you probably are going to fall in love with modeling instruction and your students, if they haven't fallen in love with you already, they're probably gonna fall in love with you too."

Transcript

Tanea and Ariel Transcription

Mentions

[26:45] Robin DiAngelo's book, White Fragility

[46:27] The Underrepresentation Curriculum Project

[46:39] Step Up

[51:37] Tanea mentions the book Everyday Antiracism

[51:47] Tanea mentioned the book How to be Antiracist

[52:21] Ariel mentions the book Grading for Equity

Links

@PaulGorski

@sheldoneakins

@cleartheairedu

STEMteachersPHX

Story Collider

National Equity Project

Leading Equity Center

Clear The Air Education

New York Time: 1619 Project

1619 Project Curriculum

Articles

Why Inclusivity Matters To Us by Tanea and Ariel

Avoiding Racial Equity Detours (PDF)

Want to Reach All of Your Students? Here’s How to Make Your Teaching More Inclusive

Genetics Lessons Can Spark Racism in Students. This Change Can Prevent It

Can Biology Class Reduce Racism?

Academic Science Rethinks All-Too-White 'Dude Walls' Of Honor

Podcasts/Audio

NPR One: Your Brain On Storytelling

Trials by Fire: Stories about difficult paths to science

Harvard EdCast: Unconscious Bias in Schools

Posters

Women in STEM

Maya Angeluo: I'll Rise

Mae Jemison

Books

Interrogating Whiteness and Relinquishing Power: White Faculty’s Commitment to Racial Consciousness in STEM Classrooms

Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students

I'm Still Here: Black Dignity In A World Made for Whiteness

Excellence Through Equity: Five Principles of Courageous Leadership to Guide Achievement for Every Student 

Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

Stony The Road: Reconstruction, White supremacy, and the rise of Jim Crow

The Lost Education of Horace Tate: Uncovering the Hidden Heroes Who Fought for Justice in School

In this episode, we hear from Raymond Howanski from outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He talks about the reasons his district changed the order of their science classes to begin with physics before progressing to chemistry and finally biology. He talks about the additional topics they can cover in a biology course when students already understand the chemistry involved in processes. Ray also talks a lot about building community in the classroom and connecting with a community of like-minded educators. 

Raymond Howanski has been an educator for 32 years, all of them in the Ridley school district outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He worked with a team of educators to transition his school to a physics, chemistry, biology sequence. He has been working for a number of years refining the capstone biology course to leverage students' knowledge of chemistry, and using modeling pedagogy.  

[4:14] Mark Royce, quoting Raymond Howanski: "Effective teaching is as much about knowing your students as knowing your content"

[18:18] Raymond Howanski on what drives them in developing these modeling biology curricular materials: "it's really about that vision of saying, okay, what experience can we give these, these students to challenge their thinking and to give, give them opportunities to really practice and problem-solving and some effective communication skills and collaboration. How do we really challenge them to do that at a high level, uh, and kind of leading them into a path of success somewhere, somewhere down the road. "

[29:16] Raymond Howanski: "thinking about modeling at the philosophical level, ...what can you do when you really work with open-minded, caring people, towards the goal of helping students learn science better.

So that, kind of makes it all worthwhile."

[31:56] Raymond Howanski: "It's a lot more than just modeling."

[37:52] Raymond Howanski: "so then when you start connecting with other folks that have really innovative and thoughtful ideas about how we can rethink providing those learning environments for students and kind of breaking those barriers that are sometimes, somewhat confining, given students an opportunity to really explore and, and express their thinking about what they're looking at and setting a solid foundation so students don't have, so they have a clear path to a deeper understanding... so to remove some of the obstacles that we've sometimes placed in their way in terms of getting to deeper investigations of the physical world. And, a lot of that is trust. It's trusting that students will, in fact, fill in the gaps and they will figure things out that it's not about us giving them all the answers."

Raymond Howanski - Transcript