After resting and soaking my feet in a hot bath I was ready to join Kumano sensei for a day of team teaching and research discussion at Tokoha University. I learned that Tokoha is a private university that has a focus on preparing students in many different careers, but one of their largest majors is in Education. We taught several 90 minutes classes specifically for undergraduate students pursuing licensure in science education. The university has 6,000 students and to teach over 30 students seeking degrees in secondary science education was a real join to teach.
I began each class by asking the students why they were interested in becoming teachers, and specifically science teachers. Almost everyone of the students told stories of teachers they had when they were in either middle school or high school that made it fun or exciting or fascinating. There is an saying in teaching that I learned many years ago that I shared with the Tokoha students about how students may not remember the specific things you taught them, but they will always remember how they felt being in your class. I used this idea to discuss the essence of STEM as a way to teach, that this pedagogy allows students to experience real life ideas or concepts and explore topics they are interested in learning more about. It's when our students fall in love with the subjects we are teaching that we're are having an impact and changing a child's life for the better!
Since I am a teacher it's very difficult for me to stay behind the lectern, so I brought my reading the "Story in the Snow" investigation and asked the college students to become middle school science students again. The college kids jumped right in and they immediately shifted from compliance to curiosity in a matter of minutes. They worked at trying to figure out each of the animal track stories and decipher the different relationships among the animals that passed by the simulated snow scenario I created with a Dollar Store sheet and a sharpie. They worked in teams, they solved problems, argued with each other using the shared data of animal tracks as evidence to support their ideas. Most important they were engaged and they laughed and used their imagination to see into a world that people walk by every day, unless they are taught how to stop and look and use that powerful mind we all have to understand the world just a little better.
When I asked the students to step back and look at this lesson as teachers and how it could be used in schools they came up with many new ideas of how this wasn't only a science lesson, but also environmental, creative writing, art, social studies and math. That's when I knew they were understanding that to teach through a STEM lens is to see a larger world of instruction for their future students. One young man said he had never seen a lesson like this before and felt excited to try this out when he has his student teaching next semester. It was at that moment I knew I had made a change in someone's life for the better, and hopefully for the future of many students in Shizuoka Japan.
I began each class by asking the students why they were interested in becoming teachers, and specifically science teachers. Almost everyone of the students told stories of teachers they had when they were in either middle school or high school that made it fun or exciting or fascinating. There is an saying in teaching that I learned many years ago that I shared with the Tokoha students about how students may not remember the specific things you taught them, but they will always remember how they felt being in your class. I used this idea to discuss the essence of STEM as a way to teach, that this pedagogy allows students to experience real life ideas or concepts and explore topics they are interested in learning more about. It's when our students fall in love with the subjects we are teaching that we're are having an impact and changing a child's life for the better!
Since I am a teacher it's very difficult for me to stay behind the lectern, so I brought my reading the "Story in the Snow" investigation and asked the college students to become middle school science students again. The college kids jumped right in and they immediately shifted from compliance to curiosity in a matter of minutes. They worked at trying to figure out each of the animal track stories and decipher the different relationships among the animals that passed by the simulated snow scenario I created with a Dollar Store sheet and a sharpie. They worked in teams, they solved problems, argued with each other using the shared data of animal tracks as evidence to support their ideas. Most important they were engaged and they laughed and used their imagination to see into a world that people walk by every day, unless they are taught how to stop and look and use that powerful mind we all have to understand the world just a little better.
When I asked the students to step back and look at this lesson as teachers and how it could be used in schools they came up with many new ideas of how this wasn't only a science lesson, but also environmental, creative writing, art, social studies and math. That's when I knew they were understanding that to teach through a STEM lens is to see a larger world of instruction for their future students. One young man said he had never seen a lesson like this before and felt excited to try this out when he has his student teaching next semester. It was at that moment I knew I had made a change in someone's life for the better, and hopefully for the future of many students in Shizuoka Japan.