Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
My class is the noisy, hands on learning type of class that has paper airplanes and metric
measuring tape stashed around the room. Youll see used up sandwich containers with sand,
rocks and salt crystals glittering on top from evaporation and condensation experiments. There
are Alexander Calder type mobiles hanging from the ceiling and graphs and data tables stapled
crookedly to the walls. Ziplock bags of coins cozy up to rulers, calculators and digital scales. I
believe in a constructivist approach to learning, where learning is built or engineered in order to
make sense of the world. This messy, inspiring and engaging classroom is where teaching and
learning happen daily and I delight in it.
We, at David Lubin, hope to be the first STEAM elementary school in the Sacramento
City Unified School district. My school, nestled in a neighborhood of million dollar homes
serves not only these families but also families that live literally on the other side of the railroad
tracks. Some families around the school neighborhood choose to not send their children to our
school because having this mixed population seems undesirable for them. They have a case of
White Flight so these students attend the all GATE school a mile away, Catholic school located
around the corner, or private school. I cant see a better opportunity to put in the hands and minds
of young learners, regardless of race, the ideas and methodologies of a STEAM program. Finally,
a chance to follow Obamas urging to educate to innovate, a real opportunity to ignite a
passion for STEAM disciplines, so that our future is a future of Black female engineers, Latino
mathematicians, and Hmong scientists all working together to solve problems, creatively.
African American 5%
Asian 5%
30
Bi-Racial 8%
Caucasian 67%
20
Hispanic 15%
10
African American
Asian
Bi-Racial
Caucasian
Hispanic
The mission of David Lubin Elementary School is to instill a love of scientific inquiry
and application and to empower students to pursue a life of choices by learning in an
interdisciplinary environment that emphasizes the strong work ethic and critical thinking needed
to solve problems in the real world. Our focus is on creativity, critical thinking, communication
and collaboration which is essential to prepare students for the future. To be effective in the 21st
century, citizens and workers must be able to create, evaluate, and effectively utilize information,
media, and technology. The New American Dilemma is the nations failure to educate and
develop a growing proportion of its potential talent base African Americans, Latinos, and
American Indians as its need for people with skills in science and engineering is
escalating (National Action Council of Minorities in Engineering, 2008 p.1). We recognize an
unprecedented opportunity to engage and include all students in the challenge and promise made
possible with a rigorous innovative STEAM program. We want to establish STEAM as an
integral part of learning for a future in which science can belong to us all.
Needs Assessment
The future, especially in STEAM, is about having cognitive flexibility and critical
thinking skills to be successful in life. But what does that look like and how do we go about
teaching these skills?
When introduced at an early age, engineering coupled with science, technology and math
has had positive impacts on elementary children. In addition, various research studies have noted
that the best time to create a connection, awareness and interest in STEAM fields would be the
elementary years (De Jarnette, 2012). The National Science Board (2010) has concluded that
there is a connection between higher level math and science classes taken in middle and high
school years with enrollment and success in a four year college institution., therefore it follows
that we as a nation must implore our elementary educators to introduce the STEAM disciplines
in the elementary grades.
When teachers employ the engineering design process they are giving their students a
system in which to think and work. However what I discovered last year is that engineering
design requires a substantial amount of imagination and reflection, this act of thinking, more
precisely for elementary students to be aware of their own thinking, or metacognition, is where I
have found a considerable disconnect with student learning. As students reflect they also lack
the ability to make connections and/or see connections between concepts. This is seriously
problematic as my school and many others advocate the four Cs: creativity, communication,
collaboration and critical thinking.
I began in earnest to teach these skills this year, or attempted to teach these very cerebral
skills. I know I at least introduced them, talked about them and sometimes referred to them.
These 4Cs were always front and foremost on my mind, but were my students thinking about
them and applying them? Now, half way through the year I felt it necessary to survey my
students to see what they thought. Students were given a 20 question survey (Appendix A)
utilizing a 5 point Likert scale. Student response to the question, How well do you think
critically? (Table 1) is significantly lower than other questions in that subject area as well as
Do you think you understand what think critically means in math and science? (Table 2) to the
rest of the survey.
Table 1
How well do you think critically?
Gender
SD
Females
33
12
15
3.36
0.66
Males
18
10
3.66
0.81
Table 2
Do you think you understand what think critically
means in math and science?
Gender
SD
Females
Males
33
20
0
0
4
1
7
8
17
9
5
2
3.7
3.6
0.86
0.71
Students were prompted further by addressing the following question, Can you think of some
examples when the class demonstrated thinking critically in math and/or science? Some student
responses were:
when we think of different ways to solve a problem in science and math
Thinking about other peopls [sic] thinking of good ideas
Thinking quietly
the idea if two decimals for example 0.2x0.4 will be in the hundredths place
Yes, When we were figuring out what sports shop is better for Dr. Hoops to go to. We really had to
criticly [sic] think
When we are doing a math problem and some one tells the teacher a stratege
When we designed our paper airplanes
Building satilites [sic]
We thought critically in science when we were thinking about and reading about how the parts of a
rocket work
A example is when we are making a satilite [sic] system where we try to make a design to make the
satilite go on a string.
?
with the use of cognitive maps. Manoj Chandra Handa is forthright and posits that creative
learning is distinct from creativity in its focus on the process of learning itself (2015). Creative
learners think laterally and make associations between things that are not usually connected.
Creative insights often occur by making unusual connections (Handa, 2015). His creative
learning graphic is ripe for the undertaking of cognitive maps in a PBL classroom.
Research Questions:
Will cognitive mapping increase ALL students ability to think critically?
Sub-Questions:
What are the differences in students critical thinking performances when given a choice between
completed cognitive maps, partially created cognitive maps and student constructed cognitive
maps?
What are the differences in students critical thinking performances between GATE students and
regular education students?
What are the differences in students critical thinking performances between English speaking
households and two language households?
What are the differences in students critical thinking performances between students with
disabilities and those without?
Are cognitive mapping strategies appropriate for fifth grade learners?
Is there a difference between constructing cognitive maps with words or pictures?
Citations