NSTA Atlanta 2018 - Day 1

It was a great first day of the 2018 NSTA conference in Atlanta!  As promised, here is a little rundown of the sessions I attended and a few other extras from the day.  Let me know if you have any questions and if I can get links to any resources for these sessions I'll make sure to share them with you.

Breaking Down Barriers with Community-Based Phenomena:  The main takeaway from this session was about making topics relevant to students by choosing phenomena that have a local context whenever possible. The example that was shared had to do with the diabetes epidemic present in LA - very relevant to the presenter's students (they live there) and particularly important due to the higher rate among minorities (which composes the vast majority of the student population at the school).  The tie for the example was to the standard MS-LS2-1 and the students looked at causes and possible solutions to their local problem.  While this example was relevant for their urban environment, I could just as easily see schools in rural Iowa tackling the impact of monocultures on an ecosystem and practices that could be put in place to help.  I really liked the tie to having students do something with their learning and to use the science they learned to help impact change.

I had a short break after that one and took the time to pick up some NSTA swag to wear later this week:

The Central Dogma, CRISPR and Genetic Medicine:  Heads up life science teachers - HHMI has a ton of great resources around genetics, so Iowa teachers teaching 7th grade or Biology should check out these resources.  I had a chance to engage with one of their “Click and Learn” activities and everything there tied to the very relevant topic of using what we know about genetics to combat diseases (you can find everything here).  Keep an eye out for a brand new CRISPR interactive coming out on April 1st that is supposed to be awesome.

I then moved on to the part of the day with some of the sessions that were selected during our poll - two of these had very clear majority opinions for which one for me to pick, but I had to break a tie on this next one since the votes were split 50/50.

Pop Culture and Comics:  Making STEM Accessible For At-Risk Learners:  If you enjoy working pop culture references into your science classes, check out www.thescienceof.org for a ton of great ideas.  There were plenty of physical science/physics examples given during the session, but there were some from life science given as well.  One of the big takeaways for me was another reminder to be authentic about the connections you make to real life.  It’s more important for you to be passionate and interested in the connections you’re showcasing rather than just throw a comic book or movie reference out there because your students might think it’s cool.  You can also check out the new Science Comics series available in the Keystone Media collection to provide some of that non-fiction information in a fun, engaging format.

Authentic Assessment in Action: Personal Meaning Maps:  This session was all about presenting research data around using a technique for gathering student ideas called personal meaning maps.  I’m not as sure about the conclusions as the presenter was, but asked if he would be willing to share his presentation and I'll share it with you if I get access to it so you can make your own decision.

Critical Thinking Through CCCs:  Getting crosscutting concepts into lessons and assessments can be challenging, but it was encouraging to hear many of the themes we’ve been discussing in Iowa reflected in the presentation.  The idea of the CCCs being all about “how to think” and that they are “the way we make sense of the world” was very prevalent.  We also spent some time devoted to the idea that we (as teachers) need to be explicit about when students are expected to use crosscutting concepts and make sure to call it out.  The session wrapped up with looking at STEM Teaching Tool #41 for CCC prompts, which was a great connection to what we’ve been doing during our recent PD workshops as we focus on making assessments more three dimensional.

Authentic Assessments for All:  This session also focused on making assessment relevant by having them be authentic, which was defined as an assessment where students perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful applications of essential knowledge and skills. There was also a focus on differentiation, but it really came back to making the assessment relevant and using multiple types of assessment to build a body of evidence. You can read more about it here.

OK GO Sandbox Kickoff:  This one was mostly about pure fun.  If the band OK Go doesn't ring a bell for you, it might be that you have actually seen one of their videos but didn’t know who they were.  Their video “This Too Shall Pass” has been popular with science (and art) teachers and they have just launched a website that features their videos and has teacher resources for how to use them with students, tackling everything from the science of sound to the timing of their music videos and even the engineering design process in general.  You can check it all out at https://okgosandbox.org/.Make sure to watch the video shot with high-speed cameras in just four seconds (The One Moment) - it's pretty amazing.

That pretty much does it for today.  I also wanted to extend a big "Thanks" to everyone who voted for those choice sessions for this afternoon and let you know you’ve got another chance to put in your two cents for tomorrow. The poll is here, same link, just new sessions.  Let me know what you think and I’ll post again about my day tomorrow night.